Vermont, China, and All Things Between

First Surgery

2010-06-02T19:11:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow is Ally's first surgery. We've been thru two separate MRI's, one lasting 4 hrs and the other 5 hrs. The short of it is that she needs to have further skull surgery to expand the base of the skull a bit as her brain is a little crowded. First thing though is that she will have her shunt looked at and if it's not working quite right they will fix that and call it a day. If it's working fine, then the skull work will be done. So that's the scoop for now. Will try and keep this updated over the next few days.
JB

Loose Change

2010-05-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. Wicked busy!! I'll do a catch up post later, but thought I should post last nights story first.

So we are at Zack's game last night from about 5:35-8:00. I went early with all the kids and Jo came a little later. I had a nice little spot picked out right behind the backstop and all was good. Our team proceeded to play and look a bit like the bad news bears, and Zack just had an off night. Not to mention the other team seemed stacked with talent. The teams are drafted so it is possible to get some good teams and some bad. Our team does not seem to be very good. So I'm a little frustrated at all this but really, not my problem as it's not one of the two teams I coach. All the above is just to kinda set the tone. Oh yeah, I forgot, the ump who did an ok job started off shaky calling some strikes that I would need a ladder to get to. Seriously!!! So I'm not yelling at him or anything, I'm a mostly controlled sideline dad, other than giving the boys "the look" when they screw something up because they weren't paying attention. So once again, setting the tone with all the above. Ok, on with the real story. All thru the game BJ is begging to get something at the snack bar even to the point of telling me he brought his own money and we keep waving him away like he's a mosquito. He would hover like one though at times. Other times he was good and playing catch or something. So about the 5th inning he comes over and Beej, Seany and Ally are sitting around Jo on the ground and Beej is laying in her lap. Of course according to Ally that is her spot and she's not taking it well. So I think at some point Ally is getting a little pushy with Beej, but no biggy. A couple minutes later though, Beej goes into what we thought was a bit of a dramatic "I want to go home" little fit. This is a bit out of nowhere, and we are like "Knock it off, you are fine" He's saying now that he's got a tummy ache. Of course this is all some sort of drama and we are not buying it. I'm actually getting mad at him because he's being quite the whiny pansy. Full out fetal position laying in Jo's lap whimpering. Sounds a bit fake though and all out calling him out and giving him as much of an ear full as possible without making a scene. Well, he makes it through the game and Zack and I get ice cream while Jo takes everyone home. I get home later and Beej is in bed and seems fine. I guess he hit the bathroom and felt better. Still though, not normal for him. so Jo and I start watching TV and about an hour later, BJ comes down stairs which is totally not normal for him to have been asleep and then wake up and come down. So something is not right and of course now I'm feeling guilty cause I was all over him earlier. So he's doing the whimper cry again and it strikes me that maybe our oral fixation boy may have eaten something he found or put something in his mouth he shouldn't have at the game. I wouldn't put dumpster diving past him at the snack bar. So on a whim, I ask "Beej, did you put something in your mouth or eat something at the game you shouldn't have?" As i'm saying this I'm thinking, no he just has the stomach virus I had last week........but maybe, just maybe.......No response........"Beeej?, Did you?" (Beej-whimper voice) - "Yeeees" "What did you eat kiddo" i'm feeling sympathetic now and guilty for giving him so much crap. Here it comes..........(Beej-more whimper voice) "A quarter". Speechless. Awkward silence. Well, needless to say, we were much nicer to him after that. Turns out he really didn't have much of a stomach ache, he was just scared. Seriously scared. So we talked him down from the mental ledge he was on and assured him he wouldn't die. Turns out when Ally was displeased with him at the ball game she game him an unexpected push and he had a quarter in his mouth and accidentally swallowed it. He should be fine and we called the doc. He does have a new nickname though - Loose Change

"Phenomenal", "She made me nervous" and "Dear American Friends"

2010-01-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

Hidee Ho Readers,

An interesting week. Ally continues to adjust and we continue to be amazed. The title of the blog today are about three different things that happened this week. Two were just moments that you catalog and hold onto. they may just be small things or more profound but regardless they just catch you by surprise. So first is "Phenomenal". Jo and I and Ally were talking with Dave, Mary, Alex, and Jack on Skype. For those that don't know, Skype is an internet program that allows you to verbally chat as well as video chat from computer to computer. While in China we used it twice a day to be able to see and talk to everyone here in the U.S. Sorry, got sidetracked. Anyway, we were Skyping with them to give a huge thanks to Alex for the wonderful gift that Alex gave to Ally, and at some point in the conversation one of said "Phenomenal". I don't know what we were referring to, but Ally piped right up and repeated it quite clearly. It wasn't perfect, but it was really clear. It was just one of those unexpected surprise moments where everyone looks at each other with that "Did she just say that?" look on their face. Like I say, we just cataloged that one away as funny and unexpected.

The next one is one I remembered from the ski trip this past Sunday. I was riding up the lift with Zack and thought I'd ask him what he thought so far about Ally. i encouraged him to say any negatives he felt along with the positives. He very quickly said there really weren't any negatives, except.....Uh oh I thought. But to my surprise he says, and I'm paraphrasing, the only down side was that the other night he couldn't find her in the house right away and looked all over for her. "I was really worried for a minute, she made me nervous" :) :) :) I had goggles on so he didn't notice my eyes get watery.....I said "Welcome to parenthood" and then explained to him that that feeling times 100 is what it's like to have kids and why we get so worried and nervous and mad sometimes. I think the light started to come in in his head. It was a great moment and one that illustrates just how much she means to him already. They all have moments like that, but as you know Zack is approaching the teens and I expect those moments will be soon kept inside. I hope not, but I remember how uncool it was to show feelings like that when I was a teen.

Lastly but certainly not least, was a letter we had translated today. I think I mentioned at one point that China does not allow contact with the foster family. I don't know all the reasons why but they are pretty strict about it. So that has led some foster families to get creative about things. Such was the case with Ally's foster family. By the way, she had a mom, dad, grandma, grandpa and 10 year old brother in her foster family. She lost a lot, and so did they. Well, on gotcha day when we undressed her many, many layers Jo noticed a sewn in pocket area in one set of pants. Sure enough, the family had sewn in a secret note to us. It was in Chinese so we were unable to read it and we were very reluctant to share it with our guides not knowing how they would react. So until we could get it home and scanned, we just held onto it. Well, the other night we scanned it and sent it to our China Coordinator at our agency. she is unbelievable by the way. There is no one, NO ONE, better at this job than her. If you are looking into adoption from China, look no further than Bay Area Adoption Services. Sorry, sidetracked again. So our coordinator translated it for us and sent it back today. To quote her "Their letter made me cry. it is so obvious Xi Xi received so much love from them." The letter said this -

Dear American Friends who adopted Xi Xi:

How are you?

We are the grandfather and grandmother who fostered Xi Xi. We have established deep love and attachment to Xi Xi because we started taking care of her since she was only six months old and we have lived together for almost three years. Now the child is leaving us and we are feeling a great loss. However, we are so grateful that you are able to adopt her and raise her until she is an adult. We thank you so very much.

Your living habits and culture must be very different from ours. Please help the child to adapt to the new environment gradually. After the child joins your family, we would very much like to receive letters or telephone calls. We would very much want to see her pictures. You can use the internet to keep in touch with us so we can see the child often.

The rest was just the contact info. We already firmly believed that the primary reason that Ally has adjusted and bonded so well was due to the work that the foster family had done prior to us coming not to mention the care she was getting. This letter was total confirmation of that and an amazing profession of love. We will certainly keep in contact with them.
So that's it for now,
Jim

First time out this year at Smuggs!

2010-01-24T15:40:00.000-08:00

We finally got off our candies today and went to Smugglers Notch. Our season passes have been pinned to the cork board since they came in the mail. Not that we didn't have other things to do, but it still feels like we have missed half the season. So we got everything together and headed out to the mountain. It only takes about 40 minutes to get there and doesn't even seem that long. First stop was to get our passes printed out and also to get one for Ally. Second stop was at the ski shop to get her a helmet, mittens, goggles, a face mask and some ski wax. That done we needed to get her some rentals. That was easy and cheap at about $12.50. I think that's what we are going to do for the rest of the year too. Finally though we were ready for the slopes. We headed for the learning center which is essentially what we all knew as the 'Bunny Hill' Of course technology has caught up to us a this location as there is no tow rope but rather a conveyor belt built into the hill. It's called a magic carpet and it is sooooo easy. We got Ally all set up in her gear and the boys did a great job also in getting ready. We got her up the hill and I ran her down the hill between my skis. She loved it! Laughed when we got to the bottom. Another run and it was time to hit some lunch. At that point I also knew she was ready for the harness system we have. It's really nice as it attaches around her waist and you just tug on one side or the other. It allows the child to get used to balancing over skis and also how it feels to balance thru a turn. Once we got her hooked up I took her down the learning hill twice. Meanwhile Jo and the boys were running halfway up the magic mouse lift and getting some runs in. I felt it was time to take the next step because you can only do so much on the learning hill. We took Ally up the chairlift and to the halfway point. She was super excited to ride the lift and never once showed fear. I took her down a little bit but she started to get clingy and needed to hold my hand, so I gave the reins to Jo and tried to lead Ally down by skiing ahead of her. That worked pretty well and allowed me to get a picture too. Well, that was our her last run for the day, but I figure 4 small runs and 1 bigger one is a great start. So after that Jo and Ally went into the warming hut and the other boys and I decided to get one last run in to the top of Morse. Zack and i had already hit it twice and now Seany and BJ came with us. It's our favorite path on Morse which is Midway to Curlys Cutback and then to Meadowlark. It was a beautiful day to ski and we were thankful to get out and also that Ally liked it. I only got a few pics today but hope you will enjoy them.

Zack's B-day

2010-01-19T06:01:00.000-08:00

Zack turned 10 this past weekend. Only a day after we got home from China. We did our best to keep our energy up, and thankfully we had bought two of his presents prior to going. The last gift we were still giving thought to and that was a BB/pellet gun. We or maybe I truly didn't decide whether or not he'd get it until at the dinner table that night. We went to Koto's Japanese steak house which was his choice number two. It was the six of us plus Grandma, Grandpa, and uncle Brian. We did his presents there and then told him that we would go get him his bb/pellet gun the next day or Monday. He was pretty stinkin' excited. So we went and got it yesterday and will get it set up tonight with the scope and maybe shoot a few too. Crazy to think he is 10. Don't know where the time went. Let me see if I have a recent pic of him.

This pic is from this past fall, at an apple orchard south of Burlington. Gotta run, catch you later.

Home, home, home!!!

2010-01-17T11:47:00.000-08:00

We are home! We had a pretty uneventful trip home but as you would expect we are pretty jet lagged. Ally is in a worse position since she has lived her life 12 hours different from ours and now has to get used to being awake when she used to sleep and sleep when she used to be awake. She is fighting sleeping in anyway possible and is pretty ticked at me right now because i tried to get her to settle down on my lap and sleep. That was not in her plan!!!! So from my last post we didn't do much other than a swearing in ceremony at the consulate and also get Ally's visa, fly to Beijing, then get on a plane to JFK and finally to Burlington. Ok, so maybe that was a lot. Well for the swearing in ceremony, it sounds like you are swearing in your child to the US. That is not the case, you are basically just swearing that all the info you have submitted to the consulate and immigration is true and accurate. Don't get me wrong, it's a significant step but not what you might think. The next morning we decided to do the "red couch" photo. i wish I new the origin of this photo but I don't. What I can tell you is that the red couch is in the
White Swan hotel on ShaMian island. The hotel is a more traditional place for adoptive families but the Victory which is where we were, is getting more popular. Our hotel is just a block and a half to the Swan so it's an easy walk. So families traditionally get there photos taken on the red couch. So who are we to break tradition? Later that day we had to check out and get to the airport to fly to Beijing. we could have done it the next morning but I guess that would have put our connection too tight, so we flew late that night and stayed at an airport near by. The next morning we jumped on the big 747 Air china flight to come home. 13 pretty uneventful hrs later we landed in New York only 30 minutes after we took off. You lose a day going the other way, but

you gain it back coming home which is nice. We also fly ridiculously close to the north pole. I find that very bizarre. Ally slept about 5 hours on the plane and myself about an hour. Not sure what Jo got but I guess about 2 maybe 2 1/2. Ally did well even with our lack of entertainment for her. It's hard to remember how to keep a 3 year old entertained for that long. It was fine, even though we ran out of snacks about half way home. Of course as Ally does, she fell asleep during our decent. She did it on every single flight. We thought though since she had slept a decent amount on the international flight that the JFK-Burlington hour hop that she'd be fine and be awake and happy to meet her brothers. Nope, she fell asleep 10 minutes from landing. She was exhausted. She wakes up extremely well though and this was no exception. She woke up like she had slept for hours. We told her it was time to meet her Gugu's and she perked right up. Gugu is Chinese for older brother. We were very nervous how this was going to go, she however was all smiles in anticipation. I have to credit her foster family for this. Back in September we sent Ally a photo album of all of us and that coupled with us video chatting everyday with the boys while in China really let her form an attachment to them even before she met them. Well we turned the corner walking from the concourse and there were Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Brian, and her three Gugu's Zack, BJ, and Seany. Priceless to us was the smile that was one Ally's face! She was clearly nervous but you could just see she was happy inside, not just outside. My eyes are a bit watery just remembering. Time out, Jo just got home and we need to get the groceries out of the car..........................Time in. So where was I, oh, Ally meeting the boys. Well all the boys had a stuffy to give her and they were all super excited to see her. She just kept on smiling. She clearly had begun to form an attachment by the photos and video chatting. It was a great moment and one I can't do justice with my writing. I may very well be wrong, but after watching how Ally did with her brothers, grandma, grandpa, and uncle Brian and then how she acting once at the house, I think she new that meeting her brothers meant she was home. There was no leary tentative moments or anything. Not even when she got to the house. She walked around like she had always been there. I truly expected it to be like when you bring your cats to a new house and they tentatively walk into each room slowly checking it out. Not so with Ally. The true test she new she was home. Withing the hour she was going to fridge to check out what there was to eat. I kid you not! one of the unexpecteds you don't see coming is her complete infatuation with Zack. She sits by him, holds his hand, and just wants to know where he is at all times. We think that may have something to do with her foster brother who was also about 10yrs old. Speaking of which, Zack turned 10 yesterday. Pretty awesome, but a bit overshadowed by all this. So we are going to go and get him a BB/pellet gun tonight or tomorrow.

Well, all the above is pretty much the rose part of things. That really aren't may thorns, but she is having a tough time with her new schedule and time zone and threw a full out hissy screaming fit when I tried to get her to chill with me and take a nap. The upside to that is she and Jo went up and Jo got her calmed down and asleep. While there is still a bit of favoritism toward me when tired, she is very much okay with Jo now. So all in all we are very fortunate. Many adoptive parents have an unbearable time and we have had it relatively easy up to now. Hopefully it continues.

