Friday, August 28, 2015

Summer 2015 Update

Time to catch up on what has been happening around here during the last few months!

Mother's Day 2015, exploring the Jersey shore and freezing our feet off

At the end of April, Sean took his last actuary exam, and we found out a couple of months later that he passed!  Praise be to God!  This is a career accomplishment 11 years in the making. To celebrate this milestone and to take advantage of our new location, we visited the White Mountains of New Hampshire for a few days in May.  Now we've seen every state on the East Coast (and then some) except for Rhode Island!

Hiking to Diana's Baths waterfall in the White Mountains
Isn't this a neat little tool to map out the states where you have been?  I can't believe we've been to half of the states already!


25 states have been visited by a Bailey (50%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Amsterdam travel guide for Android

On the Fourth of July, we celebrated one year since a judge in Bulgaria declared Alexander to be our legal son!  We visited the nearby Revolutionary War historic site of Fort Nonsense.  Seriously.  There is a real historic site called Fort Nonsense just a short drive from home!  What more perfect place for a crazy family like us to visit?!


Then the Bailey Summer Birthday Marathon commenced, starting with Sean's 33rd.

We were blessed to have a visit from Sean's parents at the end of July and beginning of August.

Paul was next, turning 6 the day after they left.  Look at the blue birthday cake icing mustache!

A week later, our family went on a 2800 mile road trip down to Georgia and Florida, with more grandparent bonding time.  We managed to visit both sets of grandparents, and also Sean's sister.  The kids traveled so well, and the trip was well worth every mile spent in the van!
The 8 of us plus Samantha's parents
Siblings!

Then just this week we had the double-whammy back-to-back birthdays of Leo, who turned 1, and Felix, who turned 3 the next day.
Already learning how to blow out candles!
(But he did need some help--shhh, don't tell him that!)

Felix doesn't put down his 99% finished apple cores until he is 100% done.
Not even for birthday cake!
After cake and playground time, we gave all the boys (except for still-mostly-bald Leo) a much-needed haircut.  And Felix got his very first haircut!  Now Felix looks so much like Leo!  Look at this photo of the two of them playing together--they look like twins:
You can tell which one is Felix by the ever-present apple in his hand.

Next month we will celebrate our one year anniversary of becoming a united family of 8.  I've never had a year feel simultaneously so short and so long.  That must be what happens when many major life changes are crammed into a short period of time.  Two new kids, a new home, new state, and new job all in just over four months.  We are finally emerging from survival mode, and it feels good!
Enjoying the last days of summer, the day Leo turned 1.

I will have to do another blog post soon about how Alexander has grown and developed since joining our family.  Stay tuned!