Memories

On Saturday, Jeannette, the girls and I had lunch with my mom. We were making small talk and I wondered which was larger in land mass, China or the US. (They're about even, if you are curious.)

After this, a few minutes later, out of the blue and for the first time, Jillian started talking about China. (I am so glad Jeannette recognized it for what it was and didn't just ignore it as random babbling...)

First she told us that her home was small and that there wasn't much food. She told us she was hungry and then said, "Very hungry." We didn't get much else out of her but it was fascinating to get a brief glimpse into her perception of her previous life. I was sad to hear that she felt hungry often  but glad to know that we might someday get to learn more about her life before us.

First Moments with Jillian

We traveled in China with Steve and Elizabeth as they adopted their son, Theo.  The other day, Steve sent me some photos that were on his camera, which included these from our first few seconds with Jillian, just before Theo walked into the room and changed their lives.  These are a lot better than what I already had so I thought I'd post them here.

Introducing Jillian to Christmas

Yesterday, we put up our Christmas tree so I was careful to catch a shot of Jillian hanging her very first Christmas ornament:

 

We really don't know what exposure she's had to Christmas, so I used Google Translate to try to give her a little info:  这是一个圣诞树。我们将装饰它。圣诞节是当我们庆祝耶稣的诞生。圣诞节是在三个星期。This is a Christmas tree.  We will decorate it.  Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  Christmas is in three weeks.

I also used Google Translate to have a little bit of a conversation with her.  We knew from her teacher and her demeanor this week that, for the first time, she was showing evidence of being homesick for China.  I asked her if she missed her family in China and she said yes.  I assured her that they loved her and that we love her, and that we'll be her family forever.  She has spent a lot of time with the video camera that I bought, watching videos from our time in China.  She still doesn't seem to be overly upset by these videos but rather just enjoys seeing them.  We feel pretty fortunate that our transition issues with Jillian have been so minor.

Volunteers at Jillian's Orphanage

Article About Shenzhen Volunteers

I learned about this article on an email list I'm part of.  It's from Shenzhen, China, and tells about volunteers who were honored for their work at our Jillian's orphanage.  I had heard long ago that President Obama's half-brother was associated with the orphanage, but it seemed far fetched.  This article confirms that he performs and teaches piano to the kids there!

The Garden Hotel in Guangzhou

In November 2012, we spent 14 nights in a deluxe room at The Garden Hotel in Guangzhou, China, as we adopted our second daughter.  While we were preparing for the trip, I kept wanting more info about our accommodations and it just wasn’t available so I thought I’d write up an overview and post a short video for adoptive families traveling in the future. 

The Garden Hotel is a 5-star hotel. I only saw the “deluxe rooms” so I can’t speak to the quality or layout of any other rooms.  I had the impression that most, if not all, of the adopting families were in deluxe rooms. When you enter your deluxe room, you are in a living area that has a flat-screen TV, two comfortable chairs and a loveseat, a small round table with two small stools, a large desk with a leather chair, and a cabinet that holds a small refrigerator, some glassware and teacups, and a pot for boiling water.  I was very surprised that they didn’t have a microwave.  I’d been counting on being able to pop popcorn or heat up some instant oatmeal.  The fridge is stocked with drinks and chocolate bars for purchase.  We shifted some around so that we could fit in drinks that we bought at 7-Eleven or Jusco.  When you first arrive, they’ll have three apples waiting for you. 

The hotel has free Wi-Fi, though it can run a bit slow.  You can request a free Ethernet cable, which apparently enhances speeds a lot.  Interestingly, the desk has some useful office supplies in the drawer (scissors, stapler, eraser, glue stick, ruler, etc.).   By the way, in case you don’t already know it, you probably won’t be able to access websites like Facebook, Hulu, Netflix and YouTube. 

Through the next door is the bedroom.  We had two “double beds.”  The room has a flat screen TV, two nightstands, each bed has two lights for reading, and there is a closet.  No dresser, which is kind of shocking.  This meant we had to live out of our suitcases for the two weeks.  I've been told, though, that the rooms with a king bed do have a small dresser. 
 

The closet holds a bathrobe, an iron and ironing board, umbrella, some shoeshine supplies, a box you can leave your shoes in to have them shined for free, and a small safe you can use at no charge for your valuables. You can call the service desk to request additional bathrobes.

