1st Karaganda Adoption Reunion

Attempt at a group shot in our hammock with the Kazakh flag

we ordered for the reunion. Left to right: Austin, Adelyn Alek

Christina, Kathryn and Sophia

Hosting dinner at our house. Donna, Todd, Mary, Kathryn,

Adelyn, Michael and Andrew at table 1. Scott, Scott and Fiona

at Table 2....Crystal, Angie where are you?

Line up in front of the White House

Line up in front of the US Capitol with Andrew joining in.

Glorious Fall day!

Adelyn on the National Mall Carousel, with Christina behind

Everyone look this way...Austin, Adelyn, Alekandr,

Kathryn, Christina and Sophia at the National Zoo

Getting started at the Bethesda Metro stop Smiley Austin,

Adelyn, Alexandr, Kathryn, Christina and Sophia

(notice the order, they are always in this order as

they were in their first picture together after arriving in Almaty)

Andrew "babysitting" Alek, Adelyn and Kathryn

The cake we had made with the Kazakh flag and each child's name around the side of the cake. We were very pleased how it turned out!

The first Karaganda adoption Reunion was held in Maryland and hosted by us! We were honored to be chosen as the first family to host a reunion with our group that we traveled with and spent 3 to 4 weeks with! We had a great weekend, great Fall weather and it was so nice to have all the babies (and adults) together once again! Everyone was able to make it, we hosted a total of 13 plus our family......a total of 17 of us hanging out! Todd, Mary and Kathryn drove down from Upstate NY, Donna, Sophia and Fiona and Christina flew in from Long Island, Crystal, Scott and Austin drove from from PA and Angie, Scott and Alek made the trek up from NC. We hope to be able to do this anually and keep the children knowing one another and that they are held together with a common thread! We have made some wonderful friendships during our adoption trip to Karaganda and it was really fun to visit with the adults too. Of course, Andrew "supervised" all the babies while the adults enjoyed conversation and beer and wine Friday night.

Everyone arrived Friday afternoon, we visited together at the house and I made dinner which included on the menu: ham, potato salad--for Scott H.--(we remember how much he missed it in KZ!), macaroni and cheese, corn souffle, shrimp salad, cole slaw and baked pineapple.

Saturday began our DC adventure, not sure how it was going to turn out, coordinating 6 babies schedules--whew! It went perfectly. We drove to Bethesda, metro'd to the National Zoo and spent a few hours there. We got a good view of the Pandas. On to the Mall, where we visited the Air and Space Museum--to make Andrew happy and strolled the Mall to the Capitol and White House, with a ride on the National Carousel. Back to our house for Italian--pasta and pizza for the kids, this time catered by Pazani.

Our last day, Sunday was spent in Baltimore, strolling the Harbor with lunch at Phillips, the end to a perfect weekend! Thanks everyone for making the trip to MD!

GOT CANDY?!--Adelyn's first Halloween

Adelyn as a black cat and Andrew a Fire Fighter


Andrew and Mommy's pumpkin carving


The Cat and the Pumpkin

Ready to go

On a mission

They love each other (most of the time)

Halloween weekend

In our shirts Aunt Carolyn sent us

Friday night, we went to Halloween Bingo at Andrew's school. It was a lot of fun. All the kids dress up and they have costume contests, food and family fun. The Hall was all decked out festively and we played 15 rounds of Bingo. This was Andrew's first time playing and he even won a round out of over 200 people! Nicely, 3 people won at our table.

On Halloween, following her big brother's lead, Adelyn caught on to the trick or treating concept very quickly! She would march or ride in the wagon to the door step and hold out her treat bag. She was very adept at grabbing a whole handful from those that held out the entire treat bowl. She even said " ank ou" (thank you) to her treaters! Some people were very kind, giving her bubbles and fruit snacks, which she could eat. It had been rainy the whole week and luckily we did manage to get in about 45 minutes before it started raining again. We ended the evening visiting with some friends in our old neighborhood.

Next weekend, all the families we adopted with are coming to our house for a little adoption reunion. We are very excited that everyone is able to make it (there will be 17 of us!) and will be preparing and planning all this coming week! Stay tuned....

FALL

Enjoying the beautiful fall season--Adelyn loves to be outside!

What a difference a year makes! A year ago today we received our letter of invitation to travel! It was surreal, we were really going to Kazakhstan....we had no idea what was in store ahead of us. We were excited and nervous...we had lots to get done....we were going to Kazakhstan in a month (at the time we thought in 3 weeks, but our travel date were pushed back by a week). We couldn't wait to get there as we felt so much love in our hearts for her already.

FALLing behind...Summing up Summer

The day after Liana and Will's wedding....Pintail Point (AUGUST)

Sweet.....

On the wedding grounds, Miss Fashionista at her first wedding

Andrew's first day of first grade--Aug. 26th

This stuff is tasty


Adelyn loves, loves the ocean (Bradley Beach, NJ)


Cousins driving.....fun times!

