July? Already?

Can't believe it's July already!

   All girls home for the summer, "bigs" are traveling to see friends, working summer jobs and have projects for school.
   "Littles" have been off for 1 or 2 weeks, depending who.  Kelly has done a beach camp, and a Nature camp and loved them both.  But her real interest is turning out to be music.  Rocked her first piano recital, and actually likes to play music (a new event in our household, where piano practice had to be enforced).  Drew is done with Pre-School and got to join in on the Nature camp where she had a ball.  Both will do the typical swim lessons and beach days...oh the life!
   We finally, finally finished remodeling our pool.  It was 25 years old and in great need of help.  This photo is taken out back, where we hope to spend most of our summer.
  Happy summer!

"Can't, I've got Crew."

Our family seems to have a connection with rowing; or "Crew".  Ron rowed for UCI, I was a coxswain, it's were we met.  Cory found rowing on her own, in high school where she was on the team for 4 years, and was recruited by Cal to be a coxswain there, where she was on the team for 2 1/2 years.  Jamie rowed for 4 years in high school, and was recruited by SDSU where she is ending her 2nd year on the team (NCAA DI).  She's ending it on a great note I might add!  She has made "Scholar-Athlete" for the second year and has just won a silver medal at WIRA (the Western Championships) in a 4, that she was Stroke seat in!  

   The title of this post is the saying on a popular T-shirt in the rowing set, because it is all you ever say when you are on Crew...you can't do anything outside Crew, because it takes up ALL your  time.  But it is a wonderful  sport, that requires you to act as a team like no other, it demands amazing physical strength and finesse, and it is done on the water in beautiful places.  You can see why we all seem to like it.

So, this is to celebrate Jamie, and all her incredible hard work, both physical and mental.   We are so proud of you.  Go AZTECS!

SDSU's Scholar-Athlete Awards Banquet. This is the Women's Crew Team on the stage

Jamie and her 4. Usually rowers are all very tall, but Jamie is good, so she can hold her own with the tall girls, while she looks like a coxswain.

Bone Graft

  This post might be a little too "yucky", or medically detailed for many of you...but I post it for those interested in the Cleft lip/cleft palate side of our journey...so don't say I didn't warn you haha!

   One of the many surgeries that Cleft Palate kids usually have to do is to fix the cleft in the bony ridge that your upper teeth sit in, called the Alveolar Ridge.  After the lip has been fixed and then the palate, most doctors usually wait until somewhere between 7-9 years old to fix this ridge.  The idea of yet another surgery on your child's mouth is hard, so you don't usually rush into it.  Usually. 

   Kelly had a consult with a Orthodontist in October, and a follow up in March.  The March appointment held a surprise: the Ortho felt we should see what an Oral Surgeon said about a bone graft soon.  The trip to the Surgeon had the same result...bone graft soon.  Wow, we assumed this would be at age 8 or 9, but after hearing that she needed it before end of summer, and that the graft would mean no swimming for 8 weeks, I decided to put it all in high gear and get it done during Spring Break.  
YIKES! 
   See the bone graft needs bone... so they open up the hip bone, scrape out all the available bone there, and then open up the maxilla, both lip side and palate side, and put the bone in there.  Sew up the hip then the mouth: both layers of skin (palate and floor of the nasal cavity) back up and send you on your way.  Oh, and take out a tooth or two (two for Kelly).  This will give the adult teeth that haven't come in yet, bone to come down through and anchor to.  It also closes any remaining holes in the mouth that air can escape through during speech.
  Kelly went in Wed. morning and we were released that same day (5:00pm) and while she was very sore and swollen, she is doing better and better by the hour.  Dr. says she can go back to school next week, play, just not run or play rough.  She is on a liquid diet for a week, then if all is well move to a very very soft diet .  The surgeon was very pleased with his work and feels it should be a success, but we won't know for sure for a month or two.  I'm just glad to have it over and hopefully done....and allow Kelly to have a great summer swimming!

  You can see the cleft on the mid to left side of the x-ray.  
  The tooth sitting right in the cleft, up high, that is horizontal was removed.

This is post-op, poor baby, SO swollen....  

One more, very large, step closer to being "done" with all the cleft treatment.

Chinese New Year

We don't do much, but we do go to the same restaurant every year, and invite friends.  This year Ron's partner and his wife joined, friends of Cory's from Chapman and "uncle" Joseph.

Lots of food and fun!   

