Hitting the slopes

Everybody hit the slopes of Winter Park today. I am thankful that I am still able to snowboard after 5 years. I’m also thankful that my muscles are sore and that I’m alive. :-)

Winter Park has wagons for families to use to haul gear and kids around. Unfortunately, the wagons weren’t out today. We improvised. I seriously doubt that Samsonite thought that their roller bags would be used to haul kids around ski parks.

We enrolled Erlan in ski school today. I think that he really enjoyed it. They did take him out to the bunny slope. He caught Amy and I watching him. You’ll see him turn around and stare at us in the video. Before we shot the video, he was looking at us and finally yelled, “Mommy?” I waved. I was afraid that he’d start crying, but he didn’t.

We saw him again on the bunny slope in the afternoon; however, the instructor had FORGOTTEN him! Ben figured this out after watching Erlan just standing there, not interacting with the group. The manager had the right attitude saying, “This is totally unacceptable.” The instructor who forgot him told Ben that he was disrespectful to her! She forgot our kid and was concerned about respect. She had 4 kids in her group and couldn’t do a head count.

Kenzi also enrolled in Level 2 ski school. There were only 4 kids in her group. She went through Level 2 and Level 3 today! She is ready for Level 4 instruction. Her instructor managed not to lose her and said Kenzi did a great job. She’s now ready for easy blues! Kenzi was very proud of her accomplishment.

Keely psyched herself out b/c of the lift and would not enroll in ski school. She said she would hang out with Granny Jannie at the lodge. After watching all of the skiers, she finally said that she’d go on the lift IF Amy would hold her hand. Amy bought her a pass and took her up the lift. Once Keely got on the lift, she said, “You’re right. This is like a roller coaster!” She made it down the hill with only minor falls. She really enjoyed herself. Unfortunately, I have no video of her on the mountain today. She and Amy went one way, and Ben and I went another. By the time that I made it down the mountain, I was too tired to go back up to get pictures. Ben was going to go, but we ran into the aforementioned incident with Erlan and the ski school.

Here are some more pictures from the lodge at the end of the day.

Colorado, Day 2

Sorry if the videos in this post don't work. They are still processing at YouTube, and I'm too tired to wait to see if they start working.... Will check tomorrow.

We didn’t make it to the slopes today. Erlan woke up with a fever. We also thought that the girls needed a break. Erlan (and Mommy) took a refreshing three-hour morning nap. Everyone else went skating. Apparently the girls spent most of the skate learning how to get up while on ice skates. Keely commented, “This ice is slicker than the other ice!” :-P



In the afternoon, we went sledding. It was awesome. Everyone had a great time, even though it was wicked cold. We had the kids as bundled as we could get them. Granny Jannie even went down the slopes. I think that the video speaks for itself.





Finally, here’s a brief video of Erlan on skis from yesterday.

Our Colorado Vacation

Since Erlan is almost 3, we decided it was time to go on a ski vacation in Winter Park. To add to the fun, we brought our nieces, Kenzi (age 8) and Keely (age 7), with us. Don’t worry… we balanced the ratio of kids to adults by bringing Amy and Granny Jannie with us.

The kids were terrific on the 12-hour drive out. The girls entertained Erlan. They watched DVDs. They only started asking if we were there once we reached Denver. They were amazing. Erlan had a couple of false-alarm potty breaks so that he could get out of his seat and stretch a bit.



We spent Friday night lazing around the condo. The girls entertained us by dancing and singing all of the songs in HSM (High School Musical—for those of you not in the know). It’s amazing how much the two girls have in common.



Saturday was spent acclimating to the altitude change. Ben, Amy, and Granny Jannie took the girls to rent skis. Erlan and I took a much-needed nap. We took Erlan back for skis later.