As for the beds, anyone who has traveled in China knows that these actually are just a little wider than a twin bed and are very firm.  The ones at the Garden aren’t rock hard, though, and the pillows and bedding are very nice.  From the standpoint of an adoptive family, if I was traveling as a couple and adopting a younger child, I’d probably opt for one king size bed rather than the two beds.  In our case, there were four of us, two adults and two 7-year-olds, and we did pretty well by having the two adults share one bed and the two kids share the other.  You can request a rollaway bed but they do charge for this.  It’s my recollection that the cost is about $45 a night but we were there at a peak travel time and they quoted me a price of $120.  I’ve heard that some people will buy an air mattress to use.  The couch in the living area is too small for an adult to sleep on it comfortably.  I think they’ll provide a crib at no charge, but I’m not sure (and it’s a really nice crib . . . they brought one to us by accident).

The most unusual feature of the room is the bathroom.  As you walk into the bedroom, to the left is a large window that looks into a large jet tub and shower.  Never fear: There is a shade that can be lowered by a remote control for privacy.  The bathroom consists of three areas, which are separated from the bedroom by a pocket door. 

One room, as I just mentioned, includes this very nice big bathtub and right next to it is a shower.  Both the tub and the shower have a shower head on a flexible hose.  With a real young child, the tub may be too big and low to conveniently bathe him or her, I suppose.  In addition, there is a large shower head in the ceiling that gives a “rain shower” experience. I thought it was nice that you didn’t have to worry at all about splashing water outside the tub and so on at bath time. 

The second room is the toilet and then there’s a nice sink area. The toilet and bath/shower each have a frosted glass door.  The bathroom comes with a good supply of little travel supplies, including toothbrushes, sewing kits, razors, Q-tips, shampoo and conditioner.  They only provide you with two sets of towels and one additional bath towel, but you can call the service desk for more towels (as we did every single day).  There is a hair dryer and a lit make-up mirror on the wall.  We learned to use the make-up mirror light as a nightlight. 

You get two bottles of water every day because, of course, you cannot drink the tap water.  If you save your empty bottles for a couple of days, you can refill them using boiled water.  You can also walk down the street about three blocks to the Jusco store where you can buy some larger bottles of water. 

You can call the service center to ask for ice and, as far as we could tell, the ice was safe to use in drinks.  Oddly, they’ll first come to your door to get your ice bucket . . . but you don’t have one.  So they will then leave and bring you back a bucket full of ice.  When you call again, you’ll have an ice bucket they can take and use. 

Electrical:  There are electrical outlets that work for Western appliances, but not very many.  If you have a converter already, you might want to bring it with you just so you have one more place to plug things in.  Note that we found that none of the outlets would accommodate a curling iron, strangely enough. 

There are three phones: one in the living room, one in the bedroom and one by the toilet.  We unplugged the one by the beds so that it wouldn’t wake the kids up if someone called at an off hour. 

The options for television viewing are quite international, in addition to several Chinese state CCTV channels.  There are probably about a dozen English language channels, though they are not US networks. 

The room is actually very quiet.  We didn’t hear any noise from our neighbors, though when you went out in the hallway you could easily hear noises through the doors of other rooms.  The only noise we ever heard from another room was from above us when occasionally we might hear someone (a kid?) running or jumping, but even this was rare. 

You get a breakfast buffet each morning.  Technically, as we understand it, each room comes with two adult breakfasts and kids under 12 eat for free.  This is important because hotel policy is that additional breakfasts must be paid for and I think the regular price is almost $25.  At peak travel times, they raise the price to something like $45, if you can believe that!  In our experience, though, they don’t really check on this.  We would walk in as a group and show the greeter one of our room keys and they’d just seat us all.  After a day or two, we generally didn’t show anything when we arrived. 

The greeter will seat you upon your arrival at the restaurant.  If you are an adoptive family, they will seat you—almost without exception—in a back area of the restaurant, off the beaten path.  I’m not sure why they do this, whether it’s to hide the special needs children from other guests, or to control noise or because they think the families want to sit together.  On this last point, while it felt strange, maybe even insulting, to be shunted off to a special section, it actually was a very nice way to meet other families.  There's also some outdoor seating and you can ask for one of those tables.  (Smoking is allowed outdoors.)

