When they called us back into the braces installation area, we saw this tray of materials. See all the colors? Joe chose the first and third colors on the top of the palette – hot pink and bright green for his braces. Don’t ask me why he wanted these colors. They look hideous. Oh well. He’s only 8, right?

As promised to those of you on my email listing, here is a photo of the Hunky Orthodontist. His name is Brian. Brian Almond. Yes, we love visiting Brian’s office. I forget what they were doing to Joe at this moment – I was trying to catch Dr. Hunk on camera!

Here it is. Joe has his two little brackets in place. The hot pink and bright green

colors have not been added yet.

Okay, he’s all done. You can see that weird palate expander he will have in his mouth for the next few months. There is a teeny tiny microscopic hole in that thing, and I am supposed to stick a weird instrument in there and crank it up a notch every day for the next 10 days. Our appointment took almost two hours…mostly because they would not let us leave the office until I mastered the art of torturing him with the cranking mechanism. I am not very good at it!! Oh the joys of motherhood – sigh. Lucky for me Joe has that super-human tolerance for pain. He is doing great – he talks a little funny, but he is doing great. He is spending the night at Grandma & Grandpa W. house. He is going to help Grandpa put up Christmas lights tomorrow since he has no school, which is a chore he loves to do every year. He can’t wait to go back to school to show everyone his braces and expander. He said he will be the only kid in second grade with braces. His next appointment is January 5th. Let’s hope he decides to change colors for his braces then, and if he doesn’t, well….he’s only 8, right?

Joe was really looking forward to his skating party on Saturday afternoon. He said his other party was alot of fun but he was kind of “freaked out by all the old people.” That was just a reminder to me about how different life looks when you’re only 8. At 3:00 p.m. it was finally time for the skating party to begin at the local Roll-Arena. It’s a great deal. You pay one fee, and that pays for 8 skaters, ice cream, plates, decorations and all the pop you can drink. And it also gets the proud birthday boy a glow-in-the-dark button that looks really cool when you are skating around under the strobe lights. It also makes for a handy night-light for about a week. Anyway, the parent provides the cake and the party is set. It’s a parent’s dream!

Here is the birthday gang. From left to right, Joe’s brother Zachary who has made it his life-long goal to scowl in every photograph, Caleb (Joe’s best friend), Jackson, Joe, little brother David, Garrett, and Joey. Little sister Tamara was the only girl Joe allowed to attend his birthday party. Michael declined to participate in this photo, I guess there were too many young kids for his liking.

Here is Zachary, Tamara and Michael with Dad.

The lighting in the Roll-Arena is not the best, so none of the skating photos turned out except for this one. Joe was #2 at the limbo contest!

Three brown-eyed 2nd grade boys, Caleb, Joe and Joey took a break from their skating to play air hockey.

Zachary, Jackson, Joe and Joey.

Daddy’s little girl.

Joe’s brothers & sister gave him 20 matchbox cars. He was beaming!

Caleb gave Joe a Drago, which is kind of a Bakugan-type of toy, so I am told. It’s a big plastic ball that turns into a dragon, so I am told. This gift was the envy of all the 2nd-grade boys, so I am told.

The sun was in my eyes and I could not see what I was aiming at when I took this, so I was not able to get all three garages into this shot. Trust me, there is a third garage stall on the far left. You cannot see from this distance the beautiful cut glass front door. It brings a lovely prism of light into the tiled entry way.

Here is the living room. This room has 12-foot ceilings.

Here is the kitchen and part of the dining area. Jonda has been shopping for a kitchen table but she hasn’t found the right one yet. She needs a round one because of the bay window, but everyone seems to be selling square tables at the moment. Hopefully she will find one soon. Right behind where I was taking this photo is the formal dining area. She has a nice formal table there. The laundry room and the door to the garage is off to the left. I didn’t take any pictures of the bedrooms because she is still in the painting process. Perhaps I will post those once they are complete and the blinds and drapes are installed.

This is the back yard. The former owners put up a stone and wrought iron fence. The area outside the fence is a common park area that is maintained by the adjoining golf course. Doesn’t it look like she owns acres of land? It is amazing to sit out on the back porch and take it all in.

