Operation chicken coop complete

Our mobile chicken coop.  It really isn't much taller than the AC unit and looks better.  The handles are so you can move it easily which prevents the place from getting fouled and gives the chickens new ground to forage.

One of the chickens we forced on the ground.  Everyone is posing waiting for Dennis to get his shoes on.  The sides pull off so you can clean out the inside.

Some day those trees will be big enough to provide privacy on this side of the house.

Dennis finally made it.  The food and water hang from hooks so they stay off the ground and come with you if you move it.

The little ladder for the chickens to come up/down.  There is a pulley system so you can raise/lower it from the side.

Two doors on each end.  The bottom is used for getting to the food/water.  The top on each end is for the nesting box.

Package to S

Relevant to here and there... Package to S... most people only follow the Dennis blog though.  Follow the other if you are interested on how hosting goes and stuff centered around the girls.

Weekend

Ashley and Dennis playing ball.  Dennis spent a lot of time on the ground trying to kick the ball.  The other kids would run kind of playing keep away so it really worked on his muscles to be able to change direction.

He LOVES the dogs.  I caught him many times hugging them.  We chained them up in the yard with them so they could enjoy the nice day and play also.

This was a good one.  Sam is thinking UH OH!

Sam's turn but he's being a nice "big" brother.

I just loved this one... you can see he puts everything into kicking that ball.

Both kids in the new tent.  Last year's was a 2 person tent and I was VERY pleaed to have to upgrade.  This one was nice... front area enclosed for all your stuff, easy to setup, the kids could practically stand.  Plenty of room.  Costco special.  Dennis calls it a "big balloon".

Kids playing kick ball.  Sam is on the right in the red shorts.  Dennis felt a bit overwhelmed with all the boy activity going on.  He spent most of the time with me but later we got a football and he, Sam, and I played for quite a bit.

Dennis spending time with me.

Sleepy!  He really liked camping.  He kept saying he was sleepy though I'm not sure if that is cause he got really tired out or because he wanted to go into the tent and sleep in the sleeping bag.

Pre-camping

Talking about camping seems to be nearly as entertaining for Dennis as his reaction is to us.  "Sleeping outside tomorrow??  Outside on the ground?????!?!!".  Sam and I just affirm and we get this big smile like "YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY" in a fun silly way.  I guess he's never gone camping in a tent before.  Their trips to the camps each summer in Ukraine must be to bunkhouses... not outside or, as in our case, tents.

So to start out the weekend enjoyment the boys got to have popcorn and movie night.  They asked if they could sleep on the floor in the basement watching TV and I said yes.  Might as well get some practice for tomorrow but without the ticks :)

The girls had to go to bed as they still had cards to do and lots of them.  Actually all the kids did well at school this week.  Amanda brought home perfect behavior scores every day this week, Sam got his first day of perfect scores (behavior and work quality) with a couple of notes from his teacher about how well he has done, and I talked to Ashley's IEP teacher and she said that she had a really good week -- ignoring not studying enough for her science test and mixing up some terms.

So we are looking forward to a fun weekend.  Actually I need to ask Melissa if I can go to the local grocery store.  They have drumsticks, thighs, and thigh/leg combos that are awesome for BBQ at $0.99/lb... I'm thinking this summer and going through 15lbs of chicken at a meal... I think I need to clean the grocery store out.

Summer planned!

Melissa spent the last hour on the phone with our timeshare company.  They are actually pretty good and very helpful.  Melissa and Ashley already have a purity weekend at one of the resorts in the mountains... pool, miniature golf, spa, horses, etc.  She booked it again for her and the older girls to go for a few nights.  We also used it go to a theme/water park for a couple days... including paying for the theme park and a lot of meals.

A friend... actually the best realtor ever is letting us stay at his vacation home in Smith Mountain Lake.

So we are pretty booked up for July... we'll manage to make church pretty much every Sunday though on 1-2 occasions it'll probably just be the Russian church in the afternoon.  We'll have two weeks to do more relaxed things like sit around the house, visit the caverns, maybe meet up with another girl from the same orphanage who was adopted, or other various local activities.

We had been hoping to go to Sight & Sound Theatres again but it is the same play we saw last year.  It was really good but really don't see going ($$$) when only one person hasn't seen it before.

Anyways, that's the nice thing about the timeshare... we'd probably never do much stuff like this if it wasn't for it.

Almost 3 weeks

Dennis is doing so well... when I came in the boys to wake him up this morning I could hear him giggle.  He knows I'm going to go in and tickle him up.  He got up really well though had bags under his eyes... probably from his not wanting to go to sleep last night.