Lastly, I would like to thank you all for the support you have shown us thru comments and actions. We also want to thank my parents and my brother for watching our boys during this time. one last big thank you goes out to the sewing group my mother is part of. I call them Dorothy's Debutantes, and they went into action to make many blankets and hats for the orphanage. Of course we had to pay a large fee to the orphanage called a donation, but it was a far more important to us to be able to give them something functional that would make a difference. So thank you again Deb's.

Catch you later, and we will try to keep you updated.

Good Food, Good Company

2010-01-12T21:47:00.000-08:00

So the four BAAS(our agency) families that are here in Guangzhou went out to dinner last night. Well, I'm gonna back up a minute. We went to a park in the afternoon yesterday which was a nice stroll in the fresh air. We then went to a tea house and sampled and learned about different Chinese teas. Upon our return, April who is one of the other BAAS moms, asked all of us if we'd like to go out on a little adventure for dinner. Sure we said. So we all went to our hotel rooms to get a few various things and then walked over the river on a pedestrian bridge. Once you cross the river you are officially in "local' country. You see, the island is really catered toward westerners or I should say used to them, so when you leave the island, you leave that little comfort zone. So on the adventure we went. April and her husband Dave went to this little eatery previously and told us about it on the way. It sounded fun. It's an open to the air type of eatery which you will see in the pictures and there are only about 6 tables. There is no one that speaks English and no menus. So when we got there, just like when April and Dave went previously, they just have one or two of you go back in the kitchen and point to things you want. We decided to do a community bill and just get bunches of stuff. It turned out pretty well. We had great dumplings and a good noodle plate and then a good soup which I was unfortunate enough to mistake a big chunk of ginger for potato........Oh mama!!!! We also brought our own drinks because we didn't think they had any. Turns out they had a small cooler we could have gotten something from but to be honest bringing your own was a good call. So this place appears to be owned by an elderly Chinese woman who is sweet as can be and who is also in love with April and Dave's son Joel. She couldn't get enough of him and when we were leaving kept trying to steal him back inside. All in good humor of course. It was a great experience with excellent food and even better company. Adoption brought us all together but it is surprising how well we all get along. These three other couples are great and we couldn't be happier to have met them. I wish I could communicate the experience and the kindness of the Chinese woman better but my brain is failing me right now. At the end of the meal we did a group picture with the woman and it was great. I don't have a copy of that yet but will get one from the other couples. You can identify the woman as the one in the purple top and green apron. I hope those of you yet to come here can go to this place. The bonus to all this, and certainly the least important but worth mentioning is that all 14 of us ate for about 115 yuan which is about $17. Thats not each family, thats a total. Patrick and Peggy sprang for the meal which was another unexpected and gracious gift. So when we left and the woman stopped hugging Joel she had tears in her eyes. It was a great scene. i'll try and post a few zoo pics from today, but really it was just a normal zoo but nice to be out in the fresh air.

Enjoy a few pics,

Jim

Fwd: More ShaMian Pics

2010-01-12T03:43:00.000-08:00

It may have been these that were rejected. So i may have double posted some pics.

Fwd: More ShaMian Pics

2010-01-12T03:40:00.001-08:00

I think this is the set of pics that was rejected from being oversize and now they will be out of order. Sorry for the confusion.

A bit of ShaMian Island

2010-01-11T22:55:00.003-08:00

ShaMian Island is a very nice little place. It's prabably only about 4 blocks by 10 blocks in size and very walkable. It, like the rest of Guangzhou, is under significant spit and polishing. The 2010 Asian Games are in Guangzhou this year and the government is facelifting every building that faces the main streets and highways. That is a city of 12 million and they are facelifting tons of buildings! It's amazing. Many of the buildings on ShaMian Island are shrouded in scaffolding and tarps as this work goes on. Many of the streets on the island are being redone with better rain drainage and also many of the sidewalks are being replaced with polished granite. It's crazy to think of the expense. So I will add some pics of the island we took today. I have to do it in two posts. Also, I did another post just before this on the market so be sure to check that out. The pics in the park of the people gathered are playing hacky sack with an oversized shuttle-cock from badmitten. I think I mentioned that when in Taiyuan. It is extremely popular.

More ShaMian Pics

2010-01-11T22:55:00.001-08:00

More ShaMian pics

2010-01-11T22:51:00.001-08:00

A market is a market is a market, except in China

2010-01-11T22:37:00.000-08:00

So we did a bit of a walk thru some markets yesterday. Very interesting stuff !! Two were markets in the sense we think of them and the other two were more part of a shopping center. The first was hrbs and related things. I use related very losely, because there were lots of bus and critters you could buy both dead and alive. These included live scorpians and turles and other crawly things. The dried turtles on a stick were interesting too. Then next was a pet market. Lots of things for your pets and also pets themsleves. This was not a happy place as they don't seem to value animals the way we do. So I shall not talk much about them. Next was the shopping center and pedestrian street. This was decorated with hanging lanterns and all sorts of cool stuff. The shops were higher end and we didn't bother looking in them. Lastly we went into a mall area and visited/purchased some pearls. The prices were ok and we were happy to have the opportunity to by some things for Ally's future. Lastly we went to a CD/DVD shop in the mall that had a good reputation. I started looking around and they had some pretty good deals at 15 for a Blu-Ray. I thought 'nice', they are like 24-35 bucks in the US and 15 is half. Then I realized they were 15 yuan! That is $2 for a blu-ray!!!! So i began to snatch them up as quickly as possible. I think i even bit another woman who reached for one I wanted. So in all I think I got 6 Blu-rays and two DVD's for a total of about $20. They verified that they would all play on our machnes in the US and that they were also in English. Once back at the room we tested one of the DVD's and sure enough it works just fine and I am happy!! The one movie I didn't get and was in stock but i just chickened out was........AVATAR. Seriously!?!?! I'm giving thought to going back and getting it. I'll add afew pics of the market area. One more thing that was funny. We got to the middle of the pedestrian street, kind of a big square, and I look at one corner of stores and there is a McDonalds, KFC, Papa Johns, etc. I turn around and look at the kitty-corner of the sqaure and there is a........McDonalds?!?!?! I kid you not, there were two seperate McDonalds witin 100 yards of each other. Has anyone ever heard Lewis Black's comedy bit about the location of a certain devil dwelling? (I'm trying to keep this G rated for Jo's school) I think he said it was in Houston where he walked out of a Starbucks and looked accross the street only to see a Starbucks!!!! That was how I felt. I think I too found the devils dwelling!!!! Jo and i laughed pretty hard at that.

Five goats and a Chinese princess

2010-01-10T22:47:00.001-08:00

So we went to a park yesterday that has a famous statue of 5 goats. They might actually be rams, but our guide said goats and a plaque at the park translated to rams. Now in the US, we would tend to take the word of the plaque at the famous place we are visiting, but here in China you quickly notice that the english translation of things is often spelled incorrectly. So you take it all with a few grains of salt. So for our purposes we will call them goats. Apparantly Guangzhou was named for these goats and the imortals that road in on them. Back in the day, most likey before the US was found, there was a drought. This drought killed millions and spread all accross the south of China. Then came along 5 imortals riding 5 goats. These goats had stalks of rice in their mouths and the imortals gave these stalks to the people whoplanted them. The rice prospered and brought the area out of famine. The imortals then took off but left the goats and then the goats became a symbol for the imortals and also for prosperous harvests. Well thats the cliff note version and I'm sticking to it. So we took some pictures of the goat staute and of course us in front of it. It is a famous statue for China that when someone sees it it is recognized as the symbol for Guangzhou. In other news, Ally passed her TB test so no chest X-raqy or anything like that so we are happy. This is just a short post today as we are headed to another four markets very soon. I'll leave you with some pics at the park, a pic of our princess in traditional garb, and me being attacked by a stone lion while Ally looks at me like I'm nuts. BTW, Ally is doing much. much better with Jo. Things are really good right now.

Later,

Jim

Just me and 47 theives.....

2010-01-09T00:02:00.001-08:00

So the title of this blog post is just something that kinda happened last night at the Guangzhou airport when we were waiting for the last two families planes to arrive. It is surprising to think back that the phrase never came up previous to this but it didn't. So we are sitting there and trying to communicate with Ally in that 3 year old way the we parents do. Oh, it's also important to know that daddy in Chinese is baba (bah-bah). Some of you may have just figured it out after that. So again we are sitting in the airport trying to get Ally to understand who her mama and baba are and we are just going around in a circle pointing to each of us and saying our names, "mama, baba, Ally, mama, baba, Ally" and then we reversed to "Ally, baba........" and that is when we started laughing and those few Chinese that weren't already staring at us looked at the goofy Americans laughing in the middle of the airport. So it is I, Allys-baba and my forty seven theives. I guess you had to be there.

So, we are as indicated above in Guangzhou and at the Victory Hotel on Shamian Island. It's not an island in the sense we are all used to. Think of it as several city blocks that are ringed by a canal that has multiple bridges onto it. The canal is only about 100 feet wide or so. Previous to coming to China we had decided to head some advice on getting a top end business suite here in the Victory. Boy are we glad we did. We have a king size bed with a nearly real mattress instead of a rock disguised as a bed like in Beijing and Taiyuan. Then there is another room with a L-shaped couch and matching chair. It also comes with a nice flatscreen and a desktop computer. The bathroom is big too and has a shower that rains on you from the ceiling. Nice! Also it has a seperate water spout that is filtered and potable (drinkable). That is another bonus as China's tap water is not drinkable. They live by boiled and bottled water. In fact at lunch today the menu even stated that you could get "boiled water". We laughed, all except Ally who was trying her best to melt down because we were past her nap time. She is napping now though.

So as I said we are here in Guangzhou now and even though it was only like 50deg out I put shorts on. That felt sooooo nice. Loved it. Anyway, we are here to finish our immigration work so Ally can come home to the U.S.A. This is where all families that adopt from the U.S. come for their final week, so the amount of stairs at the Americans with the Chinese baby are less. We are grouped with 4 other families that are from our agency and we will do some touring together with them. All of them are nice and easy going. Our friends from Philly, the McColes are part of that group. it was good to see them again, especially with their new little boy. Jo is down in the lobby doing some paperwork right now in fact with one of the McColes and our guide Alvin who is really terrific. I think once that is over we are going to walk around a bit and see some of the island. We also put out first load of laundry in at the little shop next door. Thats just odd. I'll bet we don't even spend 20 bucks for a weeks worth....time out, Ally just woke up......OK, I am trying to get her to play with her magna-doodle while I finish this but she's just standing there next to me with a look on her face like, "baba, let me climb onto your lap!!!" It's kinda hard to refuse. So I'm goign to wrap this up for now. I'll tr and do another one tonight maybe with some pictured of Shamian Island. One last thing, my parents and Zack are reporting we have lots of commenting on the blog and that is great. We can't wait until we are home and can read them all. China blocks the blogspot website so i have to send these in via email and therefore can't read them or the comments to them. OK. Ally is beginning to whimper to get on my lap, gotta go.....

Jim

It was just a walk in the park.....and a visit to another

2010-01-07T01:08:00.001-08:00

HideeHo readers!

We had a good day so far today. Ally is warming to Jo which is great. She has never truly rejected her but has been leary. She was letting Jo help with hair and all things, as long as I was around too. Holding her and carrying her was not really happening before but this morning I think Ally was getting caught up on her sleep and adjusting a bit more. You can see she still wakes up in thishotel room with that look like, dang, what did I have to drink last night? Where am I......OK maybe not quite like that, but you know what I'm talking about. You know when you wake up somewhere foreign and it takes you like 30 seconds to remember where in the world you are? Imagine that every time you nap or sleep and your getting close to Ally's world. So, like I was saying, she just seemed to perk up quicker and overall happier this morning. She let jo be more involved and it kept up that way all day so far. Fingers are crossed that she'll wake up from nap that good too. So we went to the largest park in Taiyuan city which also contains an amuzement park. No rides going except the ferris wheel which we felt at 20deg wasn't going to be that much fun. So we skipped that. But I think the reason we were brought there is to see how morning excersices and Chinese culture works in their parks. It is a place where people come to dance, sing, do tai chi, plat kind of hacky sack with an overgrown shuttlecock, and do just about any thing that involves invigorating the mind and body. Age and gender were not a factor what so ever. I saw a guy had to be 70 playing that hacky sack game. It was very cool. If you don't know what hacky sack is, google it. It was a brisk walk, but well worth the cold. We were given a very interesting look into Chinese social culture. As a pretty staunch traditionalist, I found it very cool. Very, very cool. For the next part of the day I need to back up a bit. See, we new we were going to a park today and I remebered that Ally was adandoned at a gate at a park so I brushed up on my park names and asked if that was the one we were going to when we met our guide in the morning. No, not the same park. We also needed to hit the wal-mart to grab a few things not easily found at the market. So I asked our guide also if after the park she could take us to the wal-mart and also the park she was abandoned in. She agreed and spoke to the driver who also agreed. The problem was that they were on opposite sides of the city. But, then she remembered there were two wal-marts and the second was very close to the park we were looking for. After a more in depth discussion though with the driver she also let us know that the park where Ally was abandoned was being demolished in the name of high rises. Traditionalist me thinks this is stuuuuuupid. So after going to the initial park we went to the one where Ally was abandoned and it was an interesting ride into the neighborhoods I think they would rather the tourists didn't see, but exactly the type of things we really did want to see. I'll add some pictures to illustrate. So we walked to the East gate of Longtan park. It was a bit surreal to be in the spot where the story really began for Ally. At approximately one month old she was left there in October 2006. We didn't linger but rather snapped a few photos and left. I still don't know how I feel about the place. So, from there we went to the wal-mart. It's not the one most Taiyuan SWI adoptive parents go to, and also smaller. I am thinking though after seeing all the marketing on products that Jackie Chan does not hurt for money. Wal-mart is interesting here. We only came for a few items and chose to buy other items at the local market later. But walking around and having so much of the food unpackaged is very funny. Frozen fish steaks were just sitting in an open freezer, no packaging. Dried meats, like jerky, once again, just right there in a basket. This include whole, dried ducks. It doesn't even hit you right away when you see it, but ten steps later I say to Jo "Did you just see......." "Yep" we both chuckle. It was a good day though to this point. Ally is down for a nap and we are having dinner tonight with the Norwegian couple who are as pleasant as could be. I'll leave you with some pics of the neighborhood around Allys park, the the sign at the gate she was found at, and finally of the first park we visited.

Another day in Taiyuan

2010-01-06T06:06:00.001-08:00

Greetings folks and fun seekers, It was an ok day to day here. We started with breakfast and then to the museum. Keep in mind that we are dealing with a province that has 5,000 yrs of history. Our guide says that's more than any other province. It was very impressive. Ally still somewhat shuts down when we go out anywhere and also when we get in the touring van. I think she equates all of that with the massive trauma she just went thru. When at meals however, she is a hand full. She is going to give BJ a run for his money. So after touring we came back the hotel for lunch, then to the room and Ally started pigging out on all the food we have here. Only some of which is healthy. Then nap time. Then more pigging out. Keep in mind she has been high on intake and zero on output since we got her, if you know what I mean. So after nap and second pig out, she started to cry in my arms. She has latched onto me the last two days and distanced herself from Jo, so it was odd that she was crying in my arms. She cried for about alf hour and we laid down together and she cried a bit more. So don't know if this was a bad parenting upset stomach or grieving or both. After a few hours though she came out of it and she has been active the rest of the night. Pajama time has come, late, and a last minute bathroom. Finally, output!!! So, I am writing this and we are about to hit the hay. Also i needed a reason to post the latest pic......:) Good night all, we will see you in the morning.

