Summer Update

Greetings friends and family!
Has your summer been as crazy as ours?
Since I have not updated you all since Easter, I'll try to hit the highlights!
Our adoption paperwork for Kai is moving along slowly...and we have no one to blame but ourselves.  However, we have recently burnt the midnight oil to make some significant progress, so we hope to have the final dossier paperwork out in the next month or so...
In July, we had the privilege of a visit from my brother Cole and his family.  We were able to play tourist for a couple of days to Mount Vernon, The Naval Academy, and the Sunset Parade at the Marine Corps Memorial.  Here are few pictures from those events:

In late June, Cael had undergone a second surgical procedure that, unfortunately, was not as successful as anticipated.  Therefore, he had to undergo a third procedure just two days before Jay had a scheduled surgery to remove one lobe of his thyroid.  Jay's procedure was a huge success and we received word late last week that there was no cancer.  PTL!!!  Cael is hanging in there but is continuing to have some pain that we are having trouble controlling well, so we covet your prayers for him during this battle.  Here is a picture of my two patients shortly after their procedures and the big brother who came in to comfort his little buddy...so sweet!

Finally, on the first of August, Cael lost his first tooth...with 3 more ready to go at any time!!  We had been patiently waiting for it to come out.  After breakfast one morning, Campbell looked and said, "Cael.  Your tooth is gone!"  So we think he might have swallowed it...oh well!  I can report that the tooth fairy DOES still come, even when there is no tooth to leave under your pillow!

Last but not least:  Last week Campbell celebrated birthday number 9!  I can't believe it...seems yesterday he was still in a crib:-(  We are so proud of the young man he is becoming...if much to quickly for his mommy!  Happy Birthday, Big Boy.

Merry Christmas and Happy Easter

Dear Friends and Family,
I have not been good about keeping up with the blog and we have SOOOO much to tell you!
I will keep it to the condensed version, as much as possible, but the bottom line is that we are doing great and are continuing to grow as a family...on many levels...more on that later.
So Christmas was great.  Cael decided that Christmas should come around more often than once a year.  We stayed in DC this year and enjoyed a little down time.  The boys both played basketball for the first time and had "a ball"...get it!  Anyway, baseball season starts this week and they are both excited about giving that a try.  They were also enrolled in Chinese school for the Spring Semester, and although they enjoyed it, it is something they both decided that they did not want to continue.  The fact is that Cael spoke mostly Cantonese and the only language they taught was Mandarin, so it was brand new for both of them and they decided sports was more fun...oh, well...I'll keep trying.
We celebrated Cael's first birthday in the US, our first "Gotcha Day" anniversary, and Campbell's baptism... all in one weekend!!  My parents were able to join us on short notice and since my father is a retired minister, he was able to baptize Campbell.  Suffice it to say that I was an emotional wreck ALL weekend and cannot remember as many happy occasions in such a short time span.  I believe the pictures speak for themselves!
Finally, on Good Friday, we received our "Pre-Approval" for a beautiful one year old little boy in Shenzhen, China.  So that means that the flurry of paperwork will begin, once again.  We hope to have him home in 6-9 months.  My joke at work has been that I have not even lost the last adoption weight and now I am right back to eating for two, again.  I did promise to have my adoption tubes tied after this one...God is so good!  I promise to share more details and pictures of Kai (his Chinese name, but we kinda like it!) as soon as we can!!
We miss you all...Come visit when you can!
Love,
Kim and Gang

Snow Day Part II

So today I had the privilege of doing what we, "on the hill" or "in the District" call...telecommuting.  Have you heard of it?  It means you get to work at home...in your jammies...with no make-up...listening to Christmas music...Lovin' it!!
Anyway, while this was a planned telecommute day for me, the timing was perfect with all the snow outside and me not having to drive in it.  BTW, I use the term "all the snow" in the context of being a Texan.  I realize that those of you from Minnesota are laughing at me!
Anyway, I actually was pretty productive from about 0600 until 1330 (that's 1:30 pm for you civilians...who had to work...in an office..with your clothes on...wearing make-up) when I looked outside to see all three boys (yes, that means Jay) pulling a sled around the yard and throwing snow at each other.  Right about this time, I was regretting not having real clothes on, so I just took pictures.  However, at about 1600 (4:00pm) we did dash out for a family run/bike in the snow.  Our plan was for 4-5 miles but only got about a mile before Cael crashed on his bike for the fourth time and exclaimed that he now hates snow!  So we made snow angels, which he thought was pretty cool, then had a snow ball fight until everyone was cold and wet, but laughing hard...then we walked back home.  Great exercise, I say!
Below are the pictures from the first event today (the back yard was not nearly as snowy as the front), followed by hot chocolate to warm up.  There's nothing that warm chocolate and melty marshmallows won't solve.  Wish you were here!