Ironically Sam and Amanda got in a little trouble for waking up and coming out of their rooms at like 5:30a.  They know they can't come out until 6:30a but I think there is a contest going to see who can get ready first.  Amanda just hasn't figured out she actually has to get all the way ready, not just throw some clothes on.  But I can't complain about not having to pull them out of bed.

For Dennis, tomorrow would have been 3 weeks since the last meltdown.  That is HUGE and shows how responsive he's been to consistent love and discipline.  I'm proud of him.  "Would" since after getting up so well we couldn't quite hold it together.  He's actually done with his time out and is just sitting on the bench waiting to say he is sorry.and give me a hug... then off to school.

Sam went on a field trip to a local park and had fun.  Brought home a bit of a sunburn and 4 ticks.  3 he picked off himself and one I got when I checked him out at home.  Need to call the doctor today and see what we need to do... they looks like nymphs so I don't expect they carry Lyme's... and with 2 bites the chance of one of them having rings if there is Lyme's is pretty high.

Showers

The boys share a room and their own attached bathroom.  It used to be our guest room, which is now located in the basement.  After months of the evening routine taking showers one at a time the had a couple of "rushed" days where there was very little time to shower.  On their own they came up with the idea of taking a shower together rather than having to rush through two showers.

I think it is a much better idea than wearing the same underwear every day so they don't have to fold and put as much clothes away.

Where to put the energy

Looks like blogger.com is partially up again...

Yesterday the kids came home completely wound up... more so than the usual Friday.  I know Sam's class got pancakes at school... chocolate chip and he ate 7 of them.  Wonder what the other kids were given.  Dennis was on the edge of a meltdown... even breaking a cabinet door from trying to open it too hard -- since motor control is a problem he had to apologize but didn't get into trouble.

Three of the kids working on putting together the poles to support the cucumbers and bell peppers.  Dennis has strong hands so instead of undoing the twist ties he'd pull the pieces apart.

It was a pretty stressful week and yesterday was not an exception.  I had ended up having to go into town in the morning so I stopped by and got trees and shrubs I had been planning to this month.  Some leyland cypress, azaleas, and some other brushes... as well as replacement cucumber plants (again) as I apparently planted the others too soon and all but one died in the cold.  They were still sitting in the van... so figured the kids could use the energy to help.  That managed to help settle the boys down at least.

Dinner was beef brisket and corn bread... which disappeared quickly.  The dogs are always pleased too as they get the left over fat and such.

We tried to call Snezhana this morning but her phone is off.  Sent an SMS and will try again if delivered... hopefully she didn't change SIMs yet again without telling us.  There is a family there right now that we'll ask to get the new number if this doesn't resolve itself in the next 2 days.

We are going to work on the chicken coop today... hoping to get it done this weekend to the point I can stain it.  It is warm, cloudy, with a light rain so I will probably leave the tree planting for another day when I won't be turning the dirt into mud preparing the area.  Figured I'd use the rototiller to chew up the grass in the area that I'm going to mulch next month.

81%, 81%, 89%

We started Rosetta Stone the last couple of weeks with Dennis.  He's been retaking the first core lesson over and over as he started with like 43%.  Part of this is to just get him used to the program.  Ashley and I have been splitting the time working with him.

Well today he got 81% on the first core lesson (about 125 questions) and then proceeded to pronunciation and vocabulary.  He got in the 60s for the time and then 81% and 89% respectively the second time.  Woohoo!  When he gets 80% or higher we let him move to the next section.

Mother's Day

Mom got breakfast in bed this morning and then came out to join us for pancakes that Ashley made from scratch (no bisquick).  It was good.

First Mother's Day with D.

We had child dedication today for D at church.  The kids all stood up and behaved perfectly... apparently they were all replaced by aliens for a short time.  We certainly had the oldest kids standing up there... our church used to have a policy that they only did child dedications for kids under a certain age.  Apparently this was change not so long ago... I wonder if the many adoptive families had anything to do with that.

The little model wanting to look cute with attitude I think.

Well.. this was the best pose.  Otherwise she just wanted to give sour looks.

All Sam' idea... maybe he was jealous of the D pict doing the same.

The entire clan with mom.

Ashley was really distracted by trying to get Gus into the picture.  The big lug wasn't cooperating but I think you can see his ear at the edge of the picture.  Just as well... I don't think mom wanted the big dog on everyone in their church clothes.

The boys went and got flowers on Saturday to make sure mom felt loved.

Mom took Dennis with her on her Mother's Day afternoon.  He was the only kid without cards to do... he doesn't get cards yet but he's been doing well regardless.  He helped with putting the chairs away after church today... picking up the papers on the gym floor and throwing them away.  I think mom is going to get her hair cut and then head over the Kohl's.  D is REALLY rough on shoes having ripped a hole in the shoes we got him less than 3mo ago.  He's going to get a church pair and play pair... and I think mom is getting me some jean shorts.