Jim

P.S. Alex, nice pajamas eh?

The fat lady.....She has sung!

2010-01-05T00:24:00.001-08:00

It's official, she is ours! We signed all the papers today. Of course you really don't know what your signing so we may have just signed our three boys up for the Chinese army :) They also interview you and ask questions like "Was she as described?" Yes. "Do you want to continue with the adoption?" Go ahead, try and pry her out of my arms! Of course I didn't say that but that's what I was thinking! We didn't do the best job with the gifts we presented to the people doing the work, but they were okay. We however were not only given a daughter, but also a beautiful scroll with a poem written in Chinese by their most famous poet Lee Bai (sp?). In hindsight though, can any gift we give to them compare to the gift of our daughter? So our family is complete now as we see it. Three phenomenal sons, and one fantastic daughter.

We have all just awoke from naps, Jo has redone Ally's hair and we are going to go shopping along the main drag here. It's pretty cold so I don't know how long we will last but we are going to give it a go. That's all I have at the moment, but am sure it wont be long before I need to share another picture with the world.

My girl

2010-01-04T07:03:00.001-08:00

What a difference a good long cry and a 2+ hr nap makes, I feel way better….:) Ok, so it was Ally not me. I am sure there is much more grieving to come but when Ally woke up, I thought it might be an opportunity for me to break thru to her. So I grabbed the magna-doodle and showed what it was all about. Within minutes I had her laughing and playing with it. Most important though was that I could touch her and so could Jo. I have no doubt this is not over, but it is a great ending to a long day. She also ate a little for us. Very little, but it's a start. We will see how breakfast goes tomorrow morning. I wish you all could be here for this. There is something extraordinary about this. Good night from Taiyuan.

Gotcha!!!!

2010-01-04T03:05:00.001-08:00

Today was a very busy day for us. After our flights were cancelled yesterday we were booked on the train for this morning. It was a very nice ride and fast. The highest I saw us going was 236 kilometers per hour, which translates to just over 146 mph. As we would say in Vermont, wicked quick!. I can tell that me talking engineering stuff is just driving someof you nuts cause you want to hear about our beautiful daughter. Keep your drawers on, I'll get there. So we got to Taiyuan about 10:30 and were met by our new guide Emily. She promptly told us that we would head out to "gotcha" at 2:30. Wheew! we had some time. So we made it to the hotel despite the 10 different drivers that tried to kill us on the way. Oh, by the way, other that the Norwegian couple we came her with on the train, I think we are the only caucasions among the 1 million plus chinese here in Taiyuan. Stare, stare, stare. Pretty funny. No one has stopped to practice english yet, but it is only a matter of time. So we got to the hotel and had lunch. Pretty darn good. Shanxi province noodles are excellent as is their vinager. So, after lunch we noticed our guide hanging out in the lobby area, so we went to talk to her and make sure we didn't mess up the schedule. We decided it was a good time to to go to the bank and exchange the bulk of the cash. So we did that and it was it's own mini ordeal. It then threw us a little late. No problem though. So we got everything together and headed out for gotcha. Of course the bank ordeal kept us from getting nervous and now we got very nervous in a very short period of time. So we jumped in the van and let our driver brave the death match style traffic of Taiyuan once more. It only took about 20 minutes to get there and we made it before the children so that was good. That gave us some time to get ready and do some paperwork. We also took the blankets that my mother and her friends hand made for the orphanage. They were very well received and appreciated. So, we had some paperwork to do and since I was shaking i was nearly worthless for that and Jo hip checked me off the couch so she could tackle the paperwork. Soon enough that part was done, and in marched the two children. Ally was looking pretty confused and scared. She was brought to us and put in Jo's arms and Ally was just so confused. Jo went into mom/teacher mode and got out the stickers. Soon we had a smile on her face and she was laughing a bit. That however, was all about to change. as soon as she saw the orphanage worker who brought her leave, the tears began and the crying was very real. She didn't melt down at this time and she did ok when we went shopping for some food next door to the Civil Affairs office. In the car though the whimpering started. We got back to the hotel and once in the room the full impact of the grief hit her and hit her hard. We learned that she had a foster mother, father, grandmother, grandfather and older brother. So she has lost a lot, everything she's known. She cried for about an hour. During this time she would not let us take any clothes off, not one of the three layers of pants or one of the six layers on top. It got to a point though that it was not going to get any worse so Jo went for it. That oddly didn't go too bad. Next was an attempt at a bath. Not for cleaning, but for calming in case she was used to baths and this might calm her. No such luck. So, she has finally cried herself to sleep, naked, laying on her jacket and covered with one of the blankets my mother and her friends made. Yeah, we couldn't let go of the ladybug one. So that is our day. I've got to go and get some things done for tomorrow, so I am signing off. I'll leave you with some pictures of the worlds most beautiful daughter. Oh, and as we had hoped, if there was to be one of the parents she is rejecting it would be me. This is very normal, but I have yet to hold her in my arms. It will come and sooner if I don't push it. Later, Jim

Snow, snow, and more snow!

2010-01-03T02:17:00.001-08:00

For those of you that know our itinerary you would expect that we are sitting in our hotel room in Taiyuan City preparing to meet our daughter tomorrow. Well, you'd be wrong. We are instead sitting in our hotel room in Beijing riding out one of the worst snow storms in memory for Beijing. It has shut down the airport for today and also they say tomorrow. Sooooo, instead of flying out tonight, instead we will take the high speed train tomorrow morning. We will awake at 5am and be at the train station for the 7:30am train which will get us to Taiyuan City in plenty of time to get our daughter. We will have very little if any time to get to the hotel and prepare and it is certainly possible that we will get her on the way to the hotel. The train takes 3 hours, so not bad and quite honestly it will give us a good view of the countryside. That's the quick and dirty, so know I will talk about our day. We started out by heading down to breakfast knowing that our cyber friends Peggy, Patrick, and their beautiful daughter queen Lilly McCole had arrived that night and may be at breakfast already. Sure enough they were and we went to introduce ourselves. There was also one more couple there with a little daughter too, but we weren't sure who they were and did not introduce ourselves. Little did we know that couple would come into our lives a bit later in the day. So, it was snowing at a pretty good clip and on the schedule today was a trip to the forbidden city and then on to the airport. We talked with our friends the McColes and decide that despite the weather we were going to give the forbidden city a shot. So at noon we were checked out and waiting for our guide to come and get us. So off we went, with our guide Reagan explaining how rare this snow is and that she was actually very excited to go because it is very rare to see the forbidden city with snow like this. She said in her near 25 yrs she has never seen it like this. I needed no prodding and was super geeked to check it out. We were all a little nervous about how queen Lilly would do, but to her credit she did amazing. The forbidden city has a magic about it as soon as you walk thru the entrance, but when you see it covered in new white snow it was even more amazing. Clearly though, the emperor who commissioned it was not thinking "snow" when he built the walkways and stairs out of polished marble. This was evident by how many found themselves on their rear ends as we strolled thru the grounds. We were all very careful and made it safely about 1/3 the way thru before we decide that we should get to the airport. I could write forever about the forbidden city and how it was built before our country was even discovered, but I shall spare you all. Suffice to say, it is magnificent, majestic, and overwhelming. If it is not on your bucket list, add it and add it near the top. I will have to say the same about the great wall too. So onward to the airport we went with the McColes. It took us a long time to get there as traffic was very slow and our driver even had to stop at one point to get the ice off the wipers. Clearly he did not know the trick of rolling down your window and reaching out and timing the wiper stroke so you can grab it and lift it and let it snap back down thus freeing itself from the ice. It is important to note that while this was only about 6 inches of snow, Beijing has no significant plowing capability, so it just builds up on the road into a big pile of slushy mess. It does not however stop people from riding mopeds and bicycles. So we get to the airport and our guide Reagan goes to check on our flights. Of course we are all now thawed out from the forbidden city and queen Lilly has fallen asleep in her parents arms. It took a while but our guide came back with the news that flights were no longer running and that the guide company was looking at alternate transport for us. It wasn't long after that we learned we would be taking a train. For us it is only 3 hours by high speed rail. For the McColes it was 10 hours and probably overnight. Unhappy! However, in true McCole fashion they brushed it off as no biggie. We also are just fine with this as the train is an opportunity to see more of China. It is at this point that our lives have crossed with the other couple that was at breakfast. They are from Norway and are also adopting out of Shanxi province and will pick their child up in Taiyuan too. So we will part company with McColes tomorrow and then meet again in Guangzhou. So, there you have it. We are going to have an early dinner and then an early bedtime and be up and rolling tomorrow early. This is very crazy, but strangely not stressful, probably because our guide has handled this soooooooo well. Enjoy a few pics from the forbidden city under a rare blanket of snow, it was truly stunning. Next time we post, we hope to either have our daughter or be on our way out the door to meet her.

The Great Wall and Summer Palace - Jan 2 2010

2010-01-02T01:22:00.000-08:00

Hello to you all from Beijing, China. Today we went with our guide Reagan, who is fantastic by the way, to the Great Wall at JuYongGuan Pass. It was an awesome experience. It was not crowded at all which made it seem like a more personal experience. We also toured the Summer Palace but a shortened version as it was getting a bit chilly, even for us Vermonters. I am attaching some photos from today so hopefully this all comes thru ok as I can't see the blog site from in China. Tomorrow we tour the Forbidden City and then fly out to Shanxi province at 4:30. We will try and update again either tonight or sometime tomorrow. I think the jet lag is getting to Jo since she has fallen asleep as I've been writing this. Bye for now, Jim & Jo.

We are here!!!

2010-01-01T05:42:00.001-08:00

After a small delay in New York's JFK and a warm flight over, we have landed and are in our hotel. We landed at night so we don't know what Beijing looks like during the day yet but the night skyline is pretty cool. Well, it's 9:40 pm here on the 1st and we have been up for over 24hrs straight. So we are going to bed! I'm posting via email and hoping it comes out ok.

Catch you tomorrow after we tour the Great Wall and Summer Palace.

J&J

A test for posting via email!

2009-12-27T17:59:00.001-08:00

Just testing to see if this is working. I might as well add that finally, the Platypi have won the fantasy football league. After so many times as the bridesmaid its good to be the bride......well groom I guess. Who are the Paltypi you ask????? Why it's me!! Jim Who did i defeat in the final you ask???? Why it was Jo!!! Ok, enough gloating!

CA and travel booked!

2009-12-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

Here we go folks and fun seekers!!!! Keep all arms and legs inside the ride at all times!

We have our consulate appointment on Jan 12. This date pretty much dictates our trip as we back it out from there. So, we leave on Dec31 for Beijing. We land on the 1st. We tour the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, and the Forbidden City. All very cool. We then travel to Taiyuan City in the Shanxi province on the 3rd. We have not decided whether we want to take the train or fly. The next morning, Jan4th, we will get up, attempt to have breakfast and then go meet our daughter for the first time!! She will then come with us for a bonding period, about 24 hours. Assuming all is good, we will go back and meet with the officials on the 5th and complete the adoption and application for her passport. We then will do some touring of her home province for the next few days and shop and just start trying to develop a bond. On the 8th we will fly to Guangzhou. This is where all of the immigration related things will happen as well as a medical checkup, TB test, consulate appointment, etc. It is also where all adopting families will be as well. Her visa should be ready on the 14th. We will then take a late night flight to Beijing and stay at a hotel near the airport. Our flight home is on the 15th and we connect to Jetblue at JFK and then should be arriving Burlington just after 6pm. That's it in a nut shell. We are over the moon and pretty darn freaked out. Thanks to all for the support shown us thru this process.

Jim

TA TA TA!

2009-12-17T19:22:00.001-08:00

We have our travel approval! We are really excited and more than a bit freaked out. So we are hoping to get our consulate appointment on the 12th and that puts us departing on Dec 31st. We should know by tomorrow.

Jim

Back on Track

2009-12-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

There is not much to report right now. However we did get some tentative travel plans. Our coordinator thinks our TA is due any day now and if it comes in the next week we should be good to travel on Dec 31 to Beijing. Then we go to Taiyuan in the Shanxi Province on the 3rd, wake up the next morning and go get our girl! It's commonly called Gotcha day or Forever Family day, etc. We haven't really talked about what we'll call it. It is the day after that she becomes our daughter officially. We hang out for 4 or 5 days and then head to Guangzhou for a week. In Guangzhou we do a medical exam and TB test and all the immigration work. Plus we just hang out and start bonding with our little one. We will head home on the 15th. Once we get off the plane and to the immigration officer hand him/her the documents and they say "OK" or "You can go" or "Welcome to America", whatever, it's at that moment she becomes a US citizen. Then we take our last little flight to Burlington and we'll be together as a family for the first time. As far as work on the home goes, we are behind but at least back on the tracks again moving forward. Theater carpet comes in on Friday and then a cabinet or two to build in there and that room will nearly be finished. We hope to do some tiling prior to and immediately after Christmas and from there we will be getting very close. There is still tons to do, but we feel like we are getting there now.

Later,
Jim

....followed by six of the worst!

2009-12-03T15:49:00.000-08:00

So many of you know that I awoke the Friday morning feeling fine, but within 5 minutes I began to feel a pain in my lower right abdomen. This ramped up very, very quickly. Ten minutes later we were herding the boys to the car with me doubled over in pain. Thankfully the ER is only about 10 minutes away, though it seemed like an hour. We got to the ER and while Jo was at registration two nurses came to me in the hall and took me away before we got any further. They got me hooked up to an IV and drew blood and all that. I was actually throwing up just from the pain. So long story shorter, they suspected a kidney stone and sent me to get a CAT scan. Sure enough, kidney stone. Only about 3-4mm but when you send something sharp as glass down an internal organ, size becomes less an issue. So we were able to get the pain down to within reason. Well various flare ups and two more ER visits and i finally made it to Wednesday when I can visit the Urologist. So we do that and get an X-ray to find out where the stone is. Turns out it was almost at the end. So we decide not to go to the operating room and suck it up. I took some pain killers at night and went to bed around 11:30. As usual I woke up about 4:45 when the pain meds wore off. This morning though the pain wasn't quite as bad and so I decided to hold off and not do another pill. I was awake thru when everyone else wakes up but nodded off at about 6:10 for about ten minutes. When i woke up, I was pain free!!!! Happy! So I said to Jo "Need help with the garbage?" She looked at me like, right, what are you gonna do! I said I all the sudden don't have pain and think that maybe the stone passed into the bladder. I was right. I'll save you the gruesome details but the stone popped out about an hour later. I am super happy to be done with that but I'm not 100% yet. I've still got a few smaller side issues, but I am so much happier. So, that's been my week. I've been so drugged I really don't know how the rest of my families has been. I guess I'll have to find out.

Later for now,
Jim

Two of the best days we've had in a while

2009-11-26T14:18:00.001-08:00

LOA BABY!!!!!!

