Tanek and Valerie

 This weekend we visited with Julie, Keith, and Valerie Wimmer. We had such a nice time relaxing and catching up with each other. It's hard to believe Valerie and Tanek haven't seen each other for 3 years! As soon as they got together, it was like they were best friends, and they had tons of fun playing together nonstop! It was hard to get them to go to sleep at night, but once they finally did...they crashed. They had a blast swimming...

 and watching Tanek play wii (and explain everything Star Wars)...

 Watching movies together - "Kung Fu Panda" and "Bolt"...

 Hanging out after swimming before it was time to say goodbye

 It was hard for them to say goodbye because they were having so much fun, but sneaking in a few kisses always seems to help!

More fun swimming!

It doesn't matter how long it has been since we've seen each other, when our families get together we just pick up right where we left off... a sign of true friendship! We are very blessed to get along so well and have these opportunities for Valerie and Tanek to keep in touch. Hopefully they will always have a special bond from living together as infants in the orphanage.We will have to try hard not to let 3 more years go by before we all get together again!

Miniland

This is a small sampling of what you will see at the Miniland section of Legoland, but the pictures don't really do it justice.
Here is the Daytona 500... The Space Shuttle...

Hotels on the strip in Las Vegas...

The White House with the Obama's standing on the front porch... hopefully they will have a new family there soon.

The Nation's Capital...

Part of New York City...

The Statue of Liberty...

The Golden Gate Bridge...

A Medieval town...

The Florida State Capital...

The Old Fort at St. Augustine....

To think that all of this is built from legos is just mind-b0ggling to me! I think Tanek probably thinks designing and building lego creations would be the. best. job. ever!

Legoland 2012

Ricky and I took Tanek to Legoland on Friday as an early birthday present! He loved everything about it...it is definitely geared towards the younger kids and he was able to do all of the activities and rides, so he was excited about that! Almost as soon as we walked in the park, we found Darth Vader and R2D2...

There are so many interesting people and animals made out of Legos scattered throughout the park...

Soccer playing giraffe...
Albert Einstein...

Inside the Lego factory we found giant minifigures...

This was the first rollercoaster we rode. It is an inverted rollercoaster located in the Lego City section of the park at the "flight school". We were on the front row...Tanek thought it might be a little too scary for him, but once he got on, of course he liked it!

Life size car made out of Legos!

At the Driving School working hard to earn his driver's license...

Lego City..

Riding the jousting horses at the Kingdoms section of the park -

Another ride...

He's so happy to be here, having a blast at Legoland!

They have an awesome area called "Miniland" which has New York City, Washington D.C., Cape Canaveral, Las Vegas, and many other places built out of Legos on a miniature scale. It is just unbelievable what can be done with legos and how realistic things can look! Legoland is also built where Cypress Gardens used to be. They have been working to restore the Gardens back to their original beauty, and have done an amazing job. But, these pictures will have to wait until another post. Next up will be some pics from Miniland....

Tanek lost his first tooth!

Tanek lost his first tooth this morning! I guess it doesn't take long to fall out once they are loose; we just noticed it was starting to get loose on Thursday. He is excited, so I am excited for him...but that means he is really growing up and that makes me sad.

I was worried that he wouldn't look as cute when he started losing his teeth, but I know he will always be the cutest little boy in the world in my heart...even when he is a little "snaggle-tooth"!

Christmas Pics 2011

This was our attempt at taking a family picture...it's a very rare occurance that we are all in a picture together! Tanek has his very own Christmas tree that he gets to decorate every year. It is a Disney tree with Mickey Mouse (and Pluto, Minnie, Daisy, Donald, and Goofy) ornaments. He is very proud of his little tree!
I think he is such a handsome little boy!

Every Christmas Eve, Tanek gets a new pair of "Christmas jammies" and even though he knows what is in the package, he loves to unwrap it anyway. Probably a good thing it wasn't a surprise since we had just finished having Christmas with Ricky's family. New jammies just don't compare to all of the fun toys he received from Mimi, Pawpaw, Aunt Kelly, Kary, and Kevin!

Merry Christmas, Daddy! Tanek is not one of those kids who gets up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning...we had to wake him up at about 8:15 so he would have time to open presents before we went to church. He always likes alittle snuggle time while he is waking up!

The beginning of opening presents.... To help us keep our priorities in order and to remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas, Tanek only gets 3 presents (and his stocking) from Mommy and Daddy for Christmas. This helps to remind us of the 3 gifts the wise men brought to baby Jesus...

All of the "Star Wars" movies for a little boy who is obsessed with everything Star Wars! (I'm thinking we might regret this purchase relatively soon given the number of times we've been watching these movies!)

A new pogo stick was also at the top of Tanek's list... we'll see if he's learned how to use it by the time next Christmas rolls around! His 3rd present was an interactive globe, but for some reason, I didn't take a picture of it.

Tanek was excited to get the Hoth Wampa lego set from Uncle Richard, Aunt Heather, Kirky, Hannah, and Emily! He put the minifigures and cave together while Mommy built the ship.

More Lego minifigures...

Tanek was proud of himself for building his lego racer all by himself!

Opening presents at Nana and Papa's house after church...

Legos to go with Tanek's other favorite movie, "Cars 2"! (Which we also watch quite frequently)

And, last but not least, every year we have a birthday cake for Jesus - the reason we celebrate CHRISTmas to begin with! Let us never forget the true meaning of Christmas!

Kazapalooza 2011

We went to Kazapalooza this past weekend, June 3-5th with about 125 other families that have adopted from Kazakhstan. This is the 4th year Kazapalooza has been held, but it's the first time we've been able to attend. The planners did an excellent job putting it together for such a large group. When it started 4 years ago, there were 4o families. Each year, more and more families have come. It was kind of hard to meet new people because so many already knew each other, and it didn't help at all that I couldn't speak above a squeaky whisper for pretty much the whole weekend! But, we met several families from all over the U.S. and even some from Canada! They did a nice slide show of all the kids by which region they were from during the luncheon on Saturday. You can see Tanek's slide in the background on this next picture. They also do a charity raffle every year...each family brings something to donate for the raffle and then everyone can buy as many tickets as they want for the items they would like to win. There were so many nice things that people brought or made, plus a lot of Kazakh gifts. We didn't win anything, but it was a pretty neat experience!

Tanek was enjoying his cupcake to the fullest! He and his new friend, Brogan, were playing "monkey see, monkey do" most of the time they were together. Whatever one did, the other one had to do, too...except Brogan's cupcake was blue.

Tanek and Brogan were playing cars with some of the other kids. Brogan was Tanek's bff while we were there. We hung out with his family a lot. They live in central Florida and it was their first Kazapalooza also. Brogan is 5 too, so he and Tanek had a lot of fun together, along with Brogan's brother, Bryson.

Some of the other kids Tanek enjoyed playing with...