The Park

In previous summers, we have spent a lot of time in the park down the street from us. They have a great playground and an outdoor pool (where we took swim lessons).

This year we decided to take swim lessons at a different pool (because it is indoors and I was tired on freezing on all the chilly days!). After swimming, we would play in the park, get free lunch, and play some more.

I fell in love with this park.

The trees reminded me how lovely the Northwest is. The ambiance was friendly. We even made some new friends with another adoptive family.

Here are some pictures from our summer fun in this park.

On one especially hot day, the kids took advantage of the park's wading pool.

The following 2 shots crack me up when you realize these are taken in sequence in sports-mode on the camera!

I've got it?Oops! Guess not.

The kids brought their bikes one day for some post-swimming exercise.

We returned to the park on Saturday evening to listen to an outdoor symphony performance!

I love how this one in particular came out.

He's strumming his air guitar here.
Or maybe since we're listening to the symphony, this is his air violin?

A brand-new indoor swimming pool is being built fairly close to our home. But still, we may return next year to this same pool and park. You just can't beat perfection.

Swimming, Swimming, In the Swimming Pool

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's....

fish??!!





Cal finally got into the spirit of putting his face in the water on his 4th to last lesson. Lissi never loved it (as seen in the video), but she was somewhat tolerant. She actually was graduated to the next level of lessons. Woo hoo!

Look who went camping?

We did!!
We returned last night from the Holt Family Campout. this was our 1st time camping with the kids and we are still recovering ;)

Although our kids don't really get it yet, this was an amazing opportunity for multi-ethnic families to gather and kids to be with others from similar family backgrounds. There were children there born in: Korea, China, Ecuador, India, USA, Thailand, and the Phillipines (and other countries that I can't remember). Kids ranged from typically developing to profound physical and/or mental disabilities. There were 80 families participating!

I was told that this is an especially important week for the teens and they will sometimes even write college application essays about this annual campout (this was the 20th anniversary).

The kids did GREAT and did not want to leave. Cal was totally independent on his new 2 wheel bike and would disappear for 20 minute stretches. He was very responsible and always checked back in with me or met me where he said he would be going. Wink had a hard time with his pain and insomnia, but he made it through.

We pre-registered for next year already. Anyone want to come along? ;)