Continuing on - Fall and Winter

Visits and holidays took up much of our fall and winter. I can't believe how much we managed to pack into those few months!

Katy kept busy at the YWCA with her new room, the Rainbow room. She started swimming lessons and had another outing to the apple orchard. I love to chaperone that every year. School pictures were taken in a dress of Katy's choosing and the sweater I made (and made her wear without much complaint).

Katy also started morning classes at Armatage school, with extra emphasis on speech and occupational therapy. It's amazing how much she's progressed since September! It is an early morning now for us as the bus comes to our driveway at 7am. Thankfully she loves it so much that even on vacation she was heard to say "I want to go home, I miss the bus".

We had a visit from my friend Kate and her family, partner Annie and daughter Maddie. All of us girls had a blast visiting Pine Tree apple orchard and Kate's old stomping grounds at the UofM. We had a dress up party with Katy's Ethiopian dresses and made some fun messes fixing breakfast and painting projects.

In October, Katy turned 3. I can't believe it seems like so long ago. We celebrated the day with Titi at our favorite restaurant Burger Jones.

 

The next weekend we had the birthday party with Katy's friends. I had grand ambitions for a medium-sized, medium-activity party and it went swimmingly! Thanks to all the moms and dads who helped make that happen :-) I couldn't decide on a theme and Katy wasn't forthcoming so we had Thomas the Train plates and napkins and Lego cupcakes and general party decoration. Katy didn't care much for the singing/candle blowing experience but she was happier than the picture shows.

My big idea was one I saw they had done at daycare. Big sheets of craft paper with their bodies outlined that they got to decorate from a big pile of markers, stampers, colored tape and stickers. We had great participation for a bunch of 2-4 year olds! As the kids had their pizza, the grownups cut them out and put them on the wall for the final picture. I think that might have been my favorite part, watching it all come together.

 

Next we went up to Superior to visit Evi and her mom Rachel. It was so fun to watch the girls have so much fun together. We both really enjoyed the whole weekend. We had dress up time, a marching band concert and glow stick/finger light disco dancing. We went to a corn maze, saw pumpkin lights at the Glensheen mansion and played at the Duluth Children's Museum. We know how to pack in the fun! As you can see by the last picture, we did our job tiring the girls out.

 

The obligatory halloween costume shot. She had bumblebee antennae but chose Riley's devil horns instead. It was nice that she walked this year but I'm excited for her to be able to take steps at faster than a snail's pace next year. And maybe next year she'll time her 'trick or treat' and 'thank you' for the doorway rather than the sidewalk.

Thanksgiving came on a warm day so Katy decided to dress in spectacular fashion for some outdoor fun. Then we headed to Nana and Papa's house and had a nice dinner with them and my aunt and uncle Mary and Boomer.

 Just had to include some backyard fun on the way to church one morning. I made this dress for summer but it didn't get done until it needed extra warmth underneath. Still cute I think! Maybe it will head to the state fair this year?

And finally for this long post, Christmas. For which, inexplicably I have no photos. I believe they were on the phone that got stolen. I thought I had downloaded them before the theft but sadly no. All I have is the logo and a shot from Disneyland that I can't get to upload. Needless to say we had a fun trip to California to stay with Aunt Susan and Uncle Erik. Disneyland, bell choir at the San Diego Zoo, a visit to the train museum, lots of food and presents!

Whew, we're getting there!

And now a recap, Summer 2012

It's time to get back to blogging. Has it really been since November? Yikes. Would you believe my New Year's resolution was to blog more often? Yeah, me neither. Life is exciting and busy with a 3 year old but apparently that's no excuse as I regularly read blogs written by people who have way more going on than that. Although I do have yet to find another blog of an over 40 single mom with a toddler, a geriatric dog and Stage IV cancer. Quite possibly that's a very small subset of the population. Just sayin.

When we last left off, I relaxed at a weekend retreat fly fishing. We enjoyed the rest of the summer with gusto, having fun at home and going on outings...

The Woodbury High School gymnastics team reunited. Well a few of us anyway. We had a great time anyway. Some of us (not me necessarily) still have the moves! Still looking for Michelle's set of keys, anyone seen them? Someday they will show up, I'm sure!

 Katy saw her first fireworks, down the street on the fairway of the country club. It was at least 120 degrees outside, with 110% humidity and there were swarms of mosquitos. And yet we cuddled tightly for the duration of the show. Not Katy's favorite thing, I guess. So sweaty...

We had visits with some or our Ethiopian friends! Katy's best friend Evi and her mom Rachel visited from Superior. The girls are so cute together! And since they have know each other the longest of anyone in their life, we're so glad we can keep in touch. Stay tuned for more cuteness on that front.

Sophie and her mom Sarah visited in August from Illinois (Indiana? why can't I remember that?) It's fun to see the girls growing up!

