Happy New Year!!!!

Wishing all my friends and family in blogland a very Happy New Year!!!!!

Adoption Update

Although much of my life revolves around Lili, some of my time is spent working on the dossier for our Ethiopia adoption and there is certainly regular discussion about bringing our future Ethiopian princess home. So, for those who would like an adoption update, here it is.

I've made great progress on our dossier and the only thing "I" have left to complete is the collection of our dossier photos.

We felt things were moving along nicely especially after our social worker came over to complete our home study update. We hit a snag when she contacted me to let me know that DCFS wanted us to get another set of fingerprints to send to the FBI. These had to be rolled prints which required a trip to a local police department. Our social worker put the fingerprint cards and instructions in the mail on December 10th and I anticipated getting them no later than the 12th. I picked up the mail everyday and when they weren't there on the 13th, I became concerned. Since I was scheduled to have surgery on my finger on the 17th, we had to have our prints done no later than the 16th otherwise we had to wait until the bandages came off and stitches removed which would delay things another week. Our social worker called me to say that the cards had been returned to her by the post office. She sent them to our physical address and after 13 years of having our mail delivered to our PO Box regardless of how it's addressed, they have decided to send mail back if it doesn't include our PO Box. I could go on a tirade about the delivery of our mail in our little town of about 1300, but I'll save that for another time. Since I really needed to get those cards I asked her to leave them at the front desk and drove the 35 miles to pick them up. On the 16th we headed into one of the local police departments and got another set of fingerprints done and by that afternoon they were in the mail on the way to the FBI. Between Lili's adoption and this adoption we have been fingerprinted a total of six times now.

Until we get our FBI clearance, our home study is on hold. We hope to have our clearance back sometime next week, although it could take another couple of weeks. Once we have our FBI clearance our social worker will add that information to the home study report, the report will be notarized and a copy sent to USCIS and a copy will be sent to us for our dossier. Then we wait for USCIS to send us our 171H giving us authorization to complete our adoption from Ethiopia. When we receive the 171H, we will have all our dossier documents notarized and I will drive to Springfield to have everything notary authenticated. Three copies of all documents will be made and everything will be ready to send off to the agency for review and then to the Ethiopian Consulate for authentication. Once the final authentication is complete it will be sent to Ethiopia and we will officially be on the wait list for a baby girl. Our agency still has a wait time of 2-4 months for referrals, although the referral of baby girls are at the longer end of the wait time. At this point we don't anticipate having a referral until July and if that happens we will probably not make it through court before the Ethiopian courts close, which they do annually in August and September. The one thing I've learned is that no matter how well I try to plan out an adoption, I have virtually no control over what happens. While I really wanted to have our referral in the spring and be picking up this summer, the more likely scenario is a referral in July or maybe not until August or September with pick up late 2009 or possibly early 2010.

The other topic of conversation has been baby names. Many families choose to keep the name given to their child(ren) by their birth families. Others completely change their child(ren)'s name completely. We took the middle of the road approach with Lili and will do the same with our Ethiopian princess. We will choose a new first name and keep her given first name as her middle name. This way our girls will have a name given to them by their birth family and their forever family. We have discussed names off and on for a few months now and have had a lot of trouble agreeing on a name. Not surprising since we were unable to agree on names in the past as well. One other thing to note is that we really wanted to find an Ethiopian name that we could agree on which made the choice even more challenging. However, we finally found a name that we both like. Are you ready?

Drum roll please ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Naomi

The meaning of a name is very important in Ethiopia and I found out that Naomi means "pleasant one" or "above all beauty."

I think I've covered everything regarding adoption #2. I'll continue to post updates as things start happening again.

Christmas in Review

The Christmas of 2008 will be a memorable one for the Weeks' family.

This was Lili's first Christmas at home. She didn't quite understand the purpose of ripping paper off packages and seemed to be much more interested in watching everyone else rip paper off their packages. That evening, my sister-in-law and her daughter came over for dinner and a gift exchange. Lili decided that unwrapping gifts was fun after all and tore right into her gifts.

