Well, after all the waiting, paperwork, and waiting we now have official travel dates. We will leave here March 21st, get to Beijing on the 22nd. We are supposed to pick up Kai on Sunday the 23rd! We have to wait in Beijing for a bit of time and on Wednesday we fly to Guangzhou and should meet Kade the next day. Then more paperwork/waiting and we fly back on April 4th.
We made flight reservations and are negotiating hotels right now. We learned a bit from our last trip and are looking for a few things in particular about the hotel (Beijing is cold so hopefully an indoor pool? Hong Kong is crazy so hopefully something close to the airport?). I think most people have heard about the smog in Beijing (which was outrageous last time, but has gotten so much worse). We decided to opt out of any of the tours there so that we could a.) start bonding without trying to keep up with a group and b.) protect Kellin's (and all of our) lungs. We might ask for a shopping trip as there are a few things that we would look for now that we did not know to keep an eye out for before.
So other than packing the last of the bags and making sure things are settled here for a bit, I think we are on the home stretch. I, for one, and looking forward to being home and slowing down for a while. You know, just me, Keely, six kids, two dogs, three fish...
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
We have consulate dates!
Today was another big day in the 'let's get this thing moving' part of the story. We now have our consulate date appointment which dictates the window for our travel!
We will officially adopt the boys on April 2nd. We will travel a couple of weeks before that, meet Kai first, fly south and meet Kade shortly after we get to Guangzhou. A week or so there and then home to Florida! Now all we have to do is book the travel...ok and finish packing, make the trip, fill out more incomprehensible paperwork .... but things are ticking down. There is all kinds of excitement in our house tonight!
We will officially adopt the boys on April 2nd. We will travel a couple of weeks before that, meet Kai first, fly south and meet Kade shortly after we get to Guangzhou. A week or so there and then home to Florida! Now all we have to do is book the travel...ok and finish packing, make the trip, fill out more incomprehensible paperwork .... but things are ticking down. There is all kinds of excitement in our house tonight!
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| From far away and into our hearts...and home! |
Saturday, February 22, 2014
We Have Travel!!!
It's amazing to me how a day can take such a turn. Thursday was a nice, normal day. Keely and the kids did school and were heading to the park. I had some extra meetings so I was late meeting them. Right before I left, I checked my email to make sure I was not missing things and ... BAM... there it was. Travel approval! Suddenly the day was a different day.
The thing is, now we had a pretty good time frame for the next steps. It means that we are done with the paperwork. Now we had to look at consulate dates. To do this, we needed to coordinate with the travel agency to double check tickets. Oh - people keep talking about 'trade fair'. What is that? Oh, you mean hotel prices are likely to double? Tomb-Sweeping? Yes, Kenley and Kellin have studied that in class. Oh, you mean it might be really hard to get a plane ticket? Where should we fly out of on the outbound? Atlanta? Tampa? Orlando? Tally? What about the return? Guangzhou? Hong Kong? You get the picture. All of this was to pick our top five consulate dates. On one of these days we will officially be the boys' parents in the eyes of the Chinese government.
I remember this day with Karwen. We were already a family. In many ways it was just another round of paperwork. But we were in a room full of new parents and families. Joyful confusion!
They take everyone's family portrait as you come down the stairs:
The thing is, now we had a pretty good time frame for the next steps. It means that we are done with the paperwork. Now we had to look at consulate dates. To do this, we needed to coordinate with the travel agency to double check tickets. Oh - people keep talking about 'trade fair'. What is that? Oh, you mean hotel prices are likely to double? Tomb-Sweeping? Yes, Kenley and Kellin have studied that in class. Oh, you mean it might be really hard to get a plane ticket? Where should we fly out of on the outbound? Atlanta? Tampa? Orlando? Tally? What about the return? Guangzhou? Hong Kong? You get the picture. All of this was to pick our top five consulate dates. On one of these days we will officially be the boys' parents in the eyes of the Chinese government.
