Ted's August Vacation

So one of the crummy things that happened during this adoption process has to do with Ted's vacation time. The hospital wanted us to tell them when placement would be happening clear back in February- before paper was done, back when there was zero wait for referral, and before the two trip process began.. THUS, he is being forced to take vacation in August, September, and October. We tried to get out of it a long time ago, but it looks like when we actually do need to travel for court, we will have to take unpaid leave which stinks ;-( Pregnant people can ideally at least tell you what month they will be delivering in pending no emergencies.. us? Not so much. It's just the way it is.

So, rather than grumbling about what we weren't able to change, we decided to make the best of it! We enjoyed a short camping trip and family time in August, and plan to make a short trip to the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri next month. In October, we will be traveling to Minnesota for Ted's brother's wedding.

So back to this vacation!

First of all, we did waffles pretty much every day.



We spent lot of time again at the Kansas City Zoo. Here are some pictures of Lucas' favorite friends. Below is a video of the new polar bear exhibit also :-)











On Sunday, we traveled to Gardner, KS for a get together with another friend from the Holt Ethiopia adoption group. We spent the evening learning more specifics about the travel and meeting some people currently in the process and some that have recently returned.

Here is Lucas with another little guy that just came home.



We left early Monday morning for Cutty's Resort outside of Des Moines which is where my Grandparents live during half of the year. We rented a small trailer that was really nice and spent our days playing and resting with Lucas.

We all slept in the same room which was a little distracting for Lucas during the night.. not a whole lot of sleeping happened for anyone on the first night..







We were having a great time...



but one of us is still "2"



We were very brave going up the big slide with Daddy.. but kinda lost our nerve at the top so Dad had to help get us back down





We spent a lot of time playing at the park, wading at the pool, showing us his muscles, and trying to throw us in..












He found some news toys.. such as my sunglasses..



and got to stay up late to enjoy some family time with the "big hot".







We came back home on Wednesday. With the exception of my high school reunion this weekend and Ted's brother's wedding in October, we can actually settle back in in Missouri for the beautiful fall :-)