A bunch of catching up to do

There are quite a few things happening over here!  I'm a fan of bullet points when there is a lot of information so here goes nothing:

• We had Anya's IEP last Monday.  She is a rock star.  Besides her rascally and stubborn ways she is a dream student.  She is such a smart cookie!  Now if she could just behave herself!!
• I went out of town last weekend!!  I still can't believe it!  It was so fun and relaxing.  I met Ellen in Wisconsin and we went to a retreat for moms of kids with special needs.  I got to meet some ladies that I knew on Facebook but had never met in person, and I made some new friends.  Larry and our respite provider (while he was at work) did an amazing job of holding down the fort here!

  

  All of us adopted from the same orphanage!  This was our first time meeting Gillian.  Ellen and I had a blast together!

• Anya turned 8 last week!  As you saw in my previous post, we got her a bike.  She also got tons of Elsa stuff and all of it sings.....all day....non stop......  Anya is a happy camper!  We, of course, went out for froyo to celebrate.  This girl could eat ice cream of any sort all day every day and never tire of it.  Even in an Elsa dress!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Mother's Day here was not good.  Larry works on Sundays and the gift he got me wasn't going to arrive by then so I declared that I was not celebrating that day.  Well I'm glad I had decided against it anyway because Oksana had a rough day and my house looked like a bomb hit it.  I spent my day dealing with her and cleaning.  Not how one wants to spend Mother's Day!  
• My gift did come a few days later!  Do you remember that I told you I had a friend who had to do a haiku with a picture for her photography class?  Well she did this amazing picture of me and Anya and wrote such a beautiful haiku that Larry had it put on a huge canvas for me!
  
  
  
  
• We also had an IEP meeting for Oksana.  She is being moved to a school for kids with severe emotional and behavioral problems.  It is 40 minutes from our house.  She will be transported there every morning and afternoon.  It isn't ideal but there was no school in the district that could handle her and also give her a decent education.  The very good news about this is that she has been accepted into their summer school program so she will go there 5 days a week from June 22-July 24.  That is a HUGE relief to me!
• We are still waiting on the state hospital to have an open bed for Oksana.  They have no discharges even planned right now.  I still call them weekly to give them an update.  Right now she isn't unsafe enough to go back to the local hospital but she also isn't well enough to be functioning in life.  It's a horrible middle ground.  She really needs to have an long term placement to figure this out.
• On that note, we have made a very difficult decision.  One that we never wanted to consider but we now have to.  We have chosen to go on vacation this year without Oksana.  She is barely making it at home and if we bring her away she will make it a very challenging trip for all of us.  We are going to sign her up for a fun summer camp that can handle her and her respite provider is going to come stay with her for the week.  She already knows and really doesn't even care.  This gives our other 3 kids the chance to decompress and have fun.  Sadly that is something they have rarely been able to do for awhile now.
• We have our NAMI walk team together and it looks like there will be 26 of us!  I am so thrilled!  I'll post pictures after it is over.

I think that pretty much sums it up.  I'm hoping to post more regularly now that I have that out of the way!