Back from Tahoe

It's been another whirlwind month, including more illness (please spring, just come and stay for a while). Our goal was to make it to our vacation in Tahoe with my family. Here's a look at our week away:

S, ready to rock and roll on our first flight out of Boston. No, that's not a tattoo. That's my phone number written on her arm. Just in case.

 

We found a La Quinta in Reno the night we got in. This is S assuming the position as her favorite cartoon comes on

 

The village mentality that was our week together. All the grownups helped out with all the kiddos, and it worked out great. Especially since J was in bed for 3 days during the trip.

 

There was a lot of cooking. Dad made this amazing salad caprese for Mom and me for lunch one day

 

I was stuck on east coast time most of the week, so I got up early every morning and walked with Dad.

 

We got to see some nice scenery

 

Mom is slowly recovering from her, um, interesting spring. She drank a lot of green smoothies and read a lot of NY Times on her vacation. The girls took her out to lunch..

 

...which featured beer. Lots of beer

S had a blast with her cousins. They all left for a day and she cried. Until she remembered there was a hot tub to play in

 

One day was Scrabble Day. We're raising a Scrabble champion. Her big test will be beating Tapa someday

 

We were very excited to find out that we get to visit the same house again next year. Dates to be determined, but Tapa said something about visiting when it snows. S will be very prepared for that! We can't wait for more family meals, stories by the fire, walks by the river, family bonding, wine and homemade beer, hot tubbing, and general relaxation.

Such a big girl

She picked the whole outfit herself. Quite the fashion plate

 

In her Belle dress. Over about 4 other dresses and a tutu. When she's in, she's all in!

Thoughts and Prayers for Boston

We are fine. Many people are not. It's a sad day for Boston.

Major catching up here

I've been busy knitting socks. It's been taking up a lot of my time.

 

Oh, and we've all been sick. Again. At this moment, J is trying to sleep off a chest cold.

 

But in the middle of it all, we celebrated Easter

 

 

S had her first haircut. She got a blowout after her cut, but trust me, the curls survived!

 

 

She also went to the dentist for the first time. She did fantastic, and she loved it there. No fear of dentists here!

 







Scenes from a birthday

That's right, people, we have a 3-year-old! After a whirlwind month, we took a breath and celebrated S's birthday. Grania and Maw came up from Pennsylvania, and we had a nice, low-key party.

 

Checking out her plunder from her birthmom and birthgrandma

 

 

Checking out her panda cake, courtesy of 3AM Cakes. Thanks Valessa!

Checking out her slice of cake, which she decorated herself

She wanted to ride her bike RIGHT NOW. In 36-degree weather *sigh*

Finding all the noisemaking buttons on her new car

Trying to figure out what's in all her gift bags

 

She loved her Pooh books from Grania

 

Playing teacher. Which after all runs in the family

 

Welcome to 3, S!

Three years ago today

...I was in a time-suck meeting and couldn't be reached by our adoption agency. Yet J answered the call on the first ring. In a few minutes we'll celebrate 3 years since we got The Call that S was our daughter. This weekend we celebrated her birthday in style.

More to come...

Another snow day

Poor S ::insert sarcasm:: She hasn't gotten to play in the Big Snow at her house. We remedied that today.

Gearing up to head out. Her good waterproof mittens were in J's truck, so we had to go with fabric ones. I was convinced she'd get cold hands in 20 seconds and want to come back in.

 

We decided to investigate the back yard first. For some reason S doesn't usually go back there. This should give you an idea of how much snow we had. It looks like she's walking on a glacier

 

We moved on to the front yard, where there was a ton more snow.

 

We found her storage box (that's the beige thing on the left). It had tipped over on its side, so I dug out a bucket for S to use. This is her, thigh-deep in snow, digging deep to get snow for her bucket.

 

She used it for the snowman we built on the deck. Yes, we had enough snow left just on the deck for probably 3 snowmen

 

S wanted more "snow treasure". Note how high she is compared to J's car

 

This California girl also started building a snow fort. No pictures yet, it looks more like a firepit made of snow at this point. Maybe I'll work on it with the upcoming snow we're getting *sigh*

BTW, her mittens were sopping wet when we got in, but she never said anything while we were outside. Even when digging in the snow and throwing snowballs at me. This kid LOVES the cold. Loves.