October 2009

10 years old

Another most has come and gone.... I'm really having a hard time keeping up with the blog. Not sure if it's a time thing, a desire thing or what. We will see.

This month we celebrated J turning 10! Wow. Joe and I spent the last month taking all of our vcr recordings and making a CD for him. It was very emotional for us to watch from the sonogram stage, to minutes after his birth (big thanks to my sister for actually videoing those moments). I loved watching him through all the different stages to where he is right now - a handsome boy on the verge of being a tween. I usually write him a post on his birthday and I feel bad that I did not do that this year. What can I say about him... he is a special boy that makes us proud. He is our world.

My Mom came in to celebrate with us, as she always does. We had a fun two weeks with her but the time went so quickly. We saw a Be*atlemania concert and an incredible rock violinist, David Garrett. Joseph's Aunt Nancy came over to celebrate as well and we got to spend time with my nephew/j's cousin DJ who recently moved here.

My Mom was a cooking fool as usual and we are forever grateful for the freezer filled with food made with love. Gosh how I wish I had gotten the cooking gene but alas, it went to my sister and my brothers.

We have been land bound since September which means it's time for a boat trip. School is closed for a long weekend so we will be on the Gulf come Friday to enjoy the cooler temps we are supposedly getting this weekend. It's been hitting 93 every day and well, I'm ready for the high of mid 80s. We had our annual visit to the pumpkin parking lot. J is beyond excited for Halloween. He says it's one of his favorite holidays - must be an October birthday thing. This is the first year he is making his costume and it's going to be fabulous. Pictures to come when I do my November update I suppose :)

*pics completely out of order but I have no time to fix it*

10th Birthday with Aunt Nancy

Still won't smile - even with Grams ;(

which one to pick...

hmmm, a bit different from the pumpkin patch I'm used to
Pumpking Parking Lot 2009

David Garrett - awesome!

at the DG Concert - I think he smiled!

a motley crew for sure

10th Birthday Pool Party

Another catch up.

I am sensing a pattern here... hopefully I will start to keep up better.

So what's been happening here...

• J started 4th grade on the 1st. He is loving it. He is now switching classes throughout the day and has a locker (without a lock but still a locker).
• He has started violin lessons with a new teacher. Ms. N is incredible and he is doing so well with her.
• We needed to decided if he should tryout for our local youth orchestra this year. His new teacher felt J was ready but after deciding how much would be ok for him to handle, we all decided he should wait til either January tryouts or next fall. I've always been a firm believer in not over scheduling. We will re-address this in the winter. I know it will be a great experience for him but I want to make sure it's the right time.
• J will compete in his first Fencing Tournament this coming weekend.
• We've already had our first long weekend of the school year and we spent it on Useppa Island. It was, as usual, another fabulous time.
• Joseph finally, finally won a trophy during the fishing tournament. He caught the final fish of the day and that was a category - yippee, woo hoo, doesn't seem nearly enough to express our excitement. He's been in six and has never won. We have some major cheaters at these tournaments and it's so frustrating to explain to your child why this goes on. So for him to win fair and square, well it was awesome!!! The trophy is proudly displayed on our boat.
• After much debate, we all agreed to change the name our new boat came to us with (Sea Therapy). It will be called Higher Powered II. We performed an official name changing ceremony tonight. We removed the name 'Sea Therapy' from everywhere it's ever been written, put it in a box, burnt the box and threw the ashes in the canal during an outgoing tide. We said a little prayer, held our hands together on the boat and will hope we did this all right. There are lots of rumors of bad luck with name changing so trust me, we were not taking any chances. The new name will go on the boat on Friday... We are hoping the sea Gods are good to us.

First day of 4th Grade

Name changing ceremony

Fishing tournmanet September 2009

Proudly accepting his trophy

Isaac Walton Fishing Tournament winner

Ms. Boo watching Joe bait a hook

Ms. Boo loving the new boat - she has her spot

Joseph enjoying his Island time

Love this picture

Playing a spy game with his friends

Joseph and Madeline having fun

Where did the Summer go?

