Annual 4th of July Trip

For the fourth year in a row, we celebrated the 4th of July at Tori's dad's house in the Central Valley.  Whenever I say that people, they make a funny face like, "Why would you want to go to the Central Valley for the Fourth of July?"  Yes, it's very hot, but it's actually quite pleasant when you spend all your time under huge oak trees or floating down the river.  Her dad has a great piece of land and a beautiful home and it's actually a wonderful place for the kids to run around.  And Tori loves the fact that her step-mom cooks every single meal the whole time we're there (that's not as big of a deal to me since that's my daily reality).


Here are some photos from the weekend...this year was significant in that we had 11 kids ages four and under!

Grandpa Mike makes an incredible slip-and-slide into the river and lubricates it with environmentally-friendly soap.  I think Tori's brother Zach gets the speed record (and he did a flip at the end).

Tori's step-sister is in beauty school and gave the girls matching hairdos.

We can fit a lot of people in the Polaris (I'm the dark spot in the far left corner).

Here is the whole gang, though sadly this year we missed Adam's family and we definitely missed Opal.

New Addition to the Family

Don't worry, we're not adopting another child!  The newest addition to the family is something that Tori has been wanting for a very long time: a trampoline!

Tori always says that she can't imagine her childhood without a trampoline.  I can't prove this statistically, but apparently trampolines are disproportionately popular in Mormon families.  Tori says the trampoline was the babysitter in her family and, clearly, she has the same hopes for our trampoline.

It turns out one of the perks of moving to the exurbs (that means we're even beyond the burbs), is that you finally have space in your yard for a trampoline.  Skip and Zadie do actually know how to do flips, but our trampoline isn't stretched out enough yet to get a big enough bounce, so maybe that will be a future video.


Trampoline from Kate K. on Vimeo.

A Better Way to Describe Skip

My previous attempt to describe Skip at age three felt very inadequate, so maybe these photos will do a better job.  I think they capture his personality pretty well.

Skip Turns Three in the Polaris

King of the Polaris (for the day at least)!

Sharing his birthday cake with his dear Uncle Hank.

Skip's birthday is July 3rd and his Uncle Hank's birthday is July 5th, so we now celebrate their birthdays together at our annual 4th of July trip to Tori's Dad's house in the Central Valley.  It's funny to think that three years ago, right after our big weekend of fun at his house, we came home and got the very exciting phone call to pick Skip up from the hospital.

This year, Skip said he wanted to have his birthday party in Grandpa Mike's Polaris (which he thinks is extremely cool), and so I took him away for a few minutes while Tori decorated it.  My parents gave him a great cowboy outfit (boots, hat, and Wranglers), Grandma Linda gave him a new scooter, and we gave him a boogie board and his first piggy bank so that he can start earning money for his chores like his big sister.  He also got some little motorcycles from Uncle Leo and Aunt Katie.  I think he was pretty happy with his presents, but much more focused on his cake, that's for sure.

Skip has definitely matured over the past year, mostly in terms of being a much kinder and gentler big brother to Charlie.  Although he still occasionally tortures him, he mostly is very protective of him and enjoys playing with both of his siblings.  People often say "Well, he's all boy, isn't he?"  I'm not big on cliches when it comes to parenting, but in this case it's pretty dead-on.  He has tons of energy and he loves to "run wide open and sideways," as my dad would say.  He's also exceptionally athletic and coordinated.  And he has beautifully sweet and loving eyes.

We love you, Skip!

Ozboblie

Naming a child is an honor, but kind of a stressful honor.  I think most people want something that is special and maybe a little bit unique, but not something that they'll be tortured about at school.  We feel like we hit the sweet spot with Zadie.  With Skip, we sometimes worry that he might catch some hell for his funny name (though mostly I think he can pull it off).  And with Charlie, we worry that we over-corrected a bit much and there will be three other Charlies in his class and on his soccer team.

I think naming your child is much harder when it's a foster child and you only have literally five to ten minutes notice that this human being will be entering your life.  Somehow with both Skip and Charlie, we really felt like we were in a pressure cooker to come up with a name and we spent lots of time agonizing over it -- all during the same period when we were extremely sleep-deprived because we were unexpectedly taking care of a newborn.  The longer it dragged on, the more entrenched each of us got with our favorite names.

Charlie was always on our list of favorite names, but after we actually brought home the boy now known as Charlie (he was named Ryan Michael by his birth parents), Tori became so dead set on naming him Ozzie that I feel she really started to hate any other name.  My version of this story is that I finally acquiesced to letting her call him Ozzie as long as she understood that it was temporary until we came to a final decision (since she said we needed to call him something).  Her version is that I reneged on the name.

Anyway, I ultimately backed out of Ozzie and Tori has never really forgiven me for that one.  Lately she's really taken to calling him Ozzie and he now answers to both Charlie and Ozzie.  Skip and Zadie have also lately started to call him Ozzie.

And now, in addition to Charlie and Ozzie (and the fact that he'll always be Ryan to his birth parents), this child can add a new name to the list: Bobby!  It started a few weeks ago when I went on a little drive alone with Charlie and I tried to actually strike up conversation.  Among the many questions I asked him was what his name was.  He didn't say anything, so I said, "Is your name John?" And he kept saying no to a few names until I got to Bobby, and then he said yes.  And when I would ask what his name was, he kept saying it was Bobby, but in this funny baby way that sounded like Bubby.  Now the other kids think it's really funny to ask him what his name is and listen to him say "Bubby" in his ridiculous little voice.  And they all get the giggles really bad.

So there it is.  It's so hard to come up with just the right name for your child that this poor little boy has three or four!  Maybe we can call him Ozboblie for short -- bet there won't be any other kids on his soccer team with that one!

On the Farm in Oregon: The Long Way Home

I mentioned earlier that Tori decided to drive the kids all the way to Washington state, and now she is making her way back home.  She doesn't drive in very long stretches, usually about four hours each day.  She spent a few days with her brother in Portland (the scene of the piercings), and also a few days with our friends Amy and Jenelle at their family's small farm near Ashland.  I'm told the kids loved driving this little tractor around, getting eggs from the henhouse, and running around with Amy and Jenelle's two kids.

Thanks to Amy, Jenelle, and Ronnie for hosting my family for a few days!

They're now staying with friends in Modesto and tomorrow I'll meet up with them out in the Central Valley, where we always spend the Fourth of July.