Vacation Fun and Exciting News

We just returned from 8 days in Orlando.

Yes, I am exhausted.  :)

When your children are 23 and 21, you forget how much work it is to vacation with a 4 year old.  Jaden had a wonderful time, in his own manner.  Jaden has less interest than the rest of the family in rides and it took a few days for us to figure that out.  He had so much fun and enthusiasm for the shows and the show-type rides, often people around us would look at us and smile.  I don't think it was the "would you shut your child up?" look.  He was so funny to watch!  We saw the Beauty and the Beast show (wonderful mix of scared screams, ecstatic joy, and belly laughs), Little Mermaid (a little too much glee when Prince Eric stabs Ursula with the boat) and several showings of Disney Junior with Sophia the First, Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Doc McStuffins.  He went berserk at that one!  Like, 10 cups of coffee laced with crack berserk.  He was so excited with each of the special effects that he was nearly dangerous to himself in his enthusiasm.  During the show we were showered with snow, bubbles, gold doubloons and birthday streamers and each time he was thrilled to the point of shaking his hands and dancing in a circle.  Tim said it must be what it would be like if he were to meet Alice Cooper in person and didn't have an adult behavior-filter.  I'm going to try to attach a couple of videos.  It was dark in the auditorium and so the video isn't the best but you should be able to see a small portion of his excitement.  :)

An unexpected excitement during the trip was getting to spend some time with one of the families that traveled to China to adopt their daughter while we were there getting Jaden.  Jaden was a little unsure about seeing Olivia again; she was part of the earliest memories of the big transition to family life.  She looked equally unsure of him at first.  Within a very short amount of time, they were doing beautifully!  Our friends, Katie and Mike had all 4 of their kiddos with them and they were awesome with Jay.  I suppose having a Chinese little sister that they adore predisposed them to enjoy Jaden but it was an absolute joy to see them interacting with each other and with Jaden.

We stayed on campus at Disney at the Beach Club Resort.  They have a wonderful water play area that we used quite a bit.  Jaden has overcome his nervousness in the water as long as he is wearing his vest.  Appropriate fear is not a bad thing.  He did ride the big water slide which was scarier that I thought it would be.  I went first so that I would be at the bottom and be able to help him out of the water and the whole way down, I thought "oops!  This could be a bummer."  He loved it and came out laughing.  Whew!  Dodged that bad-parent bullet.  He did not want to repeat the experience but still said it was fun.  He was such a trooper.  He did a great job remembering to thank people (bus drivers, boat captains, cast members) and he really enjoyed the "Disney" attitude.  If you have not been to Disney, one of the best things about the experience is that everyone seems very pleased to be at work.  Smiles abound.  When we left the airport in Tulsa to go home, he tried to thank the toll-booth lady who was, umm not Disney-esque.  When she didn't acknowledge his smile or "Thank you" after 2 attempts, he whispered, "I think that lady is mean."  Yep, Toto, we're not in Disney anymore.

We are very blessed that he is a good traveler.  He does very well on airplanes and buses and that made our trip much easier.  Because he does so well at trying new foods, feeding him on trips has also been easy.  This trip was no exception.  We did the Disney free dining plan and so had a sit down meal (mostly character meals) planned for each day.  He really seemed to enjoy meeting the Pooh characters and for some reason really did not enjoy meeting the Princesses.  The pictures at the princess meal are priceless.  He has such funny faces that he makes.  He tried a couple of pained smiles but mostly you can tell that they weren't his thing.  Now the big hairy sword-yielding Viking, he was pretty cool.  Go figure.  It was wonderful that we were so close to EPCOT.  We walked over to China several times for fried rice and noodles.  That is still his ultimate comfort food.

On the last flight of the trip, DFW to Tulsa, I had to stay behind to tag the stroller.  It took several minutes and so Tim and Jaden went on to the plane.  As I was waiting my turn to board, I noticed 2 flight attendants were standing by the cockpit giggling.  When I got to the door I smiled at the attendant and she said, "You have got to come see this precious child!"  Imagine my surprise when the child sitting in the cockpit, getting a flying lesson from the pilot, was Jaden!  She said "Isn't he sweet?  Such a pure joy."  She looked a little surprised when I agreed that he was sweet and thanked her.  I guess after seeing Tim, she assumed I would be Asian.  :)  She was very kind to me and to Jay.  She told me to get my camera, that I needed to record this.  I have no idea how he sweet talked himself into the cockpit but I thought that it was incredible of the pilot and flight attendants to give so much time and attention to a random 4 year old.  A+ American Airlines.
As I left the flight, she thanked me for sharing Jaden with them.  How awesome is that?

It was a wonderful trip with a very sweet ending.  (But I need a vacation after my vacation.)

On a not-Jaden front...for those of you who may not have heard yet...we are adopting another child!  Jaden will be getting a new mei mei (little sister) sometime in the next 9-12 months.  We plan to name her Katelyn, although mostly right now we are saying Katie.  She has some health issues that we will definitely need to deal with and pray about but we couldn't be any happier.  She is pretty little right now at just 15 months old but is in an orphanage with a "Half the Sky" program.  That is wonderful news for us as it means she will come to us with much more information about her early months.  The program tries, as well as is possible, to parent more than just take care of the kids and so the kiddos coming out of their programs tend to have fewer developmental and attachment issues.  So the newest progress on the adoption of Katie is that our home study was approved and waiting on us when we returned yesterday from our trip.  That meant that today we could submit our I800A supplement 3 to USCIS (immigration) seeking permission to bring another child into the US.  We have had everything filled out and ready to be sent out FedEx just as soon as we received the hard copy of the home study and so we were able to get it out this morning.  Yea!