December

December has been wonderful...we have had so much fun decorating and baking...and NOT doing War College!! That's right I FINISHED the War College...YEAH!  We're now waiting for Jay to finish one more paper before  he is out of school for the semester so we can ALL do some relaxing on the weekends....until he starts up, again, in the spring semester.  Me...did I mention that I'm DONE with War College...YEAH!!
Meanwhile, when my folks were here, we tried to set up our big, beautiful fake Christmas tree and discovered that it will not fit in this house.  So, off we went to the local Christmas tree stand to find a skinny 5 foot tree that fits just right in the Bolling house.  We then took the boys to get their picture taken with Santa and I think Cael was a little nervous.  (weren't we all on our first visit to Santa?)  Last weekend, we walked around downtown and took some pictures of the National Christmas tree and the White House.
The big news is that today we received about 3 inches of snow and proof of the power of prayer.  You see, Cael has faithfully prayed for snow every night for two weeks and today his prayers were answered.  It was so pretty.  Enough to make it look nice but not so much that commuting was entirely miserable.  I took the opportunity to wait out a bit of traffic and go for a run on the National Mall before I came home and took a few shots of the sites while the boys and the next door neighbors had an awesome snow ball fight....

Pretty psychedelic cookies, eh?

One can NEVER have too much sugar...

Santa, we've been VERY good this year...trust us!

Wish you could have all been here!  I'll try to be more faithful in my posts...did I mention that War College is done!!  YEAH!!!  Merry Christmas, everyone!!

November

November started with Cael first of three surgeries.  He was so brave through the whole thing.  This first surgery took about 6 hours so it took awhile for him to wake up and he was pretty sick when he did wake up.  However, our surgeon is wonderful and everything went very well.  Next surgery will most likely occur in April.

Waiting in Pre-op

Practicing breathing through the mask

Cam comes for a visit on the ward

What I failed to mention in our October post is that our wonderful friend, Ginnie, came for support and child care during the marathon and while Cael had his surgery so that Jay and I could tag-team at the hospital...THANK YOU ANYI GINNIE!!

Geese and Pop (and Meg, Tucker's daughter) came for Thanksgiving and we had a great time playing tourist for a couple of days.  It was also having "mom" help cook for the big meal.  There were many things that we were thankful for shared around the dinner table.  I think Cael was completely overwhelmed with the amount of food that was available during the day...God Bless America!!  There's nothing like my mom's dressing and pumpkin cheesecake.  While they were here, long walks were taken along the Potomac and we made a trip to the big Smithsonian's Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum out near Dulles Airport.  Good times were had, but it is always hard when our family leaves :-(

That about wraps up November...next up, December!

October

All,
I know it has been a LONG time since I posted so I decided I better start updates by months...beginning with October.  Let me first start with letting you know that we have been busy, but God has blessed us more than we deserve!
We enjoyed slightly cooler temperatures in October as we continued to train for the Marine Corps Marathon that occurred on Halloween Day.  My brother, Cole, came for a visit and we had the opportunity to go to a Naval Academy Football game...fun, fun, fun, and we won, won, won!

Cam started back to Cub Scouts and both boys played soccer.  During marathon weekend, both boys ran the marathon mile and stayed together the entire time!

Jay and I did finish the marathon and actually felt pretty good at the end!  I will say that age DOES require training...no matter how many marathons you may have run.  That night, we both hobbled around the neighborhood with boys while they trick-or-treated.  Cam went eclectic as Darth Ironman and Cael was Obiwan Kinobi.  Also posted are pictures of Cael's first pumpkin carving...he did great! As we prepared to take him through the neighborhoods for candy, he asked why the people just gave  us candy for saying "trick or treat".  I could not really answer other than..."they just do, so go with it."  He did and had a blast!

That about sums up October...next up November!