Weekends... they don't make'em as long as they used to!

Here it is, the beginning of another work week. Where do the weekends go? I have no idea...

Friday, Lesley and Caleb went up to Grandma E's house to help get her packed up for her move to Pleasant Hill in mid-May and to bring a van load of stuff back to our house for storage until then. I picked up Robby from school, had a special "Robby" dinner of hot dogs and Phineas & Ferb Kraft macaroni and cheese.

After dinner, we went back up to school for Reading Under The Stars. It's an event where you can take blankets, sleeping bags, flashlights and books to read with your kid(s). They have the gymnasium lights turned off and then strung strings of white Christmas lights around the gym off of the basketball hoops. It was really quite a neat event. They had one classroom set up for a "build a book" activity, which we did. They had another classroom set up for a math-based Jeopardy game, which we didn't do. The BIG reason we were going though is because they had a book fair in the library and Robby had spotted a book on the Titanic that he was going to own, come hell or high water! There are so many short, funny stories around this...  the boy wanted that book!!!

We purchased that book and a book called Tenticles (had to watch carefully on what I actually typed there!!) about squid (mmmm... calamari...), octopus (octopusses? octopi? hmmm...). They also had a table set up for a book swap. Bring a book or two in and take a book or two out. Robby took two books in that he had started to read but didn't care for. We found a big hardcover book called The History of Football. We are the new owners of that! He picked out another book as well. 

They had piles of books at the end of the night so Rob ended up with about 6 new books when we got home as well as he and dad having a good time laying on a very hard gymnasium floor reading the Titanic book together. That pretty much chewed up Friday night. 

Then, I have Bible study on Saturday mornings from 6am - 8am. We're currently studying the book of John and it's been nothing short of fascinating so far.  This past Saturday morning was no exception.

We were home for a while after Bible study just doing some things around the house... painting the boat that Robby, Caleb and I have been building (small boat for the swimming pool this summer), listing cds for sale on amazon and gettting some cheapy's ready for the garage sale in May. 

Around 3pm, Momma took the boys out to her friend Carmens farm as they have a calf that is blind and being bottle fed. Robby had a great time and got to feed the calf but poor little Caleb, who is not at all fond of critters, was being carried by Momma for a good portion of that trip.

On the way home from the farm, they stopped at Chopsticks to get supper.  We brought something home from China which says you eat long noodles on your birthday for "long life".  Since it was his birthday, Caleb got him some noodles. Long life or not, he enjoyed the crap out of them!

Sunday morning, I had to be at Crossroads Church in Norwalk, IA. at 7am as I was playing guitar for Sunday's worship. All of that went well and I had a great time despite being quite nervous as I had not been playing much guitar since our gig at Freedom For Youth back in late September.  Also, this particular Sunday marked the first time that Caleb got to see daddy playing guitar somewhere other than the basement! When they walked into the gymnasium where services are held, Caleb spotted me up on stage and yelled, "BA BA!!!".  It was a great moment that I shall not soon forget. Nor shall any of the regulars at that church who were sitting nearby when he yelled out!  :-)

We got home from that around 11am and had lunch. I planted another couple of bags of canna bulbs (I probably butchered that spelling much like I did of palette/palate) in an annoying mist and only have two more bags to go.

Robby had a soccer game at 2:15.  At roughly 1:45, it went from an annoying mist to a good steady & heavy rain.  It was also about 50 degrees outside with a stiff wind to boot!  Not the ideal conditions to be sitting outside watching a game being played or playing the game itself.  I took him up to the game and thankfully, it ended up being cancelled.

We went back home, popped a heaping pile of popcorn so me and the boys could pig out while watching the Princess Bride.  I about busted a gut laughing at that movie and I had to stop and explain some of the humor and jokes to Robby, but man, what a fun, side-splitting trip down memory lane!

On to a few photos...

Robby has energy. Lots of energy.  Sometimes, on nice days when he's about ready to boil over, we send him on "running missions".  This was one of those days.  Usually, he's sent to run over into the neighbors back yard, around a specific tree or LP tank, up the hill into our backyard and then maybe lap it, depending on his energy surplus/sassiness.  On top of that, he's been gassed a few times recently during soccer games.  You see, football season has been over for several months so he's not running thru the living room catching passes from dad for four hours every Sunday afternoon.

That's Robby beneath the pinkish lightning bolt added by me (and barely visible...) to be able to spot him easier.