The breakfast buffet is amazing.  Let me try to just spell out the different “areas” of the serving area:

·         Whole fruit (e.g., apples, oranges, bananas)

·         Juices (e.g., orange, tomato, apple, watermelon) and soy milk

·         Cut fruit – there was watermelon, dragon fruit and cantaloupe every day

·         A make-to-order omelet bar where they also serve up easy-over eggs

·         A buffet area where some items were there every day and some rotated out – bacon, scrambled eggs, hash brown patties, sausage, vegetables, rice noodles, dumplings, porridge

·         Waffles (not the best) and toppings

·         Noodle bar

·         Japanese bar with rice and pork

·         Breads and pastries

·         Four or five dry cereals and milk.

They also will serve you tea and coffee at your table. 

Our kids were waking up very early in the morning (think 5:30) so we often went to breakfast shortly after 6:00 and then went back again before the buffet closed at 10:00!  I tended to have a western breakfast first and then have more of an Asian meal the second time, with noodles or rice.

Just outside the restaurant is a large pond stocked with huge koi.  The girls loved to take two slices of bread out and feed the fish after breakfast every day. 

On the fourth floor, there is a fitness center and a pool.  The main pool is quite large and there is a smaller wading pool.  Beware:  They’re not heated!  There’s also a very small outdoor play set next to the pool area (it’s separated from the pools but you enter the same way) that should be a good diversion for children around four to five years of age.  On the sixth floor of the office tower, there is a small room (Room 654) with a very limited number of toys that might interest toddlers. 

If you stop by the concierge desk, they will loan you a very nice collapsible stroller that you can keep for the duration of your stay. 

There are a number of dining choices close by. If you leave the hotel and go left (west), you'll see Starbucks.  To the left of Starbucks and down the street a block or so (on Jiang She Liu Road) there is also a McDonald’s and Pizza Hut.  In the same little mall, just past those restaurants, there is a Malyasian and an Italian restaurant on the third floor.  If you keep walking down the street, you'll see Telekla, a pretty good Mexican restaurant, and go a little further to find another pizza place. 

Our favorite meal near The Garden Hotel was probably the Japanese Casual Restaurant on the 5^th floor of the Jusco store, near a Subway and a donut shop.  Communicating in English at the restaurant was a little challenging but it was so worth it when the food came. To get there, from the Starbucks just west of the hotel, turn right and then left on Huan Shi East Road, the big boulevard that runs in front of the hotel.  Go down about three blocks to the Jusco, which is a grocery store with a large variety of small shops that, at first glance, seem to be just one big department store. The grocery has some small containers of ice cream that taste like home at a reasonable price and is a good place to get bottled water and soft drinks.

There’s a metro (subway) station by the hotel.  The concierge desk has maps of the city and the metro system.  My point in mentioning the metro is that you can get to the other side of Huan Shi East Road by going down into the station and following the signs to the exit.  This takes you under the street and leads you to the other side.  Near the other station is the Friendship Store.  We found the Jusco to be more reasonably priced (less upscale) and much more convenient.  There are also some more restaurant choices over there, including a Burger King.  We tried the Häagen-Dazs (very good, but $5-$6 per scoop) and there’s also a Starbucks.  A little further away, there’s a KFC, but don’t be thinking that you’ll be able to get a bucket of original recipe . . . when I stopped in there, they had only three pieces of chicken in the place!  But they did have a lot of wings and sandwiches.  Next to the KFC is Trust Mart, which is sort of like Wal-Mart. 

The only truly bad meal we had was at Choi Kee Chinese Fast Food, to the east of the hotel on Teo Jin Road.

Behind the hotel, down Hua Le Road, there are some more restaurants and shops.  There is a pharmacy a block or two down that street as well.  You can also get some over the counter meds at Watson's, which is on the street in the same mall as McDonald's or next to the grocery on the fourth floor of the Friendship Store.

I’ve stayed at just two hotels in Guangzhou: The Garden Hotel and, six years ago, The China Hotel, a Marriott property.  Both are very nice.  There were probably four things that I liked better about The China Hotel. 

·         First, I felt like the front desk staff had a little better mastery of English, though Garden staff did a fine job generally. 

