At the fireworks

4th of July with the Hill's

Aunt Laura, Grandpa Jack, Daniel, Katy

Justin helping Uncle Mark and Uncle Michael with the corn.

Parking is always an issue at the lake house. It's a driveway you'd think would fit 3 or 4 cars. Well, because of Uncle Mark's expertise he was able to fit 2 full sized Tahoe's, 1 large Suburban, a 15 passenger van, 1 mini van, a Jetta and 1 Toyota Highlander. Quite an accomplishment. The overflow was across the street. We thought about stacking Tom's Fox.

4th of July parade in Sharon, WI

We went to the 4th of July parade in Sharon, WI. The DeL's live there, so we joined them and the R. Erber family, plus Abbey and Josh. We had been to the Sharon parade in years past and what we remember were the great number of fire engines and sirens that seemed to never end; but this year, though there were quite a few fire engines, etc., these were greatly out numbered by tractors. Hundreds of tractors, so we thought! It was a nice time, perfect weather.

The little ones were a little puzzled at first with someone throwing something at them as the parade went by. It did not take them long to realize that candy was being thrown.

Justin

Olivia update, again.

The following was taken from our adoption agency's blog. It is very exciting to see that our LID (as far as Bethany is concerned) is next!!


07/07/2008
REFERRALS!
Category NoneBookmark : Bethany Christian Services just received 5 female referrals and 1 male referral from the Guangxi Province!!! They are for our January 24, 2006 LID group. Congratulations! CCAA has confirmed matching referrals through January 25,2006. Our next LID's are: February 6, 2006, February 20, 2006 and February 22, 2006.Families will be seeing their children's referral information tomorrow!!


China advanced 5 LID days in July. We were hoping for more, but are thankful that they did make progress. China advanced 3 days in May, 8 days in June and 5 days in July. Compare that to 3 years ago when they were taking about 30 LID days for 30 calendar days. China just works its way through the established LID days. The only way someone gets through quicker is if you can be matched with a special needs child or if one or both adoptive parents come from a Chinese heritage. There are 2 LID dates in front of us, in the big picture, 2/26 and 2/27. From 2/28 through 2/5 there are NO LID days, because of the Chinese New Year. So we are hoping we are in the next batch, our LID being 2/6/2006. The 2008 Olympics will be held in Beijing Aug. 8-24, so we're hoping that they at least announce referrals in August, but there are no guarantees.

Until we receive a referral we won't know where we would be traveling or when, so we can't really prepare too much. China is huge and we could be sent almost anywhere in the country. So we keep waiting. Though I can say we are much more anxious these days, thinking that a new little one in our house could happen fairly soon.

C o l b i e concert

Lizzy, Katy, Aunt Laura, Aunt Wendy, Wendy Elise, Dee, Daniel, Tom, Grandpa Jack, Bob



We went to a concert in Milwaukee, which is part of its huge music festival. The event is on a huge parcel of land, 75 acres, so it wasn't wall to people. It was a pretty tame crowd, being mid-week. So things worked out good for us.

Colbie reminds us definitely of her mom, but we could see Aunt Bev in her too. Aunt Wendy was showing off pictures of Colbie of when she was younger.

Brothers

Scaling the walls

I had mentioned on an earlier post that my first 3 were quite active and that they we're known for "scaling the walls". Well little did I know that Justin has been scaling the walls. When Wendy was reading through my previous post about them, she and Ab said, "well have you seen what Justin has been doing?" Yes, he'd been scaling the walls and I thought he was just banging on the hallway walls. Well, then Daniel and the rest of us wanted to see it. Justin kind of wedges himself between the two walls, (it must take some strength and balance), and then he works his way upward. Once Justin did it, Daniel and he had to start messing around together. I'm sure when he was doing it earlier he didn't have a spotter.

A word from Justin....

When the older ones were younger, I often let them say certain words incorrectly...well because they were cute and it's hard to image but none of them were very verbal. (so any words were good, so I thought.) They were scaling walls and moving/running/climbing exceptionally well, but verbal skills were slower. (Just ask any of them for a "mapkin"). Justin has always had a unbelievable grasp of vocabulary and an amazing memory for words, names, cars, etc. So when he comes up with the words that are not quite correct, sometimes I just don't want to correct him. One, because he's cute and second the words he comes up with are often not the average words for a preschooler.



For instance,

Sunday, someone at church was "appetized" (baptized).

He's been asking for the "60 dog dilation book". (101 Dalmatians)

He also enjoys a good Scary Richard book. (Richard Scary)

When we want him to smile for the camera, we just say, "Say Lamborghini".

Addressing Abbey, Justin says, "Sister Erber" or "Sister Erber Girl"

He was surprised to learn that Mommy was married (he was a little worried I would have to leave), but when he ask who I married, I told him that I married Daddy. Hmm....was his reply.

