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Hooray Dzintars got himself out of bed this morning. No chainsaw necessary!!! That's improvement baby! Last night I laid down the law via Google translate that we could no longer spend a full hour trying to coax him out of bed in the morning. He was going to need to do it on his own or miss out on activities. I could have put a stop to this long ago, but I could tell part of the "draw" for him was the attention he was getting and seeing as how he's gone a lifetime with little to no special attention I decided to let it play out for the last week or so. I could tell he enjoyed our little "game" and having Brennan and Kaelyn and I all clamoring to wake him up each morning. Once I explained that it was making us late for our activities and I just didn't have time for it anymore he was on board. I told him he'd have to be up by 9 am this morning, fully expecting "day one" to not go so well. Even as I was setting his alarm, he was saying "No Stacey!" and pretending to whine, but he was up and out of his room at 8:50!!! Love that kid!!! We have yet to set a rule that he hasn't obeyed.
Dzintars had swim lesson number two this morning. Stephany spent most of their time trying to help him get over his fear of the deep areas of the pool. The pool that he has lessons in is shallow at both ends but deep in the middle. Every time she tries to get him to swim the length of the pool he gets so scared in the middle that he starts to panic and therefore sink! She suited him up with some pool noodles for added buoyancy and had him going back and forth. I could see him throwing looks my way that clearly said "Seriously Stacey! Are you really going to let her make me do this?" Yes, buddy I am!.
He was concentrating so hard today this was one of the only smiles I saw the entire lesson. But once he was out of the pool he said that swimming lessons were good and gave me a thumbs up! Guess he didn't mind the challenge that much! His desire to swim outweighs his fear!
I've learned in the past two weeks that hosting a teenage boy during the summer months equals lots of sweating for this momma! I've challenged the boys to soccer matches and played lots of baseball and today we decided to conquer the mountain! Who cares that it was the middle of the day and unreasonably humid? We just role with it here! So up the canyon we went:) We had a great time, in fact, despite the fact that I was sweating buckets minutes after stepping out of the car, Dzintars who normally is super sensitive to the heat didn't complain once. In fact, he told me he wasn't hot at all! I told him it was about a mile from where we parked to the top and he explained that in Latvian he runs 2 km, I believe it cause the kid could have seriously left me in the dust!!
Hooray we made it to the waterfall and BONUS there was actually waterFALLING:)
He really liked the scenery and kept asking me to stop and take his picture.
LOVE this one! Anyone want to hire a Latvian model???
Hiking in the heat of day will earn you your first ever Slurpee. When I asked to take his picture this is how he chose to pose! I think he learned something from the mini-photoshoot he had last week with Amber Katrina Photography.
Friday night = street fair fun if you are a Maljian. Most Friday nights we head downtown and eat at one of the many restuarants on the main drag. Tonight we decided to take Dzintars to his first ever Mexican restaurant. While other host kids have had a hard time adjusting to American food, we have yet to find something that Dzintars would not eat...until tonight:) He'd never even heard of a taco or a burriot (in fact they don't even translate into Latvian). While I made some suggestions, he asked if there were french fries, I told him no and we settled on a bean and cheese burrito. It was then that I noticed not only did they have french fries on the menu but also cheeseburgers. I gave him the option of ordering a burger or sticking with the burrito, he decided to try the burrito but get a side of fries. He liked his rice quite a bit and ate about half his burrito before telling me he didn't really like it. I offered him one of my carne asada soft tacos to try (he likes steak so I figured it would safe) he ate half of that as well before telling me he didn't really like that either and dug in to his fries!! The food in Latvia is rather bland, especially in the orphanages where money is tight, so I think Mexican food was a tad too flavorful for him. But he gets major props for trying everything!!
Smiling with his plate full of Mexican food.
The "Bubble Guy" showed him some new tricks tonight...
Including this bubble rainbow.
Clowning around on "Samson" the bear.
Dzintars has now tried all the activities available at the street fair (obstacle course bounce house, petting zoo and the pony rides) and he chose his first "repeat" activity tonight, the ponies during which I saw him get ridiculed by other kids, you can read my thoughts on that by clicking here .
Then the two munchkins and I headed home while the big boys had a "man night" and saw Spiderman in 3D!
The boys just walked in from the movie. Dzintars is grinning from ear to ear! He LOVED it! We only took one car down to the street fair so the boys had to walk all the way home. Peter says Dzintars was re-enacting the movie all the way home. Apparently the fact that Spiderman's real name is Peter Parker and his lady friend's name was Gwen Stacey had him connecting the film to Peter and I:) He found that quite funny is still giggling about it and translating the story line for me on Google translate. I think "man night" was a hit!!
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