I remember this day with Karwen. We were already a family. In many ways it was just another round of paperwork. But we were in a room full of new parents and families. Joyful confusion!
They take everyone's family portrait as you come down the stairs:
To us, this really looks like the beginning of our new family!
So now we have travel approval. We will know in a few days when we will leave. We are using the same travel service and have our fingers crossed that we will have some of the same guides. I have been amazed at how important our guides have been in our lives. We have not had any contact with them since we left (other than sending a thank you email and pictures) but they are still in our family conversations. It reminds one that you can make a huge impact in someone's life and you may never truly know what a difference you made.
What we've been up to...
One of the things about adoption is that the days are pretty much normal, except that you continue with lots of paperwork and constantly think about and work for the children that are here and those that are very far away. It is a very strange, surreal time. We get up and do what we usually do. We do schoolwork and activities and errands. We celebrate birthdays and work our way through colds. All of the time, though, there are thoughts of our boys. What are they doing? Do they have colds? Are they cold? It has been freezing in Beijing! Constant prayers that they, and all of the children who haven't found their families, are safe and warm and well. And then there are the rules. Different rules for each orphanage. We are allowed to request updates from both places but only Kade's orphanage allows care packages. We have grown some since our last journey and can begin to see some possible reasons for this rule. So, we just go with the flow. The end result is that we were able to send Kade a package for Chinese New Year! Families traditionally give their children new clothes to begin the new year and he has a new outfit from his new family! Included was a camera to help us know about his days without us. We were also able to send a letter telling him about us. The rest is out of our hands. We know that it got to where he is. We won't know if he received it or what he was told about it. We have one for Kai but it will have to stay with us and we will deliver it by hand!
Beyond this, the paperwork lately has been our Visa applications which we have received! We now have passports, visas and the boys bags are packed! This part of the journey is drawing to a close.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
New Years...a bit late
So we started with good intentions, but this blog has taken a bit of a backseat. On top of that we read a post from our agency with warning to the adoptive community at large that open, public information about your children can create a lot of difficulties, until they ARE you children and you are home. The recommendation was to use email only, or password protected posts to share information. Rather than overwhelm everyone with emails (as sporadic as they might be!), we decided to make the posts private. Now we just need to send an invitation letter and all who wish to follow will be able to.
Briefly, we have been finishing our Chinese New Year's cleaning - and we are really doing it properly! Almost everything has been moved, washed, dusted, straightened, simplified... and I have to say it is a very good feeling. We are down to a few more rooms to finish and then it will feel sooo much better!
The adoption is proceeding. We are working on visa paperwork right now under the assumption that the entire Krewe will be going. Imagine all of us in China wandering around! Pretty memorable. We think about the boys constantly and are really ready to make the next step and actually meet them!
This brings me to the motivating factor in a new post. We follow a wonderful story by Annie (http://cornbreadandchopsticks.blogspot.com/ ) that has meant a lot to our family. She recently cross posted a very moving, very (capital T) true, post that I wanted to share. I will leave it at that and pick this up later on.
10 Things You Wish You Knew About Older Child Adoption: By Selena Bergey
1. You will fall in love with a picture and a child a world away, and you will lay awake at night, thinking of this child and wondering about the days, months, years that you have missed. You’ll wonder if you will ever truly be “Mommy” and if your love will fill the void of an empty heart. An ache will fill you down deep in your soul and it will become your necessary strength for this journey.
2. You will try to share this crazy, incredible adoption experience with your closest friends and loved ones and find their blank stares and “Are you completely crazy?” comments unnerving. They won’t get it, and that’s okay, because you know in your soul that you are this child’s mother and you will give up trying to explain it to everyone.
