Short Happenings

*** Hankie boy ***

We brought Hank home the last week of June. He has done much better with the kids than we expected. We did have to have a few lessons on "when to know when Hank has had enough of you" and "where Hank will let you touch him so you don't incur his wrath" and "why it's never, ever a good idea to take Hank's toys away from him". They have been good about not pushing him past his limits, and he has been more tolerant of their intrusions on him than we thought he would be.

The kids all went to summer school in June. In July/August the girls went to a day camp that is run by the county parks and rec department at a local lake. Oscar spent his summer (after summer school) with Grandma Schoemig learning more reading, writing and math. He also started playing soccer on a team with his cousin Neil in August. The girls went back to school this week. Diana is in 2nd grade, Mayerly is in 1st grade and Claudia is in kindergarten. Oscar is still being home schooled by Grandma right now. We're hoping he'll be caught up enough to go to school next year, but we aren't going to rush him into something we feel he isn't yet ready for. He still has a lot of ground to make up.

Happy 9th Birthday - One Day Late - Diana!

This week has been completely crazy, so I didn't get this posted yesterday on Diana's 9th birthday. We had our 2nd post-adopt visit on Tuesday, I also had to finish an article for the newsletter at work and I'm also working on some neighborhood stuff that needs to go to the City Planning Commission before next Tuesday. I'm also working full time these days (until the kids start back to school on August 17th - then I'm back to part time). I am sooo ready for the weekend! Enjoy the pictures.

Grandpa Verhulst, Claudia & Oscar

Diana blowing out her candles

Mom, Diana, Grandma Schoemig, Luke, Mayerly, Blakely, Aunt Val, Grandma & Grandpa Verhulst and the back of Oscar's head...

Dad setting fire to the cake (his favorite job)

The happy birthday girl

Got "turned in" to the Media by our Neighbors...

Yup, we are now minor celebrities in our community. It's so weird... Anyway, below is a link to the newspaper article that ran July 4th.

http://www.examiner.net/homepage/x737355458/Theres-no-place-like-home

Bunnies y Flowders

Every morning we give the kids 3 pills; one OTC Claritin (actually it's Costco brand), one Flintstones (also Costco brand), and one calcium chew (chocolate flavor, also from Costco). ***sidebar*** The kids take calcium at the pediatricians' recommendation. When we first took Oscar to the doctor, he was complaining about his elbow (and before that feet in Colombia until we bought him some shoes that fit him better) hurting him. The doctor took an X-ray of his arm and found no damage, but did find his bone tissue to be very thin. Henceforth, calcium.***

Anyway, the calcium comes in a foil wrapper. Every morning I get 4 flowers (or flowders as Oscar pronounces them). One from each kid. Below is a picture of my flowders from this morning.

Flowers by (left to right): Claudia, Mayerly (es una copa today), Diana & Oscar

**********

Our yard seems to be a bunny haven. This is the second clutch (it's a clutch of bunnies, right?) to be born in our back yard this year. The kids are facinated by "los bunnies". I took this picture yesterday over my lunch hour. It's a good thing too, because by the time I got home from picking the kids up from school, they had all left the nest. Hanai (our dog) found one in the yard and was carrying it around in her mouth which led to shrieks from Mayerly and Claudia that "Hanai esta comiendo un bunny!" (Hanai is eating a bunny - if you no habla espanol) -sidebar- Hanai doesn't eat bunnies, she just wants to play with them, the bunnies just fail to understand that... Anyway, I retrieved the bunny from Hanai and it was completely unharmed. Everyone gave a little pet and some picos (kisses) on the bunny's head (which it really did not appreciate) and I set it free under the firewood rack.

Six Flags - St. Louis, MO

Over Memorial Day weekend we met my (Anne's) good friend Dalila, her husband Jeff and their daughter Nicole in St. Louis. It was our first first family trip out of town. We went to Six Flags and to the St. Louis Zoo. The kids had a great time and so did we (I hope we weren't too much for Dalila and Jeff, since they just have one kid right now :-).)

Claudia and Mayerly were too small to ride most of the roller coasters. I rode the Evel Kenevel (don't know if I spelled that right) with Diana and the Screaming Eagle with Oscar. I don't think Diana was real crazy about the roller coasters. We all rode the Tony Hawk roller coaster - Mayerly rode with Tim and evidently screamed to be let off the whole time. Claudia rode with me and laughed her head off the whole ride... I tried to talk Oscar into riding Batman with me, but he decided that he didn't like the idea of his legs dangling on a coaster. Maybe we'll get him to ride the one at Worlds of Fun. Oscar must have told me 'Thank you, Ma' (-sidebar- he's trying to say "Mom", but he has trouble getting that last consonant on most English words) at least five times. I asked him 'For what?', he said 'For dis (making a gesture for the whole park/zoo)'. I ask you, when was the last time you heard an 11-year-old boy thanking one of his parents for a trip to the amusement park or the zoo?

In other news...

notice Claudia's new hairdo. She can pull any barrette that I have bought out, so as soon as her hair got long enough, I started putting it in teeny, tiny pony tails. She looks like a toddler, but at least she looks like a girl.

Diana's eye isn't hurt. She's wearing an eye patch for her strabismus. The doctor said to try that first. She has to wear it all day for a month and then we go back in July to see if that is working at all. It's hard to get her to wear it, and the silly things don't stick very well to sweaty skin (it is almost summer here in the humid midwest). We're doing the best we can with it.

Claudia, Mayerly, Nicole, Diana & Oscar w/ Pepe LePew

Claudia, Mayerly, Diana & Oscar

Oscar, Claudia, Diana & Mayerly with Taz

Mayerly and Claudia

Nicole, Tim, Mayerly, Diana, Claudia & Oscar with Tweety (this is toward the end of the day)

Bikes, Parque and Fiesta

I'm just posting some recent pictures with this one. The girls (except Claudia) got their faces painted at school this afternoon.

The girls on the swingset

Diana with a 'tigre' face

Mayerly with a 'mariposa/gato' face

Our swingset that the kids call 'el parque'

This is the view of it from my office window upstairs

Diana, Oscar and Mayerly on their bikes

Short Update

We finally got the immunization thing squared away last Thursday (at about 4:30 pm). The girls started school on Friday and they absolutely loved it! Their teacher is bilingual and there are kids in their class that speak Spanish. I only hope that this does not slow their learning of English, since that is the main reason we put them in public school.

I go back to work tomorrow (5 hours per day). Things haven't gone exactly as we had planned, but when does anything? We've just kinda rolled with it and we are surviving.

-Anne