Yesterday we received news that our LOA was here in the US. We will have tomorrow and sign it and then send it right back out. LOA is Letter of Acceptance and is essentially the official referral paperwork. So this is big stuff. Next step will be TA and then travel. So best guess based on historical time frames, we will travel about the first two weeks in January. That is of course completely open to change.

As for today, Thanksgiving day, we received several more up to date photos of our little girl. They are fantastic!!!! I'll include a few here. We also then heard from someone who was just visiting the orphanage who said she went to visit her at her foster home and has some more photos that she will get to us ASAP.

Throwing one more thing onto this is that Zack ran his first 5K race this morning. We really and truly couldn't be more proud of him. It was amazing to watch him complete this race!!! His teacher has done some great work getting him ready for this and really helping him learn how to run in an effective manner. Thanks Joe!!!

Oh, one more far less significant item.......Jo and I are sitting in our new theater room watching football on 120" screen in our new theater recliners under our nearly completed fiber optic star field ceiling as I type this. :)

So it's been a pretty good day. OK, onto the pictures......Oh, one last thing before I get to those.....HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

Through Review!

2009-11-11T05:30:00.000-08:00

Got an email this morning stating we were through review. So onto the matching room. Our understanding is that the matching room is very quick so we hope to be getting LOA very soon.

Still holding out hope to at least begin our travel prior to years end.

Updates on the house:
We get everything done we could up to and including hanging the drywall. The guys are here this week to finish the drywall and hope to be finished this weekend. CB is driving out here starting this morning bringing Ally's bedroom stuff that we were given from our Mississippi friends!!! Go Carpets! So CB will be here tomorrow and we'll do a few small jobs before the drywallers finish. The theater stuff came in this past week. The fiber optic star field is due in the next day or two, and the theater chairs are on order also. So things are moving forward and it is starting to come together.

I'll try and get pictures soon.

That's it for now, I gotta order some wallpaper border and some more rugs!!!

JB

2009-11-05T07:07:00.000-08:00

Not much new lately. We have had some updates about our progress but nothing that really tells when we are going to go. Our China coordinator has kept us as informed as she can. The latest we have is that we are in the "review" room. We got in there on Oct 20th and were still there as of this past Monday. We don't know why we are there as we went thru review prior to switching to a special needs child. I can only assume that since we switched agencies that the person that reviews files for our new agency wanted to go thru our stuff. So after review we will be headed to the matching room where our LOA is written. Once that is written it is sent to our agnecy and then to us. We sign it and it goes I beleive to the American Consolate in Guangzhou and then back to the adoption office in China. They then issue us Travel Approval - TA. During that time we apply for visas. Once we get TA and our visas have been issued, we can travel. we do have to have an appointment in place though at the consolate. So there is still a process to be gone thru yet but we are getting there. We expressed disapointment to our coordinator that we were still in review and probalby not traveling before end of the year. She said she still has good reason to think we will atleast leave prior to end of year. So it's hard to know what to think right now.

A few things that have happened in recent time is that we have made contact with two people that had previously sent LOI to adopt Ally and then rescinded it. One was due to proximity to medical facilities in the event they needed to address Ally's special need. The other withdrew because of an employement situation. So that is very wierd to come accross people that almost adopted our daughter. Obviously we had some concern that maybe they found out something that we didn't know about. However we have quite a large amount of information about ally now and all things point to a pretty normal life with a little extra care taken concerning her need. Certainly we are prepared for more and that could still be the reality, but all info we have to now says things are quite good considering what she's gone thru.

The other thing that happened is that we joined a group on Yahoo that is comprised of other parents adopting from her orphanage in Taiyuan City. In making contact there and announcing we were adopting Yi Xi (Ally), we were contacted discretely by someone who had pictures of Yi Xi. 164!!!!!!! All the way back to her abandonment day thru late summer 2008. You can not imagine how important that history is. It will be of immense importance for Ally to have that to look back on and also of great value for her doctors to understand her pre-surgical condition.

Things are going well with the house renovations other than a delay in the drywall being finished. The theater electronics are due today, and the fiber optics for the star field ceiling will be ordered today or tomorrow. We are looking forward to getting the house back to normal but right now that feels a long way off.

That's it for now, catch you later,
Jim

Cub Scout Popcorn

2009-10-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

Once again it is popcorn time. And once again I have given you little warning.

If you would like to order some popcorn from one of my three little scouts please let us know. Orders are due tomorrow evenning so please email me if you would like some. Thanks!

Oh yeah, click on the picture, it will enlarge.

A bummer of a story with a happy ending…..kinda

2009-10-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

So last Sunday the 4th, Jo and I were getting to bed a bit later than usual for a Sunday night. I don’t exactly remember the reason, nor is it important. It was about 11:45 at night, Jo was still awake and I was just coming upstairs after working all day on the house and then playing a little Wii at night. I took my dirty shirt off when all the sudden we both hear an animal fighting or something outside. Now keep in mind that our neighbor had recently told us that there was a marauding mean feral cat roaming around and they tend to kill other cats and small animals. So we hadn’t been letting our cats out lately. Unfortunately a door got left open that day and two of ours got out. We got one back in but the other one tends to stay out very late. Before going upstairs I had cracked the 3-season door to give our cat a nice place to come in and sleep. So, back to the story. I was pretty concerned that it might be our cat. So I ran downstairs, shirtless and out the front door. At this point the noise was still going on and I knew immediately it wasn’t a cat but rather a dog. Then almost the same time my neighbor is running down her driveway yelling the name of one of her Yorkies. I yelled to her to see what was wrong. She said something took one of her dogs. We could still hear it yelping. She and her husband ran across the street to where they thought the noise was and I quickly ran into the house and grabbed a sweatshirt and flashlight. I was still nervous about the cat but feeling really bad about the Yorky. So I ran back out to try and help. At this point though we have shifted directions to look and are headed up the drive toward the house at the end of the road which is surrounded by 55 acres of woods. Neither of us have very good flash lights with us so we only looked for about ten minutes. It became very apparent as we continue to hear something yelping but quite honestly it sounded like it was louder than the dog could make and a different pitch. So we jogged back to the houses. At this point the neighbor wife wants to get a car and try and drive thru the woods. They don’t have a great vehicle for that and so I was thinking about taking the mini cooper because it was small enough to be on the trails. I also was still fearful for our cat. So on the way back the neighbors are debating about what to do and to me it sounds almost like the husband has written the dog off and of course the wife is like ‘no way’. At this point we separate and they go back to their house and I am starting to call our cat. On a whim I look under the camper and there is our cat. She was looking a bit nervous and not very willing to come out. So I coax her out and she bolts to the door. So now I’m at least relieved our cat is safe, but we can still hear something yelping in the woods. So I go inside and get a better flashlight and talk to Jo about what is happening. I head back out somewhat nervously because well, it’s dark, it’s chilly, and now there is a light fog descending on the woods and of course it’s about ten after midnight. I’m thinking if I were a predator you know like a vampire or werewolf or something equally evil these woods, at this time, with this fog would be perfect!!! Kinda like when you are watching a movie and the dumb character knows that bad things are happening in the woods but goes in anyway and your watching going “what an idiot!!” But I ventured out anyway. I tell Jo if I’m not back in 20 call someone with weapons. I head out the door and hear the neighbor banging around one of his trucks and can’t figure out what he’s doing but think maybe he’s throwing his bow in his truck. So I head up the gravel drive….alone…..but thankfully it was only about 2 minutes later that I find out what the neighbor was banging around. He was getting his four wheeler out and the husband and wife were flying up the street. Keep in mind this is like 12:15am and I can only guess what the other neighbors were thinking with all the noise. So I was already in the woods and I think they were kind of surprised to see me out there. They went further into the woods which takes them right past the owner of these woods house. After they went by I was looking toward the house and sure enough the lights go on and 2 minutes later he comes flying out of his garage on his four wheeler. He drives up to me and then recognizes me and says “Do you know who they are?”, clearly thinking he has trespassers. I gave him a quick synopsis of the events and told him where I think the noise is coming from. So he heads out to look as well. So about 5 minutes or so later of walking in really spooky woods the noise stops. Also the dog owners head down the street to look more around their house. Keep in mind that we still are not convinced that the noise is their dog because it doesn’t sound right. Also, every time you think you are getting closer it stops not to mention it’s echoing all over. So you move to a different area and it starts again. Well, like I said, five or so minutes later it pretty much stopped. So I went back to our house to see if I could pick up a blood trail as I think whatever it was ran thru the back yard. As I was looking the noise started again. This time the woods owner had his 4 wheeler off and as soon as he heard the noise he took off on the 4 wheeler. He stopped, did something, I didn’t know what cause I was about 100 yards away thru the spooky woods and then he came flying out of the woods on the 4 wheeler. I went up onto the driveway and he saw me and yelled “I got ‘em!! I got ‘em!!” So now we can’t find the dogs owners but ran over to their house anyway. Luckily they were just on the other side looking in bushes, because apparently the dog is so small it gets stuck in bushes. So the wife grabbed the dog and ran inside. At this point the husband, the woods owner and I are all standing outside looking at each other in amazement when it dawns on us that the woods owner has no top on. He had wrapped the dog in his coat and is standing there without a shirt on at almost 12:30am 40 some degrees but all hopped up on adrenaline!! Pretty funny scene in hindsight. Well, 30 seconds later the wife is back outside yelling that the dog is in bad shape and has to get to the vet NOW!! So I bade goodbye and hoped for the best. As the days went by several people were visiting and I feared the worst. So Friday morning I was having breakfast and looked out the window to see the neighbor letting her remaining Yorky out and then to my surprise, gently set down the other one. HOLY CRAP!!!! I had totally written the dog off. I ran out the door and then jogged over. She was so happy to see me and I was so happy to see the dog alive. She thanked me profusely and I was like “All I did was look….” She said that the woods owner said that the dog was almost exactly where I told him to look. Regardless, it was great to see him alive. So when I came over he gave me a very feeble bark. So that prompted her to tell me his injuries. She said that the vet made it very clear that the dog was alive only because he wanted to live. The vet could not believe it. He had two puncture holes in his throat, thus the feeble bark. Two punctures in his lungs also causing the feeble bark. Two punctures into the spine causing nerve damage to it’s right rear leg. They may need to amputate that leg, however he was using it a bit when I saw him. This was all so unbelievable to me. It’s still not clear what it was that took the dog, but when she went out to get her dogs off the run that evening she saw something in the yard she mistook for a deer at first. She later knew it was too small for a deer so the thinking is that it is a coyote. So we are giving thought as to how to hunt it down or maybe trap and release. Both the neighbors and us have safety concerns and while our kids should be safe our pets are not and we are wanting it gone. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

No further adoption update, still waiting on LOA. If not received by end of October then hope fades quickly to travel before Christmas and almost for sure to be home by Christmas.

Current Status Update

2009-09-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

There really is no news. So I'll just talk about where we are at and what China is up to. Once again we are awaiting LOA which we will sign and then send back. It goes, I think, to the US Consulate and then back to the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) which then issues a TA, travel approval. Once we have TA, our agency will set up a consulate apt. in Guangzhou. That determines our dates of travel. You basically back out your trip from there because your apt. is at the end of your stay. So Once we have TA you could conceivably travel a couple days from then or it could be weeks. It has a lot to do with when the consulate can get you in. Our window for getting her home before Christmas is shrinking quickly though, and that does not make us happy.

One of the delays we are dealing with is that as of today China is on a week long holiday, October 1 through the 8th. So as of about 5am this morning they are probably heading home and wont return for a week. So if our LOA didn't get sent this past couple of days, we certainly wont get it until now mid to late October at best. I think to travel by Christmas you pretty much have to have your LOA by end of October and then hope your TA comes before the end of November.

Another delay that has supposedly recently taken place is that several officials from CCAA were visiting the U.S. and Canada and only recently got back to be able to sign-off on LOA's and TA"s, etc. I can't help but think that since I have such bad luck picking what lines to get in say for border crossings, grocery lines, etc. that this is all my fault for getting in line for LOA. Now that I'm in it, it will be the slowest line.

Thats it for today,
JBandFam

Our Birthday Girl - September 23, 2006

2009-09-23T06:34:00.000-07:00

Care Package

2009-09-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

We sent our first care package today. It's about a week later than intended but better late than never. Ally's birthday is tomorrow (really though it started a few hours ago because it is tomorrow in China but we'll celebrate her birthday on our 23rd). I'm sure I'll post something but not sure what yet. In the care package today was a letter to Ally, a letter to Ally's foaster family, a photo album of us, a disposable camera, some chocolate snacks, a dress and PJs, and a pink Vermont Teddy Bear in a dress. We hope she gets it first of all and that she gets it soon. Secondly we hope she can begin getting her heart, mind, and soul around us. Big changes coming for this little lady and for us too.

No word on anything out of China, and just wanted to reiterate that this would be pretty early for us to have heard anything. The wait is hard but knowing we that we will complete this journey helps a lot.

Still full bore at the home renovations. Basement is nearly ready for mudding sanding. We have had a longer than expected time planning the basement 3/4 bath, but are now ready to get that finished to the point of mudding and sanding too. Once the mudding is done I'll trim out the areas that need it and also construct two built in units, one for storage and game cabinet and the other is the home entertainment cabinet in the theatre room. When completed, we'll have created a theatre, rec room, storage area, work room and 3/4 bath in the basement. The boiler/mechanical room already existed. We will have added somewhere around 710 sqft of finished space.

the next project is to convert the old rec room above the garage which was roughly 500 sq. into two bedrooms, a hallway, and linen closet. The hard part about that is insulating and drywalling the garage ceiling. Some framing and electrical also but that wont be too bad. Once completed Zack and Beej will move to those rooms and Beej's room will convert to a study/office space and then Ally will get Zacks old room right next to ours. We will redecorate from the jetfighters first though. :)

That's it for today,
Jim

The latest Info

2009-09-15T10:19:00.001-07:00

We are awaiting word of our LOA - Letter of Acceptance. Think of this as the official referral of Ally sent from China to us. We then sign it and send it back. This is a major step and when that happens we could travel as quickly as 5 weeks from then but probably a little longer. LOA though may take as long as another 3 months but could also come any day.

Today though I got the latest info from our phenomenal coordinator at our new agency.

She received this late July but in all the hurry and hard work she did for us she had thought she sent it to us. So the info has been at the agency but just didn't quite get to us at that point. Truly no big deal because we would be very poor now had we known then.......:)

"Updated information on Dang Yi Xi (Ami)
Dated on July 20, 2009

Current height: 93cm, weight: 14kg, head size: 50cm, chest size: 51cm, length of feet: 15cm

Yi Xi has out-going and lively personalities. She is very sweet and likes to talk and please the others. She likes to sing, dance and listen to music. She has strong logic thinking ability and is very clear about relationships between people around her. She is very brave.

She recovered well from her surgery. She only needs to be careful not to bump her head. Her physical condition is generally good. She doesn’t have cold or fever easily.

Her physical development and intellectual development are good."

Love it!!!! Sounds like she is doing great. The assumption is that she does not know she has been matched with us, but they will have to tell her when they get our care package.