3. Your “Gotcha Day” might not be filled with cute pictures you can’t wait to post on the internet of you and your new child. In fact, the hand-over will be quick, the paperwork a blur, the guide will pat your back and say, “See you tomorrow!” and you will find yourself in a quiet hotel room, alone, with a child whom you loved from afar but cannot even begin to communicate with. The newness and shock will wear off within a day or two and then reality will set in, for both you AND your child, and your world will start spinning with thoughts of “what have we done?” and “can we DO this?” and their world will be spinning with thoughts of “I’m scared!” and “I want to go back to the orphanage!” and even if you know this is for the very best you will both be struggling under the weight of the UNKNOWN yet to come. You will lie awake at night with a stranger in the room and hope you haven’t just made the biggest mistake of your life. You will long for your other children, for home, for sights, smells, and sounds that are familiar—knowing all the while your child is losing exactly what you miss.
4. You will get home and things will settle down a bit. You still can’t communicate much, but charades and Google Translate and baby talk will work for a while. The jet lag will just about kill you, but once that wears off, the honeymoon will begin. Your husband and other children, your friends, and your family will lavish attention on the new child, and you will breathe a sigh of relief. This may actually work after all! The smiles, the giggles, the joyful, abandoned way your child embraces new experiences will delight you and encourage you. You will stress over schoolwork and foods for awhile, then shortly come to the realization that there are far more important things to be learned.
5. You will be shocked by this child’s immaturity. No matter how old their paperwork says they are, in reality they are more like a toddler. So you have to start with toddler basics—things like: sit quietly at the table, don’t wipe your snot on your shirt, don’t throw yourself on the floor when I tell you “no”. And you will begin the long process of repeating yourself, daily. Some new behaviors will be learned quickly—but other ones will take every.last.drop. of energy you ever possessed. You will have to teach your child how to snuggle, how to seek comfort, how to need people, how to read their body signals, how to do just about every last thing. You will cease to stress over schoolwork and such and will learn to appreciate little victories—like the first time you take your child to the store and they don’t crawl under the clothing racks or run around in loud circles. Or the first time they fall and get hurt and run TO you instead of AWAY from you. You’ll capture the first unsolicited kiss or hug and the first “I love you” and keep the memory and sweetness of it tucked away for the next exhausting day.
6. The honeymoon will eventually wear off completely, and your child will begin to grieve and rage heavily. The immensity of the loss (“Why my China mommy not keep me? Why you not adopt me when I a baby??? Why I not see my friends in China anymore?”) combined with the inability to process their feelings in a healthy way—and the language barrier—will send the child almost completely over the edge. The mourning process may be quick but it may be lengthy and you will be dealing with hours and hours of crying, screaming, raging, defiance, or running away. This child who never learned to obey will defy you at every turn. You will need to help this child all.day.long. yet will feel the guilt of not being able to meet the needs of everyone who needs you simultaneously. The new child “needs” the most so the other family members must take second place for a time. And your guilt continues. You will, out of complete necessity, pull back from EVERYTHING else in your life.
7. You will keep the “bad days” to yourself, far more than you should, simply because you want this to work and you know you’re right smack in the center of God’s will and you don’t want to hear the “I told you so’s” from the crowd of dissenters. You will fear scaring off potential adoptive families if you tell the truth about how very hard this is. You will find your entire world is turned upside down for a while, and you will wonder if life will ever return to normal. The house you used to keep spotless will become messy, the children you used to have well-trained will begin to struggle, and you will find every aspect of your life in fragile disarray.
8. Your other children will “love” this child, then hate this child, then learn to truly love this child. This process will rip your entire heart right out of your body, yet it will teach all of you about Jesus’ love. You will turn into a full-time counselor, guiding precious little hearts towards choosing love and forgiveness. YOU can take just about anything, but when your other children come to you and express their honest thoughts and struggles over this new child, you will come very close to wanting to disrupt, to start over, to go back to the safety of your “old” comfort circle. You will need other adoptive friends who can encourage and equip you to carry on when the going gets tough.