Here is the proud homeowner. She has a right to be proud, this home is a showplace! I keep hoping that maybe she will leave it to me in her will…….

So tell me. Does this look like the face of a little boy who is glad it is his 8th birthday? Joe was in heaven, as if you couldn’t tell. All three sets of his grandparents and his two great grandmothers came to our house for dinner and to wish him a happy birthday. We had a big lasagna dinner with assorted salads, garlic bread and black forest cake for dessert.

As most parties go, all of the men hung out outside and the women were in the kitchen. To the casual observer, it may have seemed like the women were sitting around talking and laughing and eating crackers piled high with my world-famous pineapple dip, but in reality, we were ready to spring into action at any moment just in case one of the Stouffer’s lasagnas needed tending to. Here, sitting at the ready is my Mom, Grandma W, Linda, who was in town visiting my folks from Georgia, and my sister Jonda.

The party really started when Grandma Judy & Grandpa Bill from Alaska came in. As I said, all of the men were outside. So Grandpa Bill opened the back door and walked outside shouting, “Is it someone’s birthday around here?” Both Michael and Joe had a look of complete shock on their faces. They could not believe what they were seeing. Joe ran into Grandpa’s arms and Michael turned to me and demanded, “how long have you known about this? How could you keep this a secret from us?” It was a great surprise for them. I regret that I didn’t get a picture of this amazing moment, but I was kind of swept up in the excitement as well.

This is Grandpa Bill (on the left) his mother Joyce and his brother Terry. Also in the cast of characters is the boy’s Dad, Mike. Look at how Michael is almost as tall as his Dad!

Here is the birthday boy with his two great-grandmothers, Carolyn and Joyce. They did not want to sit in the kitchen with the rest of us women. It was probably for the best, the workload was pretty demanding in there and it was better left to us younger women.

Below is Joe making a wish with Grandma W., Dad, Aunt Jonda, Wayne visiting from Georgia and my Dad cheering him on. We were all laughing because Michael surprised us by running into the house, opening his bedroom window so we could hear him, and playing Happy Birthday on his electric keyboard to accompany our singing!

Here are all of the Rice men. Do they look alike or what? They all have the same expression on their faces!

Above: Here are the boys with all of their grandparents and great grandmothers.

Here is the whole gang of us. I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. Someday I hope the boys will look back on their lives and realize how lucky they are. Even though their lives were very rough for the first 4-5 years, through the adoption process they gained my family and they got to keep their own loving and supportive birth family. I guess God knew what he was doing when he brought us all together because I feel as lucky as the boys!

First, my dear little Joe, who turns 8 in two days, finally made the decision that he would stop wetting the bed and peeing into random items of clothing and hiding pee-soaked items all over his room. This is a situation I have been living with for two years. I don’t know what finally made him stop. I tried everything. Therapy. Wearing pull-ups. Not wearing pull-ups. More therapy. A mechanical alarm to wake him when he pees. A brief stint with medication. More therapy. Ignoring it. Paying attention to it. Making him change his own sheets. More therapy.

Finally, in the end, I think what worked is that I grounded him from his room. I didn’t just ground him from it, I very dramatically had his Dad come over and install a big, huge lock on the outside of his bedroom door with a power drill while Joe stood staring in disbelief. He was a boy without a room for 10 days. He slept on a camping mat in the hallway, which was conveniently located right outside the bathroom door. He had to change clothes in the bathroom – the clothes I picked out for him. He had no access to his toys, his precious bed, his clothing, nothing. As I explained to him, when you don’t respect your room, your bed or your clothes, then you don’t get a room, or a bed or clothes. This was pure torture for Joe, and I don’t think he wants to go through it again any time soon. So, it has been about 6 weeks. No intentional bedwetting, no pee soaked clothes hidden in secret spots in his room. No more writing ‘asshole’ on his new blue flannel sheets with a big black Sharpie pen. Yes readers, it is truly one of God’s miracles. I highly recommend grounding a child from his room when you have to correct very, very bad behavior.

