It's Pumpkin Time!

Kate and Ryan in a sea of pumpkins!

It's mid-October...must be time to go to the pumpkin patch!




Kate, Ryan and cousin Theodore. Ryan and Theodore are only 8 days apart in age. He is also one of 4 boys! His easy-going personality gets along well with Kate (and Ryan).








Unlike last year when it was quite chilly, this year we went during a heat wave with the Santa Ana winds blowing. This October has just been one Santa Ana after another. I'm ready for some cool fall weather.


I didn't tell Kate to sit down...she just walks over to the bales of hay, sat down, folded her hands and smiled up at me. :) It was funny because usually when taking her picture, it's all I can do to get her to look at me/the camera.


Mommy and pretty Kate.




Even though it was going to be warm, I put Kate in pants because last year she cried from the hay scratching her legs. It was so bright, Ryan kept borrowing my sunglasses!





3 year old Kate with a silly smile.


Buddies, Colton and Kate, ready for school. Kate doesn't really take a backpack, she just likes to wear it.





Is it just me, or is this picture a glimpse into Kate's teenage years?


It makes me smile to see her wearing her Dora backpack that is so big it goes past her rear end! She doesn't care though. She packs it with all different things...her stuffed cat, a coloring book, her tea set, or food. Once I couldn't find the bag of lunch meat, and found it 2 days later with some string cheese and a yogurt in her backpack. She must've been planning a picnic.

Kate Dressed For The Morning

Kate on a preschool morning.

Two mornings a week Kate has preschool, and Mom cleans house (yay), and two mornings a week she has speech, and Mom goes to the boys' school (5min. away) and works in their classrooms for an hour. One morning a week we're free agents until we pick Ryan up at lunch time.

It was such a hot week in early October, it felt like summer all over again. Actually, it was hotter than summer had been, so I was trying to keep her hair off of her neck. For some reason this picture looks cool outside, but you could tell in the morning, it was going to be a blazing hot day (and it was!)

This is the first time I've braided Kate's hair, and she smiled and signed 'pretty' in the mirror. Then we turned on the TV to the new, very cute cartoon 'Ni Hao Kailin' about a little Chinese girl and Kailin has her hair the exact same way. Kate did notice her hair!

My sister-in-law laughs that I iron Kate's clothes. I know, I laugh back, I don't even iron my own clothes unless I absolutely have to, but with her clothes, it never seems to be a burden.

The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

(Okay, I'm going to try and pedal really fast to get caught up on the blog.)
In China, they celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. It's the biggest celebration they have aside from the Chinese New Year. It began about 1300 years ago, and is a bit like our Thanksgiving in that you spend it with your family and friends and visit. It usually involves time outside, gazing at the moon and reflecting on nature, its very low key, you hang out with friends, drink wine, and eat moon cakes. In the adoption community, I've read that it is a nice time to look up at the moon with your child and say a prayer for their birth parents, realizing that their parents see the same moon. I like that.

Well with FCC (Families with Children from China), they have a fun get-together every 3 months or so, one of which is the Autumn Moon Festival. There's no wine, but lots of moon cakes (they're kind of...well...yucky), lots of little Chinese girls, and lots of lanterns. Everyone brings their own picnic, the kids play on the playground at the park, and when it gets dark, out come the lanterns.
There's a "parade" of little Chinese girls and their families, holding their lanterns and walking around the park at night. It looks pretty to see all the lanterns lit up, and the kids love it!



Brendan and Ryan together after the parade.








Kate has been picking flowers and giving them to Mommy lately. She'll say "Here Mommy!" and sign 'flower'.




This silly lantern keeps sliding up and down on the stick!







I like this picture because you can see the full moon in the background, and there is just one autumn leaf on the ground, right near her lantern.

Kate Begins Preschool!

Here we have Kate on her first day of preschool. She will be going two mornings a week. It was a cloudy, but warm morning, as Kate started at a local church preschool. It is the same preschool that Brendan and Ryan went to, and we just love it. I especially love the playground, with it's big shady eucalyptus trees, and a stream running nearby. Feels like you're up in Julian (the local mountain community).

Kate's teacher, Mrs. B., (who was also Brendan's teacher!) said she did wonderfully on her first day, and you would have thought she had been going there for three months she looked so comfortable.
I'm not surprised. She has been interested in school since I first took Ryan. During the summer, she would put on her pink Dora backpack and sign 'school'. I would smile and ask, are you ready to go to school? She would smile back and nod 'yes!' I believe she thought, all you need is a backpack, then you can go to school!

When we got there in the morning, Kate & I got out of the van, and I asked "Are you excited about your first day of school?" She smiled and said/signed "MY school!", with her hand on her chest, as if to say, it's my turn now! and this is my school!




Kate was also excited for Ryan to start his first day of Kindergarten a week earlier. Kate is now 3, and Ryan is 5 1/2. Both Kate and Ryan are the tallest kid in their class!
Brendan's first day at middle school didn't start until after 9am, so Dad was able to come with us to get Colton (4th grade) and Ryan off to a good start on their first day (and to help carry all the supplies they ask you to bring!) Kate seems to enjoy all the bustling excitement of days like this.