·         Second, it was located just a short distance from Yuexiu Park, the largest park in downtown Guangzhou.  This was a huge bonus for us as a family traveling with children, since it gave us lots to explore and do very conveniently.  The closest park to The Garden Hotel is Martyr’s Park, which is a fairly challenging walk with young ones, perhaps a mile, and isn’t as nice as Yuexiu. 

·         Third, as I recall, the dining options in the hotel itself were a little more economical.  It seemed that the restaurants in The Garden Hotel were very expensive.

·         Fourth, the lobby had an array of couches and tables, making it a very comfortable place to sit while you worked online or waited for others in your group to arrive.  The Garden Hotel’s lobby is beautiful but it’s just a huge granite room with almost no place to sit down. 

 

It also seemed to me that there was more "touristy" types of shopping--souvenir types of things that you can dicker over--near The China Hotel than near The Garden, but that may have changed in the last six years. 

If you have to stay in any hotel for a week or two, The Garden Hotel is probably as comfortable a choice as any and, except for the small beds, the deluxe rooms are a good setting as you adjust to a new family member, because there’s just a little more floor space that gives you room to spread out.  In fact, the small, hard beds are the only thing that (by Western standards) keep this from being an ultimate lodging experience. 

Baby Steps

Yesterday and today were good days, celebrating Thanksgiving with both sides of the family.  What made them particularly good is the fact that our girls' sibling rivalry--primarily Melody toward Jillian--seemed to ease off a bit.  This is such a relief as it was totally draining to have to try to balance every little action, word and favor out . . . and even then there were many meltdowns.  We're still tired--Jillian can be pretty demanding of our attention, especially Jeannette's--but it felt today like we have begun to get a glimpse of how things can be and should be.  

Sisters

Two videos from Jillian's first night with us, before the sibling rivalry began to kick in.  In the first, Melody is introducing her to the joys of blowing bubbles.  In the second, she's giving Jillian a manicure while Jillian plays with some modeling clay.  At the end, you can hear me saying "I love you" in Chinese to Jillian . . . and Jillian saying the same thing back to me.

 

 

Bilingual Baby

On Monday, November 5th, we received Jillian.  Less than an hour and a half later, she was in our hotel room and watching MelodyJoy play with the dry erase board.  She reached for the board and, lo and behold, we discovered that our little Chinese girl was able to write her alphabet in English.

Three Days Down, A Lifetime to Go

Well, we've completed three full days at home with Jillian.  So far, so good.  We definitely have a long road ahead of us, but there are a lot of good signs.

Jillian seems comfortable at home and has made a good connection with her brothers, especially Jordan maybe.  There's a lot that is new for her, obviously, from sinks that are too high to reach to lasagna for dinner, from grey rainy weather to the whole concept of roughhousing.  I feel so bad for her, because she simply can't communicate well with us.  Sure, it's hard for us, too, but it's definitely not the same.  There's no one in this house she can talk to.  Fortunately, she doesn't seem anxious and she's remarkably capable of figuring out what we're saying.  We're making good use of Google Translate from time to time as well!

This morning we took her to visit her new school (Ben Franklin Elementary) and, man, was that a blessing.  The principal, Mrs. Dilley, once again struck me as being totally student-centered and having a big heart for Jillian.  Jillian's special needs didn't throw her off at all.  We met the school psychologist, who seems great, and then got to take Jillian down to her classroom to meet Miss Hu, her teacher.  Fortunately, the class was out for PE so Miss Hu was able to take five or even ten minutes to really focus on Jillian.  She showed her the entire classroom, asked her questions, told her about how things work . . . all in Chinese.  It brought tears to my eyes to think about how comforting it must be to Jillian to see this fantastic facility and know that she has a caring teacher who can communicate with her in her own language.  She starts school on Monday.

Jeannette and I are still struggling a bit to get on a good sleep schedule.  We fall asleep during the day and can get to sleep right away at night but then have long periods of time in the night when we can't sleep.  Melody has not been feeling well so that's been an issue, too, as she's been dealing with a fever.  We're hoping she's over it now, though.

Our First Moments with Jillian

I wasn't able to post any video while in China but now I'll add some videos from our trip over the next day or two or three.  This is a clip from our first few seconds meeting Jillian on November 5th at the civil affairs office in Guangzhou.  Things were fairly crazy, with several dozen moms and dads there to meet their new sons and daughters.  Despite the chaos, you can see that she came in with a smile and was actually pretty calm as her whole life got turned upside down.  You can tell that Jillian's foster parents and teachers did a great job of preparing her for this moment.

