For My Wonderful Wife!

Meanwhile in Hawaii...

My wife is amazing...somehow she is managing to play single parent while working the hectic and long hours of an OB/GYN. She has been handling the situation masterfully despite the recent struggles with our strong-willed "almost 4 year old". But, that doesn't mean there aren't tough days...today was one of those days. And here I sit 5000 miles away not able to do much. So, I thought I'd try to do something to cheer up my beautiful wife. Maybe it will help, maybe not.

This blog started back in 2007 primarily to chronicle our journey through the world of adoption to reach our beautiful little Juneau. Emilie did an amazing job creating a record of this important component of our family history but one ill-fated day, due to an update by blogger, we lost the important timeline that use to grace the sidebar of our blog. We thought it was lost forever until I was able this past summer to gain access to the archived version of the blog - the archived version being a hard copy printout of pretty much the entire blog that my parents have hand delivered to Grandma Nova over the last 3 years so that she can follow the blog without having a computer. Grandma Nova then dutifully puts each printout in a 3 ring binder and provides the most old-fashioned version of backing up a hard drive ever! I've had plans to sit down and recreate the timeline for Emilie for several months as a surprise and hopefully doing it today will provide a little pick-me-up after a rough couple of days.

Our Journey to Juneau Timeline:

October 15, 2006: We submitted our application for adoption to Hawaii International Child

December 15, 2006: We complete our first Homestudy visit at HIC with Amy

December 21, 2006: We officially submit our "Advance Application for Adoption of an Infant" (I600-A) with the USCIS and get fingerprinted

January 10, 2007: Amy comes to our house to complete our second Homestudy visit.

January 17, 2007: Our Homestudy is approved

January 27, 2007: We receive our I-171H - the document saying that the US Government has approved us to adopt an international baby

January 30, 2007: Our complete dossier (huge pile of important documents) completed and delivered to HIC

February 12, 2007: We receive our dossier back from the State of Hawaii, now certified by the Secretary of State

February 13, 2007: On Grandma Stickley's birthday, our certified dossier is Fed-exed to the Vietnamese embassy in Washington D.C. and we are officially on our way.

March 6, 2007: Our authenticated dossier is sent from Washington D.C. to Vietnam

May 29, 2007: We received an initial referral of a baby girl

September 15, 2007: Our positive pregnancy test that caused a panic attack for the ages.

September 21, 2007: Before we even knew it, our little girl was born in Vietnam

November, 2007: Due to a paperwork error, we lost our initial referral and were devastated to be set back 8 months worth of waiting. We could never have known at that time that our amazing little Juneau, not even 2 months old at that time, was out there waiting for us.

January 23, 2008: We receive our referral for the little girl we have come to love more than we could have ever imagined

Juneau at 4 months

March 24, 2008: Our I600 is sent to Vientam

Juneau at 6 months

April 2, 2008: USCIS acknowledges receipt of our I-600. We are now in the queue waiting for approval to travel to Vietnam to bring Juneau home.

May 4, 2008: Little sister Nova joins the family Juneau at 8 months - about the time Nova was born

June 5, 2008: We recieved approval of our I-600 from USCIS and permission to travel to Vietnam

July 11, 2008: Cris, Karen and Dennis board a plane in Honolulu headed for Juneau

July 13, 2008: Juneau and her daddy meet for the first time

July 14, 2008: At our Giving & Receiving Ceremony, our Journey to Juneau is complete as the government of Vietnam officially recognizes who Juneau's family is

July 25, 2008: Juneau comes home to Hawaii

August 15, 2008: Juneau finally meets her mommy and her little sister.

Our Family Finally Together for the First Time

wedding pics

the crazy schedules around here are still crazy. trying hard to stay afloat (and keep some semblance of "normal" for the girls!!)
not a lot to write about today, but i will post some of the lovely pictures from Betsy's wedding...

The Sendoff.... little flower girl nova...
headed off into the sunset :)

a few last words of wisdom from her mama (this is "dress two" for betsy...she had her ceremony dress and her "going away" dress. and they were both amazing!"

spending some time with my little flower girl princess

my with my sisters!

my other cutie flower girl!

jbug showing off her splits

Nova needed some quality time with her "blue blankie"

my little brother Drew

Betsy and Dad's dance Nova giving a little wink for the camera

This was Nova's face for the first hour or so of the wedding...she made it down the aisle as the flower girl (BARELY!)

Juneau handled the stress of her flower girl role with a little more ease :) She made it down the aisle, and onto the stage...it was a little more drama after her flower girl role was over, and she hopped off the stage and called "mom, mom, mom?" quite loudly until she found me and the ceremony could continue

Part of "gypsy village" in my parent's back yard! it was totally fun for all!