It was very hard deciding what to get Lili this year. Not because she is difficult to buy for, but it was hard not buying everything I thought she'd enjoy. Okay, everything I thought I'd enjoy :-) Between Santa and other family, she made a haul this year and has very much enjoyed having new toys to play with.

Lili's first Christmas was fun for all of us, but it was especially enjoyable watching the boys enjoy her first Christmas home. One of the gifts Lili received was a doll that cries, laughs, says momma, makes drinking sounds when giving her a bottle and then burps. Lili wasn't overly interested in the doll, but Josh wanted the doll out of the box so he could try it out. Ben started out taking pictures Christmas morning because he wanted to make sure we got plenty of pictures for Lili's first Christmas. I ended up with the camera and we did get some good photos. The boys also enjoyed their gifts, but were really into watching Lili as she took in all the activity of Christmas morning.

While there were definitely some good things that happened on Christmas, it wasn't without some drama as well. We picked Ryan up on Christmas Eve so he could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us. However, as Ryan has gotten older, he has had more and more trouble adjusting to changes in his life. Not that being here is a big change for him, but it is a change none-the-less. The visit was going well until bedtime. In our attempts to get him settled down for the night and into bed, he became more and more agitated which caused him to stress more and more. While Santa was waiting to come down the chimney with care to leave our gifts under the tree, Ryan was still wide awake and refusing to go to sleep. Since he cannot be left unsupervised, at least one person had to be up with him until he fell asleep. Dave said he would stay up with Ryan, so I put Lili to bed and went to get some sleep. At 3:30 a.m. Christmas morning, Dave came upstairs limping and asked me to go sit with Ryan. Yes, Ryan was still awake and Dave had somehow twisted his knee and was in pain and very tired. Ryan still could not fall to sleep and since he believes that all gifts are to be opened once they appear, Santa was unable to put any gifts under the tree. Lili woke up at 5:00 a.m., so we sat in the family room with Ryan watching t.v. and waiting for him to fall asleep. At 7:00 a.m. Dave came downstairs, still limping and in quite a bit of pain. Ryan was still awake and Santa still wasn't able to put the gifts under the tree. At 7:30 Dave decided that Santa just needed to leave the gifts and we should go ahead and open them, so Santa's elves (Josh and Ben) helped out by placing all the gifts under the tree while I got Lili dressed. When we came back downstairs there were gifts piled under and around the Christmas tree and Ryan was still awake. I took Lili into the living room and her response was "Ohhhh." So and exhausted mom and dad had gathered the children, both young and old and our Christmas morning was underway by 8:00 a.m. Ryan was still awake, but not a very happy camper. He did cheer up after opening a few gifts.

Ryan eventually fell asleep, but not until mid afternoon on Christmas and because he had been up for over 30 hours straight, his body retaliated and he ended up having a couple seizures before sleep ensued. Ryan has given us many learning experiences over his 28 years of life and the latest is that we can't disrupt his schedule by bringing him back home for an overnight visit. It's just too overwhelming, especially for him.

As far as Dave's knee goes, we seriously considered a trip to the emergency room, but as the day progressed and he stayed off his feet, his knee got better. Each day it's continued to improve and as of today he's barely limping.

Although there were certainly some highs and lows, overall, we had a nice Christmas and now have some great memories of the Weeks' Family Christmas of 2008. Here are some of those memories captured digitally.

Lili amongst all the gifts.

Ryan showing Lili how it's done.
Lili trying out her new play kitchen from Santa. Mommy and daddy have tasted all kinds of good food she's cooked for us :-)
The new baby was hungry. Her mommy is taking wonderful care of her. Ryan watching our new chef in action.
Lili wasn't too interested in opening her gifts on Christmas morning, but she had it figured out and was ready to tear into her gifts when Aunt Susan and her cousin Maya came over.To help meet Ryan's sensory needs, we still buy him kid's toys. Here is Maya testing out some of Ryan's gifts. The orange part of the gun spins, has lights and makes sounds.
Brotherly love! As you can see, Ryan is getting really tired by this point and doesn't make it long after this picture was taken.
Ben loves Timberland boots and shoes. Santa surprised him with a brand new pair for Christmas and he was "thrilled." You can't have a kitchen without a grocery cart for buying kitchen supplies. Here is Lili trying out her new grocery cart and taking her other new baby on a shopping trip.
Making sure she has everything she needs.Lili found another use for one of the bowls from her kitchen set. A hat for mommy's Pipka santa.

