Zoo

The company where Ethan works had their annual employee family day at the zoo this year.  You may recall that our kids weren't allowed to ride the amusement park rides at the Safari Park in China because of their special needs.  But it was all smiles on this day as the first thing we did when we entered the zoo was to hop on board the carousel.  The staff at the Cincinnati Zoo were very kind to our children with mobility issues and took great care later in the day to safely buckle their chairs in on the zoo train.

 

 

 

We saw a bird show that was super awesome!

Some animal that we didn't catch the name of...

We missed the FLAT zoo that we were used to in Indianapolis.  Pushing the wheelchairs up all the hills was work!

 
But perhaps the most entertaining was watching the goats investigating the wheelchairs!

 I thought we were going to have to spend the night in that barnyard.

We're Still Here! Catch Up Post...

I've had a few private messages asking how Pat is doing, some perhaps concerned that my silence meant bad things on the horizon.  It has just been a really nutty time for our family!

Shortly after returning home one of our sons graduated from college.  I literally drug myself to the graduation and hosted a large crowd in our home for the weekend afterwards.

 My recovery from jet lag has always been slower than the rest of the family, so I wasn't too concerned when I didn't "bounce back" with everyone else.  But it soon became apparent that I had brought back an illness from China.  I barely finished my round of antibiotics when we had to travel out of state for a few days.  The son who just graduated?  He made a spectacular month of it by getting married a few weeks later!  We had hired a caterer, but somehow in my (rather severe) illness I totally forgot that the ONE thing I was responsible for was getting the rehearsal dinner set up and decorated.  With some mad shopping skills and talent of some of our daughters we managed to pull it off in about an hour.  Just in time!

It was simple, but pretty.  And I'm sorry to say that at this point my camera went missing and I haven't seen it since.  I have no photos of the wedding, but big hopes of getting some from the photographer in the near future.

Now we are in the thick of scheduling doctor and testing appointments (had to cancel a bunch of them when I was sick) preparing our homeschool portfolios for review of our just finished school year, and figuring out the next school year with an additional child who appears to have more severe learning issues than I had anticipated.  Whew.  In all honesty, life is stressful for me right now. Adjusting to a "new normal" always is, even if one doesn't come home sick from China and have all these extra things thrown in!  At this point I'm trying so very hard to be patient while waiting for the "normal" to arrive.