Sunday the girls finally hit the slopes. We enrolled both girls in ski school. We decided that we would teach Erlan ourselves with the handy ski harness that we purchased. By the time we got the girls’ settled and Ben’s boots warmed up to the point that he could put them on, we would have had to buy a half-day ticket. Since lift tickets are $90 and half-day tickets are $83, we decided to wait until we could do a full day. Here’s a run down on the kid’s day, from youngest to oldest…

Erlan: We stuck Erlan on his skis so he could get used to them. We pulled him around a bit. I let him watch the little kids in ski school. He seemed interested (meaning he watched it out of the corner of his eyes). We’re going to enroll him in afternoon ski school tomorrow.





Keely: Kee-Kee (or Chi-Chi as Erlan calls her) announced she loved ski school the first time we checked on her. Unfortunately, a couple of hours later, she had freaked herself out with thoughts of having to ride the chairlift up the mountain. This gave her a tummy ache and she missed about 3 hours of instruction. After Amy talked to her, Keely chose to re-enter ski school. Amy heard this exchange between the instructors: “Did they threaten her (Keely) or did she do it on her own?” “They threatened her.” Here was the threat: “Keely you have have a choice. You can finish what you started or if you are that sick, you can lay in bed all night, not watch TV, and not play with Kenzi.” Keely chose to go back to ski school.

As a side note: I can hardly criticize her for freaking herself out since I have been known to freak myself out many, many times before going up a lift. In fact, I’m freaking myself out now thinking about riding again after a 5-year hiatus. My last lift tags are from 2004!

Kenzi: Kenzi loved ski school. She took everything very matter of fact when I watched her on the bunny slope. She went up the lift to do the long green run at Winter Park twice! She will be Level 2 when we enroll her tomorrow. She was very excited about her success; however, when she called to tell her parents about her success, she was most excited to tell them about the heated pool at our condo. “Guess what?!? There’s a pool where we can swim in the winter!”

Karla: Karla got a good workout hauling Erlan around all day. Apparently the altitude hurt Erlan’s legs and he could no longer walk. Ben, Amy, and I carried him around almost then entire day. I felt like I had spent the day on my board.

For the parental units checking this blog, your kiddos are doing great. They are not homesick (sorry). They are very active! They are happy. :-)

A Christmas Story

Erlan likes to tell a story about visiting Santa. He says:

Cheese.

Poop.

Choo-choo.

Mommy then translates for his avid listener.

We took a picture with Santa ("cheese").

Then Erlan went to the bathroom to poop.

Then Erlan rode a little 75 cent train.

The longer version of the story goes like this:

Erlan and Mommy stood in line for 30 minutes to get Erlan's picture taken with Santa while Santa had a lunch break. Three minutes before Santa is supposed to arrive, Erlan announces, "Poop!" I told him that we would first "Cheese" with Santa and then he could poop. Erlan asked, "Choo choo?" "Yes," I said, "we will choo-choo after pooping." [At that point, I wasn't actually sure what he was talking about. Erlan, who loves trains, had spotted a kid's train ride while we were walking around the mall. I figured there must be a train somewhere in that mall, and we could find it after the poop and picture.]

Erlan was fine with this plan. As we are standing there (1st in line), Santa finally walks out. The kids start cheering and waving. Erlan sees Santa and emits a high-pitched scream--the kind you hear in horror movies. He was terrified. I finally got him to wave to Santa, but I knew that he wasn't convinced that this guy is jolly.

I let the people behind us go first so that Erlan could see that Santa is ok. Erlan still was not convinced. Another family gets their picture taken. Even though Erlan still does not want his picture taken, I force the issue because of the impending need for him to poop. Erlan screamed again, started crying, and reluctantly sat on my lap for the picture. The result was this:

From this, we created our 2008 Christmas card:

We hope everyone has a great holiday!

Inspiration

One of the blogs that I love to read is written by a friend of Ben's from college, Angie O'Neill. Angie and her husband have been dealing with cancer for the past 11 years. Despite this, Angie writes a blog that is funny, insightful, and inspiring. Today, Angie has written a beautiful letter that I found completely inspiring. I hope you do too...