Merry Christmas

I wish I could say that I'm right on top of everything this year in the same way I've been in years past, but the truth is, I'm not. The moons just didn't align in the right way this year :-) As a result, I will be out and about today trying to pull things together. It will get done though and this will be an awesome Christmas. Not only is Lili here this year, but all our boys will be here and that hasn't happened for a few years. Hopefully next year we'll have our Ethiopian Princess home as well.

Because time is limited today, I must keep this short, so let me just say "Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanukkah, Melkam Yelidet Beaal, and Poket Kristmet."

Milestone Day

I realized this afternoon that 9 months ago today, Lili was placed in our arms forever. It has been an amazing ride.

Word Count

Several people have asked me about Lili's speech abilities lately. Since this blog has pretty much taken the place of a baby book, I thought it would be a good time to list all the words Lili is currently saying, along with the pronunciation of those words.

Dad - Dada

Mom - Mama

Liliana - Nawnaw

Ben - Bi or Ba

Dog - Gog

Jada - Ada

Lexie - Ieie

Apple - pul pul

Cup - Cu

Bye - Dye

Ball - Baw

Juice - Jeese

Cheese - Cheese

Chicken - Kicken

Water - Wa-er

Book - Bo

Baby - Baby

Elmo - Momo

Banana - Nana

Yes - Yeah, yeah, yeah (She never says it just once)

More - Mowa

This - Dis

Night Night - Nyny

Guitar - Gar

No - No

Duck - Dut

Fish - Tish

Hi - Hi

Hello - Hey-o

Color - Co-yer

Chalk - Calk

Nice - Ny

Lili is also very active and climbing seems to be one of her favorite activities.

Climbing from the chair onto the end table to standing was successful, but apparently not quite challenging enough. She pulled a Rubbermaid container of egg noodles out of the cupboard and carefully climbed up on them. It took some really good balance. I think I have a gymnast on my hands.

Winter???

Winter doesn't officially arrive until Sunday, but we've had nothing but snow and ice since Thanksgiving weekend. What's up with that?!!!! Since we are apparently living in a winter wonderland, I decided to show everyone the results of last night's ice storm.

Our Weeping Peach tree looks like she's really weeping from the weight this morning.It's going to take me forever to scrap my windshield. Maybe I'll just stay home today.

Ice everywhere!!

We have snow in the forecast this weekend and again Tuesday or Wednesday. I must admit that I enjoy having a white Christmas, which doesn't always happen here in Central Illinois. After Christmas though, I'm ready for spring.

Have a great weekend!

Surgery and Weather

I had surgery on my finger yesterday to remove a cyst that had formed due to a can lid injury about 10 months ago. Everything went well, however, I wasn't expecting as much pain as I'm experiencing. The pain isn't horrible, but I'm glad that they gave me Tylenol 3. The bigger challenge is that I'm right handed and don't have the use of my right index finger right now. Obviously it's not enough to keep me from posting, but I'm certainly not typing as quickly as usual.

The other big news is the weather that's headed our way. Apparently, we're in store for a major ice storm. Sounds like it will be a great night for hot chocolate by the fireplace :-)

FFF on Friday

I know it's difficult to believe, but I'm actually posting pictures on FFF. Miracles really do happen!!!!

Lili makes some really silly faces. Here are just a few.

We have had this toy guitar called "One Man Jam" for several years. It was quite the hit at Thanksgiving this year and Lili decided it was time to try it out herself today.

