holiday
2011 Recap
4Here we are on the last day of 2011. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is having a safe New Year’s Eve.
It’s been another eventful year for us here at 2Dolphins. Our blogging might have slowed down but we certainly have not. Below are some of the highlights of the year:
March – trip to Washington DC and Liam got to climb the steps and see Abraham Lincoln (something he had been asking to do for months)
June – my Mom passed away. This was bittersweet as you’re never ready to lose a loved one but you also never want to see them them suffer with a horrible disease like Alzheimer’s.
July – Corpus, time to heal at the beach.
August – another year older and wiser. Rob & I celebrated our 15 year anniversary.
September – San Diego, it had been too long. Also, Liam started Kindergarten and it just about broke my heart. It has definitely changed him and not all for the better. He went from being my sweet innocent baby to all boy picking up some bad attitude from the other kids at school.
November – after 15 years, we finally had to buy a new washer & dryer and got the front loaders that we had been eye-balling for years. Luckily they stopped working on Thanksgiving Day so we could cash in on some Black Friday deals.
December – we had a white Christmas for the first time since 1997 and the ghost of Steve Jobs visited and converted me to an iMac user. I’m looking forward to learning the new photo capabilities it has to offer.
So as we say goodbye to 2011 and hello to 2012, we want to say how thankful we are for our friends and family and all the blessings we have received this year!
Beach Bums
4It’s been 2 years since our feet last hit the ocean, so last week was a special treat as we finally got to relax in the sun & sand!
This was our first trip to Padre Island and we really enjoyed the Texas coast’s warm water. In the past, we’ve usually visited San Diego and the chilly Pacific beaches, so this was a nice change. We met up with our Brady friends and Liam got some expert skimboarding lessons. Although he never truly mastered staying on the board, he put his whole heart into it and never gave up trying. He would definitely be a surfer dude if we lived near a beach!
We arrived just in time for Hurricane/Tropical Storm Don warnings. We knew something was up when news crews starting setting up equipment on the beach—the Weather Channel crew was setup right on the same area of beach where we had been playing all day! We were told to gas up our vehicles and be ready to evacuate the island. It was projected to hit exactly at our location but fortunately it fizzled out before it got there and all we got was a little wind and no rain. We have much stronger winds on an almost daily basis in West Texas.
We pretty much did absolutely nothing but sit on the beach all day and swim in the pool in the evenings and as a bonus, we saw some dolphins playing in the water. I call that a PERFECT vacation!
Mother’s Day 2011
4I had a wonderful Mother’s Day today. It started with a dozen roses from my wonderful husband and Liam gave me a Starbucks Doodle It Tumbler that he wrote “Liam Loves Mom” on. Liam also wrote the same message on his dry erase board for me to see. I love that he’s learning to write and spell but I hate that he’s growing up so fast.
The Pre-K school also had a Mother’s Day Tea on Friday. Liam & I had lunch with all the other kids and their Moms. We were all given a set of aprons for the Moms and the kids with their handprints on them. I think the idea is for us to cook together in the kitchen but they obviously don’t know our family very well or they’d know this would be a more suitable Father’s Day gift. 
Rob thinks it’s funny because I don’t want the aprons to get dirty because I’m afraid the paint will wash off so I’m just going to store them away.
We also went to see G-Ma this afternoon at the nursing home and wish her a happy Mother’s Day. She was feeling a little down when we got there but perked right up when she saw Liam. He sang her a couple of songs and the whole place was perked up by the time we left. One lady was even doing a little dancing.
I hope all the Moms out there had a wonderful day with your kiddos. I sure did!
Liam’s 5th Birthday
1Liam celebrated his 5th birthday on April 28th. He wasn’t really into having a big birthday party this year. They had one for him at his Pre-K with all his friends from school so we just had a small celebration at home. I got him a pirate themed cake and decorations since he is all into the Disney show Jake and the Neverland Pirates.
For his birthday gift, he finally got a bike and he was one happy little boy!
Easter 2011
0Liam had his first Easter egg hunt of the season on April 16th at the hospital’s annual Easter egg hunt. Liam did quite well, his bucket was overflowing with treat-filled eggs.
Next, his Pre-K class had their egg hunt on April 21st at the park across the street from their building. It was lots of fun to see the kids clear the grounds in less than 5 minutes. I noticed that one inventive little guy, finding no more eggs, starting filling his bucket with pine cones instead.
