An Overdue Reunion

Our journey to form a family began 7 years ago when we decided to adopt our first child.  After considering different options we came to the conclusion that Russia is where we were going.  Both Sara and I had the good fortune of spending some time out of the country, but neither of us had traveled to a place like Russia. 

As the time to travel to meet our little guy grew nearer, the excitement for the trip was ever-present, as was the slight fear of the unknown about how the trips would go. Needless to say, we were very pleased when our agency told us that we would be traveling with another adoptive family while overseas, and not only just any other family, but a family that had previously adopted two children from Russia. 

We met the Colles on our first full day in Moscow and had the pleasure of traveling with them for each of our three trips necessary to bring Lleyton home.  We last had the pleasure of seeing them and their son Taggart, who was one of Lleyton’s roommates in their orphanage in Samara, on what was certainly a freezing cold day early in 2008 as we both departed from Moscow en route back to our homes in the States.  The Colles live outside of Denver.  We live outside of Cincinnati.  Which means that we haven’t had much of an opportunity to keep up with them as well as we would have hoped.   Hence, when they reached out to us a couple of weeks ago saying they were going to be driving through Cincinnati on vacation we jumped at the chance to get together with them and reunite our boys.   

The boys in December 2007

 

The boys now.

 

 

The boys clearly hit the ground running when it comes to enjoying hanging out together...as did all of the siblings.  Here's to hoping that we can have the pleasure of hanging with them again next year during their summer roadtrip.  

 

 

Happy 10th Birthday!

Single digits are in this guy's rear view mirror.

 

Living in fast forward...

…at least that’s what it feels like most days/weeks/months in our house.  Time is flying by and there always seems to be something going on, yet we are doing our best to slow down and enjoy the ride. 

As you will probably concur after taking a look at the pics below, the kids are growing like weeds (except Lleyton of course, as he’s still positioning himself to be a jockey when he gets a bit older). 

Parker is nipping at Sara’s heals and could soon hold the title of 2^nd tallest person in the family.

Addy and Cam are on the fast track to catching Lleyton soon, but who knows, maybe our little guy will spring up there and find his way onto a growth chart of these days. 

This year, not surprisingly with 4 small children, has been quite busy.  We set out to sell our house early in the year and to our delight we were successful (now if we could only unload our two rental properties we’d be set).  We bid adieu to our old house at the end of May and “moved into” our new house at the same.  The quotation marks symbolize the fact that we did move in and are living in the house, yet there remain MANY boxes yet to be unpacked (thank heavens for a fancy dryer that gets the wrinkles out of my pants/shirts each morning, as cardboard boxes don’t prevent wrinkles as well as hangers).  Our goal was to have all of that taken care of prior to our departure on vacation a couple of weeks ago, but that didn’t happen. Ces la vie. 

 Parker wrapped up another baseball season recently, as did Lleyton.  Addy and Cam did their best throughout the season to not allow Sara and I to sit down during any one game for an extended period of time and succeeded. 

 This week marks the week that we took off a year ago to head to Seoul to bring Camden home.  Those memories are so vivid in our minds right now, as we yearn to someday get back there.  I miss Seoul….and Moscow and Samara…and Addis Ababa.

Through the first half of the year we have celebrated both Sara and I’s 34^th birthdays, as well as Cam’s first birthday with us (his 3^rd overall), Parker’s 10^th birthday, as well as Addy and Parker’s anniversary dates of joining our family. 

 In my heyday I was able to find the time to jump on here and blog a few times a week, which worked out great, as it gave those close to us an idea of what we were up to while also allowing Sara and I to preserve memories that we can share with the kids as they grow older.  Now I’m not one that’s going to say that I am going to be able to get back to my glory days (it’s amazing how much less time you have with each additional child entering the mix) but here’s to hoping I can get back in some sort of swing of things.