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Things in the Weeks' house have been busy as of late. Our basement project seems as if it will never end and the truth is, it probably won't be completed until sometime this spring. We need to purchase some new pieces of trim which will need to be stained and varnished. It's too cold here to do the staining and varnishing right now, so it will have to wait until the weather warms up. In the meantime, we've got the walls finished and the sump pump back in working order. The office has now been moved to the basement, but I still have tons of cleaning, filing and organizing to get done before it's going to be completely usable. My little helper isn't much of a helper, but she sure enjoys being involved in the process :-)

Next week I'm going in for some minor surgery. Several months ago I cut my right index finger on a can lid and yes, it was a very avoidable injury. I treated it myself, but it probably needed professional medical attention. It appears that the injury most likely caused some trauma to the tendon in that finger and as a result fluid has build up and I now have a cyst that continues to get bigger. As it grows it is becoming more painful and is causing some finger mobility problems. Nothing major at this point, but it needs to be removed. Next Wednesday I go in to have the cyst removed. The surgeon said it's a simple procedure and I shouldn't have any problems afterwards. However, I will have dressing on that finger for a couple days and stitches for week which will limit mobility even more for a while. As a result I am now on a mission to finish all my Christmas shopping this week so I can have all the gifts wrapped pre-surgery. Of course there are always gift bags if I don't reach my goal, but I prefer a wrapped gift if possible.

It's time for me to get back to my office organization project. I'll try to post some new pictures next post.

Thanksgiving Frenzy Is Over

What a great Thanksgiving weekend full of fun and food. We had family visiting from Texas, New York and California, so things were a bit hectic. Lili did great with so many people here. She met some of her cousins for the first time and she was a hit. Now life is getting back to normal and I'm trying to decide when I want to begin my Christmas shopping. I know, I should have it done by now, but between Thanksgiving and trying to pull our dossier together, Christmas has now really been on my radar until now. Santa isn't doing such a great job this year, but will pull it together soon.

Speaking of our dossier, things are coming along nicely. I have two documents that have already been authenticated and another sent out yesterday. We had a little problem with our police clearance letters that I thought was taken care of, but I still don't have the notarized letters back. If I don't get them by the end of the week, I'll be calling them again.

Our social worker is obviously working on our updated home study as she emailed me yesterday reminding me that she needs the forms she left with us during our visit. I have a couple items to add to one form and another form that needs notarized. They'll both be completed and in the mail by the end of the week.

We are also going to Naperville on Saturday for our fingerprint appointment. I'll sure be glad to have all of this done and our names added to the wait list. It appears that could easily happen sometime next month which is exciting.

I'm sure most of you would like to see some new pictures so I'll stop chatting and get to posting pictures.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

My turn!

Lili with her cousin Maya.
Lili showing off a dress her Aunt Susan bought for her. She's stylin'.

Home Study Update and Thanksgiving Greetings

Our social worker came over this morning and completed Lili's final post-placement review and interviewed us for our home study update. It was all very painless. Her goal is to have everything done and to USCIS before Christmas. Assuming USCIS isn't taking too long, we should have our dossier completed and submitted to the agency shortly after the first of the year.

This will most likely be my last post until after the Thanksgiving weekend. We have extended family here from California visiting now and will have more family arriving from Texas and New York over the next couple of days. It's going to be a fun, food packed weekend and of course it's Lili's first Thanksgiving home. Having her here is going to make this year's Holiday season extra special.

Because I'm going to be busy with preparations and family I won't be spending time on-line, but I do want to wish all my blog friends a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Favorite Foto Friday

Another week has come and gone. It has been a busy week in the Weeks' house as we have been trying to get our basement ready before our guests arrive for the Thanksgiving weekend. Big progress was made this week. The sheetrock is finished and with the help of our son Josh, everything is painted (although some spots need a second coat). Yesterday the carpet guy came out and put down new padding then re-stretched and laid the carpet. This weekend the trim goes in and on Monday the carpets will be cleaned. It's finally starting to look like we'll have a usable basement again.


Today has been spent gathering more documents for our Ethiopia adoption and shopping for the Thanksgiving weekend. I found a 25 lb turkey, which isn't always easy to do. And yes, I mean a 25 lb turkey. We are going to have around 20 people here for Thanksgiving dinner and I want to have left-overs. Next week I'll buy my fresh produce and on Tuesday I'll start baking my desserts. I love entertaining, although it is going to be a little bit of a challenge this year. I may have to put Lili to work on some pie crusts :-)


Since we were out the majority of the day, Lili is worn out. She fell asleep in the van on the way home and woke up when I got her out of her car seat. However, by the time we got into the house, she was on her way out again. I laid her in the recliner and she's been asleep ever since. Of course this gave me a great opportunity to snap a couple new pictures for FFF.


