First Family Day Celebration

We had a lot of fun with Joel on our first Family Day celebration. When he is older, he will get to choose what he wants to do on this special day. Although he is getting quite vocal with what he wants in other areas, we decided the activities for the day this year.

Joel and I started the morning with pancakes--one star and one heart shape for him--dipped in apple butter. Yum! Then we headed out to a park by the river that Joel really likes. We took a short walk on the trail first. The trail happens to cross some railroad tracks which Joel spotted right away, since he hasn't ever seen train tracks that close. While we were walking back on the same path, the lights started flashing and the gates went down. Joel was thrilled to see a choo-choo so close and asked for more when the train was done. I guess it's pretty rare for trains to come through there at that time, so we lucked out. Then we walked down to the river and Joel spent quite a bit of time throwing rocks in the water, which he loves to do. A lady and her daughter were there at the same time, and the mother asked if Joel was from Korea. It turned out that her daughter was adopted from China. We talked for awhile and shared our stories. It was neat to meet someone touched by adoption while we were celebrating Joel's! After playing at the park, we went home for lunch and Joel took a very short nap.

Later in the afternoon, the three of us headed to the downtown area of a nearby city. First we went to the bookstore and got Joel a special book, Happy Adoption Day! by John McCutcheon. Joel's favorite part of the store? The escalator. He was fascinated by it!

We then walked to a new Asian restaurant, Kuma's. There is also a Kuma's in Rockford that we celebrated the Korean New Year at, so we were excited that this restaurant was opening near us. We saw the owner, Kuma, again and she gave Joel lots of love! It was interesting to talk with her. We enjoyed our edamame, bulgogi, dolsot bibimbap, kimchi, and side of Japanese radish (Joel was practically shoveling handfuls of this in his mouth). Delicious meal!


Next, we headed to a pool that is really more like a beach. They had a huge area of sand with toys, playsets, and little sand tables. Joel enjoyed the sand and playing with daddy in the water.

The last thing we did was a rare treat for Joel...ice cream! Well, it was actually frozen yogurt with strawberries from Red Mango, so I did feel a little better about giving him that. He loved it!

We had such a fun day celebrating Joel. He is the love of our lives and we can't imagine life without his smiling face and fun personality!