Kazapalooza - Toronto, Canada - Two families from UST-Kamemogorsk, Kaz

This weekend we had the time of our lives! We were invited to Toronto by the family we spent a month with in Kazakhstan who also adopted their son from the same baby house. These are two of the nicest people we have ever met and they became like family to us during our stay in Kaz. It's been 3 yeas since we last saw them so when they invited us to come and visit we knew we had to go. The boys had so much fun playing together. All Matthew said the entire drive home is that he wanted to go back to T's house!

Toronto is a huge place with a lot to see! We visited a park, LEGOLAND, saw the CN Tower, the US Consulate, rode a subway and street car for the very first time (Matthew just loved those rides!), swam in a private pool, and many other fun things over the weekend - Including something extremely cool that I can't talk about!!!

This was the best mini vacation ever. We had or own mini-Kazapalooza in Toronto and it was a blast!

Thank you so much for your hospitality!!!!!

Matthew's Alphabet Song

I finally was able to get a video of Matthew singing the Alphabet Song. He's been singing it for about the last week, along with a couple Church songs "Deep & Wide" and "Jesus Loves Me".

It's so sweet hearing his little voice singing. He seems so smart for just turning 3 1/2.

First night in his "Big boy" bed

The holiday weekend finished off with Matthew moving into his Big Boy bed for the first time. He was so excited as I was converting his crib into a toddler bed. He said "Mommy I excited!" as he ran all over the house.

It was just 3 years ago that we were counting down the days to go to Kazakhstan to meet this baby boy. It's exciting to see him grow and develop but it's also sad that it's happening so fast.

We love this little boy so much!!!



He's been in bed for about 45 minutes so we decided to check on him. Looks like he's doing fine!

Home Depot Kids workshop - Despicable Me car

Today Matthew and I went to Home Depot to the kids workshop to build the Despicable Me car. Matthew did a great job hammering in the nails!

After we finished that we went with mom to the art fair downtown and Home Depot had a kids workshop there to build a tool box!

Matthew and I love doing these projects!

Matthew's first movie - Monsters University

Today Matthew went to his very first movie in a theater - Monsters University!

We went to his favorite place for lunch before the movie - McDonalds and got hamburgers and French fries.

He loved Monsters Inc. and has watched it many times so we thought this would be a great one to take him to. The movie was only 1-1/2 hours long, but unfortunately they played 25 minutes of previews before the main show. Needless to say, this was a little too long for him. He lost interest and was tired for about the last 30 minutes.

But over all it was fun and he took a 30 minute nap on the way home.

July 4th at the John Ball Park Zoo

Today we went to the John Ball Park Zoo in Grand Rapids. At the zoo he loved seeing all the animals. He even got to pet some of the farm animals!

Our very first egg from our chickens!

Today we got our very first egg from our chickens! It's pretty small, only 1-3/4" long. We aren't sure which of our 5 chickens it came from, but we have our first egg!