Fun with Abbey

Part of the "fun" of having Abbey around, is trying to keep her fed. When she wants something to eat....she wants it and wants it now. Then we wait around to see if it stays where it needs to stay. So far I don't think we've had any mishaps, a few close calls...

Wipe Out!

After Wendy had a few girls over to slip and slide, between photos taken and the video that Beth shot, Dawn put together a video of the girls slip and sliding here in our backyard. She said we could share it on our blog. Thanks Dawn! and Beth too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khis6NlIOcU&feature=email

Great news...

Ryan had his 6 month testing again, everything came back good.
He still needs to be tested a couple times a year...blood tests, spinal tap, etc.
(just to make sure all is still well.)
All looked good. Yea! Ryan is 2 years post Luekemia treatments.

Bob

2008

Bob loves this. I could post pictures all the way back to 1979, when he almost missed our Senior Prom because he was fishing. (Those pictures might not be safe to post if Michael or Kurt are in them:). 1982 (I think) he caught his first muskie, nearly 4 ft. in length. (47.5 inches.). He fishes with a great bunch of guys (and his oldest son, a few more years till Justin can make the Canada trip.) Sometimes he even takes the entire family and a couple times he took his in-laws. Abbey once said, one of her favorite times is fishing with her dad early in the morning, when it is just the two of them. Daniel and Wendy have said the same and Justin can hardly wait to go fishing.
(Maybe it's just being with dad.) I've even had a few trips out alone with Bob:) I love it when we all go out together, though the boat will be pretty crowded anymore.
I hope I got the dates correct on all the pictures below. It could be the same fish for all I know.
They are all northerns, which are quite tasty.


2007




2000


2005


2005


2006

Kennedy kids

Boys will be boys

paintball

Yummy

Waiting....

Even though the referrals will not come out for awhile, I thought I'd do some updating and just post some info. about our international adoptions. The past few days I've been working at trying to get some paperwork updated. This is the third set of filing of this type of form. The forms are only good for so many months, so we need to keep them updated and which also means more fees We also have to be re-fingerprinted again and More fees. (Maybe our fingerprints changed in the past few months.) We also finished our state requirements, ending with a FBI check. You'll be happy to know that we all checked out OK. When they run our Federal fingerprints we'll be checked out by some other organization. Already being checked by various groups at various times through this whole process. The forms I was working on, are new forms. We are the first ones, for our case worker, to work through this form. So I spent a lot of time wondering if I have completed everything correctly and my case worker could only guess and offer suggestions.

While we wait, I am thankful for the business of an active family, but "Olivia" is always looming out there and often heavy on our minds. Today when I returned from all my document collecting and going to the bank and getting the package mailed off to USCIS, Justin ran out to my car to see if I had brought Olivia home with me.

When we do get a referral, this would mean we would get a picture of a baby girl (we think she would be 8 months to 18 months at the time of referral). We'd also be given her Chinese name, which with almost certainty would have been given to her by the orphanage where she was placed. We would have some brief medical info and personality info, but that would be most likely all. Most of the children would have been living in an orphanage since the time of placement. Lately there are more and more children living in foster care. (nothing like what Justin had, but better than an orphanage.). We would have the choice of accepting the referral or not. After we would accept, we would receive travel arrangements and a travel date, usually about 8 weeks after the referral is accepted.

At that point Bob & I must travel to China, for the adoption is finalized in China and both of us will need to be there. We are considering taking Justin, because the older children often help make the transition easier for the new child in the family. We would also need to take Wendy with us, just for more hands and help with bonding etc. Once in China we would most likely be traveling (most likely flying from place to place) and staying at several different destinations, while going to meetings, etc. and getting the process completed. You receive your child almost immediately. So you are traveling with a child that doesn't know you, has been taken from the only place and people that she knows. She could be throwing up or have a variety of minor ailments, infections, etc. that are common. If they have been living in an orphanage, they most likely have never been outside the orphanage. So those first few days are joyous, but very tiresome and stressful. The entire trip takes about 10 to 14 days.

There are some rumors flying around saying it might be earlier than we were thinking, but there is no way we'd travel till fall anyway, because of the Olympics.

Playing "twist tie"

Keeping busy while mom was away. Justin calls it "twist tie". He also wants all of us to write a L and R on our hands and feet.

Ah...when life was simple..

Sandy and I were reminiscing about our Datsons and other things.
The Datsun 210 ran on regular gas, had a stick and got a lot of miles to the gallon.

Slip and slide with the Carlson's

Click on the title to view a slide show.
Wouldn't you just love to invite your friends over, dress them in large, black garbage bags and then douse them in Dawn liquid detergent? I guess that is what we did and it was a lot of fun.