Photo Perspective

The kids and I were reading back through this blog today and having a blast remembering all the events of the past.  I think I'd like to restart the journaling here for just that purpose.  If I can ever manage to start scrapbooking again, I'll have the stories already written.

So to start, here's a picture of Gus who fell asleep while waiting for Miah to dance with her.  She was all dressed up in white before he even got home from school.  "Mom, when Miah comes home, he's going to dance with me, but first I have to teach him the moves!"  Poor Miah only had homework and Star Wars on his mind, so dancing is not on his radar at all.  Eventually he relented knowing how much it meant to his little sister, and he did a little twirling and spinning dance around the living room.

The team going to Ecuador with us has set up a blog to journal our trip. Please follow us there, and thank you so much for praying for us.

I've been feeling much better after my collision with Remicade (an I.V. med for Crohn's disease) that landed me in the hospital for a few days. The medicines I was on after the hospitalization made me terribly tired, emotional, and all out-of-sorts. It was so bad that I earned a new t-shirt that states, "I am confused . . . no wait, maybe not."

So in light of all of that, I was hesitant to get very excited about our trip just in case God was making it clear that we shouldn't be going. But now, I'm off all the yucky medicines. I've got energy and motivation to DO things. And I'm letting myself get excited that our trip is only 4 days away!!

We've prepared crafts for our VBS, tie dyed our team shirts, split up all the supplies we are taking down, and been handed our final itineraries. Tomorrow we have our send-off during church - wearing our tie dye shirts. :-)

In an attempt to be able to do some off-line editing of the blog for the Ecuador trip, I'm testing out MarsEdit. This is just a test . . .

We had a special visitor tonight. I'm torn at what to call him since none of the typical names seem to fit exactly. He is Meister's biological dad, but he was also there for his birth. He is Meister's birth dad, but he was there for him more than just birth. He is Meister's first dad, but that implies that now that there is a second dad, he isn't his dad at all anymore. Our other kids call him Uncle K*, so Meister has taken to calling him Uncle K, too.

Uncle K came to visit for the first time since Meister was adopted 2.5 years ago. The first picture below brings tears to my eyes. I love both of these guys. One as a brother, and one as a son. I desperately want the best for both of them, and yet we had to make a tough choice 2.5 years ago. I never dreamed that reconciliation after that choice would be made so quickly. I imagined Meister going through life wondering what ever happened to Uncle K, wondering if he ever thought about him, wondering if he ever cared, and basically feeling abandoned.

And, yet, here we are while Meister is still fairly young and amazingly Uncle K is back in his life. Meister responded so appropriately - little timid at first, but warmed up and obviously held some tenderness in his heart for Uncle K. He was deliberately re-anchoring himself in our family unit by coming back to Pete and I for cuddles and by intentionally using our names (Mom and Dad) often.

So now Meister doesn't have to wonder if Uncle K ever cared. I can put pictures like these in his scrapbook, and he can know that he is special and cared for.


Not that this visit changes anything for Meister on a daily basis - Uncle K will probably not be around much, and life will go on as normal for Meister. But at the same time, visits like this will make a huge difference for Meister as he grows up.