Reeves Family Adventures: September 2009

Well it's official! Alex is now in Senior Kindergarten. He's going to the same school, and also has the same teacher, so we're very pleased. It's a combined JK/SK class, so Alex will still have some friends from last year that are also starting SK with him, plus a bunch of new JK students.

I'd gone to do a bunch of clothes shopping for Alex as he's outgrown a lot of the pants that fit him in the Spring, but he's between sizes - so some stuff is just too small, but the next size up is too big. This is mostly because he's going from the "toddler" clothes (up to 4T) and is now into the "boy" clothing sizes, so it's a big jump. I'm also finding that he'll fit a 4T in some clothing lines, but needs the next size up in others, so clothese shopping is getting far too complicated for my little overworked brain. *grins*

We also got Alex a brand new snowsuit this year. Ever since he came home, we've always bought his winter gear at Please Mum (one of my fav stores). The first winter outfit worked for two years, then we bought one that he wore for two winters when he was 3 and 4. He's outgrown that one, so it was off to buy yet another jacket and winter pants, and once again... he's between sizes. The 4T fit him perfectly, but if he grew at all, he'd not be able to wear the set for very long. If I'm spending over $100 on his winter gear, I want to get some good usage out of it, so we went up to the "small" in the boys sizes. It fits, but it is a bit big on him, so hopefully he won't look like the kid from "A Christmas Story"

Last weekend was the annual Culture Camp that is run by the Korean Canadian Children's Association (KCCA). Every year, they host a camp for families with kids from Korea and it's a great weekend full of lots of great times, wonderful food, amazing people and fun things to do. We've never been able to make it before - well, we made it the first year Alex was home when he was about 14 months old, but he ended up spiking a fever early in the afternoon, so we left early.

Each summer since then, we've wanted to go, but we were always away at that time. This year, we made sure our schedule was free so we could attend and we had a wonderful time.

Families can choose to come for the entire weekend, or just come for the day (or multiple days), but we choose to stay for the whole weekend. We had our trailer there and camped out with about 10 other families. As we didn't have to worry about bringing a lot of our regular camping gear, it was a bit easier to set up (Chris did it all while I was helping with registrations), and we were quite comfortable camping for the weekend. I felt bad for others in tents as it started raining in the middle of the night on Friday and it poured for hours. I'd even thought of going to get one of my friends who was camping on her own with her two boys, but realized they'd get wetter just coming to our trailer, and would be more upset being woken up so I hoped they were okay (thankfully they stayed 99% dry and pretty warm).

Alex had a wonderful time - he's still pretty shy with a lot of the other kids and adults, but he still had a lot of fun. They had a waterfight for the kids, magic shows, lots of games with the AMAZING volunteers, a fun show that the volunteers put on the first night, campfires, etc. Everyone working at camp was volunteering their time - and they are such incredible people. There were some of the KCCA volunteers there handling registrations, cooking all of the delicious food, organizing the games, setting up the Korean market, running language lessons for the kids and parents (so we could shop in the Korean market), etc. There were also tons of older Korean teenagers and young adults there to volunteer and help out with the kids and these people were just so incredible. The volunteers and other families made the weekend so great and we really loved our time there, and hopefully Alex made some friendships that will grow over the years as we continue to nurture these connections.

One of the highlights of the weekend was a movie (Going Home) that was made by a young man named Jason Hoffman. Jason is an older adoptee, and he made a wonderful and moving film about his decision to go to Korea to meet his birth mother, and also his birth sister. We were so lucky that Jason agreed to show this film at the camp, and also to do a talk on the Saturday night with some of the other older adoptees about their own feelings about being adopted, and seeking out their birth families. All five of the older adoptees who took the time to share their thoughts and answer our questions were just amazing and I was so impressed with all of them for opening up their hearts to us, as we all know that our own kids might be struggling with the same thoughts and decisions in the coming years.

We also met a wonderful family with two girls from London. Their daughters were two of the five who'd participated in the discussion after the movie and I was just so impressed with both of these girls and their parents. It still just amazes me how our decision to complete our family by adopting Alex would bring all of these wonderful and special people into our lives.

I also got to spend more time with some of my favourite people, including Zenny who organized so much of the weekend and the registrations, and Mrs Lee who coordinated the food for over 200 people for the weekend, and ran a very fun cooking class. Rachel was also there working with all of the volunteers, and Kevin kept everything running smoothly. Reverend Soh and Mr Hahn did such an incredible job as well. I can't name everyone as so many people were involved in making this weekend happen, but we are just so grateful to have opportunities such as this.

Here's a bunch of pictures from the weekend - I had some issues with our camera over the weekend, so thankfully I was able to get some pictures from Rosa Park and Allison Pezzack.

Zenny and some of the great volunteers