I think she's tired.

I'm The Mom of a 28 Year Old

Yes folks, the title of my blog post is correct. My oldest turned 28 today, but he's still my baby. Those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile know that Ryan has Autism. As a result, we try to avoid parties that could potentially over-stimulate him, but instead try to keep everything low key. Tonight Dave, Josh, Ben, Lili and I took Ryan to Carlos O'Kelly's for dinner. He had his favorite, queso dip and chips and was all smiles. After dinner we went back to his new apartment so he could open his gift. It was the first time Josh and Ben had seen his apartment and they were impressed. Overall, it was a nice evening out and one that Ryan appeared to enjoy quite a bit.

Here are a few photos of the birthday guy.

Ryan (77 on his shirt) and Josh at Carlos O'Kelly's.

Ryan at his apartment after opening his gift.Getting a good picture of Ryan is quite the challenge. For a matter-of-fact, just getting him to look toward the camera is a success. I'll try again at Thanksgiving and hopefully we'll have more success.

Happy Birthday Big Guy!!!

FFF and It's Actually on Friday

I wasn't sure what I was going to post for FFF, but Lili answered my question a little earlier today while I was preparing lunch. She came in from the family room where she had apparently been busy trying to undress herself.

This is a new thing for her, as of today. I put her shirt back on her and she proceeded to try and take it off again, quite successfully.

She's so proud of her new accomplishment.

Hawaii - Day Five

Our last day on the Island of Kauai was a bit challenging. Our flight was due to leave at 10:05 p.m., however, check-out was at noon which meant we had several hours to kill without a room for resting. We put on our swimsuits, checked out of the hotel and had the hotel store our carry-on luggage and then headed out to the lagoon to enjoy our last day on the island. Before reaching the lagoon we stopped to get some drinks and found our new friend from Guatemala. She finally had the opportunity to meet Lili and seemed so overwhelmed with joy to meet her. As we talked I discovered why. At the age of 2, this young woman was also adopted by a U.S. couple. She and her parents lived in California and then relocated to Kauai. Her parents were no longer living, but she is now married with two young children of her own a son and a daughter she named Lilliana. In addition, the man she married is from Korea and he too was adopted by a U.S. couple as an infant. Therefore, adoption is very near and dear to their hearts and they hope to someday be able to adopt from Korea and/or Guatemala. We spent a few minutes discussing adoption and exchanged contact information. We saw our new found friend a few more times that afternoon and I look forward to staying in contact with her. It was a very special day.

After spending the afternoon at the lagoon, trying to wear Lili out for the flight home, we headed into the hotel. Fortunately, arrangements had been made with the hotel for those families who were leaving later that evening. They set up a room for us to use in 1/2 hour increments so we could get cleaned up and ready for our flight home. Of course a 1/2 hour isn't long when you have to get 3 people ready to go, but we made it work. They also set up a room for us to sit, relax, and enjoy some free snacks and drinks while we waited for the shuttle that would take us to the airport. Our shuttle was due to leave at 7:30 p.m. and shortly before departure we were all informed that our flight had been delayed. Instead of leaving at 10:05, we would be departing somewhere between 2:30 and 2:45 a.m. The airline requested that we still arrive asap as they needed to re-route all of our flights to get us home. So, we all loaded onto the bus and headed to the airport. We stood in line for about an hour before finally making our way to the counter. Our original flight had us flying from Kauai to LAX (with a 5 hour lay-over), then to Dallas and from Dallas to Bloomington. Our flight from Kauai was now going to be so late that we would miss our connecting flight to Dallas so we were re-routed onto another airline going through Atlanta and then onto Bloomington. In our attempts to keep Lili going all afternoon so she would sleep on the flight from Kauai to LA, we now had to try and keep her going or sleeping all night. This was not a good ending to our trip so far.