Aaaaannnnndddddd... that's Robby, gassed after the run up the hill and taking a break.  Note my new potato hills directly behind the swing set that is directly behind Robby. I built three terraced levels this year on a hill that is otherwise very scary to mow on a tractor.

Here's Robby bottle feeding the blind calf.

And another...  that's Carmen's very cute grand daughter with Rob.

Every post should have at least one Caleb smile!  Here 'tis.

Happy Birthday to Caleb RongBo Schmitz!

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Caleb experienced his first birthday, American style.  I'm guessing it was probably the most excess that he's seen, especially in his honor.

His birthday is actually April 28th, but we had the party a week early to accommodate some schedules.  We were visited by G'ma & G'pa Bushman, G'ma Schmitz, Aunt Molly, Aunt Doris & Uncle Frank, Aunt Dianne with three little ones in tow, Samuel, Jonah, and Zoe.  Also, due to some VERY late invites (about 10 minutes before eating...), our neighbors Mike and Diane showed up for a bit too.

Oh, Mom, Dad & Robby were in attendance also...

Caleb was receiving a "talking" Mickey Mouse book from Sam and Jonah here. They, Sam especially, were not quite ready to give it up. Caleb watched for a while, waiting for his moment, and then squatted down in an attempt to snatch the book away.

This is Sam & Jonah giving Big C the cards that they made for him.

Robby had been captured by zombies and assimilated...

Marvin McNutt receiving a new t-shirt with a bulldozer on it.  He likes his decorated shirts. A lot!

This particular decorated shirt was the big hit though. You can't go wrong with Mickey Mouse in Caleb's eyes!

A view master with some of the aforementioned rodent.  Another big hit.

Some books from Aunt Molly. 

I took this picture but I cannot remember or tell from the photo what it is...  It appears as if there was perhaps a small piece of tape on it yet or a bent corner that likely frazzled the boy, kinda like his daddy.

I believe this is big brother Robby teaching Calebber how to successfully change the view master cards. Jonah stands in awe of Rob's view master savvy ways.

Jonah lighting up a glass a kool-aid... and the front of his shirt.

Uncle Frank has a couple of monkeys on his back...

Robby and Caleb cannot figure out why S & J have plates of food and they do not!  Oh the agony!  Oh the misfortune! Oh the unfairness of it all!  Woe! Woe!

Here's the exploding Mickey Mouse cake made by Grandma Marlene.  The boys were all sitting around the little table until we lit the sparklers!  They took that as a sign of impending doom and headed for the hills!  Good stuff!

The proud (and stinkin' cute...) birthday boy with his cake.

Later on in the afternoon, the boys wanted to go outside and play. Robby likes to use the swingset as a pirate ship where he cannot touch the ground as it is "shark infested waters".  Caleb wanted to get on the pirate ship to have his photo taken with his big bro.

Caleb and Jonah doing a little teeter-totter action.

That's about all she wrote, as they say.  Today, April 28th is his birthday.  Next Friday, May 4th is his palate surgery.  

And I've finally realized that I've been spelling palate wrong this whole time.  I've been spelling it palette instead of palate.  I wish that he were a fan of painting and indeed had a defective palette... much easier to fix.  But indeed, it is his palate that will be repaired.  I couldn't help but notice all of the emails flyin' (none...) to tell me that I had it wrong!  Poor little maroon. What a nincowpoop...

The White Toad

We're simply going to have to move with these critters (and the snakes) around! 

Lesley and I were going through the storeroom today to find stuff for the garage sale coming up in May, and I had some stuff that could be burned out in our patio pit.  I took it outside and lifted the lid to the storage bin, put the wood in, and dropped the lid back down.

I nearly jumped clean out of my skin when I saw this cold blooded killer on the lid of the wood storage. 

Last summer we spotted this guy, or a nefarious near-twin of him up on our deck resting on the base of one of the deck chairs. We took some photos of him then and moved on with life as best as we could knowing at all times he was always out there... somewhere!

Look at his eyes!  Obviously the eyes of killer!

He ain't right!  Pretending to be all nice and relaxed... you know he's prepared to lunge at a fella at a moments notice, rip a vein out of my neck and kill me in a second flat!

Robby wanted to pick him up and was foolishly encouraging me to do so (he's the little tiny bump on the back of the storage bin just below and to the left of Robby's hands).  I told him that I would bravely photograph the proceedings so long as he did not come towards with the ferocious killer in his grasp!  Thankfully, Rob did not possess the intestinal fortitude needed to capture the beast and we had to go get mom.

