The tri-annual catch-up post

All of us in Tualatin, Oregon

 Well hello there! In keeping with my blog tradition, it has been years since my last post. I thought I ought to dust off this old thing in order to be able to post about our current big thing: adopting a daughter from Wuhan, Hubei, China.

 Our daughter is beautiful, smiling for her foster family in her pictures like the well loved child she is. We were given a video of her at barely a year trying to sit on a plastic horse, and pictures of her at 1 1/2 walking gleefully outdoors in a thick pink matching outfit. She was born with digestive tract malformations that caused her to need surgeries at the age of just a few days old. We haven't even met her, yet I ache thinking of her family having to relinquish her, whatever the circumstances.

Isaac in Florida

China Special Needs was not the first adoption program we tried. We nearly adopted a relative from foster care about 6 years ago, but the timing fell apart as Isaac made an appearance instead. We also signed on with a domestic agency for a while, then a local attorney, all of which netted us zero and made me feel we were competing with infertile couples, to be honest.

A friend recommended in January of 2013 we look again at international, and Holt's programs in particular. Our daughter was actually born right around that time! For those who might be adoption savvy, we now have our i800 approval and are waiting on Article 5 and Travel Approval. If my extensive googling is correct, we might be on a plane in the next 6 to 8 weeks.

 A quick run-down of the rest of our family life:

We are now fully committed homeschooling weirdos. We do Classical Conversations, a homeschool community, once a week during the school year and tons of stuff related to our family's travels and interests. It is great, and Toby who is 8 now loves reading so much we had to make a rule about closing books whenever one is walking about. (He came a bit late to reading and then took it in all at once, so I am still a bit in awe of the development.)

Isaac's Homeschool Group

J is working in law but has experimented with two different jobs since last we spoke, including toying with starting his own firm. His current position seems the perfect balance of freedom and income. He can do the work just about anywhere and it is nice to find a firm that is okay with that.

J and I started running about a year ago and ramped it up when we decided to start scuba diving. We did a 10k in January and the Vancouver USA Half Marathon last month. I thought I didn't like races (I am double-digit-minutes-per-mile slow and am about 30% overweight still) but was surprised how much I liked it. My dad, a long-time Marathon and ultra-Marathon runner, has been a great source of training advice/info and did the half with us. It was on father's day; perfect!

I'm still running a small music academy and performing. Today we're heading to the Oregon coast for a chamber music festival where I get to play Brahms and Schubert. Also Hummel, but I'm not sure yet whether that piece falls in the "get to" or "have to" category... That's all the news that's fit to blog for now. I plan to update with adoption news in particular, but I've made blog promises before...

Toby and Isaac at an old tungsten mine in Montana

Hope to see you around here soon!