Our flight left Kauai sometime around 3:00 a.m. or a little after. When we landed in LA we had just enough time to get our connecting tickets, grab a quick bite to take on the plane and make it to the terminal for our flight. However, when we got to the counter we were asked for the ticket that the previous airline had given us changing airline. They hadn't given any of us a ticket that would allow us to change airlines. So, after making the change for one of the couples in our group, there were 3 couples standing at the counter being told we had to walk over to the other airline, stand in line, get the connecting ticket and then return, stand in line to get our new tickets issued. This was not going to happen without us missing our flight, so two woman with the airline got on the phone and after about 20 -30 minutes of conversation we had tickets in hand and were quickly making our way to security.

Security at LAX seems to move fairly quickly and we were soon first in line. Shoes off, everything on the belt to go through the scanners and we would soon be on our way to the terminal. No, we were "randomly selected" by the airline to have a more thorough search of our luggage done. They pulled us aside, frisked us and began going through all our carry-on luggage, wiping things down and running the samples through their machines. The young lady going through my belongings finally told me that I could pack my things back up and we could go. I have to admit that it crossed my mind to tell her to repack everything since she was the one who took it apart, but I didn't think that would go over well and I really wanted to get home at this point. So I quickly put everything away and we walked as quickly as we could to the terminal. When we got there they were calling our names. We ran over, handed them our tickets and headed to the plane. Just before boarding we were told there was no more room in the overhead bins for our carry-on luggage and it needed to be checked. Seriously?!!!! Fortunately, they tagged everything to check it for us, but the reason we take carry-on luggage is in case we get stranded somewhere for the night or need a change of clothes. The way things were going we weren't convinced we would make it home before the next day and we had already spent 14 hours just getting to this point and still had another flight after this one. We were really wishing we had stayed in Hawaii by this point. Once we got on the plane we discovered a completely empty bin just above our seats. So much for the airlines making sure they are giving correct information. And, Lili's diaper leaked onto my pants so a change of clothes would have been nice.

We got on the plane, but weren't seated by each other, although we were close. Two young ladies sitting nearby offered to give us their seats so we could sit with each other and we took them up on their offer. We were in the back of the plane, but we didn't care, we were on the plane and getting ready for the next leg of our flight. As we sat there the woman sitting next to me asked about Lili wanting to know where she was born. I told her and she went on to say that she too was the mother of two young ladies born in Russia. We spent several minutes of the flight talking about the kids and our journey through adoption which certainly helped relieve much of the stress I was feeling.

Our flight was pretty much on time and we landed in Atlanta without incident and headed to the terminal for our next flight. We also had enough time to grab something to eat and all 3 of us needed something to eat by this point. As we headed toward the terminal one of the woman in our group was walking the other way and informed us that the plane at the terminal wasn't going to Bloomington, it was going to Springfield and they didn't know anything about the flight to Bloomington. Nothing shocked us at this point, but we decided to be patient and went to get something to eat. After all, there wasn't anything we could do that was going to make the plane appear. We got our food and headed back to the terminal. Fortunately, there wasn't a problem. The flight was running a little late, but at this point we didn't care as long as we got home.

Before we knew it, we were on the plane and headed down the runway. Lili had been such a trooper through everything. The adults were falling apart, but she was having a great time. She slept pretty much the entire flight from Kauai to LA. She slept a couple hours of the flight from LA to Atlanta and on the flight from Atlanta to Bloomington she was becoming antsy. It was time to break out the portable DVD player and put in an Elmo DVD. It worked!!! She was entertained. Granted, she got a little upset when we had to put it away to land, but it was nothing major.

Finally, we were on the ground in Bloomington. When we left Kauai it was in the mid 80's and when we landed in Bloomington it was 39 degrees. We were no longer in paradise and had to face reality.

Yes, our travel home left a lot to be desired, but we created a lot of memories on this trip, including the memories of our trip home. We would go through it all again to spend another week in paradise and hope to one day return to Hawaii. In memory of our trip, I'll share some random photos from our trip. I hope you've enjoyed reading about our journey.

Lili enjoying the big rocks at the beach.

Lili roaming around the hotel.

I just love palm trees. I also love warm weather, blue skies and sunshine. Boy, do I live in the wrong state :0) I actually captured this shot on the last day as we were walking around the grounds of the hotel.