For us USA non-metric folks, that's 36 inches tall, 30lbs, 19 inch head, 19.7inch chest, and 6 inch foot. Not buying the head and chest being nearly the same. No biggie though. So the long and short of it is, as of two months ago she is a size 3T. Shoe size looks like toddler size 8 or top end of toddler small. So there you have it, she's no slouch! 3T before she's actually 3!

Well, I think I feel a purchase coming on so it is time for big bad dad to shop!!!

Jim

Ally

2009-09-05T17:05:00.000-07:00

We are very pleased to announce the referral of our daughter

Aliena (Ally) YiXi Bennink.

She was born on Sept 23, 2006 in the Shanxi province.
We are currently waiting on LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China. That could come at anytime and would not be unusual for it to take a few months either. From there is roughly 5 weeks to travel. We hope to travel before the end of the year. Here are some more pictures.

Thank you all for your support thru this wait. It’s almost over!

(Oh, for those of you who wondered it's Alley-Ay-Nah.)

Backing up to summer

2008-12-02T18:30:00.000-08:00

Well, here are some pictures of some activities we did this summer.

Seany graduated preschool. They did a nice ceremony and he got his diploma:

Zack played coahc pitch baseball:

Seany turned 5:

We worked a lot around the house and yard (no pictures). We also golfed at the local club and the boys did junior golf. Many days were spent at the quarry swimming and catching frogs.

School started again and Seany started Kindergarten:

Seany also dumped the training wheels:

BJ and Zack played fall soccer. A really good program in St. Albans:

We planted 11 trees in the yard after cutting down 3 dead ones. Sean's orchard - Two Honey Crisp apples, one crabapple. Zack's orchard - Two Macintosh apples, one crabapple. BJ's forest - two Burr Oaks, two Atunm Flame Maples. JoJo got a Patten Pear in memory of her dad:

Here is Shasta:

Here are fall colors. I couldn't get the camera to do it justice.

One of BJ's Autumn Flame Maples

BJ turned 7

Did the Halloween Pumpkin thing

Seany designed a missle launching submarine

Went to get the Christmas tree at this very picturesque place.

Thats the quick and dirty catch up. Our laptop is due back next Tuesday. Hopefully I'll do better then at keeping this up to date. See Ya!!!!!!

Finally, a real update, sheeeeesh!!!

2008-12-02T17:43:00.000-08:00

So....I left off Friday May 30th. This is going to sound a bit lame, but your gonna have to give me the benefit of the doubt here. The core reason for not posting lately, and its not a good one, is that within about a week of my May 30 post our wireless adapter went out on the laptop. (Please hold while I check on a router bit I'm bidding on over at Ebay, it's witin minutes of ending)........OK, I'm back. 6 minutes to go.....So, we lost our wireless capability and there was no comfortable place to sit at a computer, not even this one. Then, about a month or so later the whole laptop craps out. No display, stuck in a boot up loop, and otherwise useless. Anyone wanna guess about whether it was under warranty? (Back to Ebay, please hold).........3 minutes. I have to bid soon. So I finally did some research on HP after having to look at this stupid laptop dormant in the corner of our bedroom, knowing I still owe $800 bucks on it and (oops, back to ebay)........HAAAAAAA!! Bosch Rail & Stile matching pair router bits normally sell for $105 at Lowes. I just nailed these for $37.86 plus shipping, BooYah! Ive been wathcing the same ones sell for over $55 the last few weeks so I'm extra geeked. Brand spanking new too.....Now back to our regularly scheduled blog......So I still owe buckets of cash on this thing and its out of warranty. So after some online research I find this is a pretty regular thing with these laptops and that depending on my serial number, etc., HP might repair it for free under their "Extra Special Warranty" which is code for, "We put out junk, we know we put out junk, we can't really say we put out junk, but if your computer shows problems with one of these two problems, send it in and we'll fix it for free and pay the shipping" So, I'm now mad at myself for not checking earlier, I'm both mad and happy with HP because, well, they put out junk. On the flip side, well done HP for stnading up almost saying they put out junk and fixing the problem at zero cost to the customer. Yes, I will be writting a letter commending them for this when we get it back because it happens to rarely. So when it does I am going to give them props for it. So, with much added and uneccesary drama, that is why I haven't written much in the blog lately. It just wasn't convenient. And we've been busier than poop.

Is anybody wondering what the router bits are for????? Well I'm glad you asked, I am finally getting to the needed built ins around the house and I am doing it all myself. So I bought a biscuit jointer (cuts little slots in wood for those little wooden football shaped thingys), and I have also just purchased a higher end Bosch router and some router bits. I now need a router table and with the bits purchased this past week and then just tonight, I can make my own raised panel cabinet doors. Super geeked about that. So for my first feat of daring woodworking I have decided to tackle Zacks window seat (which I called a love seat today at work and was abused for hours about building a love seat for my 8 year old) and bookshelf system. The base cabinets have lots of space for toys and things with lift top storage also. So Zack and I have finished the base units and the bookshelves, cabinet doors, painting, and cushion are next. So this router bit set I bought tonight helps me make the perimieter four peices that make up a cabinet door. Two are called rails and two are called stiles. The router bits cut them with not only a decorative edge but also so that they fit together perfectly at the corners. Cool huh? So attached are some pics. The last one I just took while zack was asleep. Hope he didn't mind the flash! It's fun doing these project with the right tools. Oh yeah, hey Terry and Sandy, much of this was done on the radial arm saw. I've put alot of time into getting it tuned up and it is working well. I also found out why it wouldn't go down all the way. It had to do with the wrench that was dropped down into the lifting mechanism...... ;) Seriously! I still can't thank you enough for that gift.

Cub Scout Popcorn

2008-10-16T16:06:00.001-07:00

4 and a half months since my last post......Thats just pathetic!

The following takes place in our bedroom which is where our desktop computer sits (After reading this over again I realize that that statement could go down the wrong road all too quickly). It’s fiction, but had I assembled these boys in front of the computer instead of writing this at my work I believe things would have transpired as follows:

(Zack) Hey everyone! My dad has been very lame about writing blogs lately so I thought I would do one with my brothers.
(Sean): Yah! Dads Lame!
(BJ) Hey, he’s not lame, you are Zack!
(Sean) Yah! Zack’s Lame!
(Zack) KNOCK IT OFF you two!!!! Anyway, so there are lots of things that have been going on and my dad will try and write soon to get you all up to date, but until then BJ and I have some popcorn stuff to sell for Cub Scouts. It’s really late and the orders are due tomorrow, but you don’t have to pay until later….
(BJ interupts) No Zack you have to pay now!
(Zack) No you don’t BJ, you can pay later!
(BJ) Now!
(Zack) BJ!!!! Stop screwing this up!!!!! You don’t have to pay until later!!!!
(Dad) Hi everyone, just chiming in to put them back on track. BJ, you can pay now and the scouts would prefer that, but you don’t have to. Zack stop yelling all the time.
(Sean) Told Ya!
(Zack yelling again) Sean you never said anything!
(Sean) Oh. (Sticks tongue out, Zack tries to grab it and gets a piece which sends Sean crying to mom)
(Dad) Go ahead Zack, keep going.
(Zack) Where was I?
(Dad) Popcorn, don’t have to pay now, orders due tomorrow……
(Zack) Oh yah, so BJ is a tiger cub this year and I’m a Bear cub this year and even dad is in the scouts. He’s BJ’s tiger den leader!! Ha Ha!!! He He!! He looks dorky in his uniform. (Sean came back in the room)
(BJ) Yah, he is, he’s my tiger den leader. He doesn’t look dorky.
(Sean) (laughing) Yah, dorky!
(Dad) Yep, it’s true. The dorky part too.
(Zack) So my dad is going to attach some files somehow so that you can look at what to order. BJ and I are going to split what comes in. If you’d like to support the cub scouts by buying popcorn that would be cool. So I guess you can call my dad or something….
(Dad) Yah Zack, they can call my cell phone or email me or home phone. 616-402-4652 or jimbennink@gmail.com 802-782-8364. Is that all you want to say Zack and Beej?
(BJ) What?
(Zack) I think so….
(Dad) Beej why don’t you tell everyone what the money goes for.
(BJ) What?
(Dad) Clearly folks, the focus is lost!!!
(Zack) What is it used for dad?
(Dad) Well it helps the scouts pay for sign up fees to different events and put great trips and exploration things together. It also helps the local packs pay for the badges and awards that are handed out thru the year. It really is the prime source for income.
(Zack) Oh……and pine would derby cars?!
(Dad) Yep, even those.
(Sean) Sweeeeet!
(Dad) (laughing) Yah, it is sweet. Are you gonna be a scout next year too Seany?
(Sean) (Rolls eyes at Dad) Yah dad, duh!
(Dad) You heard it folks 5 years old going on 13!!! OK Guys anything else you want to say?
(BJ) Are people going to buy me Legos?
(Dad) What?! What are you talking about, you are asking people to buy popcorn from you for cub scouts!
(BJ) Oh, I forgot.
(Dad) Is that it guys?
(Zack) Is Drew gonna read this?
(BJ) Yah, is Drew gonna read this?
(Sean) Yah, is Drew Gonna read this?
(Dad) I don’t know if he will but I bet one of his parents will and tell him about it. Why?
(Zack) Can I say hi?
(BJ) Yah, me too.
(Sean) Yah me also.
(Dad) Go ahead….
(All three boys yelling at the computer as if that is going to make it come out in print) hi Drew, hi Drew, hi Annie, yah, hi Annie!
(Dad) What about the twins? Daniel and, and, and, Damn!......Erin! Hah, I remembered this time! (Maybe If I had met them more than twice, but still I just can’t seem to get Erin thru my skull. Crimeny Sakes!! Sorry Dave, sorry Suzanne!)
(The boys again) Oh yeah, hi Daniel, hi Erin, hi Daniel, hi Erin.
(Zack) I remembered Erin’s name!
(BJ) Me too!!
(Sean) Me too!!
(Dad) Yah I knew you guys didn't forget, I’m old!
(The boys run off to play with Shasta our new Husky all focus on this task lost)
The end.

Hey everybody it’s me again, Dad, or Jim or whatever! Yep, we got a husky pup. More on that later…….We really would like to have people order popcorn if you haven’t already supported your local scouts. And if that is your preference no problem. I am really sorry at getting this to you all so late but I didn’t think of putting it on the blog until now.

I am writing another blog after this and hope to have it up in the next day or so. Lots to cover though. I will be attaching two files of the flyer that I scanned so hopefully it will work. If not email me and I’ll email them out to you.

Thanks,
Jim

The New Home

2008-05-30T20:12:00.000-07:00

It has been a while, and for those of you who have not been in contact with me some other way, you have probably been wondering about our new house and all of that. Well, we closed on May 16th! It is a great house in a small subdivision that will only have 8 houses plus the original property owner’s house. He still owns 55 acres of playground type land next to the subdivision which all homeowners in the subdivision have access to. This “playground land” turned out to be a big deal because there is an old stone quarry on the property that is long abandoned and full of spring fed water. It’s nearly crystal clear and in spots 60ft deep with 60 foot cliffs. The owner, we call him Grandpa Bud (picture Ernest Hemmingway), stocked it with fish, put down some sand for some beach, put in a dock, built a small cabin and covered picnic area, and has a four person paddle boat that we all can utilize. It’s crazy! Crazy I tell you! I’ll attach some pic’s of both the house and the quarry. We are still a bit overwhelmed by the work ahead of us and are very grateful for my parents coming out and helping paint, unpack, etc. It was a lot of work and we are probably only half done. This is a whole lot more house than we are used to and it will take a while before we get settled. One other item that comes with the house is an acre of mowing! We had to get a lawn tractor (which of course I was not sad about…..at all!) and it still took 1.5hrs to mow. The lawn is in rough shape but we’ll go after it aggressively and get it looking better shortly. I also got several attachments because with a lawn that size you need them, so I got a tow behind spreader, plug aerator, dethatcher, and dump cart. The latter having already seen use hauling lawn waste debris and children around the yard. We also use the tractor to takes rides down the street to the mailbox and get the mail. The guys love to sit on my lap and steer. Zack even got to solo drive as I walked next to him. He was pretty geeked! I’ll do some interior pictures, before/after type shots once we are done painting and adding a bit o’ trim. It’s funny now that we own a home again how much time and money we spend at Lowe’s/Home Depot. I’m guessing their stocks plummeted while we were home ownerless and therefore not spending wheelbarrows full of cash there. Well, fear not good citizens, we are back and hemorrhaging money there once again. Your stock portfolios should be looking up soon! Lets see what else do I have to say today……hmmmmmm……..oh, the job fronts are looking good still with Jo having signed a multi-year deal with the school and GD still doing well. There are a few opportunities brewing at GD and one at another place for me. We’ll see what fits best, but all roads are solid and I don’t think a wrong decision can be made. We’ll see. Also, as I have passed another year on this planet recently, my drivers license in Mich has expired and I need to obtain one from Vermont. I’m kinda geeked about that. It’s just one more sign or step in putting down roots here. So that’s cool. We also joined the Champlain Country Club a few weeks ago but have yet to play there with all this stuff going on. Don’t be too impressed. Facility wise it’s comparable to Terra Verde but terrain wise it’s more like a cross between Spring Lake and Fruitport with hills added. If you’ve played at Muskegon Country Club it is similar to there in physical features. We should have a bit more time once we fully move out of the lake house on the islands this weekend. Jo has been slowly hauling stuff from there every night on the way home. We need to be out this weekend though. My conversion van, which has sat motionless since November, is still there complete with dead battery. Hopefully we can get it jumped tomorrow and avoid having it towed.

Overall things are looking up and we are hoping to keep it that way. I hope all is well with all of you and please feel free to keep in touch. Now that we have high speed instead of dialup it doesn’t take a half hour to answer an email!

L8tr,
JimB

A house, a house, we have a house!!!!

2008-04-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not ours yet, but we have it under contract. It is certainly a whole lot more complicated in Vermont to buy a house, way more than it needs to be. Here is a link to the listing

http://www.poquetterealty.com/details.asp?key=171&key_m=2700399&Category=residential

We are pretty excited and looking forward to our stuff getting out of storage. Our tentative close is on May 16th and that is certainly pushing it. It's been fun trying to put together a house deal and financing while on vacation. I'll try and get some more vacation pics posted tonight.

Jim, Jo, and the boys.

Havin' fun with the mouse

2008-04-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

We are having fun here in Orlando. We were very delayed out of Philly and didn't land until after midnight. We recovered, and did a quick shell finding stint on the gulf. We then went to Orlando and did Animal Kingdom at Disney. Grandma Dorothy flew in that evenning and arrived while we were taking a break at the condo. BJ stayed back with grandma to go swimming and the four of the rest of us went to the magic kingdom from about 8-11. We hit a bunch of rides in a very short time, it was a blast! I've put a picks in here. A side note, I went on the Expedition Everest ride and then BJ did it with me and he had fun but he was partially scared out of his mind. We bought the picture and it says it all. We will scan that when we get a chance. It's priceless.

