A Sad Day

Becca came home from school crying today.  She realized that she was going to miss Field Day at school and was quite upset about it.  Becca is missing the last week of school because we leave for China on May 27th (Field Day is the 30th).  In her words, "I've been looking forward to this all year!" While the tears were flowing out came many of the other things that she has thought of that she will miss: VBS, friends, birthday parties, her school, her teacher.  We sat down and cuddled and cried together as we talked about how it is hard to leave things.  I told her that I was going to miss things as well (friends, family, our church).  But Becca did perk up when I showed her that our passports had arrived with our Chinese visas!  She was excited to see the visa page and wanted to know how it worked.  "Will they have to stamp it?  Does the visa have to go on a certain page?  Does each country have a special page reserved for it in our passports?"  ..... This will be life for a while .... Ups and downs.  Sadness and excitement.

Update on Josh

As many of you know, Josh has had a hard time getting used to the idea of moving to China.  In fact for the first month after we told him of the move he would cry (or look like he was about to cry) every time someone would mention China.  Now while he doesn't volunteer the information to people that we are moving (unlike Becca who tells everyone under the sun), Josh will talk about the move and China when asked.  He is still a happy neutral - not excited, not sad. We have been reading many books about China. Many of them have Chinese characters in them.  This prompted a discussion about learning to read Chinese.  After I explained that each character was a word and there are HUNDREDS of characters, Becca quickly said that she didn't want to learn them.  "I'll just learn to speak not read."  However, Josh said that he WAS going to learn to read "in Chinese"! Then the other day Josh and Tori were playing with their FisherPrice Little People and I overheard this:

Tori (who was playing at the castle):"What are you doing, Josh?"

Josh: "These people are going to live at the castle, too.... they just moved here from another country."

They say that kids work things out in play, right?  Whatever the case may be, it totally cracked me up to hear him!  All this to say, I think that he is adjusting to the idea of the move.  Thank you all for your concerns about him.

Our first Slumber Party

Today Becca is 7!  That is so unbelievable to me!  My little girl is growing up so fast.  For her birthday this year she wanted to have a slumber party.  This sounded like a good idea and then we started deciding how many friends to invite. She had trouble narrowing it down to a couple friends. "Mom, I want ALL my friends to come." And just how do you say no to that? I think we also had a hard time saying no because this was a goodbye party of sorts.  So, we had a slumber party on Friday night with 8 GIRLS (6 friends, Becca and Tori)!  Josh spent the night at a friend's house (do I even need to say why this was a good idea?), so Andy was the solo male in the house.  The girls arrived shortly before dinner and we started off making pizzas.  We then tie-dyed T-shirts.  While I was tie-dying with a couple girls at a time, Andy read books to the other girls.  Now not just one or two books but because each girl brought her favorite book to share he read 7 books in a row (and as he will attest, some were not short)!  You go, super Dad!  After ice cream cake and presents, we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original one).  This is one of Becca's favorite books (we read it recently again on our road trip to Hershey) and she was excited to see the movie.  Amazingly, all the girls were asleep by 11:30! Recently, I was reading a friend's blog and she was commenting on how loud her son's sleepover was (with just 3 boys).  We were amazed at how QUIET the girls were!  Granted at one point all 8 of them were changing in one room together and it sounded like a henhouse with all their giggling.  Becca summed up the evening:

 "My party was better than I thought it would be!  It was the best party I ever had!"

All the girls in their tie-dye

Eating chocolate chip pancakes Saturday morning.  I told the girls I could make animals and they then gave me the challenge of making horses, a giraffe, a frog, poodles, and lions 

(just to name a few)

GAME: Each girl had to find their two animals by touch.

Addicted to SELLING THINGS?

