Our little boy is growing up...and what I did on my summer vacation 2009

The first step to growing up occurred today as Victor began KINDERGARTEN! Although he was old enough last year, we waited one year to allow him more time to adjust to his environment.

He understood that he was leaving the "little school" and starting the "big boy school" and he was excited about the transition.

We dropped him off this morning and he spent the day in school. After school he was picked up by the neighborhood Martial Arts Studios' van who took him to after school care and martial arts lessons.

All in all, an easy transition day and he seemed to enjoy himself.

The funny thing is that it is a combination elementary/middle school and that is our 13th straight year of attending this school. When Victor finishes middle school, we will have been at the school for 21 CONSECUTIVE YEARS!!

Here are some photos from his school.

Here are the big sisters also starting school today - both high schoolers - 9th and 12th grade (a SENIOR!).

Here is proof that Victor did good on his first day of kindergarten.

And here he is in his new crisp martial arts uniform - action photos will follow at a later date.

With the exception of the quick birthday post, we have been blog deficient this summer. We have had many visitors (family and friends alike), celebrated three kids' birthdays, started preparing for (gulp) college and the highlight of the summer which was our twelve day family vacation to California. Though volumes could be written about the trip we thought we would summarize it in a few pictures.

Days 1-4 - Yosemite National Park:

Days 5-7 - Los Angeles, Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure:

At California Adventure, they have big letters at the entrance that spell out CALIFORNIA. We took pictures of family members with their appropriate letter - as there is no "V" we had to improvise for Victor:

Day 8 - Legoland (a very fun park and perfect for Victor's age group):

Day 9-12 - San Diego - this is where the Clutes separated for a little bit - everyone but Gary went to the San Diego Zoo and Sea World.

And Gary spent a couple of days at Comic Con at the San Diego Convention Center -the largest gathering of all things geeky in movies, TV and comics. One 0f his highlights of the convention was being in the same room as Jack Bauer (from the TV show 24). A fun time for Gary but of course he missed the rest of the family for those couple of days.

Whew - a very fun and tiring trip but now life settles back in the routine of school and after school activities.

Happy 6th Birthday, Victor!

Today is Victor's 6th birthday and we chose to celebrate at that old birthday standby Chuck E. Cheese's! Here is a photo of our family at the party.

It's been a busy month and we recently returned from a 12 day vacation in California - a future post will show all the fun we had on our vacation.

But couldn't let the day pass without this shout-out to Victor.

Pre-K Graduation

Our boy is growing up. Victor has now entered the "real world" as he has graduated from Pre-K. OK, maybe entering the real world happens after your high school graduation but still this was a momentous event for a 5 year old.

The ceremony was held at Kindercare in the blazing Saturday morning Orlando sun. There was a family luau-themed party afterwards.

Here are some photos from the graduation:

Victor and us

Victor and his sisters


Victor and his teachers (Miss Nydia and Miss Raquel)



Although he "graduated" he will stay at Kindercare through the summer before Kindergarten starts n August 24.

It was a busy day as later that day we had Victor's final soccer game. He really enjoyed the season but did tire out towards the end. His team was small enough that all kids had to play the entire game which (again in the Orlando sun) sometimes was tiring. All in all, we would sign him up for soccer again.

Here are a couple pictures of Courtney in her fancy dress, at a friend's house, that she wore to the 8th Grade Social - her "graduation" in essence as she will be entering high school next year.

When Blogs Collide Part 3

As we have said before, one of the great benefits of living in Orlando is all the fun visitors we have especially when we can meet up with the wonderful people we have met through the adoption process and the blogs.

Last Sunday was our third such meeting when we met Sira, Cliff and Max for breakfast at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge for breakfast. It was nice to finally meet after learning about each others' shared experiences.

Sira and Cliff did a very nice thing for us when we were between our adoption trips (our first trip was in April 2007 and our second was in November 2007). They were able to keep us "in touch" with Victor when the took the picture below in their June 2007 trip to bring home Max. It was so nice to see a new picture of Victor (lobster shorts and all) while we waited to bring him home.


Now two years later and even though only a short time together, it was nice for Victor and Max to reunite. Here are some pictures from our visit.