The lights are back on at 1607 Sheldon

2008-04-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

Several items to report:
1 - The continuing story of Sean - He did break his foot. It is not serious and will heal without a cast. He has a post surgical boot that he wears and needs to keep on during the day. So he will be fine but hobbled a bit.
2 - The lights are back on at 1607 Sheldon Rd. in Grand Haven but not by us. Yep, we sold the house. It closed Tuesday afternoon and we are both happy and sad but now we can move forward. We are hoping to make an offer tomorrow on a house here. When it's accepted we'll post pictures. Happy days!
3 - As stated we hope to put an offer on the house tomorrow which should get us closed around May 16th at the earliest. So that gives us a week of prep and then move in over Memorial weekend. The only drawback is we have to negotiate while at Disney this coming week. We leave Saturday and are darned excited to go.
4 - Zack started baseball pracitce so thats cool. I didn't get to see it, but he was pretty amp'd up when he got home and insisted we go out and play catch. So thats cool.

Stay tuned next week for some disney pics.

Quick updae on the Seanster

2008-04-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

Adding one more thing to deal with........Seany was jumping on a hippity-hop ball and landed on his foot wrong somehow. We let it sit overnight and he was even running around on it ths morning in an attempt to avoid 'The Doctor!!" So we went looking at a few houses today and decided to bring him into the ER just to make sure he didn't ull a BJ and break something. Turns out he did something that made his X-rays not look quite right so the ER guy ut a formed splint on it and Sean and I will be headed into the orthopedic guy tomorrow morning. So we don't kow for sure if it's broken but we will find out tomorrow. As Grandma Dorothy pointed out, ifit is broken we'll be jumping to the front of all the lines at Disney next week with gimpy.

Check out the quick video below, I posted it of Seany skiing but didn't send out a notification. I'm trying to post another one of him skiing but this websight and our dial-up are not liking it.

Seany Skiing

2008-04-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

Engineer in training.....

2008-04-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

These are creations by BJ. They are just a few examples of what he does everyday. It is truly amazing to see what he comes up with and also how proud he is of each thing regardless of how big or small, simple or complex.

Things, they are a happenin'

2008-03-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

Several updates.....Our house in Michigan is under deosit and closing is around the 15th. Lets hope it goes thru. We'll need to put in an offer on something around the same time here. because our rental is up at the end of May.

Next update....BJ lost his first tooth finally. The other one had almost totally grown in behind it before the old one came out. He was so geeked about the tooth ferry leaving him a couple bucks he worked on his next tooth and it came out two days later. So both his bottom two center teeth have come out.

Next....Still winter here. We have some lawn showing but the lake is still frozen and we flew kites out there yesterday. I'll try and add some picks of that.

Next.....A bit of an odd easter as it was just us with no other family. For Jo it was harder than that without her parents.

Next....Here is my funny story....Two weeks ago Jo's school made a ski trip to Titus Mtn. and it was my off Friday so I went with. We took Zack and BJ even though it wasn't their grade levels going on the trip. Well we were going down this part of the hill that is a terrain park. That means theres rails and pipes and jumps and other things people can do all sorts of tricks on. we were just going down to go over some small jumps. Well BJ wasn't looking beyond the jumps and was going down toward one and I was a bit nervous cause i saw what was on the other side which was a rail. I figured he would turn and go off the side, but I was wrong. He went right off the end and landed square on the rail right between his legs. He found out he was a boy real quick. He actually thought he was bleeding. We went inside and checked everything out and he was OK. He had been acting a bit off that day anyway and he never really got back on his skis. Turns out he had strep throat and now he had a sore spot between his legs too.

I'll attach some pics and I'll keep you informed obout our house.

Best skiing day yet

2008-03-02T18:12:00.000-08:00

Today was probably the best day yet that we've had for skiing. We got there at about 10:30 or so and were there until 4:00. It was about 22 degrees but sunshine and no wind so it felt quite a bit warmer. We exploered several new areas including a terrain park with jumps and rails and other things that we adults can kill ourselves on but the kids fly over with no fear. Sean started out a little rusty but we forced him off the lash quite a bit today and before you know it he was doing great. He made huge strides today as did everyone. It was an amazing day and I took some pictures. The first is the view from the backside of Madonna looking toward New Hampshire.

The second is a picture of Seany riding the chairlift.

The next one is Jo and Seany. Seany has the tether on and Jo is guiding him down. That's usually my job but Jo got to do it just this once.

The next one is all of them on Morse Mtn.

The last one is the result of a full day skiing!!!! It was a nice ride home!!!

I don't think we have very many weekends like this left this year, so if you are thinking of coming to visit, plan it quickly. This was a great weekend and it's a bummer to go back to work tomorrow, but there is always next weekend. Hopefully it will be as nice. Have a good week everyone.

Where has your 'Blue Highway Games' coffee mug been?

2008-03-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

This picture was taken Friday when just Zack and I went skiing. We went to the top of Madonna Mountain at Smugglers Notch. It's at 3640 feet. So the point of this picture is i wanted my brother Brian to start a display board at his store in Seattle. The store is Blue Highway Games and I thought it would be fun to have people take their mugs from that store to places all over the world. You can purchase your mug by contacting Brian at Brian@bluehighwaygames.com (Brian if I got that wrong let me know). It was a beautiful day on the mountain and I also need to credit my boy Zack for taking the picture. Below is a picture of Zack, also holding the mug on top of Madonna Mountain.

A little update on things

2008-02-27T18:23:00.000-08:00

It’s been too long since my last update and I will try not to let it happen again. So, the last I left you with I think was Joey’s mom passed on. As you can imagine 2007 has been a very tough year for Jo and we sent it out with a funeral pyre of sorts. We burned a calendar on New Years Eve. It seems though that 2007 was to have one last laugh. The calendar was coated in a film of some sort that made it smell pretty acrid when we burned it. We are sure that it was toxic and expect to all grow third arms in the next year because of it. Maybe that will help my golf game……
I’m traveling on one of my favorite modes of transportation right now which is Amtrak. I picked up the train in Holland MI and am heading to Chicago to get a flight to Burlington VT. We were home for the weekend so that Jo could go thru her parent’s house with her brother and sister. There is a mountain of stuff to go thru as any of you who have had to do this already know. Things are going well though probably not as fast as they would like. Jo is staying at least thru Wednesday and depending on how much is left may stay longer. Which means I might be doing this trip in reverse next weekend to help her drive back to VT. She and the boys are off this whole week for mid-winter break which for some reason is a whole week. Very odd!
I’ll try and catch you up with our life which as with many people kind of stagnates a little bit in January and February. It is because of this that we looked at moving to Vermont. It has definitely worked! We have done something every weekend since we’ve been home. First and foremost we’ve skied a lot! It’s been very fun and I am truly amazed at the progress the boys and Jo have made. I’m getting close to my peak abilities that I once had when in high school but I tell you what, I’ve had to re-learn a bunch because I am essentially 50 lbs heavier now than in high school and it’s just not as easy for me to throw my weight around like I used to. I mean I can throw my weight one way for turning but when it’s time to throw it the other to turn again it just wants to keep going straight! So I’ve definitely had to re-learn some things. I also (We interrupt this blog to say we just stopped in Bangor MI. BANGOR! Who ever came up with the plan to stop in Bangor! Why not stop in South Haven, a city people have at least heard of before. The conductor actually referred to it as beautiful downtown Bangor. For those of you who have been there you know what I’m saying, for those of you who haven’t, don’t bother, it’s a crossroads, nothing more, I think the houses there just got electricity! Back to the blog, I was talking about skiing.) have come to the realization that the boots I have are pretty bad because when I turn my feet my skis go straight because I have so much slop in my boots for my feet to move. I know, I know, just tighten the buckles. No can do, if I do that it causes my arches to cramp. Major ouchage! Time for new boots I think. We should be hitting end of year sales soon so I’ll try and snag some. Skiing is awesome in Vermont and we love the family atmosphere at Smuggs. Having every other Friday off helps me get to the slopes a lot too. Beyond skiing we have also been active in the area. We have some good friends out there that we do stuff with pretty regularly on the weekends and it’s been great. It has reminded me of how our parents and their friends have always done things on the weekends and it’s been great to get into that mode. Our town of North Hero has also started a winter festival this year that has spanned three weekends. The first weekend was a youth fishing derby among other events. All three boys caught perch and Zack got a 10.5 incher. Sean caught 5, BJ I think got 2 and Zack got 3. (Just stopped in St. Joseph and are running along the Lake Michigan shore. Quite pretty.) So the fishing derby was great and we may go get some fishing gear and do it out the front door on our bay. The ice is so thick (because it’s frickin’ freezing there Mr. Bigglesworth) that not only do people drive there cars and trucks out there but they bring there campers out there too. Ice fishing is big on the islands and north part of the lake. It’s very cool. Two weeks after the fishing derby they had a golf tournament on the ice. Oh yes, I played. It was tough because there was a foot of snow on the ice but they plowed a 10 ft wide ‘fairway’ for each hole and you could move your ball to that path if you found it in the snow. It was about 21 degrees with high winds putting the wind chill well below zero but Zack caddied for me(He really just played in the snow and snow banks most of the time and had a blast) and we were well covered up. I’ll include a link to the news stories here so you can watch the video from the fishing derby and the golf tournament. They both made the Burlington news. So we really have been busy and are having fun.
We have some decisions to make coming up about where we are going to live and much of that depends on the house selling in Michigan. We have continually dropped the price and are getting some activity again with an offer/counteroffer that may be accepted. We see about a 30% chance we may be back in Michigan but don’t know for sure. Our financial position is changing with all that’s happened this past year and we should be able to make the GH house sell now and that will free up our decisions a bit. My job is going well and I really enjoy it. Jo is getting more comfortable in hers as well. We’ll see what life brings us this next year but we’ve proven to ourselves that we can survive away from our comfort zone of Grand Haven. I’m not sure if that’s all that was behind this crazy idea of moving to Vermont but I have no doubt it was part of it. Regardless I am encouraging jo to realize that we can live anywhere in the world and if opportunities should arise we should grab them, even if it’s in Switzerland……especially if it’s in Switzerland!!! J. I am continually amazed at the ability of children to adapt to whatever their circumstance is and ours continue to do so. None of this really phases them and they make due with whatever we throw at them. They have pat answers for nearly every question and unfortunately the answer is usually ‘it’s in storage’. It’s actually quite funny. With everything in storage we have also proven we can make do with far less than we have. In some ways it forces us out more often which is great. Jo and the boys have started ice skating too. Ice rinks are far more prevalent in our area than in Michigan and it’s great to see them get out there. As is usual BJ does it spastically but because of that he learns quickly. Zack is more methodical like skiing and works over and over at something. Sean gets on the ice for 5 minutes then has had enough. I don’t have skates yet but am looking to get some so I can join them and they also have beginner hockey leagues which I would like to join. We actually do our skating in Rouses Point NY because it’s closest. I’m going to wrap this up now (Just arrived in New Buffalo) as I gotta pee so I’ll try and do better with the frequency of updates. Hope all is well with everyone and we’ll chat soon.
Further update…..We actually arrived in Chicago ahead of schedule and I hopped the blue line out to O’Hare and am chilling out watching planes take off. A few 747’s have gone off and it made me think of what we’ll fly to China when we eventually go. The wait is still unsure and I’m guessing still a few years out. Hopefully we’ll get an idea if things are speeding up with the March referrals. One good side effect of the wait is that many some families are opening themselves up to Children of Promise adoptions witch is children with special needs. So selfishly it helps us shorten our wait when someone does this but it also is helping more of the special needs kids get adopted. It’s not something I believe I could do but I applaud those that can. I just glanced out the window which I have been doing every 3 or 4 minutes as I write this but this time it was snowing. Just let me get out of here tonight. It’s 1:15 Central and my flight is out at 4:27 so I can’t imagine the snow will be a problem.

Link to ice golf news clip:
Once at the page click on the video feed shown right below the article title. I am the one in a yellow and grey jacket with a plaid traditional golfer’s hat. The little guy with me is Zack.

http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=7886714&nav=4QcS

Link to Fishing Derby clip:
Once at the page click on the video feed shown right below the article title. Jo is in the light blue jacket and BJ is in the orange and grey jacket with matching hat. They are also in the background skating when the guy is talking about the miniature zambonie.

http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?s=7813357

Visitation and Funeral for Joey's Mom

2007-12-27T18:44:00.000-08:00

Here is the skinny.....
Visitation is Saturday from 4-7pm. http://www.vbkfuneralhome.com/ Spring Lake Location

Funeral Sunday at 2pm at Christ Community Church. This is directly across the street from the funeral home.

If you visit the funeral home web site you can leave a message for the family if you'd like. I checked tonight and June hasn't been added yet but will be tomorrow.

Thank you all for all the support you've shown Jo and our family. We'll try and put life back together this next year and will start as soon as we burn all our 2007 calenders!

Thanks,
Jim

June Ellyn DeBoer June 4 1947 - December 27 2007

2007-12-27T07:12:00.000-08:00

June Ellyn DeBoer (Joey's mom) passed away this morning at about 8:45. This has been a long and hard battle with cancer and one she fought to the end. I hope that the family can not only grieve for June but also for Dale (Joey's dad) whom the family lost in August. I will follow up with more details as plans are made.
Jim

