We went camping!

We stayed with my parents in their camper for 3 days. :) Andrei had so much fun and is asking already when we're going back.

We did go to the parade, but it was too loud and hot so we left right away (and it was a 2 mile walk from the site - phew)
And we didn't go to the fireworks because we didn't want to walk again, but we heard them from our campsite when we were tucking DS in, so we cuddled and peeked out the window to watch for a bit.
Happy first fourth for our little American!

Hot dogs, of course!


"Try again mama!" Andrei loved the sparklers!


We went to a restaurant that delivered our food by train. That's my mom next to Andrei


Finally 'getting' how to play catch - with some friends that came along.


Oh so tired and ready to go home. :yawn:


And, I got my hands henna-d!

I have to brag :)

$74.50! That's only about one tank of gas! Wahoo!
No hypermiling required. Well - Brent has admitted to trying to drive more conservatively.
Here's what we're doing:
- Only biking or walking to the grocery store. It's about a mile away, and last week I think I overdid Andrei so we might drive today, or maybe we'll have a rest in the park on the way home.
- Only taking the bus downtown. We go once a week to the library and save all of our other downtown errands for that one day. It's about the same price to drive and to bus, but Andrei has a cheap summer pass which makes it better to ride.
- Only run 'south-side' errands after work, or combine errands as much as possible.
- The big one here - I started biking to work! My hours changed and I got a route tip from a co-worker, so now I can bike in. :) It's only 3 miles each way and I really love it (coming from someone who complained last summer about biking to the video store less than a mile away). Actually this probably didn't affect our budget too much since I only started last week, but I'm looking forward to an even lower number at the end of July.

We are going out of town once in July and three times in August, but hopefully we can still keep the numbers low, or find alternative choices instead of driving.

So even though I gave Brent the evil eye for choosing to drive short distances, and sometimes we all run errands together that are somewhat unnecessary, we did great last month and I'm super proud of us!

Bike Ride today

What I learned today: The Kohler-Memorial bike path goes directly past Starbucks.

Add 4 miles to my tally - total of 38.4 so far. :)

6 months

Today is six months from Andrei's adoption date, so here's a little update on how we've all been progressing.

Andrei is doing phenomenal. His English is so much better than I ever would have thought. It's not perfect, by any means, but we fool strangers on the street regularly. There are less than 10 words that he still says in Russian, and his English grammar and sentence structure is getting better every day. When he doesn't know a word, or says a new one in Russian, we ask him to explain and he shows us or finds a way to describe it in English. I'm amazed at how quickly he's picked it up.
He has started processing feelings about his birth parents. He tells us stories about them (which can't possibly be true) - about his 'father' who gave him a motorcycle, and then was Superman but died. He talks more about his birth-father than about his birth-mother. He keeps insisting that they are dead, but we tell him that they're not, and I think that makes him sad (because he doesn't understand why they're not with him - not because they're not dead). I can see he's conflicted. It's hard to know what to say already, I really don't know what to do when the big questions start. Brent and I pray regularly that God heals his heart, and that we help him feel loved and know how to answer his questions.
Socially, he's the most extroverted child I have ever met in my life, which is pretty ironic considering I'd just as soon be by myself all the time. He talks to everyone and anyone, says "what's your name you", and tells them they have nice hair. We had to tell him to stop yelling hello to people in the cars next to us at stoplights. Now that it's summer I'll hopefully be able to find more kids for him to play with.
All in all, he's doing so well - a friend asked how long we've been home - a year, right? It feel like forever already - like he's always been ours.

Brent is a phenomenal father. I'm so lucky to have him, and so is Andrei. He definitely balances out my tough side, and he and Andrei play and tickle and fight and get along so well. Andrei has started calling him 'daddy' instead of 'papa' and Brent says it has made it more real to him, but I think he's been great from the first minute. :)

I've been doing good too. Better I think. I'm dealing with dreaded 'mommy guilt' now and second guessing myself at everything. I think that partly comes because I'm playing teacher role too. But I can see lately where he's been learning and that encourages me. I think parenting is becoming pretty much everything I imagined - except a little more hyper than I thought...

Right now he's at kid's church so I will finish this post and get back to enjoying my night off. :)

Readoption

Today was our re-adoption of Andrei in the state of Wisconsin. His adoption was completely valid in this state, but the readoption will make it easier for him in the future. Previously he only had his Russian birth certificate. It was in Russian, and the translation looks like something I could have easily made on my computer. (We did have it formally translated and notarized, though) Some states don't recognize these birth certificates because they are easy to forge. Also, if he needs another copy of his birth certificate later in life (marriage or whatever), he would have had to write to Russia to obtain it. Not very easy.

So we hired an attourney and went to court today. Six months to the day of our last court date. I swore in first, and the attorney asked me if we went to Russia and adopted Andrei, and if we had our homestudy, and if we thought it was in Andrei's best interest that we adopt him. Then he asked me if I understood that this meant that I had all the same rights and responsibilites as a natural parent. Yes to all. :) Then he asked Brent all the same questions and then we were done.

It took 10 minutes - quite different from the 6 hour long interview in Russia.

Now he will have a Wisconsin birth certificate that says he is a foreign born American citizen.

Today in pictures

Photobucket Album

100 Mile Bike Blog?

My good friend, Mel, has started a challenge for herself to bike (instead of drive) for 100 miles this summer. She even has a blog dedicated to her progress.
I'm not huge into biking, but I really don't like driving. So I take you up on your challenge, Mel. She nicely gave me permission to count every time I walk or take the bus - so far I'm up to 13.1 miles not using the car. Andrei and I have biked to Mel's house, we walked to the video store, and we took the bus downtown. I also walked to the grocery store and pulled Andrei's wagon, since my bike did not have baskets on it - but now it does - hurray!
Yesterday we took a real adventure and biked to the movie theater. It's not super far, but the roads are kind of busy, and biking with Andrei is a challenge. He just got on a bike for the first time this past month, so he's still using training wheels. It's an older kid's bike and he can't work the hand brakes, and still falls sometimes. So he rides the sidewalk, and I go slowly on the road, coaching him across streets and asking him annoyingly why he had stopped again (he wanted to pick a flower for me - oops).
So here I'd like to say thank you to Google Maps - especially satellite view. We couldn't very well ride to the movies on Taylor Drive, so I looked on Google to find an alternate route, with sidewalks and was nice and slow paced for us. I even found a shortcut walkway from a dead end into a parking lot. So we rode up behind the bank on Taylor and Wilgus, and then walked our bikes the rest of the way. Andrei did great, even though it rained a bit on us. And I hope I'm making the habit for him to think of biking or walking first before hopping in the car.

I would love to bike to work, if I didn't have to be there in the middle of the night. Brent and I have joked that if we ever move downtown, I could canoe in. :)

I have to admit that I don't have a helmet yet. (Andrei does - don't worry) I'm partial to this one - what do you think?