Nothin' like a big ole' hug from your cousin!! haha! Juneau still talks about this giant hug from Secily. About once a day she will come up behind me and hug my guts out and tell me "I'm huggin' you like Secily!!"

Spending some cousin time around the fire now it is off to bed for this tired mama!!

lovin' the 3 day weekend...

As is usual custom for many holidays in the military, we have the friday before the monday holiday off, which is super awesome. Unfortunately, I drew the short straw on labor day, and have to work a long shift that day, but i am certainly thankful for the 3 day weekend.



It's been a rough last couple of days. Anyone who has traveled with toddlers knows it takes a few days to get back in the groove after a big trip. We got in late tuesday night, and i was nervous about wednesday (i had to go back to work, so Laura had the girls all day), but they got a GREAT report! The were supposed to start Awanas on Wed, and i wasn't planning to let them go b/c of all the excitement of the week, but after the good report, I decided to go for it.

miiiiissssttaaaaakkkkkeeee!!!! (if you watch scrubs religiously like cris and i will do, hopefully that will remind you of the random guy who pops into the scene and shouts MISTAKE whenever a bad choice is made! hahaha!)

WEll, I didn't need "mistake" guy there to tell me i made a mistake, b/c it was blatantly obvious. It has become more clear over the last few months that Juneau handles fatigue very poorly. A lot of kids get whiny when they are tired. Not Juneau, no sirree, she gets downright mean. Last week she went to daycare for a couple of hours, and was very tired when i dropped her off. when i picked her up i was informed that she had "hit, kicked, punched, shouted, AND spit!

Anyway, back to Awanas. I dropped off a tired Juneau. In 1.5 hours i peeked into the room just before pick-up time to see a room full of cheery 3 year olds singing a hippopotamus song and happily doing motions. All except for one kid, who was spinning wildly with her arms spread wide in the back of the room, randomly taking out unsuspecting toddlers. Yep, that was Juneau. When I went to the door and said i was there to get Juneau, the teacher gave me this look, and i knew it was going to be bad. Biting. on several occasions. I felt horrible. absolutely horrible. I took juneau to the car and tried to talk to her about it, then we went back inside for her to apologize to her teacher. It was incredibly frustrating, and i just felt like i would never make it through the year.

However.....the last 2 days have been AMAZING with Juneau's behavior. I don't know what happened (or if it is just my super vigilance to keeping her well rested), but she has been nothing short of a little angel the last two days. example overhead today "Here Noves, let me carry your Nalgene bottle to the car. I know you are really tired, and i will help you out!". ahhhh...sweet sweet music to my ears.

That doesn't mean that I am returning the copy of The Strong Willed Child I promptly purchased from Barnes and Noble after the whole Awana incident, but it does mean I am encouraged and hopeful that we may, indeed, actually make it through the year.



Anyway, I have to do the pictures from the weekend slowly. There are just too many!

I will start with Betsy's Bridal shower. My creative genius of a sister, Becky, pretty much coordinated the entire event, and it was so awesome! Betsy and Brad got the nickname "The Killer B's" while they were dating in Hawaii, and Becky constructed a totally Bee themed shower! sooooo cute!



Little tiny honey's were given out as favors

there was lots of "girl food" - fruit kabobs, chicken salad croissonts, etc

We discovered a little treasure of a place in Mansfield called The Old Stone House. It is a bed and breakfast with a beautiful area for entertaining, and it worked out perfectly for the shower! The creative mind behind the shower (of course she coordinated herself to the Yellow bee theme!)

For all those former Bible Quizzers out there, look closely, my friends. Yes, we did bust out the Quiz Box (actually hauled all the way from Florida by Becky!) We played a really fun Wedding Triva game, and what better way to make it official than to you a quiz box! Luckily becky was reading the questions, so she and I didn't have the chance to stir up some of that old sister rivalry! it could've gotten ugly!

Sisters! Sonya, Becky, Bets and I. Please ignore the giant purple feather clinging to the top of my head. It was a "hair feather gone wrong" incident, and it brought massive comic relief to the rest of the family until i could have it removed! Have you seen those really cool, tiny, subtle hair feathers (they are all the rage....seriously!!) well, i tried to get that before the wedding, and somehow i ended up with some type of parrot semi-permanently attached to my head. it was terrifying to say the least. When I was getting the feather i thought I was all hot stuff because i was only paying $15...little did i know the end result would bring hours of entertainment to the rest of the family as they sat around and laughed at the ridiculous feathers!

