"Home" ...where exactly is that?

Home.  I am tending to notice that "home" is many different places.  When we lived in MA and AZ, home was NY/MA.  Now that I am back on the east coast..AZ feels like home.  And oh, how I miss it. Unexpected, never thought in a million years, really miss it. I miss my house, I miss my friends, I miss my job, and I just plain miss my life. I am doing better.  Better than I was last year as this time.  Having every night just me and Little Miss, was hard.  Not normal family life.  No time to connect to other adults outside of home, like I used to be able to do.  No girls nights, all because it's me, single mom every night. This..and I really did have a good life!  I had a job I felt good about, a place I belonged, and a life I established.  It was home.  I find it incredible that I am missing that home, as much as I missed this home..and thought I needed to come back so badly.  

Do I regret it?  No. We didn't come back so much because we missed it, as much as we wanted to raise our daughter here, in these schools, in this climate, in this culture.  We enjoy it too.  How much I miss, the life I had is the surprising thing. 

Sooo..this summer we got to see some of our peeps. It felt like a warm glove. Seeing my mother, all helped..but now I miss it again.  

Mimere and Pipere..oh and Sadee

Sunday Morning Bagels!  Just like the old days! 

 On the dock..touch of Fall in the air.

The original scooter gang 2012...

Home  is where your people are...lucky us..we have a couple of them.  

School and More Friends From AZ!

Well, here we are, the time has come for school to begin.  After much thought, plans, cancelled plans, we are ready.  Let me give a little background here.....
Little Miss's school is one of the last holdouts in the area for all day Kindergarten, this has troubled me from day 1. Not because I want her gone all day, or need the day care (although I did need that) but because I thought she needed all day K. So, starting in the spring, Frank and I visited private schools, we talked to teachers at her pre-school, and we researched. We decided the best thing to do was a "wrap-around" program that her preschool offered.  Essentially this would be all day K..but all that busing to and from all these places concerned me.  Another issue was Frank was finally supposed to be put on the day shift, which meant, we needed more than 2.5 hrs a day of coverage, if I was going to work.  But in  August, after being promised for a year, Frank's employer told him they need him on 2nd for another year.  At first, not happy, then we realized, that we will not have to do the wrap around program, saving money. We spoke to the school, and they explained that the children in K will not be starting from scratch, those who don't know the basics will be identified, and given extra schooling so that they get up to speed.  This made me feel a whole lot better about half day! In fact, it all seemed to fall in place perfectly! She actually is getting more schooling simply because she is going 5 days a week!  Phew.  Life is good! 

We also had some company for her first day of school!  Mel and Ross were here to help us send her off!  How appropriate!  They've been there since the very very beginning of journey.  Made the Day very special..despite the hangover we might have had from the Sunday festivities...ahem..that's another blog post. 

And there my baby goes!!!!  

More Summer Musings...

Well as the summer went on, so did the parties, hanging out between our lake house and my cousins on the other side of the lake. My mom and Karl came home for a month, and we got to spend some time with them, Little Miss even did  sleepover with them for a few days!  1st time away from Mommy. All and all was a good one, good last summer of not being a school kid.  We talked up kindergarten, and had fun doing our shopping for school.  It was the end of an era in our family.  Now we embark on a new phase of our lives.  School. 

Glorious Hydrangea's in Maine, I just can't get enough of these!  

Cousins in a tree at the 2nd annual cousin get together!  

Hanging with friends from pre-school..being goofy kids! 

Fabulous Morning Glories that we planted from seeds we were given from her pre-school teacher. A nice goodbye gift that we will enjoy hopefully for many years to come. 

The cousin reunion!!  

Summer 2012!!!!

What a fantastic summer it was!!  Not only was the weather amazing, it was busy busy busy!
We started the season off by spending the weekend up in the Adirondacks with our local FCC chapter.  Its a wonderful group, and we have met some really great people that I hope will be life long pals.  Little Miss has met some great friends too. Every year they do a weekend up north, and the girls from China range in age from 15 to 3. It's really neat to see them gather in the groups of friends, and form these connections of people who really "get" what its like to be adopted from China, or Korea.  We had a great time, and this we we only did 1 night, but next year...I think we will shoot for the whole weekend! 