I scored backstage tickets to the Barenaked Ladies show at the Minnesota Zoo. My favorite fun band at an excellent outdoor venue. It was a great night! I also saw Coldplay and Madonna at the Xcel Center with work friends in the suites. Great nights, bad pictures but this post is long enough to skip any of those.

 Katy loves getting messy and splashing in the water to clean off...

We went to lots of festivals...
Linden Hills corn feed. So yummy! Also Linden Hills festival which featured Katy's first pony ride. Great video of that, can't find it.

Woodbury Days - another pony ride!

The Minnesota State Fair - Katy's second trip was much more active. Last year she slept through most of it. This year there was food, rides, coloring and dancing on stage! We also checked out my crochet projects entered in the creative arts contest. Two red ribbons! I'll have to think of something else fun for this year and see if I can score a blue ribbon.

Ethiopian New Year 2005 celebration with Nana and Papa

That's way more than enough for one post. Sheesh, I've missed a lot. Next up, fall and winter!

Katy's lifebook, chapter 1

Katy gets published! Many thanks to a fellow adoptive mom for the base version of this wonderful book. I adapted it to Katy's story and I'm already on to chapter two. Hopefully I can get it done before it's time for chapter three!

Click here to view this photo book larger

You'll love award-winning Shutterfly photo books. Start your own today.

Casting for Recovery weekend

While perusing the flyers at Pathways, I came across the Casting for Recovery brochure. If you haven't heard of it and are a breast cancer survivor, you should definitely check it out. They host fly fishing retreats across the country. And it's free for participants! It is positively amazing how generous people can be and I for one am truly appreciative of their donations of time, money and spirit.

Our retreat was on the first weekend in June in Siren, Wisconsin. We had time to socialize and get to know each other. Then we got into tying flies, learning to cast and making lanyards for our guides and prayer flags. It was so fun! And finally on Sunday morning we each got our own guide and we tried our luck at actual fly fishing. I met some beautiful and strong women, both participants and volunteers. We had lots of laughs and a couple of tears too. I was the only Stage IV girl there, thankfully for them but sad for me. Nevertheless we bonded on that level that facing cancer brings. If I could do it every year I would. Maybe I'll become a volunteer...

We gathered up all our gear and learned to tie some basic knots

Outside of the Lodge at Crooked Lake we tried our first attempts at casting

It's good to have a bit of instruction first!

One of the neat things about the weekend was the swag, I'm not gonna lie :-) We had goodies on our beds when we checked in and when we left. We also got a graduation bag of goodies. At lunch one day we all had our names drawn for gift baskets. At The Hartford, the main sponsor of the retreat, the employees have contests to make up the best gift baskets. The winning baskets are given to the participants. When my name was chosen I got a big styrofoam cooler of grilling utensils and condiments which was great but I had most of it already. My table mate drew a box of cupcake making goodies. Didn't take too much for us to realize we liked each other's baskets so we traded! Her husband was going to love all the grilling gear and I'm making cupcakes. yea!

This is a wooly something or other. I did not catch a fish with it but it looks like a fish would think it was tasty. I guess?

My prayer flag

The beautiful Crooked Lake

Gotta have all the gear, right? I'm suited up and ready to fish.

Knapp Creek, just south of Siren. A beautiful place to be, fishing or not!

Proof I caught a fish! No that's not bait, that's the fish.

My new friends Lisa and Catherine (her guide) reeling in one of her catches

I couldn't have wished for a better weekend. Great company, great weather, great fun! 

Holiday Weekend Visit

Memorial Day weekend we had a great visit from Aunt Susan and Uncle Erik. I was recovering from surgery and they offered to come and take care of us for a bit. Yea!

We started off with a trip to Como Park Zoo and Conservatory

Which included a ride on the carousel. Katy actually enjoyed it very much, even if the photo doesn't show it.

We also spent some time with Nana and Papa. One of our excursions was to Smalley's Pirate Bar in Stillwater. Apparently they are the home to the hottest wings, even hot enough to almost make Triple D's Guy Fieri cry! We polished off one plate of six wings and they were indeed the hottest.wings.ever. I had one bite then promptly ordered the milk and ice cream sandwich platter. Good gravy that was too much. (Katy wanted one but wisely, we said no)

The rest of the weekend we hung out, played around and did some chores around the house. Erik fixed my remote (woot!) and the crib (double woot!) and Susan cooked some amazing meals (yum!). Erik also set us up with some XBox360 games and we had loads of fun flailing about. Wish I had pictures of that!

Not sure why she wanted to tape herself together...

Having fun on the rocks soon to be added to the rain garden.

Beating the heat with the fun pool rings from Nana.

Part of our holiday celebration involved these yummy Snow Cone Cupcakes. Despite the crappy picture, they were quite spectacular. They even had foil sparklers on them and sugar crystals so they looked like snow cones. 

We love having visitors and especially loved having Auntie and Uncle here! We won't get to see them again until Christmas and we're looking forward to it.