Seven Year Itch

Yesterday marked our 7th anniversary of the return from Ukraine.  It was kind of a quiet President's Day, but things turned exciting when Matthew cut his finger with scissors.  He returned from the urgent care center with four stitches.  It's funny, but, as I was looking back at the blog and reading the previous post, I saw that there was some emergency medical treatment given on the 5th anniversary, too.  Seems to be a pattern here.  Makes me wonder what type of crisis we were in the midst of in 2014 when nothing was posted.  

Where has the time gone?

So, can you guess what we were doing five years ago today???  That's right.  FIVE years ago we arrived home from Ukraine!  Now, it is said that time flies when you're having fun.  I won't say that the time has flown by.  More like it has seemed to stand still during much of the last five years, when we just pray to get through another day.  Yet, looking back, five years IS a long time.  And so much has happened.  When I go back and read the posts and comments from those early days, there are so many funny stories.  And, at the time, just about every one seemed to be a major crisis!  I guess things really don't change that much.  Take today, for instance.  It would have been nice to have some real quality family-time to commemorate this milestone day together.  This is how the day actually went...

Chris:  "I still have this really bad sore throat I've had all week."
Ellen:  "Suck it up."
Matthew:  "I don't feel good.  My stomach hurts and I have a headache."
Ellen:  "You're just trying to get out of going to karate class."
5 hours later at the walk-in clinic:  Chris and Matthew are both diagnosed with strep throat.

While father and son were off seeking medical attention, I pulled out my trusty Ukrainian-American cookbook to make a special meal for the big day.  The stuffed cabbage was super labor-intensive, but much tastier than I was expecting.  Too bad I ended up eating alone, while the others were at the 24-hour CVS getting antibiotics and marked-down Valentine's candy.

That's right.  We had a candy caper at our house that needed to be brought to justice.  For Valentine's Day, Chris and I each bought the other a large heart-shaped box of Russell Stover chocolates.  To my dismay, on Friday morning, two of the highly-desirable caramels were gone from my box!!  Not wanting to take any more chances, I moved my candy to a secured location.  Chris, on the other hand, foolishly left his box on the kitchen table Friday night.  Imagine his outrage this morning when he realized that Thomas had taken SEVEN chocolates!!!  I'm not sure which is more shocking, Thomas stealing all that candy, or Chris making Thomas buy him a new box.  (Even if it was on clearance, it has lace and a rose on the heart-shaped box!!)

So, happy anniversary to us, and thank you to those who still check in at Kelly World once in a while.  The boys are still very much a handful at 8 and 10 years old.  The picture above was taken last summer, the day they received their yellow belts in karate.  We've aged a lot in five years, but we are richly blessed.  As these years tick by, I hope that we will always be able to look back on them and laugh.

Second grade strings concert

Tommy performed The Monkey Song and jammed to a few other numbers tonight.  He and Miriam sounded great on violin and looked fabulous!

April Vacation in Hilton Head

Aye, Captain!  Let's go on a Dolphin Cruise!

Note Matthew's right ring finger.  A mishap with the car door - on the way to the airport, of course - kept him out of the pool the first couple of days.

Sidelined from swimming, Matthew was a tough competitor in the ping-pong tournament.

Ahh ... peace and quiet ...

Splash!!!!

No visit to Hilton Head is complete without a visit to Lawton Stables.  Tommy reconnects with an old friend.  After that, it was off to charter fishing with Captain Blair.

Heading back to the dock, Tommy's got a need for speed.

Top Hat Magic

Tommy's performance at the East Farms School Spring Talent Show, video by Matthew.  Enjoy!

Pack 74

As usual, we're overdue for some updates to the blog. We've had some exciting times with the Cub Scouts lately, so I thought I'd share a few photos.

Tiger Cub Tommy takes aim with the big guns at Battleship Cove last weekend.

Not exactly luxury hotel accommodations, but Matthew looks comfortable enough on the top bunk.

Pack 74 visited the West Hartford Town Hall this week and led the Pledge of Allegiance to open the Town Council meeting.

Mayor Scott Slifka gave the boys a nice tour of the council chambers and his office. The boys were fascinated by the fact that the Town Hall was formerly a high school and they had some very interesting questions for the mayor on what it was like in those days.

Pack 74 is a great group of boys. As you can see, the membership is really small. We had a crisis earlier in the year, when one of the Bear Cubs switched schools and left the pack. His dad, who was the Cubmaster, left, too. All the parents have really pitched in, though, to keep things going and Chris has done an awesome job getting all of the paperwork in order with the Boy Scouts organization and organizing the Pinewood Derby and overnight trip to Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA.

The Magic

Yes, we really did it! Kelly World does Disney World!!! In spite of Chris' and my insistence that the boys would be lucky to see The Mouse by their 18th birthdays, we surprised them with a 5-day trip to Orlando.

Men on a mission, the guys are on their way in to the Magic Kingdom. My favorite part was the Electrical Parade at night. Although there was so much to see in the parks, the trip was clearly about the rides. The faster and scarier, the better!

A die-hard Beauty and the Beast fan, Tommy was thrilled to see the Live show at Disney's Hollywood Studios (MGM) on the first day.

Tommy actually became the Beast a number of times during the trip. A lot had to do with long days, endless walking and temperatures in the upper 90's. Nothing like a soda and hot dog to take the edge off, though.

Since it was Father's Day weekend, we indulged Chris with a trip to Gatorland, a local attraction he very much wanted to see. The boys enjoyed feeding some giant tortoises.

Here's Matthew wrestling a gator.

Thomas looking totally bored on safari in Animal Kingdom.

What is it with the noses? Matthew and Minnie are so embarassed!

We had an awesome trip and it really got the Summer off with a bang for us. Hope all of you will have a great one, too!