Welcome Home!

Jillian's very first plane ride, from Guangzhou to Beijing!  

Note how she got ripped off:  A window seat with no window at all!  

We were sitting on airplanes for about sixteen hours.

A big smile from our new United States citizen, waiting in immigration in Seattle.

Five of a kind!  Jillian meets her new brothers for the first time at PDX.  

She already knew who they were from the photo book we mailed her last month.

Two exhausted girls ready for bedtime in Jillian's new bed.  

You should have seen Jillian's big smile as we introduced her to her new home and bedroom.

She's Brilliant, Brilliant I Say!

Okay, last night I wrote, “Jeannette even wondered aloud if she might not be ready for school yet.  Less than two hours later, she wondered aloud if Jillian might be ready for a regular public school.  The truth is somewhere in between, probably.  . . .  But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

Last night, Melody was writing on a small dry erase board.  Jillian wanted a turn.  First, she drew a small triangle, but she erased it right away . . . and wrote an A, then a B, then a C.  I’m not sure where she would have gone from there, but Melody began writing subsequent letters and Jillian also wrote them along with her.  Jeannette wondered if perhaps Jillian knew her English alphabet but not the Chinese characters.

Elsie, our guide, talked with Jillian today and figured out that she can read some simple Chinese words.  In addition, we were incredibly blessed yesterday to get a “Half the Sky” scrapbook with pictures and commentary (in Chinese) of Jillian’s entire life!  Half the Sky is a foundation that seeks to improve the lives of children in China’s orphanages and one thing they often do is document these kids’ lives so that their early history isn’t lost.  In this case, one of the things we got to see was a picture of Jillian writing her characters.

This photo is of her writing the ABC’s at our “adoption appointment notary” appointment today, where we finalized the adoption, promising “never to maltreat or abandon” Jillian.

Another example of how sharp she is came last night when we got on the elevator.  We are on the 15th floor and wanted to go to the 13thfloor.  She wanted to push the button.  Melody beat her to it but it didn’t work, so Jillian moved to the other panel of buttons and, either from memory or from hearing Jeannette say “13” remembered to reach for and push the button for the 13th floor.

She is very quick to pick things up and seems quite self-aware.  We also saw some hints today that she is rather competitive and might be a bit of a stinker.  She and Melody are getting along great but earlier today she managed to get the room key away from Jeannette before Melody could ask for it and then raced to the door to open it.  Melody wasn’t too happy about that!

This morning, Jillian got to talk to her brothers for the first time, using QQ.  QQ is kind of like Facebook and Skype.  It was great to see the kids interact and Phil even got to show her her new bedroom.  She seemed excited to see it.  She had been introduced to it in the photobook we sent a few weeks ago, so I think she understood what she was seeing.

After a trip to McDonalds, the girls visited the swimming pool and little play area.  We suspect it was Jillian’s first trip to a big pool, but we can’t know for sure.  She is a strong little girl.  She may be scrawny but she’s got muscle and determination.  She’s going to need it!

One Year Ago

Exactly one year ago today--October 29, 2011--Jeannette casually (carelessly perhaps) asked if we should revisit the idea of adopting again.  One year ago.  We had just finished telling our story of adopting Melody, at an AWAA adoption seminar in Vancouver. 

I can tell from archived emails that by November 1st I was in touch with WACAP and on November 22 we received our first detailed information about Jillian.  On December 11th, we submitted our application to adopt her. 

Time flies. 

Sweetness

I'm not sure you can read what is written in this photo this very well but I had to post it here. A few days ago, Melody grabbed one of our new pictures of Jillian and a piece of paper.  On the scrap of paper, she wrote, "This is your home" and added a heart with "love" inside, then she taped it to the photo and hung it on their bedroom door. 

News about our Fundraiser

I just got an amazing email from the folks at Both Hands and Lifesong for Orphans. Our fundraising project--working on a widow's home a little over two weeks ago--has raised $10,271! And more gifts are still trickling in! Thank you to everyone who helped, who gave, who prayed. There are pictures and a video of our workday in previous posts here.