Rock Creek, Mammoth

Mommy, Ryan and Kate at Rock Creek. It turned out to be a bit more of a hike in than we had thought but was so beautiful, we were very glad we had made the trek.



So I go into this t-shirt shop, and there is my picture on a magnet! This picture, with the same perspective, and it looked like the same season. The magnet is now on my fridge, and has the words 'Rock Creek' written on the grass.

This trip made us realize we need a new, (faster) camera with a wide angle lens on it! :)





Kate and Ryan are very close, and look to each other as playmates and friends, and for security. Kate will do whatever Ryan tells her to do, and she copies him often...(which may not always be what you would want her to do!)



Mom and Dad.
Check out how clear the water is! I kept visualizing myself in the water on one of those floating pool lounge chairs! Sweeet! It was so peaceful there.




Kevin showing Ryan how to fish. I think Ryan was just happy holding the fishing pole!







Okay, everyone smile and think
'Christmas card photo!'



This picture cracks me up. It was taken by Ryan (as you can probably tell be the perspective). I am saying 'can you see my hands?' Kevin says 'can you see my eyes in the viewfinder?' If we would have just put our silly hands down, it would have been a great picture!











Kevin and Brendan fishing. If you double click on this picture, you can even see Kevin's line being thrown out. (Then just hit the 'back arrow'.)
This is my new computer-screen saver!

Hanging out near the condo in Mammoth

Just walkin', walkin' on the small street outside the condo.

The condo that we stayed in was small, but had three levels. Two sets of bunkbeds on the top "loft", the living room, a very small kitchen and front door/mud room on the mid level, and two bedrooms on the bottom level (w/king-size beds).

Kate decided naps were not to be taken in Mammoth, and that she would wake up during the night and very early in the morning. Loudly. The boys let us know they would prefer to be as far away from the human alarm clock as possible. So, by our last night in Mammoth, she and Kevin were downstairs, and Mom and the boys were upstairs. Sounds fine so far, right?

Well, it's a warm night, so we leave the sliding door of the upstairs loft (above the front door) open during the night. A pack of wolves or coyotes decided the front porch (again, directly below the bedroom window) would be a good place to start barking and howling. I don't think I have ever been that startled out of sleep, and about jumped out of my skin! I told Kevin, (who slept through it-his window being on the back side of the condo) that it sounds ridiculous in the light of day, but this was no peaceful sounding, nature-film howling off in the distance, where you think to yourself 'it's kind of eery, but beautiful to hear them'. This was creepy, scary, screaming sort of howl...like something out of a rated-R werewolf movie! I know, you're laughing, aren't you? But when you're awakened by a pack of 'something' 15 feet from your head, in a dead sleep...not funny!

I think I know why they chose our front porch to start their escapade; we had left the mudroom (where people leave their wet skis, muddy boots) light on and the blinds open, and closed the interior door. I think they stopped to look and see what food may be in there.
After they left, I could hear them barking and howling their way down the street. The boys stirred and mumbled in their sleep, but didn't wake up. Well! That was fun.

Kate, Colton and Ryan (I think we've got a Spiderman pose goin' on here.)


If you walk up the street about a block, there is a ski lodge and runs/lifts. This is where Kevin and Kate went for a walk one morning while Mommy took Ryan out alone for a trip to some of the shops. (We got a small stuffed bear and a 'Mammoth' hat, then hit up the Rocky Mtn. Chocolate Factory next door!)








Standing by the condo complex next door.
A grizzly bear statue at the ski lodge up the street. Here we have a nice shot of it's rear end.








One of the ski runs a block away from where we were staying. Can't you just picture it covered in snow?









Most people who meet/know Kate comment on how tall she is...and how happy and bubbly she is. Both comments are good to hear...that she is healthy and happy.

Is that...A BEAR?

So Kevin takes Brendan and Colton to Twin Lakes fishing, about 10 minutes from the condo. They sit there for 2 hours, enjoying themselves, but don't catch anything.

Then, hearing a loud crunch crunch sound of branches breaking in the bushes, look across the knee-deep lake, and see a (brown?) bear, walk up to a boat!

Whoever had used the boat also left their stringer in the water, with 2 med.-size trout attached. The bear pulled in the stringer with his paw (see pic. #2) and ate the fish, as everyone sat there amazed...and a bit nervous! The bear then walked over to the bush to the left of the boat, stepped in the water by the bush, watched the water for less than a minute, then put her head in the water and pulled out a 12" fish! Brendan was duly impressed with her fishing ability!

He realized it was a "her", because it was at this time that everyone noticed a tiny bear cub following along. Brendan said he was so well camouflaged & absolutely dirt colored, that if he hadn't moved, you would have never seen him! (It must've been, because I can't see it in the pictures, and Kevin and the boys assure me there was a cub with her!) She left the same way she had come with baby-in-tow, not along the trail, but crunching branches right through the bushes!