9. You will choose to continue on this journey, not because it is easy, but because it is good and right and necessary for healing. You will hold the raging child for hours and hours, you will redo and script and discipline and train and repeat yourself until you think you’re going to lose your mind. You will snuggle this child when it makes your skin crawl, you will love this child even though you don’t even like them some days, you will drop into bed drop-dead exhausted—and then you will get up again the next day and do it all over again, because you are committed to helping this child blossom. You will not rely on your feelings, because they will be all over the stinkin’ place at times, but you WILL rely on your husband, your faith, and your unwavering commitment to parent this precious child. You will dig down deep and plow ahead, KNOWING the rewards will be worth it.
10. You will wake up one morning and realize that you’ve both made it through the dark valley and you’re finally on somewhat even ground. Your child will brush their teeth without being told, will use a napkin and manners at the table. They will not whine, cry, quit, or cheat at their schoolwork. They will seek out affection and receive it willingly. You will smile as your children play together nicely and whisper sweet secrets in the dark at bedtime. You will listen and weep as your child finally opens up about their past, the abuse, and the heart of why they are who they are. You will take a breath and realize that you no longer love the image of this child–you truly love them. And you will find that your child is not the only one who has grown during this journey—you will not be the same person as before. You will be better. You will have no regrets as you realize you would gladly do it all over again to get to TODAY.
You can read more from Selena here at The Bergey Bunch
Briefly, we have been finishing our Chinese New Year's cleaning - and we are really doing it properly! Almost everything has been moved, washed, dusted, straightened, simplified... and I have to say it is a very good feeling. We are down to a few more rooms to finish and then it will feel sooo much better!
The adoption is proceeding. We are working on visa paperwork right now under the assumption that the entire Krewe will be going. Imagine all of us in China wandering around! Pretty memorable. We think about the boys constantly and are really ready to make the next step and actually meet them!
This brings me to the motivating factor in a new post. We follow a wonderful story by Annie (http://cornbreadandchopsticks.blogspot.com/ ) that has meant a lot to our family. She recently cross posted a very moving, very (capital T) true, post that I wanted to share. I will leave it at that and pick this up later on.
10 Things You Wish You Knew About Older Child Adoption: By Selena Bergey
1. You will fall in love with a picture and a child a world away, and you will lay awake at night, thinking of this child and wondering about the days, months, years that you have missed. You’ll wonder if you will ever truly be “Mommy” and if your love will fill the void of an empty heart. An ache will fill you down deep in your soul and it will become your necessary strength for this journey.
2. You will try to share this crazy, incredible adoption experience with your closest friends and loved ones and find their blank stares and “Are you completely crazy?” comments unnerving. They won’t get it, and that’s okay, because you know in your soul that you are this child’s mother and you will give up trying to explain it to everyone.
3. Your “Gotcha Day” might not be filled with cute pictures you can’t wait to post on the internet of you and your new child. In fact, the hand-over will be quick, the paperwork a blur, the guide will pat your back and say, “See you tomorrow!” and you will find yourself in a quiet hotel room, alone, with a child whom you loved from afar but cannot even begin to communicate with. The newness and shock will wear off within a day or two and then reality will set in, for both you AND your child, and your world will start spinning with thoughts of “what have we done?” and “can we DO this?” and their world will be spinning with thoughts of “I’m scared!” and “I want to go back to the orphanage!” and even if you know this is for the very best you will both be struggling under the weight of the UNKNOWN yet to come. You will lie awake at night with a stranger in the room and hope you haven’t just made the biggest mistake of your life. You will long for your other children, for home, for sights, smells, and sounds that are familiar—knowing all the while your child is losing exactly what you miss.
4. You will get home and things will settle down a bit. You still can’t communicate much, but charades and Google Translate and baby talk will work for a while. The jet lag will just about kill you, but once that wears off, the honeymoon will begin. Your husband and other children, your friends, and your family will lavish attention on the new child, and you will breathe a sigh of relief. This may actually work after all! The smiles, the giggles, the joyful, abandoned way your child embraces new experiences will delight you and encourage you. You will stress over schoolwork and foods for awhile, then shortly come to the realization that there are far more important things to be learned.
