Week in review - 1st week back home

Apologies for the lag time between posts... As most of you know by now, we did make the long trek home safely and only slightly worse for wear. Traveling half way around the world is difficult enough on its own, then you add Zoe into the mix and well you have... one extremely long (27 hours) & challenging day.

Since we got home thing's have actually gone better than we had expected. The jet lag was a little rough the first 3 days, except for Zoe who instantly transitioned to Colorado time.

• Avery started Kindergarten on Tuesday (Sept 2nd). He was a little apprehensive the night before, but exuded confidence the next morning. He says his teacher is super nice and that recess & gym are his favorites. His homework consists of 20 minutes of family reading every day plus one additional 'activity' (e.g., make a list of items that are blue, explain the class rules to your family). Mike snapped a couple of pics of Avery in his uniform this week and will hopefully add them to this post later.
  
• Mike went back to work Wednesday.
• Mom & Zoe are developing a routine - wake up with the boys to get Dad & Avery off to work & school on time, eat breakfast, play, snack, play, lunch, nap, pick up Avery from school, run some sort of errand, kids play while Mom makes dinner, and then Dad comes home. (Mom needs to insert her workout into this routine.)
  
• Avery is moving up from Tiger Cubs to Kid Kickers in his martial arts program.
  
• Zoe is adjusting well. She's still a Mama's girl, but I'm also the one she's with almost constantly. She adores her big brother, which has come in handy at times (e.g., Avery likes eating apples so now Zoe likes eating apples). For the most part Avery plays along, although there are times when he is clearly annoyed with her (as I suppose all good siblings experience). She continues to be a good sleeper, although she takes a little soothing to go down quietly. Her first English word was "book book", which she started saying while we were still in China. She has since added "Mom" to her vocabulary. She also uses the Chinese words for Dad (ba ba) and big brother (ge ge) somewhat regularly. We're working on "hi" (which she will say on rare occassions usually to herself) and "bye bye". She does have the wave down. At home, she'll wave to you as she walks out of the room, however, in public she usually waves about 5 minutes too late.
  
• Mike's looking forward to Chicago Bears football (although not necessarily the game against the Colts Sunday night). Needless to say the kids will be sporting the team colors every game day for the next several months. Go Bears!!!