KEEP BELIEVING: our interview - a few things I WISHED I would have said...

More!

Our house was rockin' on Halloween. Friends, family, and our two dogs had a howling good time at Erlan's first Halloween. Ben and I have been very excited about Halloween. We started talking about what Erlan should be in August. We finally settled on a Shrek-themed family get up, with Erlan as Gingy. Granny Jannie made his costume. He was as cute as a button.



Erlan caught onto the whole trick-or-treat thing pretty quick. I could see the wheels in his head turning...Hold orange bucket. Follow big kids. Thrust orange bucket at stranger. Say, "MORE!" We couldn't get him to say, "Trick-or-treat," but he would say or sign "more!"


Here are Erlan's cousins, Kenzi, Gavin, and Keely, on their way home after a night of trick or treating.











Here I am with our youngest revelers: Mikayla and Brecken. Erlan did not like seeing me with the two babies and demanded equal time.

A few more scenes from the night...
















And, finally, here are pictures of our new puppy, Baxter. Ben's brother, David, got Erlan a puppy. David didn't tell us he was doing this, he surprised us. Ben was elated (meaning he wasn't at all elated). Erlan is not the best at getting up in the morning to walk Baxter even though it is his dog. Erlan calls him "Back!" and loves to chase him. For a 2 y.o., Erlan is actually pretty good with Back. Now when Erlan wakes up, his first words are, "Back. Out." (Translation: Daddy get up and take Baxter out.) Before Baxter, his wake-up words were, "Eat. Milk." (Translation: Mommy get up and get me some cereal and milk.)

Life and other things

I know that the faithful reader (n=1) is wondering what happened to this blog. Basically life happened. We are so busy that I wonder where the time has gone. I take my hat off to those bloggers who can balance their life with posting in order to maintain some wonderful, insightful, and funny blogs.

Speaking of blogs, one of my favorite Kaz adoption blogs just went public. Check out:

http://ruopoliadoption.blogspot.com

This is the story of Regina & Frank. They adopted Milo. He was the second little boy that we met during our selection process. We were thrilled when Regina and Frank sought to adopt him. From reading Regina's blog, Milo and Erlan seem like two peas in a pod. Also Regina writes fantastic posts that give great insight into the adoption process. For example, she wrote a letter to Milo's birthmom that captured the complexity of emotion adoption involves.

I have been thinking about Erlan's birthmom a lot lately. When we started the adoption process, I was reluctant about maintaining contact with the birth family. This was one of the appealing features of international adoption. Now I wish that I could send her pictures of this beautiful little boy so she could watch him grow too. I wish I could express my gratitude for her for the gift of being allowed to raise this little boy. I would love to send her updates on his progress. Instead I send progress reports to the government. Oh well, at least somebody in Kaz gets to read about how wonderful Erlan is (even if he wouldn't eat his dinner tonight).

We have started taking classes through the State to become liscensed foster parents. We must take this step in order to adopt through the State. I don't know if this is the right path for our second adoption journey, but we do want to explore this area where the need is so great. Take a look at:

http://www.moheartgallery.org/Albumn/index1.htm

This is a wonderful project that tries to help place children who are older and thus harder to place.

My parents had their Fall Party a couple of weeks ago. Erlan had a great time. He went on every hayride, found another girlfriend (Erlan has a thing for blonds), and played in the bounce house. He had chocolate cake for dinner, courtesy of some yet-to-be-identified man.

Erlan has hand-me-downs from 7 boys, including a set of twins. Here's Erlan trying on all of the clothes on at once.

Erlan continues to make great strides in development. He likes to jump ALOT. He can stand on one foot and looks like an exaggerated version of the Karate Kid when he does. He loves to ride his tricycle around the house. He can use the pedals, but he prefers to Fred-Flinstone it. He continues to build his vocabulary and is putting together two-word sentences. He likes to say, "I be back" and to raise one finger when he does it.

On that note. I'll be back. I don't know when, but I'll be back.