5. You will be shocked by this child’s immaturity. No matter how old their paperwork says they are, in reality they are more like a toddler. So you have to start with toddler basics—things like: sit quietly at the table, don’t wipe your snot on your shirt, don’t throw yourself on the floor when I tell you “no”. And you will begin the long process of repeating yourself, daily. Some new behaviors will be learned quickly—but other ones will take every.last.drop. of energy you ever possessed. You will have to teach your child how to snuggle, how to seek comfort, how to need people, how to read their body signals, how to do just about every last thing. You will cease to stress over schoolwork and such and will learn to appreciate little victories—like the first time you take your child to the store and they don’t crawl under the clothing racks or run around in loud circles. Or the first time they fall and get hurt and run TO you instead of AWAY from you. You’ll capture the first unsolicited kiss or hug and the first “I love you” and keep the memory and sweetness of it tucked away for the next exhausting day.
6. The honeymoon will eventually wear off completely, and your child will begin to grieve and rage heavily. The immensity of the loss (“Why my China mommy not keep me? Why you not adopt me when I a baby??? Why I not see my friends in China anymore?”) combined with the inability to process their feelings in a healthy way—and the language barrier—will send the child almost completely over the edge. The mourning process may be quick but it may be lengthy and you will be dealing with hours and hours of crying, screaming, raging, defiance, or running away. This child who never learned to obey will defy you at every turn. You will need to help this child all.day.long. yet will feel the guilt of not being able to meet the needs of everyone who needs you simultaneously. The new child “needs” the most so the other family members must take second place for a time. And your guilt continues. You will, out of complete necessity, pull back from EVERYTHING else in your life.
7. You will keep the “bad days” to yourself, far more than you should, simply because you want this to work and you know you’re right smack in the center of God’s will and you don’t want to hear the “I told you so’s” from the crowd of dissenters. You will fear scaring off potential adoptive families if you tell the truth about how very hard this is. You will find your entire world is turned upside down for a while, and you will wonder if life will ever return to normal. The house you used to keep spotless will become messy, the children you used to have well-trained will begin to struggle, and you will find every aspect of your life in fragile disarray.
8. Your other children will “love” this child, then hate this child, then learn to truly love this child. This process will rip your entire heart right out of your body, yet it will teach all of you about Jesus’ love. You will turn into a full-time counselor, guiding precious little hearts towards choosing love and forgiveness. YOU can take just about anything, but when your other children come to you and express their honest thoughts and struggles over this new child, you will come very close to wanting to disrupt, to start over, to go back to the safety of your “old” comfort circle. You will need other adoptive friends who can encourage and equip you to carry on when the going gets tough.
9. You will choose to continue on this journey, not because it is easy, but because it is good and right and necessary for healing. You will hold the raging child for hours and hours, you will redo and script and discipline and train and repeat yourself until you think you’re going to lose your mind. You will snuggle this child when it makes your skin crawl, you will love this child even though you don’t even like them some days, you will drop into bed drop-dead exhausted—and then you will get up again the next day and do it all over again, because you are committed to helping this child blossom. You will not rely on your feelings, because they will be all over the stinkin’ place at times, but you WILL rely on your husband, your faith, and your unwavering commitment to parent this precious child. You will dig down deep and plow ahead, KNOWING the rewards will be worth it.
10. You will wake up one morning and realize that you’ve both made it through the dark valley and you’re finally on somewhat even ground. Your child will brush their teeth without being told, will use a napkin and manners at the table. They will not whine, cry, quit, or cheat at their schoolwork. They will seek out affection and receive it willingly. You will smile as your children play together nicely and whisper sweet secrets in the dark at bedtime. You will listen and weep as your child finally opens up about their past, the abuse, and the heart of why they are who they are. You will take a breath and realize that you no longer love the image of this child–you truly love them. And you will find that your child is not the only one who has grown during this journey—you will not be the same person as before. You will be better. You will have no regrets as you realize you would gladly do it all over again to get to TODAY.
