Overdue Blog Update

Wow. It has been a long time since I updated this blog. It has been a crazy fall that has included taking Michael to swimming and gymnastics, and many weekend (and weekday) trips to the cities. Most of what I'm writing here is also likely to be in the Christmas letter. So, those that receive it may feel a bit of deja vu.

I'll start off with the question I know most of you probably have: Any news with the adoption? No news, really. We continue to wait for our referral. The adoption agency recently increased the estimated wait time for referrals to 12 months. For us, that would be April. Basically, there has just been a huge increase in the number of agencies operating in Ethiopia. Originally, I had thought/hoped that we would be travelling to meet our 2nd little one by now. We will continue to wait patiently (or as patiently as we can).

For those of you who haven't heard, my mom broke her arm in early October. Since she has been in medical care, the Alzheimer's has caused us concern about going back to live alone. Her condition has been evaluated, and based on the recommendations from that, she will be moving to memory care assisted living about 10 minutes from us. I should have her new address in time for the Christmas letter for those who need it. Sorry, I just haven't had the time to call each one of you individually that I should have called. Can't seem to make the days last longer than 24 hours. Any family or friends that want more info, please feel free to call and I will give you an update.

Michael is just growing and growing. He recently graduated from the "eel" level of swimming. Hopefully we will get him going in Ray in January. Educationally, Michael is working on recognizing more letters, and writing the letters of his name in order. He enjoys his music class, too. We are currently figuring out the whole kindergarten thing. I never new there were so many decisions to make. And most kindergarten is only 2.5 hours a day, how much more complicated could they make it for childcare?

With President-elect Obama getting ready to take office, I am hopeful for the future. I am not referring to the economy or usual stuff. As we move forward as a nation with our first African-American President I have found myself pondering the progress we could make in valuing diversity in our country. I hope that when young children today grow up to be the first (on Mars or to cure cancer or whatever), that they will be simply the "first person".

Playing in the leaves..........