Jillian and the Big, Big Wolf

First of all, it's worth noting that this is my 900th post on this blog.  That seems like some sort of milestone, so I thought I should have something of significance to write about.  Since it seems like everything right now revolves around our adoption of Jillian, let me give you the info that we received about two weeks ago from her orphanage.

It's often hard to know if you're getting 100% accurate information in these situations.  In some cases, the orphanage may tell you what they think you want to hear.  We have little choice, though, but to take things at face value. 

As you might have guessed from looking at the photos I posted recently, Jillian is very slight.  Apparently she weighs just 33 pounds and is only three and a half feet tall, even though she is almost seven years old. Jeannette says she has kids in her pre-kindergarten class who are bigger than this.  In a way, this may be a blessing since we plan to start Jillian in kindergarten and so even though she's older than the other students, she will likely fit in size-wise.

We were extremely curious to know whether they were going to tell her about the adoption in advance.  (We thought they would, but wondered how far ahead of time they would do so.)  It was encouraging to hear that "She received the family’s package and was very happy. She knew she would be adopted by an American family a few months ago."  So, she has seen the picture book we sent her and at least has some vague idea of what is ahead. At the very least, she has to be aware that life is about the change very dramatically for her!  They told us, "She is very willing to be adopted."  That's great, though we also know that she probably can't comprehend what is really going to happen.

Jillian is in a foster family.  We have heard that they will often remove the child from the foster family about two weeks in advance of the adoption, so we were curious to know what they planned to do with Jillian.  We were told that, "Where she lives is only 300 meters from the institute and she comes for kindergarten every day. We can make the arrangement if the adopting family wants her be moved back to the institute."  We've decided not to give any instructions to them and just trust that things will play out for the best. 

Finally, they told us that her favorite TV show is "Happy Goat" and "Grey Wolf."   I did a little checking around and learned that this is Xi Yang Yang Hui Tai Lang, which apparently is translated "Pleasant Goat and the Big Big Wolf."  Not familiar with this show? 

Apparently it's extremely popular in China, with more than 500 episodes produced and many children wearing Happy Goat clothing.  Someone in a Yahoo group that I've joined said it's kind of like Hello Kitty Meets Wiley Coyote. 

Gotta love it.

New Pictures of Jillian - One Month Countdown

One month from today, we will meet Jillian for the first time and she'll join our family, Lord willing. We got five updated pictures of Jillian earlier this week. I'm guessing they were taken less than two weeks ago and are very current.

Sigh . . . if only she were a happy child . . .

We also were told that they informed her a few months ago that she is being adopted by an American family, that she has received our care package (including the photobook we made for her) and that she is looking forward to being adopted. 

World Premiere Video Here!

Here it finally is . . . a video slideshow of our big Both Hands adoption fundraising project from Saturday.  And catch this:  It features four brand new pictures of Jillian that we received just today.  They were taken last week.  We also got some updated info about her that was very encouraging and I'll share some of that here on the blog in the next day or so.  One month for today, we depart for China!

It's Done!

Saturday was our big Both Hands project and it was a fine success.  The weather was perfect, we had an awesome team that worked long and hard, and I think it turned out very well.  I will post only a few photos here because soon I'll be able to put up a video that shows the project more completely.  To everyone who helped, I don't think we can say thank you loud enough or often enough.  We appreciate your sacrifice!

An Early Start

As I mentioned before, we are doing a Both Hands project to raise funds for our adoption expenses. You can learn more at http://palmersworld.blogspot.com/2012/08/bringing-orphan-home-by-serving-widow.html or www.bothhands.org/muntz. To put it concisely, a team of volunteers has joined us in fixing up a widow's house and we are seeking sponsors for our day of work with all donations going toward Jillian's adoption.  Our workday is this Saturday but we decided to get an early start this afternoon.  My sister and her husband came down from Seattle to help Jeannette, Jordan and me.

 This is a picture from a few weeks ago, just to give a "before" look at the back porch:

Today, we cleared all the junk out from behind the shed.  We hauled off almost two pick-up loads of garbage and yard waste.

Jamey power washed the driveway and the whole house to prepare for repainting the trim and eaves, and to clean up the siding that we won't be painting.

Jordan took down the house numbers so that we can replace them with something a little more stylish . . .

So we got a good start but Saturday is the big day.  We're expecting to have about two dozen folks working on spreading bark chips, weeding, painting, reroofing the shed and more.  Wilma's very excited!