Zooing It Up

I'm not going to lie.  I feel lazy today, but I also feel like I should send out some pictures to some Grandparents.  So, I'm going to clog this thing up with a Grandparent post.  Haha!  Earlier this week we went to the NC Zoo with Jeremy, Amy and the boys for Whittaker's birthday.  It was a great zoo!  The kids all had fun, I mean until we had walked about a mile and they decided they were about to die.  Their legs were so tired, they were so hungry, they were nearing dehydration...  etc.  Kaylie actually told me that she was so so tired the only thing that could help her was if we stopped at a park so she could play.  What?  I though you were tired!  Other than all the whining and moaning for the next 5 miles it was very pleasant.  The zoo is definitely spread out and there is a ton of walking but they did good!  Keep in mind it was only the oldest 3 who even had to walk, the other 4 were in strollers.  These kids are delicate. 

 Map time.  They were only excited to go to the zoo after they confirmed with me that they would have a map.

 This Grizzly was hilarious (that sounds so weird to actually say considering it was a grizzly bear!), but he was a total ham for all the cameras.

By the time we got to the end these two were out!

Kyle sometimes sends me pictures of funny things in China.  On his first day back in the office he saw this in the server room, it was a good reminder that he was back in China!

Someones meat was drying in the server room.

Memories

The kids and I dropped Kyle off at the airport a couple of days ago.  He is returning to China for the rest of the month.  It is his first trip back since we moved back to the States.  His trip triggered a lot of memories and emotions for the kids.  They all ended up in tears during dinner one night because they want to go back home.  This is a bit hard for Kyle and I to understand because as good as China was for us, we never felt like it was home.  It was more like survival most of the time.  It was good to talk about all the fun memories and some of the hard memories.  It is the first time we have really talked about it and I think that we have just started to realize what a big impact China had on our lives, besides the obvious!  We are just starting to realize how intense those two years where for our family.  How much we learned and grew and changed and how we will forever be affected by that experience.  I do not envy Kyle's experience of staying in our apartment without us there.  The kids pictures still hanging on the walls, but the closets standing empty.  Their bikes sitting in the entryway, the memories of their voices filling all the rooms...  just a bit too sad for me to handle.

Daylight savings stinks.  It reminds me of the horrors of going through jet lag with kids.  So, even though I'm feeling nostalgic about China and I hate it when Kyle has to travel for weeks at a time, I am grateful that I am just trying to adjust one hour, instead of 12.  But seriously.  Who thought up this daylight savings crap anyway?  Obviously they did NOT have small children!  Do I need an extra hour of daylight?  No, it just makes my kids want to stay up even LATER.  For the love. 

I've had several people ask me how the adjustment has been. Usually they are asking in the context of our adjustment back to America, but that is hard to answer specifically because there is also our adjustment to four kids (one being adopted and it was different, way different than our bio kids and maybe it isn't for everyone but for us it was quite an adjustment) and the adjustment to Kyle working from home and the adjustment to homeschooling, and the adjustment to a new house and a different state.  Too many adjustments going on at the same to to actually define one or the other.  Over all I would say things are going pretty good.  Not to say there hasn't been some significant lows, because there has, but I feel like we are finally starting to have more normal days than bad days so we are headed in the right direction at least.  I do love having an endless supply of brown sugar and an oven and working internet and phones.  I love going to bed every night on my super amazing mattress.  I love having screens over my windows.  And I adore doing laundry with a dryer.  It really is the little things!

Jaxon is doing well.  He is growing like a weed.  He is talking.  He is playing and fighting with his sisters.  All good normal things.  He has some serious ocd issues with food, open doors, his shoes, just to name a few, but I think that just makes him fit in with this family a little better!  He has seen the surgeon and we are hoping for surgery to fix his palate late this spring.

He really likes 'smiling' for pictures now

 wait... what are we doing now?

Ok, not sure about the tongue thing, but I can blow bubbles! 

Nola

Our oldest child LOVES animals.  She has been begging for a pet every since we had to give our lab away when we moved to China.  We have been putting her off, obviously a pet in China would have been a big challenge, so we promised when we move back to America we would get something.  Over those two years, 'something' turned into a dog, a cat, a chicken, a horse, a fish, a bird and anything else she could come up with that she thought would be fun to own.  Fast forward to December.  We moved back to America, however, we live in a rental right now that does not allow any pets.  Great, good for us, we can put this off for another year or two.  Not that I don't love animals, sometimes I just feel like I already have my hands full with 4 kids 6 and under.  However, shortly before Christmas, she finally broke her father and he promised we could buy her a goldfish.  Ugh.  I dislike cleaning fish tanks.  But how bad could one goldfish be?  Ok, we agreed to get a goldfish, but not until AFTER we traveled for Christmas.  We were hoping that somehow over those 2 weeks she would forget about this fish idea.  

She didn't.  As soon as we got back home she started asking, how many weeks until we can go get my goldfish, how many days, how many hours, etc.  Finally we broke down and went last weekend.  By this time, we were up to three goldfish, one for each girl, so that the fish wouldn't be lonely.  I tried to set the bar low, these fish die.  They die quickly.  The kids weren't buying it.  Especially since their father assured them we were not going to the store where fish were already labeled dead.  Walmart fish.  No, we were definitely going to go to a pet store.  I'm pretty sure we would have walked out of a pet store with a dog so I convinced him to compromise and go to the local Petsmart.  

We arrived at the store.  I rallied the troops and we got the bowl and some rocks and a little 'house' before we picked out our fish.  We approached the fish area.  There was a helpful employee ready to get fish for whoever was buying on this fine Saturday morning.  We told her we wanted some goldfish.  Unfortunately, I decided to act friendly a by asking her a question or two.  'Will this bowl be ok for three goldfish?'  Wrong question.  She happened to be a fish expert and assured me that 'NO absolutely not, goldfish need at least 2 gallons per inch'.  'Wait a minute',  I said, 'this bowl specifically says it is for goldfish and it is only a 1 gallon bowl.  So what you are saying is that I can't even have one goldfish in this bowl?'  'Correct', she responded.  'So what exactly can we put in this bowl?'  I naively asked.  'Betta's' she said.  Of course.  A 17 cent FEEDER goldfish that MIGHT live for 2 weeks shouldn't suffer in a tiny 1 gallon fish tank but it is definitely perfect for a $5 Betta. 

We left the store with the Betta.  What just happened?  I just wanted some cheap goldfish.  I could have bough 29 of those goldfish for the price of one Betta.  We had goldfish that lived in those bowls for YEARS when we were kids.  If that is the rule then they have WAY too many goldfish swimming around in those 20 gallon tanks in the store!  If I was selling something I would try to hire that woman for my team.  I was still a bit dazed when we got to the car, how in the world were we guilt-ed into buying a Betta over some cheap goldfish because of a tank size???  This fish is being taken care of by 3 kids under the age of 6.  It's chance of a long life is pretty slim.  They are constantly wanting to 'pet' it.  The girls named the fish Nola.  They are convinced it is a girl, I didn't have the heart to tell them the truth.  Nola it is.

These kids are so happy.  They make sure to come down right before bed to tell the fish goodnight.

 We don't have a light for the bowl and I don't like to run the heat hot enough for this fish so we had to rig up a desk lamp.  This fish needs the temp to be 74-82 degrees!

Jax didn't care one bit about the fish, he was busy doing what he does best.  Eating!  He does like to watch the fish now, but I'm pretty sure he is plotting how he can get that thing out of there and see what it does!