Loving open adoption!

Back in June, we had a great visit with Zoe’s birthmom, Z.  You can read about it here:   A Visit with her Birthmom.  We hadn’t seen her since late September.  We also hadn’t seen Z’s family since January because they moved out of state.  They happened to be here on vacation, so we were able to get together with them today at the zoo. 

I am guessing that most of the country is having the same heat wave that we are having this week.  Wow, it was quite a lot to handle.  But we all had a great time walking around and talking about what has been going on with each other.  New jobs, new homes, kids getting bigger…it was really nice to catch up.  Zoe had a lot of fun with her birth grand parents and one of her birth uncles.  They bought her a little water toy that sprayed water, and she was very happy to get everyone wet!  (Not that we minded, that’s for sure.)  We are hoping to see them again sometime soon!

I love that we were able to make a visit happen today.  We miss them a lot, just like we miss Zoe’s birth mom. 

4th of July at the lake

When I was growing up, we used to drive about 3 hours away to get to my grandparents’ house.  They lived on a lake, and we spent a lot of time there every summer.  My sisters and I would spend hours swimming and looking for rocks that we could skip.  We would see how far we could swim out until we couldn’t touch bottom anymore.  My dad would take us all out for boat rides, and we would go tubing or waterskiing behind the boat.   I can remember walking up the hill to Hunts’ drugstore with my change in my pocket; I couldn’t wait to buy candy or magazines.  We would go putt-putt golfing and go to the waterslide.  We went strawberry picking (or raspberries) with my grandma, and we would beg our parents to stop at Zubler’s and the Rocking Chair Gift Shoppe for souvenirs. 

My parents and my aunt uncle own my grandparents’ home now.  We were lucky enough to go up this past week and spend some time on the lake with my parents, my sister, Janice, and my cousin, and his friends.  It was pretty amazing to see the lake that I loved as a child through Zoe’s eyes. 

 

Heading out for a fishing trip…

Fourth of July and s’mores kind of go hand-in-hand for me, but apparently not for Zoe.  She was not a fan.  Oh well. 

Campfire, fireworks, and sparklers…the perfect night!  I think Zoe was super excited to stay up past 8:00 pm, too!  She got to stay up with the big kids.

Zoe’s favorite part of the trip?  Riding on her grandparents’ boat…and trying to help with the driving!  I could really see how much she loved it all when she was out on the lake. 

What have you been up to this summer?

This past Friday was Steve’s follow-up appointment to check on his progress since the open-heart surgery he had done just a bit over two years ago.  We are still waiting to hear news back about his test result, but the visit in the office went really well.  They are very happy with how he’s doing; so are we!  I feel so thankful and grateful that he did so well when he had the surgery done and that he’s doing so great today!

Adoption-related news…I just finished working on a project that is going to be part of Zoe’s birth mom’s birthday gift.  I will post a picture soon; I just want to wait until after she receives it in the mail.  Other adoption news…we applied for the Cade Foundation’s Family Building Grant.  I had heard it about online and had also heard that they hadn’t had many people apply who were adopting.  The grant is given to couples who are doing infertility treatments or adopting.  We won’t know if we received the grant until sometime in the fall. 

(a picture Zoe drew of her birth mom…we’re sending it to her soon.  By the way, that’s an eyebrow – just one – with eyelashes above her eye!)

Other than that, we have been keeping busy.  We’ve been doing some things with our neighbors, going to the pool, checking on our garden, and playing in the backyard.  We found a new place (new to us and relatively new to the area) for Zoe to play – Detroit Kid City.  It was a lot of fun to watch her run back and forth between their post office, bank, recording studio, diner and a few other little places.  We had so much fun there the day of Steve’s doctor appointment that we went back yesterday so we could take some friends with us. 

(planting a garden, just like ours at home…)

(our first peppers…I was just a bit excited!!)

(Hoping we get some strawberries, too!)

(Someone loves to be in the water.  I love watching her go up to other kids and talk to them at the pool.  She’s so interested in meeting them and talking to them.)

What fun things have you been doing this summer?  Anything on your summer ‘bucket’ list?

Adoption Buddies and Our Summer Bucket List

In the blink of eye it is already June 24th.  I’m not sure how that happened.  We have had so much going on this past month, and this is the first chance I have had to really write a blog post.  This weekend and last weekend were just as busy as the first part of June when Zoe’s birthmom was here to visit.  We had friends here from Boston; they arrived this past Friday night, and we were able to show them around our town a bit.  We spent a very hot but fun afternoon at the zoo and a very fun evening (just adults) at a baseball game.

Our friends, L and B, and trying to convert our little one into a Red Sox fan!  They brought her lots of gear to get her started.

The game was really fun to watch.  Our home team won, and they ended the night with an amazing fireworks display.  I have never been so close to fireworks before…exciting and yet a bit scary all at the same time.

Like I said, our weekends have been jam-packed.  Not only were our friends visiting, but I was helping host a bridal shower for my cousins on Sunday, so part of last week was spent helping my family get ready for that.  We also had a few get togethers with some of Zoe’s friends, and we even met up with a new group of friends through our adoption agency.  I had heard from our caseworker that some adoptive moms were starting a playgroup and were looking for others to join.  We spent part of Friday at a local park hanging out with them.  While the kids played, we parents were able to share our stories with each other.  It was a pretty neat day to meet other moms from our agency who have been through the process before.  We are planning on more trips and visits over the summer.

In addition to that, I got it in my head that I really wanted to take Zoe strawberry picking!  Yes, it’s actually on the summer bucket list I have posted on our refrigerator!   One of Zoe’s friends and her family had  just been, and I decided we had better do it before the berries were gone.   We went to one of our favorite orchards on Thursday and luckily they still had “lots ‘o’ berries.”

I loved how Zoe would step carefully over the rows and call, “Here’s a good one, Mommy!”  It was very sweet. 

I can remember picking berries with my parents, sisters, and grandparents; Zoe will have that memory, too. 

I am sort of writing in reverse…so I guess I’ll skip back to last weekend.  We celebrated Father’s Day by going to a local historical place that also had a car show.  It was right up my Dad’s alley. 

Zoe wanted to give Steve and my dad their gifts before we left…a handprint painting  and a photo collage for Zoe’s Daddy and a stepping stone for Grandpa’s garden and a pair of baseball tickets.  We made our own wrapping paper this year…pretty good likeness, I would say!

She looks like she’s grown so much when I look at that last picture…where has the time gone?

The day before Father’s Day was spent on a mini-road trip.  Zoe and I drove to our state’s capitol to meet up with our friends.  M met us there with her son C, and R met us there with her son M.  I am friends with M and R through an online adoption group.  I am beyond lucky and fortunate to know these two ladies and their little ones.  It’s amazing to me how even before we all met, we felt such a sense of connection to each other.  M and I and the kids had met a few times over the past couple of years.  The six of us got to meet each other for the first time last summer when we had a picnic and spent the afternoon at a splash park.

We had a picnic on the grounds of the Capitol building, and the kids had chased each other and checked everything out.  C  had a book about our state, and he knew all about our capitol!

We spent the rest of the day at a nearby zoo and explored the different exhibits…got to wander around, pet some goats, go for a pony ride, and see a white peacock, too!

We may have spied Spiderman nearby…the kids were slinging their “webs” at him! 

And at a few times throughout the day, the ended up hand in hand just like little buddies should.  I am so thankful for our friendship and the way adoption has brought us together.