Give me a T! Give me an A!

We got our travel approval today!!! Earliest possible departure would be October 8. If not, then we have to wait until October 28. We'll keep you posted.

The lost weekend

Thursday after work, Kevin and I surprised David with a big boy bike. We didn't tell him what we were doing until we got to the store. He was very excited. After careful consideration, the Buzz Lightyear bike won out over Lightening McQueen. (And, yes, I realize the end of summer timing is bizarre. But he wasn't allowed to ride bikes for a couple weeks after his surgery, so we thought getting one before was a bad idea, and we just finally got around to it. We should have at least 10-12 more days of nice weather before the cold becomes unbearable.)

David's after we got home that night and the following morning

Friday evening we packed up and headed out to Galena for some family fun. We met the rest of Kevin's immediate family there. I ruined everything by forgetting the camera. Except that I didn't forget it. It was in my purse. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until this morning, so the weekend was not well photographed.

We had a lot of fun. We celebrated Grandpa's birthday. We went "alpine sledding" at Chestnut Mountain resort. In the winter they have skiing there (yes, skiing in the Midwest). In the summer, the put giant slides on one of the ski hills, and you can roll down on a little sled with wheels and then take the ski lift back up. The setting is really beautiful, right on the Mississippi. Afterwards, we had a yummy lunch there with beautiful views.

We also went swimming, and David swam a little independently for the first time. He was in his swim vest and it was only a few feet at a time, but he did it on his own and was quite pleased with himself. Saturday night, the three of us "camped" in Kevin's new tent in the yard. I didn't think we would make it more than a couple of hours, but David slept all the way to 7:30, which is miraculous in a much more comfortable setting. Perhaps we should have him sleep in a tent every night.

View of the Mississippi as seen through my phone (still didn't realize I had the camera at this point)

David so exhausted by the whole experience that even Veggie Tales couldn't keep him awake

Painting

David and I have been working hard this morning. He is a little disgruntled at how light the blue is. "It not BLUE, it is WHITE!" but did enjoy painting. By the time we do two coats, the trim and maybe a stripe around the room, it will probably be some time next week, but we'll post pictures when it's done.

Tool time

Video from today's home improvement marathon:

How many LaBordes/Maases does it take to replace one Alma?

Alma has been on vacation this last week, and Kevin and I are trying to minimize our time off work before leaving for China. So it was tag team David-sitting with Nahnee and Ramma flying in for a long weekend and taking Monday and Tuesday. Grandma was on duty Wednesday, and, having exhausted our grandparent options, I took the day off Thursday. In addition to the usual frolicking with the kids in the neighborhood, David got to go to Navy Pier with Ramma and Nahnee and had a picnic with Grandma and GG.

David with faux-hawk. David and Nahnee on the ferris wheel at Navy Pier. Even Ramma, who hates heights, braved this one.

Picnic lunch with GG

Long long ago (2 years) in a land far far away (China), I celebrated my first Mother's Day. What do you give someone who has been a mother for 6 days? A weekend away from her child. So this weekend, Kevin and I finally took his parents up on their offer and had an overnight date downtown. We did exactly what you would expect the two of us to do. We got a hotel with views of the lake and river, gorged ourselves on dessert and slept until 9:30 for the first time in I don't know how long. For me, probably since the day after Thanksgiving 2008 when I spent the entire night puking up my 10,000 calories of turkey and dressing. This was significantly more pleasant. After we finally dragged ourselves out of bed, we headed out to discover a nail in one of our tires. We headed off to the very romantic Toyota dealership to get the tire patched. There was a wait, so we decided to walk to brunch at Wishbone, an oasis of cheese grits and other southern deliciousness in our old neighborhood. It was about a 2 mile walk. Another 50 or so miles and we might have burned off what we ate. So so good. After retrieving the car, we went to the Art Institute and spent about 3 hours there. We hadn't been able to spend much time in the new modern wing, so we started there. I do not understand how a giant canvas painted charcoal gray and entitled "Gray" constitutes art, but Kevin and I were both fans of "Ghost with Pool of Blood," which was essentially a white sheet draped over something round and fake blood on the floor. While we were getting some culture, David was running Grandma and Grandpa through their paces at Lincoln Park Zoo (see below).