You can read more from Selena here at The Bergey Bunch
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Calendars...
Keely pulled out the calendar at lunch today. We have lots of countdowns coming up. Kenley turns 14 in four weeks! Then a couple of weeks later begins Chinese New Year. Then we should only have about 4-6 weeks before travel.
Kenley is growing up so wonderfully. Our family is incredibly lucky to have such a sweet, cheerful, helpful (on and on and on with the good things!) girl with us. She is a sister that everyone should have. One of the things that I am really happy to see is that, this year, she is not dreading the birthday. She loves being a child and is learning that being a young adult is also pretty cool and that even being an adult has some advantages! I just have no words for how proud I am of her - 14!
Chinese New Year is one of the things that we are trying to bring into our family in a more-or-less traditional way. It is very structured and goes on for about 2 weeks with different things happening at different times. The first rule is to clean, clean, clean, before New Years night. Cool - that gets us a timeline to finish all of the projects that are started. Then, the kids get to stay up and eat and play all night long (Kenley and KG will check me on this, but I believe that the longer the kids stay awake, the longer Keely and I will live - so here is for a looooong night). We did it a bit differently last year and woke the kids up at around midnight and stayed up until about 6. Lots of fun! Then there are visits to neighbors and friends, some gifts to each other and cooking (and a few days of no cooking). All good, fun, and cheerful.
We are also looking ahead to travel. It looks like late February/early March which fits in with my work schedule, so (fingers crossed) we should not have to split up for the travel. So maybe we will all go. This has some complications emotionally and financially. The former we are looking at and working towards. The latter is also beginning to come up more and more often. We are pretty near the end of the money we had set aside. We are not getting any of the (many, many) grants that I have applied for. So we are starting on some fundraising. Kenley is making the cutest turtles that you have ever seen - we will be posting pictures pretty soon. Keely and I are teaming up to make felted balls. I can do a decent round object and Keely (surprise, surprise) is astoundingly good at making felted scenes. These are really awesome and as soon as she finishes the one for Kade, we will post some pictures and start seeing if anyone is interested. Mostly, I am not worried about it though. We are doing the best thing possible for our family and that is the most important. We have so much more than so many people in the world and are just really, really, peaceful about what we are doing.
So, as the days start getting longer slowly, and we begin the slow move into the depths of winter and on into spring, it is good to have plans and schedules. Realizing, of course, that these are only our plans. And by no means the end of the story!
Kenley is growing up so wonderfully. Our family is incredibly lucky to have such a sweet, cheerful, helpful (on and on and on with the good things!) girl with us. She is a sister that everyone should have. One of the things that I am really happy to see is that, this year, she is not dreading the birthday. She loves being a child and is learning that being a young adult is also pretty cool and that even being an adult has some advantages! I just have no words for how proud I am of her - 14!
Chinese New Year is one of the things that we are trying to bring into our family in a more-or-less traditional way. It is very structured and goes on for about 2 weeks with different things happening at different times. The first rule is to clean, clean, clean, before New Years night. Cool - that gets us a timeline to finish all of the projects that are started. Then, the kids get to stay up and eat and play all night long (Kenley and KG will check me on this, but I believe that the longer the kids stay awake, the longer Keely and I will live - so here is for a looooong night). We did it a bit differently last year and woke the kids up at around midnight and stayed up until about 6. Lots of fun! Then there are visits to neighbors and friends, some gifts to each other and cooking (and a few days of no cooking). All good, fun, and cheerful.
