Memorial Day

I would imagine that Memorial Day means something a little bit different to each and everyone of us.

Hopefully for all of us in the U.S.A., it serves as a reminder of all the men and women who have served our country. Being away from friends and family for 2+ years is something I really can't get my head around since I've never served in our Armed Forces.

I can only imagine what it would be like to maybe miss the birth of child, miss their development during the formative years, missing them as start playing sports, special school activities or whatever else.

Maybe it's a spouse. Recently married or otherwise, we all know it's a HUGE commitment not only for the person serving in our military but for the spouse that remains home as well.

For me personally, it's a time that makes me dream of what it would be like to see my dad with Robby and now, Caleb.

Once again, I can only imagine the conversations that would occur between Grandpa Bob and young Robert James. Those are some head-shakers!

I can only imagine watching Caleb tease Grandpa Bob much like he teases everybody else and especially Grandpa Jim.

Dad has been gone now for a little over 14 years and I still miss him dearly and think of him daily.

It serves as a good reminder to spend time with the boys and try to enjoy even the frustrating times as you never know when the Good Lord will call your name. God bless you all and I hope that we have many more years of making memories. 

2012

2011

2010

2009

China - Part 16, First day in Guangzhou

Man, it's been a good solid month and a half since I've did one of our photo blogs and I sort of forgot where I had left off!  I had to go back thru blog posts re-live some good memories... Oh, the horrors!!!

So, with this post, we're covering our first day in Guangzhou, which was our last stop on our journey before we headed back to the U.S.A.

We arrived at the Guangzhou airport fairly late at night. I seem to recall our plane touching down around 9pm and then having roughly an hour to go to get thru security, find our new guide and the bus ride to the hotel. All of that went relatively smooth until we got to the hotel.  It's now a little after 10pm, Robby fell asleep in the last 3 minutes of the bus ride and now he has to pee. BAD.  There was a line of roughly 8 - 10 families in front of us (look behind the 3 muskateers in the second photo below. We were waiting in line behind that table). It was taking FOREVER to get our room.  Robby is hopping up and down, nearly to the point of panic and there ain't bathroom in site!  I take the boys out of the line and go stand over away from the people so Robby can flail about wildly while holding himself and making faces.  Finally, one of the dads that we had met in Beijing had come down to talk to the front desk folks about something and pointed us to a bathroom.  So with a very relieved Robby by my side, we stand and STILL wait for Momma to do the hotel paperwork so we can head up to the room and crash.  I think we finally made it to our room at about 10:45.

Robby was in his jammies and asleep within 5 minutes of entering our room. Caleb and dad weren't far behind. Momma got our internet connection set up and skyped with Aunt Molly's class in Des Moines, Iowa.  Unfortunately, Robby had been looking forward to the skype session for half the day but the only thing the class got to see was a sleeping Rob.

So the next morning, we got up, had breakfast at a new buffet, had some trouble with the coffee machine as I wrote about here, and joined up with the group down in the lobby for a trip to Shamian Island and the medical clinic there.  That is where we shall begin with the pix...

Every morning that we were to go some place, we would all meet in the lobby at a certain time.  The amount of kids, and parents that acted like kids, would always result in some games breaking out.  That's what Robby, Caleb and Liena were doing here; discussing the rules of how the game was going to go and most likely since Robby was the biggest, how he was going to win whatever game they played. :-)

They stopped for a moment while I tried to document their fabulousness.  Robby and Caleb stood still but Liena had a little dance in her still that needed to come out.

This is in the clinic. The Health Care Center of Guangdong, International Travel.  There was one tv in the place and it was showing Tom & Jerry cartoons so Robby planted himself on the floor in front of it while we took care of business.

Robby is directly below the bottom of this picture. The doors you can see on the right side of the photo lead to the main area of the clinic where it was chaotic.  No, serious. This back room area looks chaotic but the front room was absolutely nuts!  It was loud, we're trying to hear instructions and figure out where to be and what to do... chaos.

That's an examination room and table taken from the exact spot of the above two photos and the photo below this one. They just put the kiddos up on the table, drop trou and examine them.  Sometimes the close a curtain...

The seas parted... lo and behold, there was a clear shot of momma and Caleb waiting in line for Calebs exam.  He went nuclear shortly after this photo was taken and I went to join them and try to help settle him down. No dice though.  This was the beginning of our education about Caleb and what he thinks about doctors, nurses, hospitals and so on.

At this point, a lot of the people are either in examination rooms (they had three different rooms for us to visit) or waiting in the various lines.  I couldn't wait to get out of here so I can only imagine what Caleb thought!

So after your kiddo was dragged thru all three rooms of the clinic, you were free to leave and walk around the island. You just had to be back to the bus by a certain time.  We were happy to get the heck out of there and walk on what was a beautiful, cool Saturday morning.  This is about a block and half away from the clinic as it was just another "store front" like you can see on the right side of the photo. The left side of the photo is the moat that surrounds Shamian Island and is just off the Pearl River, which the beer was named after.

This is looking the opposite direction of the last photo.  That's just one of many of the raised roads around this city.  Also, the moat was fairly low and very stinky which takes away a little of the serenity that these photos otherwise possess.

This is kind of the same photo as the one above but I was trying to focus a little more on the tree this time.  Much like the Emperors Garden, the trees were nothing short of fascinating here!

Three of God's finer creations!

Little game with this photo.  Spot the crazy dude!  As Lesley stated here, there appears to be no OSHA in China.

That dude is on the third story flower ledge watering with a hose that is hooked up to a spiggot on the ground!  We didn't stick around to watch and see if he just hops from ledge to ledge or what he does from there.

