Family Clean Up

I decided to be more targeted in involving the children with routine household upkeep and hope to have a Family Clean Up Hour regularly this year.  We started this weekend and are asking contributions from each according to current ability.

Picture Of The Day

 

Time To Brag

I want to do a little bragging on our big girl.  She's having a very successful year academically and is just about to complete the first semester at her home school school.  

Today, her math teacher there sent me a note:

"I wanted to let you know what a great job your child is doing with math. She is currently reviewing the pre-algebra concepts she knows before we move on to new material. In that review I've included a lot of word problems, matching word problems to equations, and translating word problems into expressions. She has stuck with it and is doing very well. The review also includes decimal and fraction operations with variables, so she's putting it all together. Great work, EM!"

Big girl also had her mid-term evaluation presentation this week in her Sign Language class and received a perfect score.  Here's a snapshot from when she showed us at home.

Very proud of her hard work and subsequent progress!

Picture Of The Day

 So excited that our workbooks 

for the second semester 21/22 have finally arrived.

IAC Results 535-538

 The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 535 which was held on November 12, 2021:

1) US dossier from January 2018 referred a male child aged 2 years with features is health status

2) US dossier from November 2020 referred a female child aged 3 years and 2 months with features in health status and a family history

3) US dossier from October 2021 referred an identified waiting child

4) US dossier from November 2021 referred an identified waiting child

 The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 536 which was held on November 18, 2021:

1) Italian dossier from May 2014 referred a male child aged 6 years and 7 months

2) US dossier from June 2018 referred a female child aged 4 years and 4 months with features in health status

3) Canadian dossier from April 2021 referred a female child aged 1 year and 3 months with features in health status

4) Italian dossier from August 2021 referred a female child aged 10 years and 11 months

5) US dossier from November 2021 referred an identified waiting child

 The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 537 which was held on December 2, 2021:

1) French dossier from March 2020 referred a male child aged 10 years and 9 months

2) US dossier from March 2021 referred a female child aged 1 year and 8 months with features in health status

 The following referrals were issued in IAC Session 538 which was held on December 9, 2021:

1) Canadian dossier from September 2015 referred a female child aged 1 year and 7 months with features in health status

2) French dossier from February 2018 referred a male child aged 10 years and 4 months with features in health status

3) US dossier from December 2018 referred a male child aged 1 year and 5 months with features in health status and a family history

More Than Child's Play

She plays with dolls all the time.  She likes to be a mommy and give care.  She wears my clothes like an armor when she pretends to be me.  But when you hear the words that accompany her play, you know that there's something different about her story,  "Hi, little baby, I rescue you.  I got you.  Shhh, you are safe, it's okay.  Come here, my love, I protect you."

*Note that as her parents, we do not use the word rescue when we discuss her adoption.  This is solely her application of the term to interpret and express her personal history.*

New Year's Vacation 2021/22

After two years of steering clear of air travel, we decided to throw our vaccinated hats back into the flying ring and head to Miami for some R&R.  Here's the good, bad and ugly of our vacation.

Let's start with the bad and the ugly to get it out of the way.  The Airbnb we rented was not at all what we expected.  The host was MIA, Airbnb was less than concerned with our trouble over the holiday week, and the place we found ourselves stuck in for six nights due to a completely booked up greater Miami area was very much misrepresented in its Airbnb listing.  I won't go into too many details, but let's just say we spent most of our vacation without bedding, without much furniture of any kind, and without access to the resort-like shared amenities of the property.

Given the above conditions, we did what we always do and tried to make the best of it, so here's the good.  The weather was beautiful for every single day of our stay and we got to soak up so much sun and go to the beach multiple times.  

We also explored some of the outdoor sights nearby.  We headed into the Keys one day where we saw some cool wildlife, spent a day at the zoo, and visited the Wynwood Walls (yes, these were considered home school science and art field trips).

After stocking the kitchen with basic cookware, we were able to prepare some of our meals in the rental, as we had planned.  And indeed, you can zest a lime with a steak knife, toast bagels and frozen waffles in a frying pan, and use washcloths as oven mitts.

As always when we travel, we like to taste the local cuisine.  On this trip, we visited Siciliano's Custard, the Salty Donut, and a family-owned Cuban restaurant, El Mago de las Fritas.  We weren't super impressed with any of these places, unfortunately.

With three nights left in Miami, Airbnb finally found us a suitable new rental and offered us a refund.  We didn't completely break even, but pretty close, and we had a private pool and hot tub for the last days of our trip, not to mention bedding and furniture and cookware.

When we returned home, we were greeted by temperatures 50+ degrees cooler than what we left in Miami.  In the morning we had woken up to see...

... and we went to bed surrounded by...

We're thankful for the warm and sunny days we were able to spend in Florida.  Now we buckle down for three busy months of home school and work while we dream of spring break.