My big Kindergartener!

Ok, ok! I have already been harrassed by a certain someone (you know who you are!) that I haven't posted any pictures from the first day of school. I apologize. I was waiting for the week to be done, but I guess I can go ahead and post these anyway.

Daryle took the day off of work so he could take Travis to school on his first day. He began the day with a delicious waffle.

Here he is...dressed and ready to go!!
I had Daryle take his picture by the front door...a yearly tradition I have started. This way I can really see how tall he is getting!!
Sitting on the bench out front seems to be a tradition too, I guess. He looks HUGE sitting there!! I think I have a "big kid" on my hands now!!
As you can see, Travis found the playground with no problems!! That cast hasn't slowed him down one bit!

So, as you can see Mr. Travis is now in Kindergarten! He loves school! He really likes his teacher, he has 3 friends from preschool in his class and he is soaking everything up like a sponge. After the first day of school I had Travis on my lap and we were talking about his day. I said, "So, are you ready to go back tomorrow?" Travis replied, very seriously, "No, I think I will take a break!" I about died laughing!!!! I am so thankful I have a child who likes school and is not crying and screaming and hanging onto my leg!! I walk him to the playground and have to grab him to get a kiss before he runs off to play. It is great having him close by all day. I usually peek in on him at lunch, mostly to check that he ate a little something that I packed.

As for an adoption update, we have both had our physicals done and we have the paperwork. I am still waiting for our social worker to call regarding the homestudy. I am glad it wasn't this week, that would have been a little much!!

Emergency Room

Last night poor little Travis fell off the monkey bars in our backyard and broke his arm!! He broke it in two places. He is such a tough guy, it is amazing. He fell and cried, and cried, and cried. We couldn't get him to calm down, which is very unusual. Usually he bounces right back. So, after about 40 minutes of trying to get him to move his fingers, etc we decided to take him to the emergency room. Can you believe we were in and out in just under an hour and a half?? Amazing. He calmed down once the doctor came in the room, thank goodness. After seeing the x-rays and the two breaks we were all shocked that he didn't cry and carry on much more than he did!! (If it was me, I would have been hysterical! I have never broken anything before!) Anyway, I have to call this morning and find out when we can go in and get him a cast. Once we do that I will try to put up a picture of him. I can't believe my "baby" will start Kindergarten not only with 2 big teeth but now with a broken arm too!! And to top it off, I have to go back to work today. Thank goodness Grandpa Hawes is in town to watch him and can stay with him!!! At least I can go to work today and I know he is in good hands. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have too many more emergency room visits with broken bones!

70's Night at the Diamondback's

Those of you who know my husband know what a baseball nut he is!! Last night we had awesome tickets to the Diamondback's game. It also just happened to be 70's night and of course last week we had to pay a visit to Party City so that Daryle could get "proper attire". Well, here he is in all his glory....When we first got to the game, people were giving us funny looks and I could hear them making comments about his hair...most people were wondering if it was real or not!
You can see the awesome view we had from the seats...yes, that is the actual field at our feet!!
Here Travis tried to put on Daryle's baseball hat...it just wouldn't stay put!
Travis tries on the glasses...

Then he tried on the hair!

I think the funniest part of the night was after the game ended. All of a sudden people wanted to have their pictures taken with Daryle, he got high fives and people just had to make funny comments about his outfit. We also found out that he made it onto T.V.!! The commentators even split the screen with Daryle and one of the players. The talked about if his hair was real and if it took a lawn mower to cut it!! Even with all of the craziness we had a great time!! That was a game to remember for sure!! (Ok, stop rolling on the floor now..I know he looks absolutely ridiculous!!!)

We passed the test (we think!)

Last night we had our psych exam. Boy did this test have some interesting questions! You have to answer true or false for each one. There were 375 questions on the test. I guess this test is just checking for mental illness. There were a lot of questions asking about mind control problems, if you thought the world was out to get you, if you take pleasure in other people's problems and things like that. Then it would say things like, would you like to be a librairian? a florist? a park ranger? If you were a reporter would you like to report on theater events? sporting events? violent crimes? It was really wierd and Daryle and I were at the table just cracking up at a lot of these silly questions!! Meanwhile, the guy and Travis were watching The Lion King and Travis thought this was his new best friend. The poor guy was trying to read our autobiographies and Travis was glued to his side. I think the man liked it and he didn't seem to mind. What were we to do as we had to answer these 370+ questions??? So, at the end of the whole thing he told us we of course would pass and that his report would be very favorable. He was very pleasant and funny. Of course Daryle had on his Raiders shirt and the first thing the man said was "Oh, you're a Raider fan? I'm sorry!" Of course he was a Bronco fan!! (For those of you who don't know, the two teams are HUGE rivals!) So, immediately the jokes began as to how it may be questionable if Daryle will pass his exam or not!! In the end it all went well and we are happy to have one more thing behind us. Now, on to the homestudy!!

Fingerprints done!