We are also looking ahead to travel. It looks like late February/early March which fits in with my work schedule, so (fingers crossed) we should not have to split up for the travel. So maybe we will all go. This has some complications emotionally and financially. The former we are looking at and working towards. The latter is also beginning to come up more and more often. We are pretty near the end of the money we had set aside. We are not getting any of the (many, many) grants that I have applied for. So we are starting on some fundraising. Kenley is making the cutest turtles that you have ever seen - we will be posting pictures pretty soon. Keely and I are teaming up to make felted balls. I can do a decent round object and Keely (surprise, surprise) is astoundingly good at making felted scenes. These are really awesome and as soon as she finishes the one for Kade, we will post some pictures and start seeing if anyone is interested. Mostly, I am not worried about it though. We are doing the best thing possible for our family and that is the most important. We have so much more than so many people in the world and are just really, really, peaceful about what we are doing.
So, as the days start getting longer slowly, and we begin the slow move into the depths of winter and on into spring, it is good to have plans and schedules. Realizing, of course, that these are only our plans. And by no means the end of the story!
Saturday, December 21, 2013
How to live a life
We just got back from a trip south. We went to Tampa to pick up Karwen's new braces. She had totally outgrown the old ones (the ones with butterflies). We were so excited. She picked ones that have kitty cats (so now we have kitty-cat shoes). They are taking a bit more to get used to which is a bit of a bummer. I think this might be something that we will have to get used to - new things require a bit of adjustment. She is a trooper though and there are definitely some things that will be better this time around.
After Tampa, we went south to see our good friends the O'Briens who moved to Naples a while ago. As we went further south and it got steadily warmer, Keely and I talked a lot about the many, many ways there are to live a life. Naples is an incredibly different way of living than we grew up knowing about. Most of what you see is very new, very expensive, and designed primarily for people who live half the year there and the other half in the north. We saw a car dealership with 14 DeLoreans and more BMW's than we could count.
For the most part, people were quite friendly although it is good to remember that what is polite changes a lot depending on the area of the country! My Texas background felt that people tended to be pretty rude in general. But, it is an interesting place to ponder living in. It is warm, there are so many, many beaches nearby. You can grow almost anything (except apples I suppose). So we talked about how we would do it. It would change my work a lot. Then Kriste also has been struggling finding as supportive a homeschool group as we have in Tally. Could we afford to do all the fun things? Probably not. So what about Tampa? It is interesting. Warmer. Bigger. Some cool parts of town. Maybe we should look even further south and move to Miami? Go back to the mountains? Texas?
As we drove home it was interesting to think about how much life changes. Keely and I have lived in Texas, Montana, New Orleans, and Florida. I could see being back in all of the places. It would just mean changing how we live from day to day. In our house, not much seems different. Maybe some different foods come and go. Different gardens. But our home does not seem to change all that much. Okay, the number of people in the home has changed a lot! But in retrospect, it seems like we had a place for all of them already picked out.
After Tampa, we went south to see our good friends the O'Briens who moved to Naples a while ago. As we went further south and it got steadily warmer, Keely and I talked a lot about the many, many ways there are to live a life. Naples is an incredibly different way of living than we grew up knowing about. Most of what you see is very new, very expensive, and designed primarily for people who live half the year there and the other half in the north. We saw a car dealership with 14 DeLoreans and more BMW's than we could count.
For the most part, people were quite friendly although it is good to remember that what is polite changes a lot depending on the area of the country! My Texas background felt that people tended to be pretty rude in general. But, it is an interesting place to ponder living in. It is warm, there are so many, many beaches nearby. You can grow almost anything (except apples I suppose). So we talked about how we would do it. It would change my work a lot. Then Kriste also has been struggling finding as supportive a homeschool group as we have in Tally. Could we afford to do all the fun things? Probably not. So what about Tampa? It is interesting. Warmer. Bigger. Some cool parts of town. Maybe we should look even further south and move to Miami? Go back to the mountains? Texas?
As we drove home it was interesting to think about how much life changes. Keely and I have lived in Texas, Montana, New Orleans, and Florida. I could see being back in all of the places. It would just mean changing how we live from day to day. In our house, not much seems different. Maybe some different foods come and go. Different gardens. But our home does not seem to change all that much. Okay, the number of people in the home has changed a lot! But in retrospect, it seems like we had a place for all of them already picked out.
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