The little critters in front of another interesting tree.

This is probably one of the photos we took with Aunt Doris (my sister) in mind based on the architecture of the buildings.

Just a simple shot looking down the main garden area of Shamian Island.  That's a huge chess board that apparently gets used.

A chance to ham it up a bit with some statues.  I like how the last kid statue is "looking" at the boys.

Another architecture shot...

and another...  The building that you can see in the upper left of the photo is the White Swan Hotel where we would have normally stayed had they not been remodeling.  I went in there because one of the boys had to "go" and they have a huge waterfall, fish tank thingy in there that was just flat out cool.  Part of me is happy that we stayed where we did, but a part of me really wishes we would have stayed there due to the nice quiet calm of Shamian Island.  You could just go out and walk without the constant fear of being ran over. Note I said "constant".  You still had to be on your toes here, but not nearly as much.

Back at the hotel in the afternoon.  A typical shot of the boys. Robby is playing football. Caleb is eating and teasing his big brother.

There will be additional photos of the island as we go back to get his TB test read, go to church and whatever else we did there.

Graduation... They grow up so fast!

I don't have much time to before I need to leave for band practice tonight, so I thought I would post a pic of little Master C in his "grad-gee-a-shun" cap with his pre-school teachers.

He missed the graduation ceremony due to our Iowa City appointment/check-up for his palate surgery but he still got the cap and they made a video of photos set to music for everybody that is downright adorable. Caleb will watch it over and over... and over... and over...

He's in there representing Holt International with their t-shirt. That's a proud little dude!

Anniversary Day!

Today is a bit of a special day for a couple of reasons.

1 year ago today, we were matched with little Chang Rong Bo, who of course, is now known as Caleb RongBo Schmitz.

That alone would be a good enough reason to celebrate, but it is also the anniversary of another "minor" event.

20 years ago today, I married my true love; Lesley Kay Bushman.

We are now old farts who look back and wonder what happened to the last 20 years...

In those 20 years, we've had 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 houses, 2 arguments (maybe a few more, but not many) 3 apartments, 3 surgeries (depending on how you count them), 4 lawn mowers, 9 cars (my memory is fuzzy...), roughly 29,000 meals, and about that many friends, if of course, you include family.  :-)

We've also had a WHOLE LOT OF FUN!

Thank you all for being part of the last 20 years.  I look forward to the next 20+ years and hope they continue to blossom the way the last several have.

Thank you Lesley for tolerating me. I love you to the moon and back!

Take care and God Bless!
Ted

Puttin' The Boys To Work

'Tis the season...

It's time to get the gardens planted but we've been a bit busier than usual this year with the additional boy, hospital visits, a moving mama (Grandma Schmitz) and so on.  So the garden(s) have been mildly neglected.  We do have a garden of onions planted that are doing well and our potato hills look downright gorgeous, if I do say so myself!

I had tilled all of them in the fall and then once in March so the dirt is nice and loose and easy to till now. Robby wanted to help so I gave him a brief lecture on how to handle the thing  (I was behind him except for when the photo was taken) and all of the stuff you need to respect on a machine like this.

I think he kind of liked it but was a little apprehensive when I stepped away for the pic.

Caleb is getting a little antsy about giving it a try too.  Neither boy likes to be outdone by the other, at anything!

So Caleb "helped" me with the smaller gardens.  The auger is not engaged but he got a kick out of holding on to the handles and just feeling the machine vibrate.

Someday, Robby and Caleb will be able to do this all by themselves and dear ol' dad will be able to sit on the deck, cold one in hand, and supervise the proceedings...   ahhhh...  what a dream.

Suppers After Surgery

Supers are an interesting endeavor these days.  

Caleb can only have food that can be drank from the side of a cup as nothing is supposed to go into his mouth.  No fingers, no spoons, no straws, no nothing!

So we've made a squash soup, a potato soup, a broccoli cheese soup... you get the idea.  

Momma has made the boys hot dogs thru the blender that looks pretty nasty, but they like it and as long as the boy is eating, so be it.

So I did a search on the fancy hi-tech world wide interweb for some new (at least to us) recipes for pureed foods.

This is what I came up with.  Take a guess at what it is.

Robby was looking at the picture and he said it, "looked like something that would come out of a cow", although he ate it and liked it quite a bit.

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 .

.

 .

Give up yet?

It's spaghetti with a meat sauce.  I am still surprised on how good it was!

I've been curious about using meat in recipes thru the blender and now I'm not so hesitant, other than having to look at it.

I may try some chicken n' noodles this week but I'm not up for a steak... yet.

Caleb's Surgery - May 8th, Update

Just a quick update here...

Caleb is doing pretty good.  He's eating good, drinking lots of yogurt (thinned with milk).  He and big bro Robby had hot dog "shakes" for breakfast this morning.  That's right, hot dogs in the blender, thinned with water so Caleb could "drink his dogs".  They were both exclaiming how much they like it.

He's doing pretty good about not sticking his fingers and thumb in his mouth but even so, we still use the elbow braces on him at night as well as using tube gauze and a bandage wrap around his thumb and hand at night as well.  He doesn't like it much but I don't like the idea of sitting through another surgery and the hospital stay after such an ordeal either, so he'll have to keep wearing them for a bit longer.

He does have some irritation on his tongue that does not look good and I think it's probably similar to a bad sore throat.  He acts and sounds like he has a bit of sore throat too. Lesley called the surgeon about it and he said it's likely irritation from the tongue dealybopper that they had in his mouth for the duration of the surgery.

So that's it, nothing too exciting. Nothing too bad although it could be better if the tongue would heal up good.

That's all for now...