Getting a lesson on digging in the sand from Andrew

when we visited Uncle Sam and Aunt Carol's beach house

All the Torcisi Grandchildren together

with Grandma and Pop Pop

At Uncle Frank and Aunt Lisa's cook-out

Adelyn 16 months It's hard to believe it's been so long since we updated Adelyn's blog. Summer was busy and the start of school has come and gone already a month ago! To catch up, Adelyn's cousins, Shannon and Liana got married this summer and she got to attend her first wedding! We made 2 trips to the beach. To Ocean City in June and in August we visited Adelyn's Great Uncle Sam and Great Aunt Carol, along with all of her cousins for a long weekend at their beach house on the Jersey Shore. Andrew and I took a trip to Seattle, to visit the Boeing Plant where we saw several jumbo jets being manufactured, while Daddy and Adelyn spent time together. We had a cook-out/crab feast at Adelyn's Uncle Frank and Aunt Lisa's house, where she had a good time swimming with her cousins and visiting family. We took a trip to Lancaster, to Dutch Wonderland and celebrated Adelyn's Grandparent's Torcisi's 50th wedding anniversary in August and hosted a party for her Pop Pop's 80th birthday a couple weeks ago. Adelyn has been home for 8 months, Yes, 8! She has been with us as long as she was in the baby house now. It has been 10 months since she first became part of our family in Karaganda! Time is really moving very quickly and we have settled into a mundane family routine (this is good!). Adelyn just turned 16 months old. She is running everywhere and says several words: Hi, Bye, Ball, Dog, Mama, Cracker, BaBa are among the most popular. At her recent 15 month check, she weighed in at 24 pounds and 31 inches. In the 50-75th % for weight and 75% for height. She loves, loves green beans! She really has a true zest for life and everywhere we go, people comment on how beautiful and happy she is. She loves the outdoors and when we pull up at Andrew's school and she sees the playground she says "weee". When she saw the ocean in New Jersey , she had remembered it and said "ohhhh, ohhh". Looking forward, we are having a Kaz reunion the first weekend in November with the families we adopted with! They are all coming here to our house for a long weekend visit! We are so excited about this. We have several families coming from NY and one from NC and one from PA. We are so happy the babies are able to see each other again and we have several fun activities planned! We hope to be able to do this each year and have to kids stay connected to their orphanage "siblings" and culture and heritage.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July

I don't like sitting in the grass very much

Catching up on the Month of June....and 5 months home!

Happy Kindergarten Graduation Andrew!

Andrew's graduation program

Receiving his diploma

The celebration cake with classmate photo

Enjoying the piece of cake with his photo on it!

Andrew and his teacher, Mrs. Wendel (above) and Mrs. Amy (below)

Congratulations, Andrew!

To start off the month of June, Andrew graduated from Kindergarten on June 5th! It is hard to believe his first year of "real" school year went by so quickly. We are so proud of his accomplishments this year. It is equally hard to believe that he is reading very well too -- he now reads us books at night! Hats off to his teacher, Mrs. Wendel and her Aides--Mrs. Amy and Mrs. Stephanie for giving him such a great start at St. Augustine. We were supposed to have a ceremony and picnic at the State Park tire park, but the never-ending rain we had been experiencing (we feel like we live in Seattle lately), moved the ceremony inside to the gym at their school. The graduates did a great job putting on a celebration show for their families, including singing several songs and even played a kazoo routine, which was very cute. We celebrated after the ceremony with cake, punch and snacks. That evening, along with the Goyette family, we went to dinner at Red Robin and back to our house for some playtime with the kids. We're very proud of you, Andrew!

The following weekend, we flew up to Albany, NY to attend our adoption agency's (Children at Heart) annual picnic. We met up with 3 of the families we traveled with in Kazakstan and all the babies were reunited. It was great to visit with everyone and to see how much they have grown and the progress each has made. Todd and Mary were so kind to host our group back to their home for dinner, which was super-nice as we got to spend more time together with just our group! Thanks Todd and Mary! The babies enjoyed playing with all of Kathryn's toys....below are some pictures of the babies together again. We discussed getting together in the Fall in Maryland, where the 2 families that couldn't make it to the picnic can hopefully join in. We want to keep the kids connected to each other, as they share a special bond and after all we went thru, we do as their parents too! We certainly hope we can continue this over the years to come and appreciate the new friendships we have made! Maybe someday we will all travel to Kazakhstan, once again, this time to show our children their birth country.

Adelyn and Kathryn get reacquainted (above) and (below) together
in Karaganda 6 months beforehand

Smiley Austin enjoying the picnic

Christina doing a great job climbing at the picnic playground (above) and

(below) a pic from the day Adelyn and Christina first met at the babyhouse Janice, the Director of our agency, we are very thankful to her and the CAH staff

All the babies happy together at Mary and Todd's

The third weekend in June, we spent at the beach in Ocean City, MD. We did not have the greatest weather, but had fun family time nonetheless. Adelyn started to really walk on June 19th and hasn't stopped since! We stayed from Friday to Monday at Rosemary and Mark's condo, so we were able to celebrate Father's Day at the beach--thanks Rosemary and Mark! We went to Rehobeth, DE one day and to the outlets for a bit of shopping --you can't blame a girl, there is no sales tax in DE! We had a delicious dinner at Nicola Pizza (sorry, Bill Barger that you weren't there to enjoy) and enjoyed a concert, a walk on the boardwalk, rides for the kids and homemade ice cream to top it all off.

Adelyn loves, loves, loves the sand

Happy Father's day Daddy! Daddy enjoying a big crab for his Father's Day dinner (crabs are really Mommy's favorite, so he was so nice to let Mommy pick crabs on his special day--they were huge and very good, so it wasn't too bad for daddy). You are truly a great DAD!! Adelyn gave Daddy a big Father's Day gift....she began walking on her own...now he gets to chase her.