Yesterday morning we woke up bright and early and got down to the INS office by 8 am. Unfortunately, we were not the only ones who did this! There were only about 6 people in front of us, and we were in and out in about 45 minutes. However, it was pretty funny. All of these foreign people were looking at us and you could just tell they were really curious as to why we were there in the first place!! So, I am sitting and waiting to be called and this older Asian man is sitting next to me and he starts complaining at how this younger Asian guy can't speak English very well (even though the older man had a STRONG accent himself!!). Then, this Asian man tells me he is Canadian!! I thought that was funny! He laughed about it too. Then, I had to go sit with Travis while Daryle waited to do his fingerprints. The younger Asian man came up to me and asked me a question about if he needed a receipt. I was thinking "Do I look like I work here or something?" but I tried to help him and he was satisfied with my answer. Then he says to me "Why you wait here?" and I just looked at him because I wasn't quite sure what he was asking. So, he repeats his question VERY slowly, "Why...you...wait...here?" Again, I just stared because I didn't know if he wanted to know why I was in the office or why I was waiting for Daryle. So, I figured he just had to know why we were there and so I told him we were adopting a child from another country. He seemed to understand that, said, "Oh" and walked off. I couldn't wait to get outside and tell Daryle what happened, we laughed all the way home! I don't know why we found it so funny, but it was!

Ok, for this week we have our psych evaluations on Wednesday evening at 7 and he comes to our house. Next week I have my medical and the week after that Daryle has his. I am also expecting to hear from our social worker sometime this week to get started on our new homestudy. We continue to cross things off of our to-do list! Yeah!

Along with that, I am working on getting information for a fundraiser. We are wanting to do a Casino Night. So far from what I have found out this is how the fundraiser works. People "register" at the door and buy play money. You play the different games with your play money throughout the night. At the end of the night you exchange your play money for raffle tickets and we have a raffle to end the evening. So, if you have any ideas to help me out I would really appreciate it. Also, we will be needing prizes for our raffle, so if you have anything to donate for that just let me know. I am in the very beginning stages of this adventure and I will be needing any and all help. We think this will be a lot of fun!! We don't have an exact date, but we are shooting for mid-October. I'll keep you posted as I get more information!!

Is this really happening???!!

I heard back from the psychologist today and we have our psych exams scheduled for next Wednesday evening at 7. He will come to our house, which will be nice. I had a really nice conversation with him and he seems really funny and nice. Evidentally we have to take a "test" and answer a bunch of questions. Let's hope we answer them right!!! hahaha!! So I guess next week we will be able to schedule our homestudy. We have done that before, so I am not too worried about that part.

I go back to work July 23 and the kids all go back July 28th. Then on top of all of this, I have decided to begin working on my Master's degree! I will begin my first class in August. I met with my advisor today. There are several other teachers doing it with me, it is good to do these things in a group. My hope is to at least get my Reading Endorsement before we get the new baby home. Then, if I have to put off the next half for a year or two I can. Wish me luck!! You know me, I can't just do one thing at a time...that would be much too easy!!!

Homestudy when????

Well, I turned in the remaining paperwork this morning! Hooray!! Now all we need is our medicals (our appointments are July 22 and July 28) and two more reference letters need to be turned in. So, as I turned these in today I was informed to go ahead and schedule the psych evaluations and we can do the homestudy next week...yes, next week!! I said "Next week already??" and she said yes! Oh my gosh, things are moving fast it seems. I often feel like some outside force is just guiding us along here. I feel like I am walking around in a daze regarding this adoption. I was thinking it would be August until the homestudy but now it will probably be done by the end of the month. Now I really feel like I had better get started with some fundraising. Any suggestions??? And just so you all know, I don't think I will be taking on another cookbook. As successful as it was the last time I just don't have the time and patience for that again!! We are thinking of a Casino Night but that is as far as we have gotten. Let me know some good ideas!!

Whew!!!

Ok, FINALLY, Daryle's autobiography is finished!!!!! I think I will be RUNNING it into the office tomorrow just because I am so relieved to have it finished!!

New pictures posted

I added some pictures of our vacation to Santa Rosa. Just click on the link to see what we were up to! (It says SummerVacation)

Things I hope to accomplish this week:

1. Type Daryle's autobiography and turn it in.
2. Get our fingerprints done for INS (after that we will wait for our approval to come....the last time it took something like 8 months...let's hope it goes better this time around!)
3. Turn in the fingerprints for our background check and our apostilled marriage licenses to our agency.

Hopefully we can schedule our psychological evaluations soon! Then we can start the homestudy. I don't know why, but it just seems like things are coming together smoothly and quickly this time around. I hope I didn't just jinx myself though!!

We're back home!

I know I said I would try to e-mail from California, but we were so busy and had such a great time that I just didn't get a chance. I will try to post some pictures later, but first I have to try and figure out how I can keep the pictures I post from going into the photo album of us visiting Travis in Blago. So, if you know how to do that feel free to let me know! Otherwise I will be spending quite a bit of time trying to figure this out.

I couldn't wait to check our mail the minute we got home. First, our apostilled marriage licenses came back from California (WHOO HOO!!) and we each got our invitations from INS to get our fingerprints done next week (DOUBLE WHOOO HOO!!). Looks like we are on our way!