Days of first

Jake took a big step in his life today, as he entered "Big Boy School," and I'm not sure how I have felt about my Little Man growing up this summer right before my eyes.
I remember the day it happened, on a Saturday, right after one of Jake's friends had a birthday party and Jake decided he wanted his hair buzzed off like his friend. Oh, it wasn't the hair cut, but the way my suave, debonair guy acted afterward.
I have the pictures to prove it: That morning he's grinning like an little imp at the camera during the party and then after his haircut he's all sultry and acting about three times his age.
And that was not all. Suddenly he was half-a-head taller and talking better and coming up with more mature thoughts and plans.
And, now, he is going to school. Yes, he has gone to "school" at daycare, and this is only a half-day 4-year-old program, but it is the beginning of an education that will lead him to great things.
It is the beginning.
No more picking up to take off whenever we feel like it. Now there is school to consider. Bedtimes are earlier and homework will come. There will be questions I don't remember the answers to and angst about various and sundry things that come with childhood.
But we will face them together, as we overcame the first day.
Another day of firsts.
You know, like many children born, Jake came into our lives sort of kicking and screaming, not knowing who we were or really how he came to be in our arms.
Those days are long ago and far away.
We spend so many years planning for our child, even before our adults lives, that it is strange to hold on to them and see the years go by and milestones grow even as his measurements increase on the growth chart.
I always will remember this day, Jake's first day of school, and I look with sadness and anticipation for the rest of our lives.
violet (aka Mommy)

Beach Blast

We spent last week at the beach, well, as close as we are going to get for awhile. LOL
Beach Blast vacation Bible school ended Friday with a final program and a hot dog supper.
The kids were a blast to work with, and Jake had a lot of fun, especially since his friend Marossie attended, too.
Jake's favorite lesson was learning about Jesus dying on the cross. We talked about why he did it, which was to save all of us so we can all get together in heaven!
Of course, his favorite thing was playing with friends.
Here he is in the final program singing a little Beach Blast!

Artist at work

Jake must have been inspired Wednesday because he turned out 5 major pieces of art.

The first two are pencil drawings he did at pre-school, the other three after school and karate using different mediums.

This is Daddy going into outer space. He's heading to the moon and planets, although he better watch out. The round object to the left of the top of his spaceship is Darth Vader's spaceship.



That's Peter Rabbit on the right side of the paper going out of his house and about ready to go through the gate to Mr. Macgregor's garden. He better be careful he doesn't get caught. Jake was sneaky in this work. In the lower left you can see he wrote his name backwards. Very clever.



This is Cinderella's castle.



This one is an ocean scene. From left at the bottom are an eel, a sting ray and a leatherback sea turtle. The sting ray turned the water orange for some reason. We think he learned about leatherback sea turtles from watching "Diego." At the top is someone's beach house.



Finally, we have a self-portrait simply titled "Jake Throwing Up." He was going to stay overnight at Grandpa and Grandma's house a couple of months ago, but for some reason he got sick to his tummy and threw up. This is his rendition of that night. Personally, it's our favorite of the works he did Wednesday.

Chopsticks and water pistols

Last week's China heritage camp inspired us to trying cooking more Asian foods, so we started this week with some recipes shared by our cooking instructor during the camp's adult workshops.
We made fried rice, sweet and sour pork and egg-drop soup.


While ours was not as delicious as what we tasted last week, we were happy to say it was pretty good and well-received, and we had a lot of fun making Chinese dishes for Jake. And we even tried our hand at eating with chopsticks, which Jake loved!




Afterward we reconnoitered in the backyard for a long-overdue water gun fight, a welcome blast on a hot day!





We finished off our heritage evening with a trip to Meadowlake Park in hopes the train was running. Well, the heat got the train, so we settled for sno cones, which was a great runner-up treat.

China Heritage Camp

We just spent the past few days in Tulsa at Dillon International's China Heritage Camp.
It was a blast. There were some 260 children from China at the camp. It was our first year to go, but some of the kids have been going for 10 years. They divide the kids up according to ages, and they had classes in arts and crafts, dance, language, cooking and kung fu.

We think Jake had a good time. He tells us he did, but he also says his favorite part was swimming in the hotel pool. Oh well, what do you expect from a 4 1/2 year old? One of the best parts for us was that the kids were the majority for a change. It was the non-Chinese kids who were the exception rather than the rule.

They also had classes for parents, including language and cooking, and they had one about heritage trips. It was fun for us adults, too.

It was a three-day event, so they weren't able to get really in depth on things, but it still was a great experience we would definitely encourage those interested to look into.

The group that did the lion dance at the opening ceremony was really good.



Jake's in the tie-dyed shirt, looking at the lion.



After, he posed with the lion.



Playing around during dance class.



I just had to add one more photo. This is one of Jake's group singing ... OK, Jake didn't sing, but he did the sign language ... "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" in his native language. I actually cried. I didn't realize how moving his performing to Chinese would be and how special China would become to me. I hope it is as special to him some day. violet

Jake's learning new skills

We enrolled Jake in a Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan martial arts class. He's been to 3 classes so far and seems to be enjoying it.
Last week, just happened to be their shim sa (testing) and Jake knew enough to get an orange stripe on his belt.

He also broke a plastic board with his foot. It is a board that breaks if you kick it right, and they can put it back together for the next kid, but Jake did kick it right and broke it. It took him a couple of tries, and when he broke it he seemed surprised but then he smiled big.

Here he is showing off his new stripe.



And here he is recreating his powerful kick.



Look out Chuck Norris!

3 years ago ... it all changed

Three years ago today (April 17) our world changed.

We were in JCPenney buying some last-minute things for our trip to Chicago for the East Meets West conference when my cell phone rang. It was Great Wall, and they had a "kiddo" whose file they wanted us to take a look at. Since we were in town, we hurried over to work and checked the e-mail.

This was one of the first photos we saw.



From that moment on, we knew we had found our son. Who couldn't fall in love with that face? Luckily for us one of the guest speakers at the conference was an international adoption doctor who had adopted 4 girls from China. He reviewed our file and we decided to go for it.

Three years later life is definitely good.