Skiing, China, June, & Lots O' Snow

2007-12-17T14:38:00.000-08:00

First and foremost, I wanted to update you on June’s(Jo’s mom) health, for those of you new to the blog. Jo lost her dad somewhat unexpectedly this August. I say somewhat because we new he was battling liver disease and we new time was limited but it came on a bit unexpectedly. It also came during a time that June found out her cancer was back and the outlook was not positive. Jo has been going home the past few weekends to try and help out her siblings who have been caring for June. Her brother Pete stops by daily to see June and her sister Dawn has delayed starting her job to move in with June. They all want to be with June as much as possible as we get near the end of June’s battle. And a battle it has been! June has not just lain down and taken this. She’s fought it and I know her children are proud of her for fighting. I know Dale would be proud too. We are all hoping that we can see this thru one more Christmas and then move forward from there. It might not happen but it won’t be for lack of effort. Hang in there Who-neigh(nickname for June)!
China – I believe all of you know that we are adopting a little daughter from China. We received our LID (LogInDate) on June 13 2007. Put simply, that is when you ‘get in line’. The line however is currently 24months to get your referral, and you will typically travel 6-8 weeks after you accept your referral. So, we are roughly ¼ the way through our wait. Recently though I have gotten on Bethany’s(Adoption Agency) web site and joined their web forum. I did this for many reasons but maybe the most driving reason was that we needed to be focusing on the great events coming in our lives yet. Everyone has ‘the worst year ever’ at some point in there lives, and I think that year is 2007 for Jo. It’s hard to see another year worse than this. However it hasn’t totally been down. After all we did get thru the primary paperwork portion of our adoption and getting the word from Belinda our Adoption Specialist(Sorry if I got your exact title wrong Belinda) that we had our LID was equivalent to finding out you were not just pregnant but pregnant with the daughter you always wanted. I can’t imagine how empty this year would have been without this event happening in our lives. So as I was saying I got on this forum where we could find others going through this and various other stages of the process. As I understand it anyone else who’s paperwork went to China(DTC-Dossier to Country I think) on the same day ours did is now grouped with us and we will travel together to China. So I thought it might be nice to contact these people and also it helps me keep track of how the timing is going for other families adopting. I found one couple with our same DTC/LID. I’ve sent them a message but have not heard from them yet. They may not be interested in chatting at this point and that’s fine. We’ve found it an odd emotional trial with the waiting process. I know I’ve had to keep my excitement tempered because I’d be burned out by the time the actual adoption was here if I didn’t. That’s been the hard part, you can’t help but feel guilty that you don’t hang on to the ultra-high excitement of adopting a daughter the whole time you are waiting but we realized pretty quickly we’d burn-out if we tried. So, with that in mind I am now trying to start to slowly ramp my brain back up to this event. I am still learning Mandarin in my car on the way home from work, and we are finding ourselves drawn to anything and everything Chinese. I truly can’t wait for our daughter and more so I can’t wait for Jo to have the daughter she truly deserves.
I don’t know where all that was going other than you will probably be hearing more and more about China in these blogs and I have had many disconnected thoughts swirling in my head the last week or so about this. So now they are swirling in your head…..have fun with them, believe me we are!
We got our first real snow storm. Sunday morning we woke up to about 8 inches of snow from the first wave of the storm. We shoveled out and ran down to Costco realizing we probably weren’t going to ski as I don’t think the boys were thawed from Saturdays skiing. It was also going to be a slow agonizing drive so we just got some groceries and things. We happen to make this run between the two primary storm waves and then came back home to settle into the Patriots game. I think I’ve mentioned how nice it is to root for a team that wins. The second wave of snow came that afternoon and dumped another 10 inches. The wind was really not much and drifting was at a minimum but this morning the wind is whipping. We did have school but probably shouldn’t have. The roads were still icy. They would have been better leaving a thin layer of snow instead of scraping it all off to expose ice. The Mini Cooper looked like a big snow drift. Maybe more like an igloo, pretty funny trying to find it this morning. From what everyone is saying this much snow at this time is not normal for here. It’s sure is making our season passes to Smuggs worth it. I think we only have to go a couple more times before they pay for themselves.
On the subject of Skiing….We went Saturday and it was about 8deg. We dropped Jo off at the airport went to get the car battery looked at and then to the ski shop. I wanted to get some face coverings so the guys wouldn’t have any exposed skin. I also had to buy some goggles and then a harness/leash thing for Sean. I wanted everyone to go to the top of the mountain but didn’t dare without having control of Sean. So I got on the chairlift with Sean and BJ and Zack got on the one behind us together. I was a bit nervous as this was only the second time BJ had ever gotten on a chairlift but they did awesome. So did Sean, his first time, and he was amazed! We went to the top of Morse mountain which is Smuggs smallest of the three. There is a nice long easy run that we could take. They did great!! BJ and Zack got ahead of us at one point and I hoped they made the right choice of trails because if they didn’t they’d wind up at the wrong mountain base. They made the right call and all was good, but by the time we got back down to the bottom we were all frozen solid. Seany had cold enough toes and fingers that when we got in the warming hut and started to warm up, he got that burning feeling and cried for a few minutes. Have no pity for him…..it was his idea ten minutes later to go back out and do it again!!! We just went halfway up this time. That’s one of the nice things at Smuggs, most if not all of the lifts let you get off halfway up. So we ran down the mountain a bit faster this time and this time Seany was finished. It was half hour before closing anyway. Oh yeah, the harness I got for Sean. This is very odd, it works really well but I felt like I was driving a lone little pony or reindeer the whole time. It’s got two clips on each end of the strap and you connect both ends to him and that way you have two straps and you can kind of turn him based on where you want him to go, just like reins on a horse. They also clip at his front which is nice for being able to pull him on flat areas. What a great idea. It really enables us to go anywhere we want the older two boys to go. The other weird thing is that I can’t use my poles! I can’t tell you the last time I went down a ski hill with no poles. I also had to snowplow all the way down. Talk about thigh and quad burning! Anyway, BJ wanted to do a few more runs on the kid hill and Zack said he wanted to go halfway up the mountain again. So it was decision time. Zack has shown so much responsibility and determination skiing that I found it was an easy decision. I let him go solo on the mountain as long as he only went halfway up. I told BJ he could go with Zack but had to stay with him the whole way. BJ just wanted the kid hill though. So Sean and I walked into the warming hut and got our regular boots on and warmed up. It was only about ten minutes and I see BJ with skis in hand walking to the chairlift. I know he’s distracted enough and single-minded enough to ride it by himself. He’s not trying to defy me he’s just hyper focused on riding the mountain and how much fun it is and has apparently forgotten the rules. So I decided to go intercept him. To my surprise he stopped short of the lift line and looked up the mountain waiting for Zack. This was a very welcome display of discipline on his part and I was pretty proud that he was going to follow the rules I laid out for him which was only to go up the mountain with Zack. When I got to him I told him what a good job he had done. He decided he was too cold and was going to call it a day. That’s when I new it was time to call it a day. That boy would never come in out of the snow normally. Zack showed up a minute later beaming about his independence to make a mountain run on his own. I told him he had time to make one more run if he wanted but he too had enough. I forgot to mention, Zack also was running through a real basic kids slalom course that was set up on the kids hill. For only the fifth time being on skis I was pretty impressed. He’s really worked hard on learning how to turn. So I thought it was time to have him take the next step. Poles! Yep, we got him a set of ski poles, and he promptly tried to start a sword fight. Well, I think we all did that too when we got our first ski poles. I have this Friday off and will hit the slopes most if not all day. Jo and the boys have half a day and provided there is not an urgent need to get home for June, she is finally going to join us on the mountain the second half of the day.
Well, that’s it for today. I didn’t proof read this so sorry for any errors or hard to read sentences.
Catch you all later,
Jim

Ski, Ski again and then ski some more!

2007-12-09T17:55:00.000-08:00

I had Friday off this week and decided to take advantage of it by skiing but had some things to do first. I had to go to Jo's school and help him set up for his Michigna journal presentation. He was given an assignment when he went home to do a journal. So I thought it would be better for him to put it into a powerpoint presentation so we did and Zack told me exactly what pictures he wanted to take and exactly what to write and I just did the technical part. I wrote it to a CD with its own viewer. So all you have to do is put it in and it starts by itself. This was far too complicated for his teacher who I truly don't think can turn a computer on. Yes, I have issues with this......moving along, so we ran it on the library computers and I didn't get out of there until 11:15. I also knew I had to have some ski boot work done so I took off for the mountain. I only wound up making five runs but they were awesome. It turns out they opened up all three mountains so I loved it. I can't even explain how awesome it wasor how much my quads burned. I did bite it twice though, the first was low light in a light flurry and I didn't pick up a bump in the middle of a turn, so it threw me up a bit and I over-rotated and backed off the side of the slope right into a huge very soft drift that was actualy a small pine tree. The problem was that I was sitting in the drift and when I put my poles down to push out they just kept going down so I was a bit stuck and laughing at myself didn't help either. I did get out and continued down the mountain thru a cloud by the way. That's a new one for me! I went home and we had some frieds over for some consumables and also, ( this next part is odd) some prime rib. This corner gas station/convenience store/grocery store/restaurant makes prme rib to go on Fridays for like $15 which includes a veggie and baked potatoe. Now this is not some tasteless chewy prime, this was nearly an inch and a half thick very nicely done prime rib. It was great!! So Jo had a few drinks and had to be on the road by 8 to get to Connecticut where her flight was out of. She was a bit hung over in the morning. BJ had a birthday party to go to (his girlfriends!) It was in Burlington at a Chuck E Cheese copy place oddly enough called Zacharys Pizza. Side story to this is how much Mikayla loves BJ. Her mom overheard me say Monday that I was taking the boys skiing and assumed we were not coming so she crossed us off the list. Well, Mikayla saw that and threw a fit like nobodys business!!! We got it straightened out in the end and things are back to normal, but it was quite an issue for an evening and morning after when she found out. So we dropped him off sat at 11:00 and Sean and Zack and I went to get a ski rack for the car......Yep, the four of us were packing ourselves in the mini with all the skis, boots, etc inside with us. Quite funny actualy. Things are much better now with the rack though. We had some other things to do too and got them done during the party. We took off for the Smuggs at 1:00 and had two hours to ski before close. It was a blast and the boys did unbelievable. Especially the human rocket BJ. This was only his third time on skis and he was already launching down the birm which is above the learning hill. This is about a 7 to 8 ft drop at a 45deg angle. It's awesome to watch how comfortable he is with skis on. It's a little spooky how in control of his balance he is. So he just goes crazy and figures it out as he goes along. Zack is much more methodical and takes one little suggestion or piece of instruction and then goes and works on it. Seany is still young enough to not really care if he learns much and is totally happy to just go. He's doing well also. The two hours went quick but it was enough to get them tired and to give them a burning, and I mean burning desire to get back there. We got up this morning after sleeping in to about 9 and got up and going after packing some lunches. We hit McD's for breakfast and got to the mountain by about noon. So we had four hours to ski. They made the most of it. By the end of the day I brought Zack and BJ half way up the smallest of the three mountains on the lift and they loved it. At the end of the day I brought Zack up to the top of that mountain and he was pretty blown away. I have added some pictures of the guys skiing so enjoy. Well, I'm gonna call it a night. I too am tired from being in the fresh mountain air all weekend. This type of weekend is a major reason why we moved here and it looks like the guys are happy about it. Now we just gotta get momma JoJo out there but she needs to take care of June as her first priority.

Later,

Just a quicky.......

2007-12-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

Ski season has begun!!!! Although we went last Saturday cause Jo was in Spring lake with June and it said the kid area was open but not the tow-bar. It didn't say the magic carpets were not going! so when we get there we see parents pulling/pushing their kids to the top and then chasing them back down. So as a good dad I said "Start walkin' boys". Just kidding! I went back to the car and put my work boots on and then proceeded to latch one child on each of my ski poles and hauled them up and turned them around and let them go. I gave them that all important advice first though, "If somethings gets in your way or you are going to hit something, Fall!" They did a great job although the quiet daredevil Sean tended to wait til the last possible minute probably in an attempt to give dad a heart attack! I am including a picture of the kids but unfortunately it was in the parking lot after so no action shots. As you will also notice the expression on BJ's face. That's no trick of the light, he's pissed at dad. His meds and my patience wore off at the same time. I think I just told him I was duct taping him to the roof of the car for the ride home. You can see Seany is happy with that prospect.

Moving on.....Jo is back and forth to Michigan every weekend to visit June. Things are not getting any better an we are hoping for the best. Her superintendent has been very understanding of her missed time and we are thankful for that. So we'll keep going forward one day at a time and see what happens.

Two quick things: Our address is - PO BOX 15 North Hero, VT 05474

The other is that I am hearing of people who want to be copied on the blog but the problem is that I'm not getting e-mail addresses for these people. So I state again, if you think someone would like to read it, forward it to them, then forward their e-mail address to me and I'll make sure they are on the update list in the future.

That's it for tonight, sorry for the brevity. You know, 'so little to do and so much time......strike that, reverse it!' (Name that movie).

P.S. going skiing this Friday as it's my day off....Then the boys and I are going again on Saturday...BoooYaaaah! Everyone is always welcome especially to come skiing/boarding. We have 5 or 6 major ski destinations within about 2 hours drive. We have the room so please call or e-mail us. A few only about an hour including Smuggs.

A new home, well atleast a new rental home!

2007-11-13T18:22:00.000-08:00

Well once again I'm late with an update, but we moved in that time period so it's kind of an excuse. The new house is great. We have way more space and modern appliances and a great view across Lake Champlain to the East with the Green Mountains as the backdrop. We have lots of room outdoors too and a big beach area for the guys to go rock hunting. The boys found a rock with a bunch of quartz crystals on it out there and spend hours trying to chip it off. It's very

cool. They are really adapting to this whole adventure. we also have room for guests now. It's only 12 hours from GH to here so I don't want any excuses!

Jo is back in Michigan for two weeks with the boys. June's health is slipping and Dawn needed some time to go to training for her new job. She also needed some time with her family together. So Jo talk

ed to her Super' and they let her go home for a few weeks. We'll have to take it week by week after that, but we'll try and get her home every weekend to see her mom. I fly home next Wednesday, yes you read that right, next Wednesday the busiest flying day of the year. it should be an adventure.

On a different front, we ordered our season ski passes to Smugglers Notch a week ago. I'm excited to be able to go skiing so easily here and on real mountains. The snow is already flying in the upper elevations. You can check out the snow reports on Stowe and Smuggs web sites. They are both claiming that they will open on November 23rd so you never know. You can bet I'll get out there every Friday off that I have. I'm guessing some of those Fridays we can convince the principal to let our kids out of school at noon so they can enjoy the mountains. It's really pretty neat to get up one morning and see the mountain tops covered in snow. I tried to get a picture of Mt Mansfield (Stowe

) but you can only just tell it's got snow on it. Just to let you all know what we are in for here, everyone still gets snow tires for the winter here. So me and my Mini are going to get some good ol' knobbys pretty soon! I was thinking of close pinning a few playing cards on the spokes too for that little extra bit of flair!

I'm going to post some pictures put in this now and that takes some time to upload on my dial-up. so I'm going to keep watching my Band of Brothers DVD's while doing that. Catch you all later and have a happy holiday.

The "Powers" that be....

2007-10-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry for delay everyone. We’ve been a bit busy, plus it’s just not a convenient computer/internet situation. It couldn’t be much more uncomfortable of a place to sit a computer. That is both bad and good. Bad because I don’t get things like this done but good that I don’t sit surfing the web for mindless reasons. Enough of the whining, on with the blog…..
We were back in Michigan last weekend for an extended time as Jo had Thursday and Friday off, so I took them off too. We got a chance to do a few things while home that we both needed and wanted to get done. Also my parents came home from their Russia trip that Friday night and that was very cool to hear about. They also brought back a few things for us all which were very cool as well. We’ve been back to Michigan two times in two weeks and now we won’t be back until turkey time. It’s a long drive for the boys and they have been troopers but it’s time to slow down a bit for them at least. We also are moving houses this next weekend into a 4 bedroom two floor home on Lake Champlain. It’s only about a half mile up the road but is a much nicer place. So we are looking forward to that. We did move just over half our stuff this past weekend to another storage facility that is half the cost. We’ll have to move the rest as well, but some of that we’ll get some people to chip in. This time I loaded a 24 foot truck all day Friday and Jo helped me unload it all at the new facility. It also gave us a chance to go thru many of the 250 boxes to see where some things are that were missing, like winter coats!
Next weekend Zack has a big cub/boy scout verterans day parade he is walking in somewhere in southern Vermont. I guess this is a big to-do as I think the entire Vermont scouting groups are invited. My understanding is that that is all that’s in the parade is scouts and veterans. Sounds very cool. On the subject of the boys, we have two Transformers(Sean & BJ) and one Harry Potter (in quidditch outfit)(Zack) for Halloween this year. I’ll try and post some pictures for you. We went to a locally sponsored Halloween party last night that the rec department puts on for kids. It was really nice and they had fun stuff for the guys to do. Oh yeah, I totally forgot, BJ broke his left hand pinky two weeks ago, right above the second knuckle. No displacement so nothing had to be ‘set’ which is always good. It was very close to the growth plate and there was disagreement by the doctors whether or not it was at the growth plate but regardless it’s stiff treated the same way. So he’s had a big old bendy splint on his fingers which is usually bent in some origami looking thing by the end of the day cause he can’t leave it alone. He also turned 6 this past month (11th).
Jo and I are doing well, we are both busy at work, which is good. We are making some friends and they have been very good to us inviting us over often for Friday nights. Not much to report on that front. I did get my new taillights for my Mini Cooper. Zack, Sean and I put them in today. Really easy! I know most of you don’t care but they just look more snazzy, yes that’s right snazzy! See for yourself.