I'm working with the kids to get their cards done and building the chicken coop.  The 5 chicks we have are too big for their box.  We are making a "chicken ark" that is the right size, has a low profile, and you can easily move around the yard so it never badly fouls an area.  The boys helps me get the wood for it yesterday and get it to my workshop (in this basement).

Hosting dates

Good news... we finally got dates for the hosting program.  Dennis' sister should be here on June 28th or 29th depending on the flight arrangements.  Hopefully we have nice weather this summer... last summer it was "August hot" all summer long.

Now time to start scheduling stuff.  Hopefully Melissa can get a little bit of unpaid leave to augment her vacation time in order to enjoy things.

It's also time to get our letters together for the girls... need to introduce them to each other before they get on the plane together :)

Day at the capital

Today the boys and I played hooky and went to get all the dossier documents from the state capital and send them off.  They did really well with the 6+ hrs in the car and waiting, hungry, for me to sort, record, and ship the 64 documents.

As we were getting ready the school called panicked... apparently they scheduled the "psychological" evaluation for Dennis' IEP for today and had arranged for a Russian translator and everything.  Sometimes it would help if they'd tell us their plans... or maybe I'm the only dad that a couple times a year just decides to pull the kids out of school for part of a day to have fun.  At least I framed it as educational... "I know school budgets are tight, so this last minute trip is probably one of the few opportunities they will have to see this VA history" :)  We ended up rushing over to school for the 45min eval.

While I was at the front office a woman, older than me, and her daughter came in.  The woman had a Russian accent which I was sure of when I heard her ask her daughter if everything was good.  I decided to say hi and thank her daughter for helping Dennis out in computer class -- how many Russian speaking 4th graders could be in our tiny southern German town.  The mother was obviously uncomfortable with my saying hi... some of my employees say they are nervous to approach me so I guess it is a general thing, I'm scarey :)  I solve it with my employees by finding the ones I give heart attacks to and communicate to them until they are numb...  but for this occasion I just said thanks and went away.

This was our first picture.  They liked the whole stepping out thing though neither understand the meaning of the monument.  On the back side was another depiction with a little boy, amongst others, that we decided looked like little D... I think D kissed it.

They really thought this statue of George Washington and others was really cool.  It is my favorite too.

On our way to FedEx.  We actually got the documents first thing.  The center is the "original" building mostly designed by Thomas Jefferson.  The wings were added later and hold the Senate and House of Delegates.  There is a lot of stuff underground these days.

Sam wanted to make sure D got a picture in front of the American flag that matches his shirt.  Dennis now refers to it as his American flag.

They liked the armor in this old VA seal.  This one is better than the others as I think the official one these days includes a woman in a toga with not everything covered.

Another picture with a statue of George Washington.  This room has many busts of famous people.  Sam was intent on finding where Abe Lincoln was despite my telling him that Abe wasn't from Virginia.

And of course the reminder we really do live in the south... a full sized statue of Robert E Lee.  The closest "significant" town to us is actually Lee'sburg.

It took me a bit to convince them to pose for this one.  They were quite concerned on whether or not they were allowed to sit in the chairs.  I guess that is a good thing.  This is the "old" part of the building... the Senate chamber I think... that they essentially have open to anyone... well, anyone who has gone through the metal detectors.

I have a bunch more pictures but this is enough for the blog.  We are going to send some to Snezhana... I suspect we'll leave out the whole dossier part... well, and probably the skipping out on school part though maybe that would make me a cool dad.

Cautiously good

Dennis has been dealing with things progressively better.  We still have our tantrums but they are milder and he's reacting better to being told no... especially in regards to attitude.

Ashley and I started him on Rosetta Stone yesterday.  He got through 30 tests so far at about 65%.  I'm very pleased and I suspect the computer classes at school are helping too.  He decided he did not want to do English classes so he got a timeout.  Afterward he sat on the bench until he was willing to do the work... once he got started he didn't want to stop... even with Ashley and I telling him he could be done for the day.  Eventually he decided he was done and it was time to Wii!

Tomorrow he's going to school "wounded" again.  He's got a nice bruise on his cheek where he nailed himself on the timeout bench last week.  After his shower tonight he came down and he has this red mark/scrape from his forehead, over one eye, to the middle of his cheek.  He couldn't tell us how he did it... I figured he nailed himself with the shower door.  Amanda claims she saw him not paying attention and ran into one of the legs of his bunk bed.... will be interesting how it looks in the morning.

Oh... and I forgot, Sunday after church he closed his hand in the door of my RX-8 after he had locked the doors so it took a few seconds for me to unlock it and get him free.  Poor little guy.