Summer Fun

The kids are enjoying their summer. They attended their first day camp for a one week session and had a great time. Their two favorite activities are riding their bikes and swimming. I wish I could say they are English and Math, but kids are kids no matter where they come from.

Elizabeth is being tutored in Math and is making very good progress. Her English gets better every day. My favorite Elizabeth saying is when she tells me that she "brushed her teeth, brushed her face, and brushed her hair". Michael has picked up English very fast including; no problem, nice, see ya, whasssup? (thanks to Uncle Bob).

Elizabeth got braces last week. She chose alternating pink colored rubber bands to personalize her braces. The first 3 days she experienced alot of pain, but after that she has been fine. The hard thing for her is that she can't eat some of her favorite foods anymore. No gum, no starburst, no corn on the cob, no gummy bears, no snickers, no nuts. Notice that most of the favorites are candy. She LOVES candy.

Some things we have learned since we got home with the kids:
1) The kids are big helpers. They cleaned all of our silk plants by taking them outside and washing them with the hose.

2) They love to put up groceries. Elizabeth put the fresh corn on the cob in the freezer and the refrigerated lunch meat in the pantry.

3) It doesn't matter what time the kids go to bed they will always get up and go out to the kitchen to get one last drink of water before they go to bed.

4) Elizabeth will drop or break something on a regular basis. Her last incident was at HEB over the 4th of July. She was picking a watermelon and grabbed a big one and dropped it on the floor. It split in two and sprayed our legs. She said, "oh, I'm sorry":-) and put it back and got another one.

5) We can do more in 5 minutes than we thought we could. There isn't any free time in our days anymore:-).

The kids are adjusting well, but we've had a few issues that we are working through. I'll elaborate more on another post. See #5 above:-).

Another couple from our adoption group received their travel date. Congratulations Ann and Keith! They will be traveling to Ukraine in September.

Thanks for keeping up with our family adventure!

Sharon

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Well, we might as well get back to the reality of life in the United States. Let's start with food. When I was in Ukraine I suffered because I couldn't eat what I wanted. But now the tide has turned. First things first. I introduced the children to steak which I cook very well on my grill. On our first BBQ I cooked NY Strip steaks and everyone cried because it was so good. The kids thought it was strange because we told them it was beef because they don't get alot of that in Ukraine. After they ate it I don't think they will ever go back to pork and neither will I.

Since we've been home there have been alot of changes. One of the very best has been coming home from work to my new family. Communication has been one of the biggest barriers. Let me explain. When Michael tries to describe a story to me it sounds like a kung fu movie with physical animation. My favorite thing Elizabeth does is when she says "I love you". It sounds like a drunk woman after last call... "Iluvuuuu". So, I always respond with the same prounciation.

One of the really neat things to see is the children doing things for the first time by themselves. The other is to see how creative they are. Elizabeth makes her own envelopes and knits. And she is the fastest potato peeler with a sharp knife that I've ever seen. She has actually beaten me when I was using a potato peeler which she refuses to use. Michael, on the other hand, draws us pictures and leaves special notes under our pillows at night. He has also corrected me while I am working on anything and everything. It's irritatiing because more than half the time he is right. For example, we were assembling his toy box and he was trying to tell me not to put a face plate on the front of the toy box. I acted like I didn't understand him and screwed it together anyway because Dad knows best. Then as we completed the project I realized he was correct. I had screwed the face plate on backwards.

One of the best things is seeing how well they have fallen in love with our family and friends.

Stay tuned for more action at the Coons house.

Tim