Ye olde rocking goode time

was had by all the Morrey family at the Renaissance festival a few weeks ago. We love going there each year.

A few years ago, Patrick fell in love with the queen, who stopped to chat with him for a while, and seeing the royal couple is always a highlight for him.

He's been knighted the past two years; this year, Melkamu joined him to be knighted.

We go for the fun shows...

...the archery...

...the rides...

...and, of course, the jousting!

Normally you can't find an Ent when you need one, but there are always a couple at the Renaissance Festival!

Patrick has been enjoying using the camera lately (thank goodness for digital cameras!) and so there are actually some pictures of Jason and I together!

Jason's a bit of a ham sometimes :-)

I love how Kamu is so joyously peering through this cutout!

A celebratory 100th post!

I just booked and confirmed it...we leave a week from tomorrow for a few days in Disney World! This will be the kids' first trip there, and Jason and I haven't been since our senior-year spring break. We are all so excited!

Post #99 will be celebrated with stories of my kids...as will post #100, post #101, post #102...

It's my first week of summer vacation, but the kids have kept me hopping. Both kids have had an incredibly eventful week around here! On Tuesday, we finally had Melkamu's readoption hearing and he is now legally our son in the U.S.! You know how they say that the shoemaker's kids go barefoot? It was kind of that way with the lawyer's kid...but I digress. The judge was wonderfully friendly and included Patrick in the swearing-in and questioning. Kamu didn't seem to be so impressed, but he probably didn't quite realize how bittersweet* it was for him to be formally readopted in the U.S.

This is us with the judge who signed our certified adoption decree.

We all celebrated at IHOP afterwards, because nothing says American like an enormous syrup-covered breakfast ;-)

Yesterday was Patrick's pre-K graduation! Sorry for the picture quality, but we were in the very back row of the auditorium. I thought that pre-K graduations were ridiculous, but I still cried. My baby is growing up! He's registered for kindergarten and is excited beyond belief to start going.

Some pictures from the last week or so:

Patrick's class had swim lessons every week and I got to go to the last one. This is the boy who has progressed from barely agreeing to attend the lesson (not get changed, not get in the water)...

to this

and this

and this.

His teachers have worked really hard with him to get him comfortable in the water, and Jason has been working with him a lot on the weekends (we joined the county pool system). He's come such a long way and we're really proud of him!

OK, it's not ALL about the kids. Jason doesn't get nearly enough coverage on this blog :-)

I have the cutest and funniest kids. They make me laugh nonstop.

Kamu loves to do whatever Patrick does. He wasn't quite up to getting his feet up on the railing, but he wanted to try!

Kamu has gone from not caring about books when he came home to LOVING books.

It's possible he likes them a little too much...

But then again, his big brother was doing the same thing at 2 1/2!

We have an exciting summer planned, with a trip to Disney World in about 10 days and a trip for Jason and I somewhere (location will be determined later) for our 10th anniversary next month. Patrick will be going to camp for a couple of weeks, Kamu will be back in playgroup, and we'll have lots of fun!

Happiness

I'm planning on following up my last post soon, but have some other things to post in the meantime. Pictures coming in the next couple of days!

My garden is coming along swimmingly. Half the corn is in the ground and the other half will go in tomorrow. It's doing quite well. My Roma tomatoes are into their pots and growing wonderfully. The bush and pole beans are doing quite well. I already have several blossoms on the upside-down banana pepper plants. The other tomatoes (beefsteak and cherry) are still seedlings but will be transplanted into 4" pots tonight. I just planted watermelon seeds last weekend. The dill is doing great on top of the banana peppers, and the other herbs (oregano and basil) will be planted as soon as my cherry tomatoes are in their hanging planters. The peas are going into the ground this weekend, and the onion seeds will be planted at the same time. The only ones not doing so well are the bell pepper seedlings and the Swiss chard. The Swiss chard looked great at first and has petered out--most of it is dead. The bell peppers are healthy, just not growing very much. I'm not sure why. If anyone wants to know what I'd like for the holidays in December, a seedling heating mat and grow light would be lovely and thoughtful gifts ;-)

I registered Patrick for kindergarten the other day. It made me sniffle a few times, and perhaps a tear or two leaked out later that evening, but now I'm excited for him. His excitement is HUGE! He has a new T-shirt for his elementary school, loves the fact that there is a cafeteria, and is excited that our next-door neighbor Sean will be starting kindergarten with him.

One of the reasons that Jason and I chose our house was because of the neighborhood. We drove onto the street the first day and there were kids out playing and riding bikes! They weren't all hidden away inside playing video games or whatever. It made such an impression that, even though we didn't buy the house we saw that day (thankfully, as the Mobley family then bought it and we can't imagine our street without them), we went back on another trip to look at our house. The idea of being in the neighborhood with kids who play outside was too big a lure to resist.

Bear with me, I have a point (and no, Siobhan, it's NOT on top of my head).

Lately, Patrick and Sean have been playing together many afternoons after school. I love that we live in the kind of neighborhood where my son and his friend can run back and forth between our houses, finding worms and roly-poly bugs, running toys down our insane driveways, playing Frisbee in the yards...it just makes me happy.

I'm also happy about the fact that Patrick's new elementary school is going to have two multiage K-1 classrooms next year. I went to the informational meeting about it last night and put Patrick into the lottery for one of the 20 kindergarten spaces. I desperately hope he gets in because I think it would be an absolutely wonderful thing for him. I'm sure he'll do fine in a regular classroom, but I think this would be ten times better for his type of personality. We'll find out in a month or so!

After the meeting last night, we took the kids to the most delicious Chik-Fil-A dinner ever (OK, all Chik-Fil-A dinners are yummy. Chargrilled chicken sandwich, mmmmmmm...). The kids went out to play afterwards and both had a blast. At one point, I told Jason that I was so happy seeing Melkamu there--he was playing all over, climbing everywhere. I was amazed at how quickly he could climb up to the top! A year ago, he was JUST taking his first steps at almost 18 months old. To see him climbing and sliding all by himself made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Sometimes he would come over and see us, but then go right back in. It made me so thrilled to see him as a normally-attached toddler. He felt secure enough that he could go play with us out of sight and know that we'd be there when he came out. And when he came sliding down, he always looked at us with a big smile to say "Look at what I just did!"

Sometimes I look at my kids and wonder how I could possibly be so lucky to have them in my life. Then I stop wondering and simply appreciate them!