We were out of town for Easter weekend. We went to Round Rock for shopping at our favorite Ikea store (more on the Ikea purchases in a separate post). Liam is such a good traveler and we are so fortunate that is he is completely content just riding in the car patiently for 6 hours. He took a few books and things to play with but mostly he just likes to ride, look out the window, ask questions, catnap, talk, and sing along the way. He was very excited about going to Ikea because he loves the Småland play area where he can dive into the giant ball pit.
After we filled the car with Ikea boxes, we headed home on Easter Sunday. We stopped off to see our friends in Brady and Liam got one last egg hunt in.
I hope you all had a Happy Easter!
Spring Break 2011
3Since my job is now part of the education system, I had last week off for Spring Break—yay!
We went to Washington DC & Virginia to visit our friends Chris, Teresa & Anna who we met in Moscow back in 2008. Although we hadn’t seen them since we left Russia, we’ve kept in close touch with them through the years and they graciously invited us to come stay in their beautiful home for a few days.
Liam studied the presidents in his pre-school last month and was looking forward to seeing Abe Lincoln’s statue. He and Anna had a great time playing together and we really enjoyed our time there!
Click here to view photos from our trip.
Christmas 2010
4Since this is the last day of 2010, I thought I’d better get busy and get this posted! We had another wonderful Christmas this year. Liam has made our Christmases a very special time. There’s just nothing better than all the fun things we do during this time of year and the build up to and the excitement on a 4 year old’s face on Christmas morning.
My best friend Karen (or a.k.a. “Nanny Karen”) spent the week with us and it always feels like our family is complete when she is here. She convinced me to make real cookies with Liam this year instead of our traditional open the package and put on the pan kind. We all had a fun time baking and decorating and Karen enjoyed my stressing over the cookie imperfections and sprinkle mounds that Liam put on the cookies.
This was our first Christmas in our new house. We started putting up a few decorations outside but soon discovered that we’re living across the street from Clark W. Griswold! And our next door neighbor is a close second with his incredible light-wrapped trees and giant wreath, so we sort of lost interest in doing much decorating outside this year. But we were very excited to have a fireplace for Santa to come down this year—its always been a bit of a mystery how he got into our house before. Of course, the big question now is how he avoids getting burned by the fire & hot ashes on his way down.
I heard Liam wake up early on Christmas morning but never heard him come out of his room. I went to check on him and he was still in bed with the covers pulled up and said that he had to stay snuggled in his bed or Santa wouldn’t come. It was quite a relief for him to find out that Santa had already come & gone. After further discussion, we discovered that we had both heard the sleigh bells and reindeer on our roof that night.
Needless to say, he loved all of his gifts and spent most of the day unwrapping a gift or two and then playing for a while. He had asked Santa for a Henry and James train (from the Thomas collection) and a Batman car (which is really the Joker car) and Santa came through for him and also included a train table. Here are a few more pics from Christmas morning and Liam reading his new books with Nanny Karen.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a safe and Happy New Year!
Breakfast With Santa 2010
0A few weeks ago Liam met up with “The Big Guy” for his annual Breakfast With Santa. Liam went fully loaded with his wish list for Christmas but Santa is getting off pretty light this year since there were only 3 small requests: James and Henry trains (from the Thomas the Tank Engine set) and a “Shake n Go” Batman car (which is really a Joker car).
Photo compliments of Jennifer Spera Photography
I can’t believe how big he looks in Santa’s lap compared to last year. We had a great time and it gave me a chance to catch up with some of my former co-workers at MCH.
But the most exciting part of the day was after we left Santa. Liam had an opportunity to ride in a fire truck. The fire department academy’s graduating class was practicing driving the truck in the parking lot and they promised to be safe and give both my boys a ride. I’m thinking Rob might have enjoyed it as much as Liam. You be the judge.
Metcha Tres
6Anniversaries are a way to remember, relive, reflect upon, and fully appreciate again important experiences and events in our lives. And today marks one of those major milestones for us. Words fail to paint the significance of that day, but it was life-altering to say the very least…
On our second day in Moscow, Russia, 3 years ago today, Monday, December 3rd, 2007, Dede & I met Liam for the first time!
We weren’t allowed to post or email photos of him until the adoption was finalized several weeks later, but of course we took lots of pictures on that special day. This is the first time we saw our son, being brought to see us by his kind caretaker, on that frosty morning in Podolsk:
Big congrats to Melissa & Nathan who’re experiencing their own “Metcha Day” today!
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