Zoo Day

Chicago skyline on a beautiful day
Aunt Steph and the kids

Soccer star Caleb

This past Thursday and Friday Caleb didn't have school. My sister and I took an impromptu trip to Chicago with the kids. We spent Wednesday night at my grandparent's house and then went to Lincoln Park Zoo on Thursday. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time! The zoo is free which is a nice bonus. You make up for it in parking, but that's ok. The zoo is quite large and has a good variety of animals. The kids really did awesome. My sister is moving to Denver in a couple weeks so we won't have too many more trips with Aunt Steph. I'm super proud of Steph and excited for her, but I'm also really sad. I'm going to miss having her nearby.

This weekend I visited my parents. My Dad had his surgery earlier in the week and it was successful! He is doing amazingly well. He has about a month recovery time, but he's able to get around and feels ok. Thank you for your prayers!

Caleb is playing soccer again this year. There have been some cold mornings at the soccer field this fall, but he has fun. Nate's power plant is in an outage again. They happen every 18 months when they shut the reactor down, refuel and fix as many things as possible in 4-6 weeks. He's working 4 days on, one day off. The days average about 13 hours. I'm thankful he's on days and not nights. We're all just making the best of it and waiting for November. :)

Funny little story about Julia. After Isaac used the bathroom today she started pulling on her pants and saying, "potty." I put her on the toilet and she didn't do anything, but still I was impressed. The boys had no interest in the toilet at 18 months. I'm not planning on potty training her anytime soon though. :)

Isaac is getting excited about the idea of going to school next year. He talks often about when he gets to go to preschool. When we visit my parents' church they have a program for Isaac's age group. He loves going to his own class and making a craft, having a teacher, etc. He was upset because I pulled him out of the program early so he missed some of the singing and couldn't take his craft home. The nerve of me! :)

Something else I've been thinking about recently. Through a Korean adoption forum I read about an American adoptive family getting to meet their child's birthmother in Korea. This hardly ever happens in international adoptions. As I read this Mom's opportunity to meet her child's birthmother I found myself feeling jealous. I used to think the nice thing about international adoptions was that you didn't have to interact with the birth family. My mind is changing though. I would love an opportunity to meet Julia's birthparents. I want a chance to get to know them. Which parts of her personality come from her birthparents? If I saw her birthmom, would I get a glimpse of what Julia will look like when she's older? I think Julia would also appreciate having more information about her birth family. I was thinking I would also be extremely nervous about meeting her birthparents. What would they think of me? Would they be happy she was in our family? So many interesting thoughts and questions.