 Traditional Chinese dinner prepared by the group, here are the girls making won tons

 Then in the first week in July our first visitors from AZ came to see us.  It was wonderful to see them, wonderful to connect again to someone from our old life.  We still miss it so much. Erin and Megan were just what the Dr. ordered for homesickness. 
We got to show them where we life, show them what the true upstate is, and show them where I grew up!  They got to see what life is like here for us, and I think finally understand the draw of why we came back.  

Recital and Graduation

Off to a great start! Summer started with preschool graduation  in June and the dance recital. 

 My girl in her glitter dance makeup.her favorite part! 

Dancin Fool! 

Was a VERY LONG day...and of course very hot, in an auditorium with no A/C..do the math on that one! 

The big pre-school grad! 

It was a great start to the summer.  It was also a very long 2 weeks!  Seems like everything was happening at once! We ran around like crazy people for that last week.  Vacation and friends from AZ were coming,  just what we needed to unwind! 

Princess Birthday Bash!

5 years old!!  How can that be???  She is soo happy to be 5 and today started a new countdown chart to count down to when she turns 6.  Really?  I am not over 5 yet!!  All and all it was an amazing weekend.  She decided on a princess theme, and wanted everyone to dress up.  So about 4 weeks ago we started looking for a dress.  All the dresses she liked from the online sites seemed to be wedding dresses.  Could this be from her watching Say Yes To The Dress too many times with me??  Who knows, but there it is.  All the ball gown wedding dresses we found were pretty pricey to say the least.  Then in one of my middle of the night brain storm ideas I thought....Ebay! So at 2 am I get up and fine a gorgeous dress that I believe will fit the bill.  Magenta bodice with 4 layers of toul that had magenta flower peddles sown on, looking like flower peddles that fell. The best part?  It was $18!!  Needless to say I whipped out the credit card and voila!  Princess-ballgown-wedding dress! Perfect twirl factor.

We worked for 2 weeks on the decorations, and considering I am not really all that talented with the crafts...I think we did ok!  Pinterest gave me some fantastic ideas!  Including incorporating he castle with the decorations! Because we made so many the decorations, we really saved some moola!

We had 12 kids all together and although under protest...some were princess's and some were pirates!  We had 2 boys who really didn't feel up to playing the Prince Charming role...and 2 girls who weren't feeling the princess role..so they came as pirates too.  Little Miss got over it.
I worried that I didn't have enough games planned, but once the sun came out, and the kids saw the yard and the woods..we were all set!  We did play pin the horn on the unicorn, and we dug for buried treasure, which was a huge hit!

On Sunday...we had party #2!  The family!   Another good time was had by all, and Little Miss was very good, and said her please and thank you's and was gracious about all her gifts.  I was a proud Mama!   Was nice for the all the family that was able to be with her for the first time on her birthday.  I really missed my Mom and friends from AZ though...seemed weird not having them here.  Life changes!

On the day of we did cupcakes at school then miniature golf. All in all..it was a blast!  It's hard to imagine that each birthday gets better...but it does!  Mom and Dad had just as much fun as Little Miss.
Just what we dreamed of, 4 years ago...

Easter and a Broken Arm!

Spring is officially here, and after a wonderful day hanging out with friends in the first garden party of the season, we get the phone call.  Samantha landed hard on the trampoline.  She's crying and says her arm hurts.  We drive like maniacs to get to her, and there she is laying on the couch..saying it hurts to bend her arm.
I am not seeing anything highly unusual, but she doesn't seem to be using it much.  So we call the Dr., "just in case", and she suggests an x-ray and what do you know??  Hairline fracture.  So after our lecture from the Dr. on the dangers of trampolines and small children, we get a very pink cast, and have a little bit sad girl.

To keep track of time, we  started a countdown chart.  3 weeks until that itchy cast comes off.  We had all kinds of people signing it, including...Rose Lewis who wrote "I Love You Like Crazy Cakes" , a favorite book in our house and among lots of kiddo's from China!

 3 weeks later, we go to the Dr's to get that itchy thing off...and the arm is not quite healed..seems it was a little more than just a hairline, so...after some pretty scary moments getting the cast off...we had to get another one on.  Big tears, and big disappointment.  So this time purple..and an ice cream breakfast to take the disappointment away..a little.

Easter came, and so did Gramp and Gram.  After spending all winter in AZ, they came back and no body was happier than Little Miss to see them.  Easter Bunny did great by her and we celebrated Easter as our house.  The septic backed up the day before, so our record of never a dull moment still stands!