Second, my sister moved into town from Seattle. She had a small little condo in Bellevue which she sold for about 4-1/2 million times what she paid for it in 1986. She bought a mansion in an exclusive area of town and practically paid cash for it. And I mean to tell you, her place is huge. 3-car garage, 3 BR 2 BA, huge master suite, closets everywhere you turn, it is amazing. And, here I sit in my little 1948 rambler, complete with 1200 sq. feet and the smallest closets you have ever seen. They must have only had 3 or 4 outfits per family back in 1948, that’s all I can figure. And did I mention that I only have one bathroom that I am forced to share with my two filthy dirty growing boys? Anyway, I try really really hard not to be jealous of my sister and her good fortune. And I also try really hard to restrain the green-eyed monster when I think about her cushy, executive HR job where she makes more than double what I do. And here I sit scrimping along as a single working mother trying to feed my two growing boys. But, I do manage to get the upper hand with her due with my extensive knowledge of home repairs and yard maintenance. I have to tell her what to do almost every day. There’s quite a bit of satisfaction in that, you know, because she is much older than me (a year and eight days older.) She is somewhat helpless and prissy, and I am a fix-it, do-it-all kind of girl, and she frequently needs to be told to buckle down and do the dirty work. You know, all the dirty work that goes along with taking care of a 3-year old mansion in the ritzy part of town. But hey, I’ve got two things she ain’t got: a brand new blazing-fast laptop, and two growing boys, so neener, neener, neener!

Third, the boys started school and they are both doing fabulous. Michael is in honor’s math which has the stringent requirement that you must maintain an 82% or above or you get knocked down to ‘regular’ math at the end of the quarter. He is also in Math Club. That sounds like sheer torture to me, but he thinks it is fun, so I guess that’s the important thing. Except for now they want a check for $40. Somehow I don’t understand why I have to pay $40 to have my son sit around and do math problems on Tuesday afternoons. So, I have decided to conveniently forget that they want $40. They will have to send the mafia after me to collect on that bill. Michael continues to look and sound more like a teenager every day. At his school Open House two weeks ago (see, I told you I was too lazy busy to write) one of his teachers pulled me aside and said, “you just wait, he will grow out of this awkward stage fairly soon, really he will.” And then he squeezed my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic gaze. I am not sure what was behind that unsolicited comment, but I can only guess it is because Michael can barely walk down the hall without tripping over his own two feet. I guess I will take those words of encouragement in the spirit in which they were intended, as soon as I figure out what that is. Here is Michael on the first day of school.

Joe is also doing well in school. He has gotten “greens” every day since school started. Greens are good. Reds are very, very bad. Joe got more than his share of red’s last year. Getting too many reds could cause a kid to lose the right to have his own bedroom, just so you know. His math skills are pretty solid, and his reading is….well, okay. I guess he might be at 2nd grade level but I’m not so sure. I work with him every night, but it is kind of frustrating. I worry that he will fall behind in that area. But, where he really shines is in art. That kid is amazing. At Open House last week (see, I told you I was too lazy busy to write) his teacher showed me some of his art work. It was dramatically better than all the other kids’ work. And I am not just saying that – it was really good! I am about as good in Art as I am in Math, so both boys’ abilities are just amazing to me. Joe also started Awana at church on Wednesday nights. He is doing much better this year. Perhaps it is because they have a brand new workbook that actually makes sense, or perhaps it is his new-found self-confidence in his decision to pee in the toilet and not into his personal belongings. Hmmm. Here is Joe on the first day of school.

Two loving brothers.

So, on Thursday, Sept, 25 it is Joe’s 8th birthday. We are having a dinner party with all of his grandparents. Even his grandparents from Alaska are coming! I haven’t told the boys so they will be very, very surprised. Shhhhh. Don’t tell ‘em! I am so excited that I cannot sleep at night. Oh, maybe that’s because I have to make dinner for 15 people. Yes, 15 people in my little house with 1 bathroom. Please don’t alert the Fire Dept because I am sure I will be in violation of several building codes. I have been scouring Pioneer Woman’s blog and the RecipeZaar site for recipes. But, then I came to my senses and decided to let Stouffer’s make the lasagna. Hey, it was on sale for $10 each, so let’s be reasonable people! Then, on Saturday we are having a roller skating party with six of Joe’s closest friends. That should be fun. Right? Right. I can hardly wait until Sunday when all the flurry is over. And then I will lay on the couch with my new, blazing-fast laptop and reminisce about all of the events of the week with my two growing boys.

