The Story of the Three Busy Bees

This summer started at my Mom's traveling to Oak Park to see the city's park benches painted and decorated - TV Style. We traveled to Great Grandma Rose's house. We made a trip to Aunt Rita's to see Uncle Jim's awesome sparkly red Harley. We headed to Elmhurst to the free History of the Comic Book museum. We made several trips to downtown Chicago (this past week being trip number 2). Hayden had space camp at a book store, right after meeting Spiderman at a local toy store. Two children and one public museum, all free of charge thanks to our family superpass.
Plus lots more and the summer isn't over yet. Though the summer started with a hint of sadness (knowing that a huge vacation would be out of the question), we have been uplifted with giggles and amusement with our Family Fun Days (usually Wednesday). I have found such a reward, hunting down the cheap or even free (which many of our excursions are/were) places we have gone. Usually just spending money on gas or food (and even then sometimes packing a lunch).
With that, we are eager to look back on our summer and put together our memories. Thus making our huge vacation. Hayden has enjoyed every bit of our travels, whether we find a new park or head to the library for a few hours. Having this time during the summer, being able to have Michael home everyday - is priceless and we wouldn't trade it for the world.

Onto our second trip to the city... we had the opportunity to meet our coordinator from our agency. We knew we couldn't pass this chance up, especially with "K" being able to take our paperwork home with her (saving on stamps!!!).
So we hopped back on the train on Wednesday and met her for lunch with another client of hers, two sisters who are going to be single moms. We were thrilled to hear the one sister is waiting patiently for a Kyrgyz child. In addition, we found out our coordinator "K" is from Kazakhstan. Having lunch with her gave us the chance to chat with her about the process a little more and get to know her. Plus it's always nice to put a face to the person who is helping you bring your child home. :)
Afterwards, we took Chicago's free trolley to Navy Pier, used our family superpass once again and got in for free at the Children's Museum. Hayden had a blast digging for dino bones, playing in the Waterworks, etc. When we finished we lingered around till it was time to catch our trolley to the subway to the train. Whew... Yet again another hot hot day. LOL

This week Hayden starts bike camp (meets once a week with his P.T. for 4 sessions). He's psyched. I'm gonna need coffee, we need to be out the door by 7:30am. *Yawn*
Meanwhile, Michael needs to head to the bank for cashiers checks, I need to scan some forms to email to our agency while we wait on our Dr. to notarize... (this will help us along in the process and our agency can get started on translating our paperwork). We are eager to see things moving again.... starting to feel real again. A feeling that had once dissipated.

Anyway, it's late and I have been dying to watch Design Star (then Big Brother, if I can stay awake).
Us busy bees will keep you guys posted with news as it comes available, in addition to our travels (new slide pics posted on the right). 1 comments

Posted by Mel at 10:00 PM

The Windy WARM City

Last Wednesday was yet another Fun Filled Family Day. Yet, with a bit of a twist and a hidden agenda.

Hayden has been dying to take a train ride for decades... and with the eve of our papers needing to be apostilled, we thought what other way is there to travel to the city... "The way to really fly..."

So we hopped onto the Metra train early Wednesday morning after making a pitstop for a group of papers we overlooked that needed to be notarized. Luckily prior to this, our GREAT AUNT RITA lent her time and hand, notarized the majority of our papers and mentioned our Village having a notary - free and open at 8:30 every day. So we quickly notarized the ones we forgot and headed off to our adventure.

Anyway, we made it to the city without a hitch. Made it to the Sec. of State with no issues. Hayden was a trooper with all the walking. We passed many "skyscrapers" that kept us busy/occupied... not to mention a lunch stop. Once we handed the papers off for apostilling, all we could do was cross our fingers. However, nothing seems to come easy for us, least it doesn't look that way. I had a feeling our doctor's license's were going to give us trouble - and they did. They will have to be notarized separately by our doctor and then apostilled. Fortunately we are waiting on our change of country which coincidentally also needs to be apostilled. Either we will make another trip downtown, or mail these 3 forms to Springfield.

After we finished at Sec. of State, we headed off to do some sight seeing. We planned a surprise for Hayden, since he has also been talking about tall buildings that scrape the sky. We hopped on the subway (another cool treat for Hayden) and made our way to the John Hancock. The 94 floor flight up the elevator was some ride (Mommy felt yucky afterwards). But Hayden will be tickled pink to tell you he saw Navy Pier, and that the Ferris wheel is actually named after the man who made it named Ferris ("get it Ferris Wheel, Ferris made it" then he giggles).

The morning had started out cool, but ended quite balmy. We left the city sweaty, worn out, and in awe. Yes we are ready to do it again, but we should take a closer look at the weather next time :) .

With that out of the way, we have continued on our mini one day family vacations. I hope to post in the next coming days pictures of the giant park we encountered. Hayden enjoyed climbing the huge rope contraption - following Michael, with a bit of help. We are so proud of all his accomplishments everyday. In addition to that, his reading is coming along well! The radio in my car shows the name of the song, band, etc... and seeing that we are in the car a lot - Hayden is constantly reading the words and sounding things out (this just being one example of many times a day he asks us about words LOL). We are surprised every time.

Bike camp starts next week for Hayden. We hope this will give Hayden the encouragement and confidence he needs to ride his big boy bike more often - in addition to seeing his peers in the group riding.

We are still chugging along with Baby V stuff, hence the trip to Chicago. I am eagerly looking for a wall mural in a cherry blossom motif in pink and brown to help pull the room together and put some paint on the walls. Etsy,com is a great source with many choices, I'm just undecided.

We will continue enjoying our summer, we hope you will too - before we know it, fall will be here... 1 comments

Posted by Mel at 9:43 PM