We are back from Spring Break and have hit the ground running.  This week we have applied for our Chinese visas for myself and the kiddos.  Andy's visa required quite a bit more (things like doctor's visits, copies of diplomas, police report, you get the idea) and has been in the works for a while.  We have also started listing some things on Craig's List.  Today, we sold our crib and the matching dresser.  I must tell you that there is a freedom in getting rid of stuff.  I am itching to sell more!  Andy has caught me taking pictures of our couch, bookshelves, and other things that I am not allowed to list yet.  I think that I was feeling a pressure to get rid of EVERYTHING and soon!  He has a valid point that we want the house to still look well while we try and sell it, and then his point was further hammered home when I listed the crib Tuesday and sold it today. So, I am reluctantly waiting.  Though, I must confess I long to be unencumbered by our stuff...

Spring Break - Colonial Williamsburg and Washington DC

Our busy vacation continues.... Thursday we left the Great Wolf Lodge and went to Colonial Williamsburg.  Becca especially was intrigued with the differences between the colonial time and how things are done now.  Our favorites were seeing the tradesmen at work.  We visited a carpenter shop, watched baskets and yarn being made, played games children played a long time ago, and wandered about buildings and shops.  Becca's favorite was the wig shop because as she said it was so interesting.  Did you know that they would shave their heads to wear wigs - even the women and children?  Learning made fun!

At the wig maker's shop

Playing hoops & sticks

Josh in the stocks

Tori playing a "thumb piano"

After a fun and exhausting day at Williamsburg, we drove onward to see the rest of the Wilcox clan (Andy's dad, brother and sister-in-law).  Friday, we toured our favorite museums in Washington DC.  We saw the Air & Space and the Natural History and enjoyed eating lunch and playing tag on the Mall.  Tori LOVED the bugs at the insect zoo (in the Natural History museum).  She was particularly intrigued by the bees and spent a long time watching them and laughing at their movements.

Tori watching the bees leave the hive

Spring Break - Hershey and the Great Wolf Lodge

The next leg of our trip took us to Hershey and then onto the Great Wolf Lodge.  At Hershey, we went on (as Becca called it) the "make-believe factory tour".  This "tour" was more like a ride at Epcot, complete with singing cows, fake factory machinery, and piped-in faux chocolate smell.  The kids loved it, so much so that we rode it again!  Then we completed the visit by making ice cream sundaes and admiring the many kinds of chocolate for sale. Then it was onto the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, Virginia, a hotel resort that has a huge indoor waterpark.  We have had a BLAST here!  Between Becca, Andy and I we have tried every waterslide but one or two (many of them multiple times).  We were so proud of Josh.  He detests having his face splashed (and this may not be expressing it strongly enough) and hates to go under the water. There is a smaller, shallow pool that has three small slides.  Just after getting here, we made several critical mistakes.  Andy encourged Josh to go down the slide right after getting in (mistake #1) and when he got up the nerve at the bottom of the slide I didn't catch him until he was already under water (mistake #2, maybe even #3 and #4).  That was yesterday and he wanted nothing to do with the slide after that (and we didn't really blame him)!  Today, during our third time at the waterpark, Andy again encouaged Josh to go down the slide and he worked up the nerve and did it!  He then realized that it was FUN and proceeded to go down another 40+ times (the rest of the time we spent in the water).

more pictures to come....

Spring Break - Baby Loves Disco

We have a BUSY, BUSY Spring break planned!  It is our east coast tour of friends and family with sight seeing thrown in.  Can you tell that we don't like to just sit around for our vacations?!  Our first stop, visiting with the Shalls, friends of ours that now live in Philadelphia.  Today they had a display selling the UrbanCheek kids shirts that they make at this crazy thing called a Baby Loves Disco.  Has anyone else heard of this?  Apparently, the Baby Loves Discos are in various cities all over the country and it is a dance party for kiddos.  Our kids had a blast dancing up a storm (we even won a CD for dancing as a family), getting fake tattoos airbrushed on, and snacking the afternoon away.  Check out the UrbanCheek line of shirts - they are fun designs and handmaid on free-trade shirts! 

Becca getting her groove on

Tori getting a temporary tattoo (hers was a sparkly turtle)

Josh proudly displaying his new UrbanCheek t-shirt while dancing on a platform