Our Alabama Kin

Cole has the benefit of having lots of family around him. He has a few less around him with some of his favorite cousins moving to Alabama. Luckily, we all got together this weekend and had a great time before the big move. It was terrific. 

Aunt Penny, who has lots of experience with kids (six of them to be exact) and even more love showered it on Cole. She was so excited to see and tickled to hold him - and he was completely relaxed with her and mesmerized by her touch.

 

          

     

Cousins Alisha, Joseph, and Rachel were just as sweet with Cole. They ticked his feet and under his chin. They stroked his face and head. They were so tender with him and he loved every minute of it. Cousin Micah was lucky enough to be able to play with some of his other cousins. 

     They helped Grandma Jacquie and Dad with all of the various jobs to make Cole comfortable with feeding and oxygen at the slightest request. 

It was great to see and play with everyone before the head down south. We'll miss seeing them more often and look forward to times when we can and connect up with emails and phone calls in the mean time.

 

Let's Go For A Walk

Late in September we participated in the local Hydrocephalus Team Walk. The idea is we  (the royal we – all of us here in Utah) were raising money for the treatment and understanding of Hydrocephalus. For us, it was a great hance to get to know more people – doctors and specialists and families with hydrocephalus since we’re just starting out on this journey.

             

It was a lovely day in Sugar House park and the walk was pretty mild (1 ¼ to 1 ½ mile). We set up a web site, through the national foundation set a target for money – pretty conservative – about $125.00. We sent it out to a few people who set us out to others and before we knew it we exceeded our goals – by almost 100%. WOW. They had a band, breakfast, t-shirts, activities for the kids. A few folks from the national group spoke and they seemed to be as surprised that the Utah chapter raised as much as we did given this was the first walk held in Utah. 

                                                         
We’re looking forward to making it an annual tradition. 

The Big Party - 2007

We decided early on in our adoption process we would like Cole to not only know he was adopted but when and where possible meet and / or spend time with all of the people who truly love him. We came up with the idea to have a Big Family Party once a year and invite everyone from both sides of the family. 

The first party was this year in September. We met in Bountiful, Utah in a small park located right in the middle of town. The weather was perfect, and the temperature, which had been hovering around the high 90's and 100's the week before, was cooler and made for a nice day to play in the park. 

We started the afternoon spending lunch with Jay and Tami. It was Jay's first opportunity to meet Cole, so we thought it might be nice to have a quiet place to meet and talk without too many people around. 

After lunch we headed over to the park where grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends (Bishop, Debra (Tami's Case worker) greeted each other. Everyone took pictures and snacked on treats, but mostly everyone got to spend time with Cole. 

We had a great time.