Grandma and Grandpa brought David downtown yesterday evening, and the three of us went to the Bears preseason game. This was David's first Bears game. He'll have to be a little older (and a little more likely to sit through an entire game) before he makes it to the regular season, but when you're 3, it doesn't really matter if the game counts or not. He usually has no idea who wins or loses the games he attends anyway. We had a lot of fun, despite the fact that there is only one booth in all of Soldier Field that sells ice cream. (Yet another down side to Chicago's unfortunate climate. It's too cold for ice cream during football season.) And they were sold out. Horrific. Fortunately, M&Ms turned out to be an acceptable replacement.

Kevin and David outside the stadium and walking through the colonnades.

I think these are self explanatory.

We capped off a fabulous week with lunch with Uncle Dave and his wife. The boys came back to the house to do some work. They resecured a couple of baby gates, moved the futon out of Max's room and upstairs and then dismantled the old computer desk (which was glued together and doesn't fit through the door). They also picked up paint at Home Depot, so I can finally start painting and getting the room ready. David loved "doing projects" with Uncle Dave. Loved it. He was very sad when it was time for Uncle Dave to leave.

Article 5

Sometime while we were sleeping last night, our Article 5 was picked up from the US consulate in Guangzhou, China. This means we are now finally and officially waiting on travel approval from the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs in Beijing. Our (fairly conservative) agency says to expect it to come in 3-7 weeks. From what I've seen on adoption forums online, 2-3 weeks is pretty typical right now, so we're hoping for that. Once travel approval comes, our agency can set our appointments at the Guangdong province civil affairs office and at the US consulate in Guangzhou, and then, at long last, we will actually be able to tell you when we're going to China to bring Max home. I picked up our passports with our visas to enter China this morning, so we are ready to go. Now perhaps we should paint his room and assemble his crib...

Max's birthday bash

This morning I got an email from Ann at Red Thread. She helped us send Max his birthday care package and had promised to try to get pictures if possible. Not only did we receive bunches of pictures (the best of which are below), we got a 20 second video as well. They sang to him and let him cut the cake...as much as any kid at age 1 can cut his own birthday cake. The last picture of him with icing on his face looks staged if you ask me but cute none the less. Sorry to keep you waiting all day, Mom, but we wanted David to see these before we sent them out to all of cyberspace.

And here is a little video they took. Of note, he is way ahead of David in terms of self help skills already. Watch as he tries to eat whatever is in his little hand.

More drumming

Here is David today enjoying himself at Lollapalooza

Jail, yard work and Lollapalooza

I am posting this first and most unfortunate picture as a thank you to every one who so generously donated to the Muscular Dystrophy Association in order to bail me out of fake jail. Thanks to all of you, I met my goal of $1600 and then some, and in return they made me do this...

In other news, we currently have James Heller of the California family and 3 of his friends staying with us while they attend Lollapalooza. We love James, and honestly it hasn't been much trouble having them here as we literally don't see them. They are asleep when we leave in the mornings and gone until all hours of the night. I do regret not taking before pictures of the basement, though, because the after of four 19 year old boys and all their stuff from a cross country road trip exploding in there is really quite impressive. I can't figure how all of that plus the four of them was in their car. David is completely fascinated with the big boys and is always disappointed when they aren't home when it's time for him to go to bed.

Yesterday GG joined Kevin and David for soccer, lunch and yard work. GG did sustain a closed head injury when David accidentally whacked her with a rake, but she is expected to recover fully.

David got his chance to hang with the big boys today. After church, he and Kevin took the green line downtown and went to Lollapalooza. They spent some time at the Kidsapalooza area, which included kid appropriate bands and a chance to play drums (video to follow). They then attempted to meet up with James & co. David spotted one of James's friends but sadly fell asleep (on Kevin's shoulders with his head resting on Kevin's head...if only we had a picture of that) before the James got there.

A few cute pictures to pacify my mother

Since the epic basement flood of 2010, I've been working a lot. So to soothe the blog faithful (my parents), here is a quick post with a few cute pictures until I have time for more.

Here is David with Sabrina, Ashley, Fiona, Olivia and Jackson at a mid day bbq at Fiona's house. Not pictured: the ridiculous spread that the nannies whipped up for these kids. It looked really good.

David and Kevin went to a Sox game last weekend. Here is our monkey practicing his base running and hitting.

On the Max front, I confirmed that our paperwork was dropped off at the consulate in Guangzhou today. Theoretically, this means that our Article 5 will be ready in exactly two weeks on August 19. After that we will be waiting for travel approval, the final step in this paperwork ridiculousness. The sooner we get that the better because travel in the month of October is definitely going to be limited due to holidays and special events in Guangzhou. There is a window in mid-September and another in mid-October when our agency will try to send families. Otherwise, we might end up waiting until November. Only time will tell.