I wish I MAY

In my continued effort to get caught my life and blog synced back up - here is a quick recap of May's events.  When we left off in April, my mom had just entered the hospital and I was up to my elbows in alligators.  

To kick off May, I hosted 5 of my work counter parts in Detroit to assist with my largest distributor.  Translation:  I had to travel for 2 nights while my mom was in the hospital rehabbing from surgery #1 - a partial hip replacement for her broken hip.  My kids have only ever stayed with myself OR Gramma.  Needless to say, I was a BALL of stress.  Too add to the craziness, my kids are BOTH structure kids.  Coming out of institutions in Russia with a very specific schedule, they do best with a structure.  My cousin has volunteered many times to have my kids stay with her while I travel, and it's such a gracious offer.  Her family is at the other end of the structure spectrum, however, which poses challenges.  I am totally not criticizing a more loose life - in fact I wish sometimes we were a little more laid back, but alas it's not meant for us.  

How far we've come in 1 year...
the boy LOVES the bath now!

May was a whirlwind of activities:  Alex's 1 year Gotcha Day, Mother's Day including a visit from Grampa & Gramma, Spring Sing at school, the return of nice weather, a trip to Ohio for Memorial Day AND many, many visits to various hospitals to visit Gramma Darlin.  

Gotcha Day celebration - Pooh Matroyska!

Alex's 1 year Gotcha Day was May 7th.  It's so hard to believe that 1 year has already passed by.  Alex's adjustment was very smooth.  He is such a sweet, cuddly, loving boy.  He does still like to use his tears and whining to manipulate people - and given his background, it doesn't surprise me.  With everything going on:  just home from vacation, hectic crazy weeks, etc. we celebrated with a low key dinner out and then special breakfast the next morning.  

Hanging with Grampa

Grampa's got a lapfull

Love that my kids get to know my Gramma - who looks horribly frightened here,
but honestly, she had a great time at brunch

Mother's Day with Gramma Darlin at the hospital - this was after 2 surgeries!  
She'll probably kill me for posting it... but it's how we spent our day!

A rare picture of all 3 of us

 Mother's Day weekend was another crazy weekend.  Gramma Darlin had just had surgery #2 on her right arm, which broke sometime between when she entered hospital #1 and day two of hospital #2.  Grampa and Gramma came up from the south to spend some time up here and also to see Great Gramma.  We had brunch out at the golf course and spent some time with Gramma Darlin as well down at the hospital.  Both hospitals were about 45 minutes south of us, so our weekends were usually pretty busy.


The next step for May was "Spring Sing" at Tatiana's school. It was adorable and everyone had a blast.  As you can tell from the photo's below (blogger will absolutely NOT let me leave captions on them without moving them into the Mother's Day pool... grrrr), she was horribly shy that night.  HA! 

 Spring Sing!

Our last stop in May was a whirlwind Memorial Day weekend.  Tatiana's school district decided to take the Friday prior to Memorial Day as a teacher in-service day, which gave us a 4 day weekend.  Normally, I prefer to laze around town on summer holiday weekends, enjoy the pool and take advantage of an extra day off.  However, a couple weeks prior to the holiday one of my oldest friends from high school days posted a reunion concert tour for one of our favorite bands from back in the day.  Ironically, that now free day Friday had a concert stop in the Ohio town where my friend was now living.  The other opportunity we had was to visit an adoption reunion for one of the agencies I used during Alex's adoption.  The reunion was at a zoo about 2 hours from where my friend lived, so suddenly it made sense to travel south to Ohio for a couple nights.  For an added bonus, we were able to finally meet my adoption consultant for Alex's adoption and my friend Stephanie who adopted a little guy who could be Alex's biological cousin.  Stephanie and I had just missed each other in Moscow last May, so it was great to finally meet up!

 Memorial Day reunion!

We finished off a HOT Memorial Day weekend breaking in our town's new Splash Pad.  It's AWESOME!  The town did a great job planning this new hot spot out.  It was a big hit on a hot day. We've been repeat customers ever since!  

Hopefully June's recap will be just around the corner.  And hopefully, blogger will be a little more willing to work with me.