A quick story for you all about how we came home here last weekend after driving 12½ hours. It was about 6:30 Sunday night and was just past dusk. So visibility was not great but not total night either. It was dark enough to not be able to see which of the windows in the house was unlatched before I ripped the screen out to gain entry. Yes I know, it’s not the preferred method of entering a house but you see when we have the house key on the key ring that is sitting in the house we are attempting to enter, you must resort to some drastic measures. So I thought, ‘no big deal I’ll just get my trusty flashlight from the camper….which…is….in….the…..house….damn! foiled again!’ Alas a solution presented itself that allowed me to identify a window that was unlatched. Before I tell you my solution and how I came to be in possession of the solution keep in mind I’ve just driven 12½ hours in the car and am not totally grumpy but nor am I in a cheery mood. Moving on….So I’m somewhat pissy with the situation and then I remembered my good friend Craig Powers….No Craig, being pissy does not make me think of you, I was just trying to think thru some potential solutions and I remembered that I had just been given one of those pocket tools that folds up and has pliers, screw drivers, etc. But this one had one extra trick up it’s sleeve, it had an LED light on it that was surprisingly bright. Boyaah!, from pissy to ecstatic. And where, you ask, did I get such a unique, situation saving item such as that! You guessed it, Craig Powers! He gave it to me the night before back in Grand Haven. So thanks to Mr. Powers, I did find a window that was unlocked, I did successfully break into our rental house, and I was able to calm down and have a reasonably peaceful night after that. So to you Craig, I tip my hat, for without your need to give away your collected trinkets in an effort to lighten your load prior to heading on your next life adventure, I believe I would have ripped down as many as four screens in the house prior to finding an unlocked window and therefore have four screens to repair prior to leaving next weekend. We all extend our thanks!

I’ll leave you with tonight’s activities……

And These Are The Days Of Our Lives.......

2007-10-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

And These Are The Days Of Our Lives……….

It’s Friday today. The Friday that I work. (For those of you who don’t know, I work a 9/80 schedule which means I work 80 hours in 9 work days which gives me every other Friday off.) No major plans this weekend for once, although it is Apple Festival on South Hero this weekend and from what we hear it’s pretty big. Well, big for Vermont! Jo is becoming more at ease and comfortable in her job and I am still enjoying mine. I am also enjoying my new-to-me Mini Cooper and have been online looking for upgrades/add-ons. I’ve got my eye on buying the checkerboard mirror side mirror casings to match the roof and also a much cooler rear tail light assembly. Other than that I don’t know what more I’m going to do. I don’t want to put too much money into it and the things I am going to do are pretty cheap.
The boys are doing well and have been riding the bus home with classmates a couple times this week and hanging out at their houses, so they are definitely making friends.
I started playing at an indoor (gym) soccer pickup league this last week. Wow, am I out of shape!!!! I thought my heart was going to explode. I also strained a calf muscle that hasn’t really improved yet so I’ll have to watch it this next Monday. Getting old sucks! I am going with a friend of ours, Danielle. She’s pretty good at soccer and we have kids the same ages. She’s the one who started the kids soccer program that Jo and I have been helping with, and the boys have been participating in. I am hoping this off season we can sit down with some neighboring towns and expand the program.
Zack is in full Cub Scout mode now and since we have no idea where his uniform is right now we are going to have to buy him a new one. He is a wolf this year and we are very proud of his enthusiasm for the scouts. His den leader lives on a big farm and so he is going to get a great education about farm life this year. I’m toying with the idea of getting into scouts because I think they need a tiger leader. Zack is also in his popcorn drive so we’d love for you to order something from him. Click here for a link so you can see what he is selling. I’ll have to supply prices some other way. Zack would really love to have your support with this as he can earn a patch for it and it really helps their funding for the year. So call with questions or for prices if you’d like. 616-402-4652. Zack is also really developing an athletic zest. He loves soccer, but also football. He really likes all sports but has latched onto these lately. Know for the engineering geek side, he likes to watch Modern Marvels on the history channel with me and just recited some fertilizer facts to BJ yesterday after watching the Modern Marvels on fertilizer a couple days earlier. That’s just darn funny to me! He also really liked the one on the building of the Mackinac Bridge.
Seany is also making friends at school and already has his favorites. He is doing great and they love him there. We have had a few notes about how he has been a real example for the rest of the kids. For those of you who haven’t seen him lately or interacted with him, he is very in control of his body language and facial expressions. Well beyond what BJ and Zack could do at that time. I don’t know how to explain it, but if you spend only 5 minutes with him he’ll have you laughing.
BJ is doing well also and academically doing well in school. He’s struggling a bit socially but that is because he is overdue for a meds increase. He is big into catching frogs right now and I think he really likes living in the sticks out closer to nature. He too is finding friends, and doesn’t know it yet but he has a girl friend. It’s a little girl from his class, a real spitfire, who has a big crush on him. I guess she’s been writing her name and BJs with hearts all over her house. Of course he, like his dad, is clueless about that stuff. I’m not clueless now but back then I was.
We went home last weekend and got to see everyone. The only downside of the trip was that Pete & Mandy have had a pretty major setback to their pregnancy and their bid for children. I don’t want to go further into that as I’m sure they don’t want details broadcast over the internet. We did get to go to the symphony with June and Dawn as well as out to dinner at Arboreal. Both were great and we were very thankful for the night out with adults and also to my parents for once again answering the babysitting call. Every once in a while you do something as an ‘adult’ that makes you feel, well, like an adult….The symphony was one of those things and I found myself not only enjoying the music but also people watching. The majority of people were older but they all looked like they were enjoying themselves and I realized so was I. Go figure, an uncultured beast like me enjoying the symphony. What’s next, cats and dogs living together? Britney Spears getting a clue? The government actually getting something done? A presidential candidate that we can actually vote FOR instead of the least of two evils?........Sorry, got side tracked there for a moment. Damn near got up on a soap box. Back to the symphony thing…….So here is your hypothetical question to ponder for the week. Is it best to make your kids go to things like the symphony when they are young and totally disinterested therefore risking that they grow an aversion to such things until they are much older, or is it best to give them much smaller snippets thru some other way hoping they’ll show interest by themselves or at least not get an aversion and therefore be open to it much younger in their adult life? (I am contacting Guinness to see if that qualifies for the longest sentence in history) Regardless, talk amongst yourselves……Oh yeah, if I just sparked off a spousal argument…….it was Joeys idea, yeah right, Joeys idea!
June is doing alright but finding this round of chemo a bit more taxing than the previous round. It was good for not only Jo but all of us to get to see her. Obviously we are all concerned about the future and where things are going to go. On the subject of Jo’s parents, we continue to get cards from people showing they are thinking of us, both in concern for June and in memory of Dale. It’s greatly appreciated.
Jo is getting more comfortable in her job but she has also has some major challenges that are not normal to an incoming new principal and they have kept her from adapting as quickly as if she had come into a previously decently run school. It has been interesting to watch her truly become a more confident, stronger person. She certainly takes less crap from me. Oh well, it’s easily worth it. She works hard and is learning to adapt to a different schedule. Maybe I’ll have her add onto this herself.
I think that’s it for now, feel free to leave feedback to this, I think there is a link below. Also, you may be able to subscribe to this blog so you know when it updates. I don’t know for sure though. Check around on this site and let me know. Lastly, for all you Michiganders, I just wanted you to know what it’s like to cheer for a winning football team. By that I mean consistently winning. It’s Fantastic! It’s Great! BooYah! Go Patriots! Doesn’t that sound like fun? I still cheer for the Ly-Downs, but now I can cheer for a team I know has a chance to win consistently, it certainly is nice.

PS. Please forward my ‘blog update’ e-mail to anyone you think might be interested. When you do, also send their e-mail to me and I’ll add them to my ‘Blog update’ email group. If you do figure out how to ‘subscribe’ to the blog and get automatic notification of a blog update from the blog site, let me know and I’ll take you off the ‘blog update’ email group. If you’d just like to forget about us and live a normal life without these pestering e-mails……tough, your stuck!!!! Just kidding, let me know and I’ll remove you in a year or two.

At The Edge Off The Cliff

2007-09-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

It’s been too long since my last update which was about July 20. I believe the last you heard was our house was about to sell and we had put an offer in on a nice country house here. Well, on or about July 25, we got word that the house deal in Grand Haven was about to fall thru. TWO DAYS before they were scheduled to close! We were absolutely angry, frustrated, and flabbergasted! That’s right flabbergasted!!! Of course this meant our house deal here had to fall thru as well. We were not happy. Keep in mind we had moved out of our hotel on the 22nd and were living in our camper. So we had no house, Jo had no job, and we just felt overwhelmed. So I get home that night and Jo had to go to an interview for a principal on North Hero Island in Lake Champlain. She really didn’t want to go but it was the second round and she was one of three candidates. She was also pretty crushed about the house issues we had that day and was probably not projecting the normal happy JoJo that we all know and love. Well she went and I was in the camper with the kids all grumpy about the house. That was not a happy couple hours that Jo was at her interview. She went and got home about 9:00pm feeling like she had at least presented herself well but also pretty confident that she didn’t get the job. It’s 50 minutes from Burlington to that school so we weren’t all that depressed that she was not going to get that job. 10 minutes later the phone rang and she was offered the job!!! We lived many emotions that day and while it wound up positive, I never want to do it again.

Keep in mind Jo wasn’t at all sure she wanted to do this principal thing because she thought it would keep her from the kids too much, and it might, but she decided to give it a try. Thus begins her frequent trips ‘To the edge of the cliff……’ Figuratively speaking of course. She would come as close to panic attacks as I’ve ever seen. Literally day to day. Keep in mind there were several other things going on too. We were living in the camper, her dads health was not great but he was staying relatively even, and her mom seemed to be getting sick again and had scheduled a doc apt to find out what was going on. I on the other hand was in charge of talking her back from the edge of the cliff every other day. Really no big deal in comparison. So things seemed to be looking up, and I think we even said that. Whoooops! Was that the wrong thing to think.

On July 29 Jo drove home with the 3 boys, the long way below the lakes, to be with her mom who had found out her cancer was back and was going to have surgery that Tuesday the 31st. The trip went fine and she was able to hang with her family as June had surgery. The outcome was not good and nor was her prognosis. They were not able to get the cancer out and she was given a limited amount of time left to live. This was very hard to take because she had conquered so well in her previous round. I joined Jo at home for Coast Guard weekend and also to help her drive back, this time thru Canada because we’d gotten copies of the boys birth certs because the normal copies were in storage.

This too would not go as expected. We got to Port Huron and upon entering Canada, we found that the County Clerk had made a mistake and given us two for Sean, one for Zack and none for BJ. Turned out not to be a big deal and we figured we would have time to deal. Wrong again. We drove all day Sunday and got home on August 5th. It would be only 4 short days later before we’d be back in Grand Haven but not for June’s health but for Dale’s. We got a call that Wednesday saying he’d been found collapsed at his home. We figured it was just another episode of his ammonia levels being too high and he’d come out of it. Turns out it was much more than that. He had pneumonia and many other problems and his body could no longer fight. June was released from the hospital in time to say good bye and everyone else was able to as well. He passed away that weekend and his memorial service was August 16. Sometimes life just slaps you in the face and for Jo, this last year and a half has been one big slap. Ups, downs, then more downs, and some ups. It’s made for a lot of days ‘at the edge of the cliff’. (I’ve barely touched on this phase, not because I don’t feel it’s significant, but because it’s still pretty hard for all of us to deal with, especially Jo.

Well we got back and Jo started work right away. We were still in the camper and shortly after getting back we had a communication problem with the office and they gave our spot away. So with less than 24 hrs warning we had to move our camper to god only knows where. We found a place and it turned out way better than the previous place and it was also on South Hero Island which was closer for Jo. We still needed to find a rental for school time though. We finally found one and right on the water. We’ve been here just over three weeks and it’s been great. My parents and brother Brian came out for Labor day week and it was great to have them here and they are excited for us being here.

So, all things said and done we are actually doing very well. We took the boys to the top of Stowe and the view and ride was awesome. We also stayed at Smugglers Notch with my parents and the kids are amped to go skiing and boarding after staying on the mountain. Frankly, so am I!!!!! We are budgeting to get season passes to Smugglers Notch, or as we locals call it – Smuggs. The leaves are turning already and I can’t wait for my first fall in New England. We still are concerned about June, and hope she can get healthy enough to come out and visit. We will be coming home sometime in October for our annual pilgrimage to Glen Lake to go canoeing. That is if we can find our canoe carrying equipment in storage…….That is our life right now, ‘Storage’, but, we’ll keep plugging and hoping for that one thing that needs to happen, the house sells. Once that happens we’ll be in a much happier place.

I’ll try and get some pictures with the next update, but we are on dial up now and I don’t know how many weeks it takes to upload a file the size of a picture J.

Finally, to everyone who has shown us tremendous support through everything and especially Dorothy & Carroll who have gone above and beyond, we say a huge, and I mean HUGE thank you. So, from the edge of the cliff, I’ll sign off for today.

It’s a few days later now…..Saturday September 22. We didn’t start out to have a big day but we finished that way. First, soccer practice. It’s growing every week. There was no real program here on North Hero but a great mom from Jo’s school started one and Jo and I volunteered to help coach. It started with less than 10 kids and today we about 30. That’s a great turnout and we have fun. So, an hour and half of that and then it time to go into Burlington. We found out the South Burlington High School has an annual ski swap, much like the YMCA from back home. So I was geeked to get there and see what we could do for the boys. I was not disappointed. We got 3 sets of skis, boots, and helmets for under $400. That was great! So it was on to the next stop, BK. Ate lunch, then headed by the used car shop that had the Mini-Cooper I wanted since I’ve been here. It’s been too high a price and I have been able to hold off even though I really want it. We’ll today it was listed at my threshold price. You know, the price you set that says you wont buy it until it drops to such and such a price. So, today I became an ex-gas guzzler and the owner of a red mini-cooper with checkerboard roof. It’s an 03 and I’m pretty excited to get it Monday. I guess I’m getting tree huggery crunchy…….blech! What really sold me was that I took about a 20 minute test drive and 8 minutes into it Seany fell asleep. So he was sold. Lastly we went to Cosco. Enough said about that!

For those of you who don’t know our SBC email is kaput! So Jo and I both have gmail accounts. jimbennink@gmail.com joeybennink@gmail.com Will try and get pictures up soon of the car and the kids ski stuff.

So long for now……….