Lili checking out the Koi fish in the pond.

This is a shot of the beach right by the hotel.

One of the thousands of flowers on the hotel grounds.

Another photo from the hotel grounds.
Blue Hawaii.Aloha!!!!

Hawaii - Day Four

Day Four started much like every other day. We woke up bright and early, went out on the balcony to check the weather, see the ocean, and hear the waves as they hit the shore. Ah, almost like being at home. Not!

We got ready to go and headed to breakfast. We had eaten at the same restaurant the first two mornings and decided to try another restaurant this time, so we went to Tidepools. We walked down past the pool and over a small wooden bridge to enter the restaurant. The bridge was the walkway over the Koi fish pond. Was Lili ever excited to see all those fish and a swan as well.

We found a table near the waterfall. There is nothing more relaxing to us than the sound of water. Shortly after we sat down one of the employees came over to greet us and started talking to Lili. She asked me what her name was and commented on how beautiful she was. As we talked she asked where Lili was born. I told her, "Guatemala." She went on to tell me that she had a friend that worked at the restaurant next to the pool who is from Guatemala. She gave me her name and wanted us to find her. She said she would love to see Lili. Later that afternoon we went to the lagoon, but never found her friend from Guatemala. Maybe tomorrow.

Day Four was a special day because a friend of ours, who we hadn't seen in years, was flying up from Oahu. I was really looking forward to seeing him and visiting. We used to work together in Washington and had become very good friends. We left Washington and moved to Illinois. He and his family left Washington and moved to Hawaii. I think the last time we had seen each other was about 10 years ago. Our friend arrived around lunch time and we got to spend a couple hours catching up on things. It was a great visit, although not long enough. Next time we come to Hawaii we'll take a trip to Oahu as well.

We decided to wait for our friend down in the lobby area. This area of the hotel has beautiful plants, flowers, trees and even birds.

While we were waiting Lili watched a couple taking turns standing by one of the birds and taking pictures. She decided she wanted to do the same thing. For a minute I thought we might actually be getting some cooperation for this photo.

Apparently she liked watching more than participating in the photo op.

Later that evening we were leaving Lili with the sitter again for another group dinner. During the afternoon we found ourselves wondering how she would react when the sitter walked in. We both thought she would quickly realize what was happening and start crying. We got ready for dinner, got Lili cleaned up and ordered room service for one. While Lili was eating her dinner the sitter arrived. When she walked in the door Lili looked up at her, gave her a big smile and waved. Hum, guess she wasn't traumatized by us leaving her the first night after all. We talked to the sitter for a few minutes, gave Lili kisses and left. As we walked out we again expected to hear her cry, but nothing.

We headed downstairs to meet us with the rest of our group and enjoyed the beautiful evening on the terrace overlooking the ocean and then headed to dinner. There were tables of food set up all around the perimeter of a large grassy area and more tables set up inside the ballroom. In the center of the grassy area were Japanese style tables with pillows for sitting. The patio area leading into the ballroom had regular sized tables and even more tables were set up in the ballroom for sitting. Each food table was catered by a different restaurant at the hotel and some other restaurants on Kauai. Each restaurant prepared samples of somewhere between 2 and 4 dishes for us to sample. We would go choose 2 or 3 different samples, take them back to our table to try them and then make our way to the next food table. While walking to try another sample we ran into the employee we had met at breakfast that day, but she wasn't alone. Her friend from Guatemala was working with her that evening. Since they were working we didn't have much time to talk, but now we could put a face with a name. We chatted for a few minutes and told her that we would try to find her the next day. Also, since she knew what we looked like, she could look for us as well. It was very exciting to meet someone from Lili's birth country.

After several hours of sampling food, listening to the live band and enjoying the company of Dave's co-workers, we decided it was time to head back to our room so the sitter could go home. We got back to our room and Lili was sound asleep. The sitter told us that she had brought some toys and some pots and pans for Lili to play with. Lili had fun putting her french fries from dinner into the pots and pans and playing with the new toys. When she got tired she cuddled up to the sitter and fell asleep. Not one tear was shed during the evening. Success!!!

It was another wonderful day in Kauai.