So, who will be next to visit? How about we all have a big reunion some day in Orlando???

A SURPRISE Visitor!

When you meet people in life you never know when you will see each other again. For example, many of our friends are from the Buffalo area and we know some of them come to Florida often and we are able to catch up with them.

But after spending three weeks with our adoption agency (CHI) reps in Vladivostok in November 2007 we were not sure we would ever see them again due to the thousands of miles distance between us.

Well we were shocked to get a call from Yuri (who used to be the Russian Program Coordinator at CHI's main office in St. Louis) to let us know that the main rep, Irina, was going to be in Orlando! She and Natalia, the prosecutor who was in court during our adoption hearing, were going to CHI in St. Louis for some training and while in the US, Irina and Natalia decided to extend their vacation to 37 days and taking in many sights throughout the US and Canada (Las Vegas, Toronto and Niagara Falls were some of their stops).

Not very easy to get a visa out of Russia so they thought they would take advantage of this time to enjoy a vacation.

It was a great reunion for Victor and Irina. She could not believe how much Victor has changed from the last time she saw him. She cried for the first ten minutes as she was overjoyed to see one of "her children" living a happy life.

We met for dinner at Universal Citiwalk at Hard Rock Cafe (an American institution). It was fun to watch as Irina took picture after picture. We can only imagine how many pictures she will take after 37 days.

She said to say hello to all the families that we continue to stay in contact with through blogs. She wishes she could see everyone and felt bad that she cannot. For those of you who sent photos, she asked that we e-mail them to here so she can print them all when she gets back to Vlad (and we will do that for you).

Here are some pictures from our evening:


By the way, Happy Belated Mother's Day to all the mothers!

Skating, Swimming and Soccer

Victor has been busy lately with the "S" sports.

First, he went ice skating for the first time. He seemed to get the hang of it as can be seen from the pictures.

Then, even though he had some experience in our pool last summer, we thought it was wise to take swimming lessons at the YMCA. He is in a beginner class and after two weeks already seems more comfortable in the water and seems willing to swim on his own.

While signing up for swimming lessons, we noticed that they were starting a spring soccer league at the Y. Not too tough a schedule, one practice a week and one game on Saturdays ( for about eight weeks). He had his first game today. Very non-competitive but IF they were competitive, it is worth mentioning that his team WON THEIR FIRST GAME (2-0). Not bad considering they only had one practice.

Here is an action shot from his first practice:

And some action shots from his first game:


All in all, a good first game!!

Some of the kids have played before (he is on a 5/6 year old team) and Victor seems to be listening well as they rotate positions during the game.

More updates as the season progresses.

We'll leave you with a nice family photo from Easter- hope you had a nice Easter celebration!

Every Boy's Fantasy!

Hello everyone, time for some new updates.

If you remember from our Christmas entry, the kids got a Wii for a Christmas gift. Victor has been enjoying it and has really taken to the "Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga" Wii game. It features all six movies and told in a Lego perspective, pretty kid friendly.

And he knows the rule, unless he gets a "green face" at Kindercare he is not allowed to play it after school. He pretty much avoids "yellow" and the dreaded "red" face but occasionally one of those occur.

Anyways, he has gotten to know the Star Wars characters pretty well. So since the girls are on spring break this week we went to Hollywood Studios on Monday. One of the offerings they have is Jedi Training Academy where they pick kids from the audience to become a "Jedi Master" and face the ultimate Star Wars villain - Darth Vader!

Here are some shots of Victor in training and facing his new foe, along with a quick video:

Surprisingly, he was not afraid of Darth Vader and said he wants to go back so he can next fight Darth Maul!

Last weekend, we took our annual trip to Disney's Ft. Wilderness (not too big of a trip, only 20 minutes away). We stay in Disneyfied log cabins and enjoy biking, canoeing, horseback and general outdoor activities.

Here are some memories from the trip:

Pony Rides!



Canoeing!


Making Smores!



Eating Smores!

Texting! (wait, why is that happening on a camping trip????)

Next week, Victor will be taking swimming lessons at the YMCA in addition to starting his first team sport - SOCCER!! Look for some blogging on those events soon.....