I've let my blog get way way behind. It is the end of August and it seems like I was just blogging about the last day of school. I'm overwhelmed with photos that need to be organized so this post will be my Summer 2009 catchup since school starts Tuesday!
July and August were filled with lots of family. My brother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece arrived from Budapest in July and spent the entire summer in the USA. They spent about 2 weeks of their visit with us here in Florida. We have not seen them in 3 years but Joseph and Cari picked up where they left off and it was a great visit.
My Mom arrived for a visit at the end of July and we all headed to the other Coast of Florida for the first every family reunion for Joe's family. It was so much more than any of us could have imagined. It was a wonderful time and my 2 sister-in-laws did an absolutely fabulous job putting this together. Joe saw cousins and family he has not seen in a long, long time. Joseph got to meet cousins, aunts and uncles and it was a great time.
During this time (it's all a big blur right now) we sold our beloved boat which we realized now was beloved but easily forgotten now that we are in the right boat for our family. After lots and lots of looking and driving we have found ourselves in our new home on the water which will soon be called the Higher Powered II. This boat give us a lot more room - Our bedroom and Joseph's bedroom are full staterooms and the salon/kitchen, etc. are all much roomier. My brother and Joe took two days to get her across the State and we spent much of July getting her seaworthy :) My mom was here for the maiden voyage and we had a great time on Captiva Island breaking her in. Unfortunately all my pics from this trip are on a memory stick that went bad... I did upload to FB so I'll need to try to get them back. Trust me we had fun.

We took a short trip to Useppa Island last week to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary and were all really happy to be back on the water doing what we love to do and what we do best....

Well that's it in a very small nutshell. It's been a busy summer.

We made memories, we dealt with our heartache of our decision to stop our adoption, we stayed a team, we cried, we lived, we loved and we laughed.

Every chapter in our lives, even the painful chapters, teach us and make us who we are today and are part of the story of us.

Next up - 4th grade for my boy.
*pics are completely out of order from making any kind of sense*

One pic I salvaged from our Captiva Isl. trip

Grams & Joseph cleaned up :)

Me on the HP II

Family Reunion 2nd Cousins We called them Mutt & Jeff
No caption needed :)

Cari and Joseph - July 2009

Night time fun at the beach

Moving On....

just me and my kayak leaving our canal

me and Boo out on our nightly walk being silly

the rainbow we saw on our walk It's been awhile since my last post and tonight my BFF Alice said "you really need to update your blog".... Well here it is Alice ;)

I first must thank those who have been so supportive to us during this very difficult time - it means so much to us. We have appreciated the support and love we have been given through calls, emails, comments.

We have had family visiting since July 10th so that has really been the main reason for the lack of updates and the fact that my blog is different now.

I have many, many photos and recaps to do to keep my blog/journal current but tonight is not the night for that. I thought about not blogging anymore but I want to blog. I enjoy looking back at what we have done and I'm certainly not good at keeping a written journal anymore, so blogging it will be. Joseph even asked if I would still be blogging now that we weren't adopting anymore - so for him I will continue. I will do a major recap soon.

The kayak photo was taken today when I decided to take ours out for a spin. It was good... very very good. I spent about 2 hours out by myself. It was just what I needed to recharge. I soaked in every second of beauty I was surrounded by. I let myself feel the pain in my heart. I also gave so much thanks to the life I have.
I reminded myself today that "man plans and God commands"....

Decisions....

This is definitely the most difficult post I have written in the 3 years since I started this blog. I've typed, deleted, retyped, deleted.... No matter how I type it, it hurts so I'll do it simply.... We are no longer adopting from China.

This was not a decision that was easy for us. It was one of the hardest we have made in our 15 years of being married. It is was is best for our family.

I'm grateful for this journey that led me to new friendships and I'm grateful to have blogged about our life for the past three years. I have memories and photos I would not have preserved.

I will continue this blog for our family but obviously it will be different. I thank everyone who I've met on this journey and I thank everyone in advance for understanding how difficult this decision has been for us and for the support during this difficult time.