'Tis the Season

  November and December have always been crazy months for us, as they are for most families, but since adding Drew to our family, it's raised the chaos to new levels.  Then throw in a trip to Hawaii for the Littles, Ron and I in December and you've got happy mayhem.
  See it starts with Thanksgiving, then this year it was 3 days to Jamie's 20th birthday, 3 days to Hawaii, Drew's birthday IN Hawaii, get home, 5 days to my birthday, 5 days to Drew's Family (Gotcha) Day, 5 days to Christmas, and a week to New Year's.  Whew.
  We were so very very lucky to have all the girls here for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was definitely a crazy month, but so worth it!

Thanksgiving

Jamie's 20th

Made their own leis in Hawaii

Drew turns 5!!

Drew's Family Day...home for 3 years.

Kelly loving her Christmas dress

Drew at Aunt and Uncle's house

The girls.

Love, joy, peace and happiness to you all.

Fall Fun

   Ok, so here we are in November...first day of school has come and gone, soccer and Halloween happened too.  Kelly is now in first grade (wow.  just wow.) and Drew is going to preschool 4 days a week.  Both girls are loving their school time and I am thrilled to say both are doing very well.  With all the normal issues that come with international adoption, and then adding cleft issues (speech and hearing delays) and the deprivations that went on in Drew's orphanage, we were (still are) prepared for some possibly serious literacy problems.  We are so happy to see that is not the case for Kelly, and she is blossoming into a confident reader and speller. It is such a wonderful thing!  She is right on that cusp of reading almost anything she can see and is enjoying school and all that comes with it. 


The jury is not quite in with Drew.  She is quite bright, but literacy problems tend to show up later so we will have to wait and see.  Fortunately she also loves school, and is growing socially/emotionally by leaps and bounds.

The park around the corner hosted a city fall festival.  Too fun!

Halloween

Kelly was Pocahontas for Halloween, a lovely one if I might say so.  This is her best friend at school.

   And out of the blue, Drew announced she wanted to be "agreatwhiteshark" (translated: A Great White Shark).  I have no clue why, but she insisted and thanks to the Amazon gods, it was pretty easy to manage that strange request.

   It's been a busy few months, we tried to catch up on doctor appointments, and that added to the mix.  Kelly has reached the 35% in height!!  But dropped in weight (16%). I chalk it up to a growth spurt. The kid eats like a horse so I'm not worried.  She will start seeing an Orthodontist soon, to prep for the next surgery that should occur in a year or so.  The ENT has given the thumbs up for trying to go without replacing the ear tubes for a bit...we'll see how she does, and so far so good.  It'd be nice to have ONE thing over and done with, even if it's just ear tubes.

   The "bigs" are busy at their respective schools.  Cory at Chapman working on her Masters at their film school, and Jamie at SDSU working toward Speech and Language Pathology.  Both have a long way to go yet, but are making excellent progress. We miss seeing them (even though Cory allegedly lives here) and the littles love-love-love it when they are home.  
Life is good.

Summer Fun

Some random photos of summer fun:

Our annual trip to Catalina Island on Grandma and Grandpa's boat:

 They ALL jumped!!

This is Drew with her beloved Miss Kaitlin, her swimming instructor for the last two years.  Thanks to Miss K, Drew is now part fish.

No, this is NOT our new puppy.  Our friend, and Ron's associate, Joseph just bought this adorable Chow and Kelly was having fun teaching him to like kids and the pool.

This summer was filled with swimming, friends and relaxing.  I found myself surprised at how easy and mellow it all was.  Then I realized why...no surgeries.  The first time in several years we did not have a surgery or illness to dominate the "fun" of summer.  And Kelly is was only doing one day a week of Speech Therapy, so that left us with lots of pool/beach time instead of doctor, hospital, therapy time, and it was lovely!

In a few days Kelly will start First grade, and in a few weeks turn 7.  Unbelievable.  

Drew will start back at Pre-school for 4 days a week (yippee!). 

Jamie is already back at SDSU, rowing and has 17 units, yikes!  Not sure when she will sleep or eat with that schedule.  

Cory has moved back home and starts at Chapman University in 3 days.  She's been attending orientation all week and is excited to begin. They tell her she will be too busy to work, so she might be quitting her job. 

So, that means we are back to 3 "kids" in the house, one not a kid by any stretch of the imagiation and   the other two less and less "kid-ish" as the days go by.  It was a fast summer.