Did i mention there were 26 people staying at my parents house? Notice i say "at" my parent's house, and not "in" my parent's house. More to come on that, but let's just say 2 camper trailers, and 2 giant tents adorned the back yard for a week! :)

anyway, do you see all these toddlers? mass chaos, i tell you. but loads of fun!!!

ohio and back

we are alive (although barely!!!!) it was a seriously action packed week in ohio.

we had 26 people in my parent's house for the week, and my little sister made the truly most BEAUTIFUL little bride you can imagine. it was mass chaos for about 97% of the time, but in the end it was the prettiest and most creative wedding ever. I am tucked into bed with two tired (and one sick) little girls. hoping to make it through the next 2 days of work, and then a 3 day weekend with my little sweeties. many pictures to come!!!

for now, i will just post this one pic with my sisters Becky and Betsy (doesn't she look like a little princess?!!!)

Congratulations: Kaori Tamura, PhD, ATC

Posted by: Cris



Meanwhile in Hawaii...



It has only been a little over a week and today was only the first day of school and I'm already going crazy missing my girls. The only plus has been that I've been getting alot done including making good use of the Craftsman wood chipper (now the second best piece in my tool arsenal) I recently bought in an attempt to regain control of the jungle's advancement while I was on the mainland.



Today the school year got started with a bang. In events that were very near and dear to my heart, my friend and now former student Kaori successfully defended her doctoral dissertation and joined the ranks of proud UH PhD grads as graduate #3 all-time from our program. This completion was particularly special for me for a number of reasons.



As a first year PhD student, I got to know Kaori in working with her as she finished her Master's thesis. I'll never forget the week we sat in the biomechanics lab over Spring Break as the ONLY 2 people in the department who were even still in town and hammered out the final analysis of her thesis. After a year out working in the real world, Kaori invited me to meet her at Starbucks and talk about whether she should come back and start a PhD. I of course told her I'd be mad at her if she didn't. :)



So, Kaori's first year in the PhD program was my final year finishing my dissertation and Kaori was part of a faithful crew that spent many long hours in the lab helping me collect my dissertation data.



During the last 3 years, I have enjoyed many good times working with Kaori and I hope that these experiences have been as valuable to her as they were to me.



Unfortunately, in about 10 days Kaori is moving to Taiwan which means no more hour long nerd sessions sitting in my office talking about some bit of biomechanics theory or weekend seminars in the anatomy lab standing over a cadaver while Kaori translates my attempts at explanation into coherent Japanese.



But, I will also miss Kaori for another very important reason...



She has always LOOOVED my girls...



And as you can see, they have always loved her:





Godspeed Dr. Tamura - I will miss you more than you know!

sick....

i thought saturday night was kind of rough, with the whole vomiting incident. however, i think saturday night was just to prepare me for what happened last night. i am really not sure where all of this is coming from, but last night at about 2 a.m. nova woke up crying and with terrible diarrhea (and vomiting, but what's a little vomit thrown in when you have diarrhea everywhere??!)

so, we kind of had a repeat of saturday night, with the changing of the beds, and the trips to the shower, etc. I did feel soooo bad for poor little nova, though. she would fall asleep and then wake up with a terrible belly ache and she kept saying "do something mommy, please do something". well, believe me, i would have done something if i could have...but in spite of 11 years of medical training, i had no magic solution for her GI virus, so we just stuck it out. Juneau joined in the fun at about 5 a.m., but she handled it a little better. a few trips to the potty, and she was feeling ok. Laura and the girls spent most of the day just bumming around the house and pulling out some Disney movies from my 150 disney movie box set courtesy of the Afghanistan DVD Company (the Afghani's may not have mastered how to train a functional military, but they sure do know how to pirate DVD's!!)

anyway, by the time i rolled through the door at 5 oclock, the girls were feeling pretty good, and ready for some fun with mom.

Nova was working on re-hydrating after a rough week... Jbug was re-feuling with her favorite costo treat- fruity sorbet...

The girls have been rather obsessed with this little fan lately. they like to sit in front of it, and hold various objects in front of it. i haven't yet taught them how they can use a deep voice to say "luke, i am your father" into the fan to get a realistic sound effect...maybe we will work on that tomorrow....our cute little bug...

sometimes your backside just needs a strong breeze....

and what one sister does, the other must do as well...

Juneau wanted me to take a picture of her "Scary face". it's kind of cute, but it actually does scare nova, and juneau gets massive amounts of enjoyment out of doing this right in nova's face. which of course sets nova into fits of tears, which results in a time out for juneau, but apparently the punishment must be worth the crime because we go through that cycle at least 5 times a day!