So, on Sunday I promise to post photos of Joe’s Birthday, photos of all of the grandparents and photos of my sister’s mansion. Yes, all three of my devoted readers, I will leave you until we meet again on Sunday, unless I am too lazy busy to write!

By far, our favorite part was going into the shark tunnel – there were sharks swimming all around us! The boys were amazed. Their little faces were pressed up against the glass and they laid on the floor and looked at the sharks swimming beneath their feet – it was fascinating. Their favorite shark was the leopard shark which looks, well, kinda like a leopard.

The first thing the boys wanted to do was run out to the beach. We walked to the water and the boys were very tentative about getting wet. I told them they could get wet up to their knees, knowing full well they would get soaked. After a little while, they were in the water up to their chests riding the waves. After that, they would go out in the ocean every day and they always hooked up with other kids – kids that had big, burly fathers standing nearby (thank God!) and by the second day they were jumping the waves like pros.

The water was so cold, that after about 30 minutes we would run out of the water, and head straight for our condo and jump in the hot tub. Were we spoiled or what?

Our condo was enormous – it was bigger than my house. We so enjoyed having our own bedrooms and bathrooms. One morning Joe decided he wanted to take a jacuzzi in his own bathroom. I thought I would add a few bubbles….well….once I turned on the turbo jets of that tub, the bubbles got out of hand. At first Joe thought it was fun, and then he wanted out fast!

One day we took a field trip to Ecola State Park which has one of the most beautiful beaches on the Oregon coast. The boys loved learning how to beach comb. They found all kinds of sea shells, sand dollars, and whole crab backs- yuck! They lined their pockets with these treasures only to break them all later by accidently stepping on their coats. Now I’m not saying that it was Michael’s fault or anything, but let’s just say that Joe is still mad about it. Oh well. I didn’t want to transport those stinky things back home anyway.

On Wednesday my friend Leslie from Seattle came to stay with us. We took everyone on a field trip to Fort Clatsop which is a fort built by the famous explorers Lewis & Clark. There were 31 men who lived in the fort for 144 days. We watched an exhibit by Ranger Tom who was dressed in authentic garb and he explained the living conditions the men endured and then he surprised us by firing an antique musket that Lewis & Clark used. The gunshot made a huge noise and there was lots of smoke so the boys loved it. After touring the fort the boys got to dress up like explorers. Fun!

Right outside of our condo was the famous Lewis & Clark Statue. Since we spent so much time at Fort Clatsop, the boys were excited to get their picture taken with them.

Just a short walk from our condo were great places to play and eat. The boy’s got to drive bumper cars for the very first time. Michael was so cool when he was driving. He would drive ahead of the pack so he wouldn’t get bumped by anyone. But when he saw Joe, he would aim right for him and hit him. Joe could barely reach the pedals and he looked like he was in sheer terror. He had his mouth wide open in a weird grimace the whole time, but when it was over he said it was the “funnest” thing he has ever done. They must have liked it – they begged to drive several times until both Leslie and I ran out of cash. We also rode on a Tilt-a-Whirl together. I don’t think you need to see a photo of us screaming our heads off so you can just use your imagination.

My Dad took the boys down to the beach to fly kites and play games. They were wiped out at the end of the day, so I put them to bed early and then Leslie and I went out on the town. Okay, maybe we just walked to the nearest bar at the Shilo Inn next door and ordered a Cosmopolitan, but it was great catching up, laughing, and discussing how it will be the end of this country as we know it no matter who wins the Presidential election. Waitress, another Cosmopolitan please!

What made our vacation so much fun was to watch the boys experience so many things for the first time – an aquarium, the ocean, beach combing, the fort, the bumper cars. I am so grateful and proud to watch them do all of these things. I was also grateful that Leslie and my folks enjoyed watching the boys as much as I did. This was a vacation the boys will remember for the rest of their lives, which is about how long it will take for them to get all of the sand out of their shoes.