So mom captures it after a life and death battle...  okay, truly, she walked over and calmly picked it up.  Notice the deadly yellow tint on the under sides of it's legs and belly. This fella obviously means business!  The suction cupped feet?  C'mon, you cannot tell me that he is right in the head or in nature!!!

Ugh, he's practically emitting death!

Caleb was not so keen on this shady character so as a good dad, I pledged to stay inside and and photograph the proceedings from a far, safe distance.

I have no idea what mom did with this thing after she released it.  I would hope that it was turned over to the local authorities for some serious interrogation about its wheelings and dealings since it was last seen a summer ago.

Resurrection Day

Well, I'm behind... what can I say?   Too much to do, too little time.

Last Sunday, we went up to my moms house in Waterloo.  We're cleaning things out as she's preparing to move down to the Des Moines area to be closer to her kids and grandkids.

And since it was Resurrection Sunday, or as it is more commonly known, Easter Sunday, we had the 4 kiddos that were old enough to participate do an "Easter egg" hunt.  There was a brief discussion that since eggs and egg hunts have NOTHING to do with Resurrection Day, we should get the kids together to do it more often and leave this day alone for the purpose it is that we celebrate, Jesus Christs Resurrection from the grave and the completion of the Gospel (read it here note, you may want to start with Matthew, chapter 27).

The four participants getting the rules of the hunt!

And they're off!  They all 4 went in the same direction and pretty much followed each other around the whole time instead of breaking off on their own.  These things are all about the right strategy.

This is probably Caleb's first egg hunt and he seemed to REALLY like it.  We'll likely have something similar at his birthday party coming up if the weather permits such shenanigans.

Here's the 4 participants digging through their loot and eating some of the loot as well.  I like how Johah (the red shirt behind Caleb) has his back turned in a secretive, protective manner!  That's gold!

Robby mowing through chocolates!

That's my mama!  I'm not sure what she's up to here, but it was mid egg hunt according to the photos on the camera.

That's about all she wrote for this one.  We didn't take a ton of pictures since we were mostly working on the house and we likely didn't look so good, but so be it.

Take care.

China - Part 15 Shangri-La Hotel in Changchun

As we have pretty much finished up our time in Changchun, we're going to have a look at our hotel and it's immediate surroundings. As you can see by the photos, some of these have the fingerprint smudge that was present during the first part of our orphanage tour.  Such is life.  I guess we can use that as another excuse to go back sometime! :-)

Momma went out and took some photos of the exterior of our hotel on the same morning that the ladies went shopping and doing paperwork, leaving the boys behind in the hotel room.

Our room is up there somewhere, but I can't even recall what floor we were on at this point. 

Our room is on the slanted part of the hotel and you'll see the traffic from our window in a photo or two. I think that green "box" is construction of some sort.  It sort of seemed like every single building had some level of construction going on.  It is funny to me now that while we were in Changchun, I thought our room faced West.  I've been trying to place all of our "places of interest" on aerial maps for a future blog post and I've located the Shangri-La in one of those aerial views.  The little bowed out windows thing on the right of this photo (and better shown on the photo above), face straight South.  Whodathunk it?

This is standing in roughly the same spot as the photo above. It's looking across the street where we would play "human frogger" on our path to the Wally Mart.  The Wally Mart is the blue sign just left of center in the photo and kind of behind the lamp post. You had to enter this building thru a specific street entrance and then go up escalators to the second floor, where the Wally Mart started. WM was on the second and third floors and is where I purchased the bulk of the beers in the Beers Of China post.  The tall building down on the corner there is where the Pizza Hut was located.

Looking Southwest out of our hotel room window.

Looking about straight West from the same window.  Begin noticing in this photo that people park their vehicles on the sidewalks in front of the buildings.  That's a little heads-up from me to you if you're over there walking down the sidewalks and feeling aloof in nature.  You may well get ran over.

And here's the traffic, sadly after rush hour was over, but it's still interesting.  This past weekend, we were over at a the house of a co-worker of my sister Dianne, and I was talking to her husband (I guess he is technically a co-worker as well...) about the traffic in China. He said that when you have to make a left turn, you just do it and people look out for you and nobody gets mad about that stuff.  It's true... and a little frightening for us Americans!  Did anybody pick out the traffic cop in the middle of the intersection down there?  Whatever that dude is paid? It's not enough!

So here we are, finally inside the hotel.  We had the son of one of the ladies in our group (they adopted little Kai) take some photos by the Christmas tree so we could get our Christmas cards ordered thru Snapfish.com while we were still in China.  This was in the main lobby.  I believe the area back behind us was the lobby bar/seating area where the ladies played the piano and zither duets that fascinated me to no end.  The boys are sporting their matching Holt International t-shirts that we purchased last year in La Grand Iowa at the annual adoption picnic.  They look smashing!

Down these steps was some type of night club/bar/lounge.  I went down to see it, but that was about the extent of my curiosity.  That gold leaf display of 3 panels in the stairway, you will most likely see in several other photos.  It's in the background of the Christmas tree photo above, it's on all of the pillars throughout the Shangri-La and so on.  It's carved out of a metal and then the wall they place them on is recessed 3 or 4 inches with lights behind the carvings. Very pretty but I'm sure that was part of the cost of our rooms!

I believe this is taken from nearly the same vantage point as the photo immediately above it. Most likely because of the little ham in the photo...

This is another shot from roughly the same area as the two photos above it.  If you were to proceed all the way down to the end, there was a little hotel store that sold clocks, maps, coffee mugs and stuff like that. There was also a restroom way the heck down there which was annoying at breakfast because you had to walk the length of the hotel midway thru enjoying a plate or three of sausage and bacon.

I would have no idea how to get back to this particular area of the hotel if we were ever back there, but I know it was around the ballrooms and big meeting/banquet rooms.  You can see one of the escalators back by the black area of the wall going up to...  whatever the heck was upstairs.  I think it was more rooms.

And here are my peeps going up those escalators.  The steps in between the decorative hand rails were really pretty but I didn't seem to take a better picture than this one.

When we got upstairs, we walked around a bit and found this huge expanse, dimly lit by four huge chandeliers, with nothing but a lone Christmas tree in it. It was a good reminder that Jesus' birthday was only two weeks away, regardless of how far away it seemed to us at that time.  The  picture didn't turn out all that good but it captured the feeling of seeing it there all alone and provides me a good smile every time I see it.

Again, I would have no idea how to find this stairway again but this area was really cool too. It occurred to me while going through the photos that I should have taken a walk by myself at some point with the sole purpose of snapping pix of the hotel and nothing else.

The little man working it going up those steps.

When you get to the top of the steps, there was a dead-end turn into a big conference room, or you could turn the other way and go down this hallway.  Follow it far enough and you would go past the "health club" or the swimming hole as we knew it, and eventually the elevators.  The woodwork pretty elaborate through-out the hotel but this second floor area probably had the most detail.

This must be when we purchased the swimming hats because both boys are holding them.  As I recall, we were getting a little cabin fever at this point, with Robby's head nearly exploding from the lack of swimming, and we went on this tour of the hotel with the idea of taking photos and finding swimming hats if it was the last thing we ever did.

So we finally make it back to the actual hotel room itself.  Fond memories of this bathroom... no, not for those reasons!  This is the first place we brushed Calebs teeth, gave him a bath, earned his confidence to use the pot, teach him how to wash his hands properly and so on.  Seems like a strange set of memories, but that's immediately what I thought of when I saw this photo.

This is looking down the hallway towards the door.  The first door on the left there is the bathroom. The door on the right hand side (up by the main door) was the closet where the safe was.

The little bar area.  The top two shelves are stuff that comes with the room and is ridiculously expensive.  The main shelf is our box of bottled water and various snacks for the boys for in between the BIG meals (I don't believe we had been to Wally Mart yet though as I had that counter top ORGANIZED!  It was beautiful thing!).

The three acre bed where all four of us slept.

We humored the hotel for the first night and left the baby crib in the room.  We asked them to remove it early the next day when they came to clean.  Calebber is 4.5 years old for Pete's sake!  I did a LOT of journaling sitting on that couch in the back corner there.

This is taken from back by that couch.  It appears as if mom is writing a blogpost about arriving in Changchun, and I have no idea what happened to Robby when these photos were being taken...  I'm sure he was near...

So that's pretty much it for our time in Changchun, sad to say. That is one fantastic buffet that we will be leaving and it was really nice to have 3 families together getting their new family members so we got to know them a little closer than we would have in the big group of people, although that has merit as well.

Hopefully it won't take me as long to get the next "Photo Blog" post up as it did this one (it's been 15 days since the "Caleb's finding spot" post).

As always, thanks for reading and God bless!