Weekend Roundup (a little belated)

I have been wanting to post this since Monday, but it has been a busy week. Cleaning, running errands, getting ready for Grace's birthday party on Saturday—and let's not forget cleaning puke out of clothes, car seats, and car upholstery. That was fun. But here is a little list I've been excited to post for days now…

My Top 10 Favorite Things About Our Weekend:

1. Planting our vegetable garden.
   
2. Watching the kids spray each other down with the hose.
   
3. Riding our bikes to the Memorial Day parade with the kids in the trailer.
   
4. Watching the parade with the kids (and seeing many of our friends in the procession).
   
5. Signing Grace up for soccer. (She has been asking DAILY about playing, and she was THRILLED to sign her own name on the form. Now I just have to convince her that practices don't even start until August…)
   
6. Having an entire afternoon to myself while the rest of the family slept.
   
7. This picture:
   
   
8. Jon didn't work on Saturday.
   
9. Jon didn't work on Sunday.
   
10. Jon didn't work on Monday.
    

Yes, it was really a wonderful weekend, filled with lots of much-needed family time. I think sometimes I don't realize how much my stress level and my attitude are affected by Jon's work schedule. Having him home for three days was really the icing on the cake for… well, the whole month of May, to be honest! It made for a fun weekend and also put me in a better mood to start the week. J

And now we're gearing up for another fun weekend, filled with castle cake and princess slippers and even a little sleepover with Grace's big cousin. I can't wait to tell you all about it!

Hello, old friend, hello

Yes, I have missed you all... but the friend I had lost and who has now returned to me is none other than... my laptop. Oh, dear Laptop, how I have missed you!

You see, Internet Friends, my laptop went into cardiac arrest last week, and I had to rush it to computer ER. It has now been given a new pacemaker, and is back with us. (OK, maybe I stretched that metaphor a bit too far. It totally bit the dust on me last week, and it turns out that the power adapter on the machine was bad. The wonderful gentleman at our local computer repair store fixed it for me, and now we're back in business. Unfortunately, the power adapter was bad for so long that it eventually killed the battery, so now I have to work with it plugged in until I get a new battery. But I can live with that for now.)

If you think that I am making too much of a big deal out of my computer, maybe you don't know me that well. Let me put it this way: My husband says he doesn't worry about another man ever coming between us, but my laptop--well, that's a different story. :-) I tell him that the problem is with his perception: He should stop looking at the laptop as a third party and start seeing it as I do--as an extension of myself! :-)

So now I am back and can't wait to start posting more. I have all sorts of thoughts rolling around in this little brain of mine, and I am excited to share them with you!

For now, a little catch up on what's happening in the Land of Katy:

• My Mother's Day present from Jon was a couples' cooking class, which we took with about 20 friends. It was a blast! He and I had done another class at this same school, so that's where he got the idea. Each couple works on one dish, and you come together at the end with a fabulous dinner, including an appetizer, soup, salad, main course with a side dish, and dessert. I would love to make this a semi-regular occurrence--it's tons of fun and the food is awesome!
• My wonderful friend Erin recently welcomed her first baby, Levi, to the world. YAY!!! I am going out to see her and her beautiful family next month, and I can't wait! I am thrilled to see her, and I am in desperate need of a baby fix. :-)
• I am going to be contributing to the Hearts at Home blog, and am super excited to be part of something so great. Start looking for my contributions to show up in June--but don't wait until then to check out the blog. There is some great stuff on there!
• West Branch State Park has a fun little beach area... but it doesn't open until Memorial Day. You know, just in case someone might get the idea that it would be fun to take their kids to the beach to play in the sand on a nice 80 degree day... It's not open yet. But the picnic area, fortunately, IS open. And to the nice couple who gave my kids a frisbee, THANK YOU. You definitely saved the day!
• A new animal has taken up residence in our mulch beds. A snake. Yep, a snake. Can you take a guess as to who is NOT going to be pulling weeds any time soon????? The kids, though, think this is SUPER cool, and we have to keep a close eye on them so that they don't touch it. UGH!
• Jillian Michaels is NOT my BFF. I have started the "30 Day Shred", and it is a killer. But it's working, so I'm going to keep doing it!
• Has anyone heard of this show out there called "American Idol"? Anyone? I hear a few people watch it here & there. I was amazed at the talent this year, and even though I'm bummed that Danny Gokey didn't make it to the finale, I am very happy for Kris Allen! And now I can breathe a deep sigh of relief because I no longer have to be SURE I am home on Wednesday nights so that I don't hear about the results before I get to watch them. Freedom! :-)
• And last but not least, GUESS who I talked to last week....! Are you ready? My half-sister! My birth father had a daughter who is about 18 months older than I am, and she e-mailed me last week, and then we had a chance to talk on the phone a few days ago. Yes, I know, you're thinking that I should have saved that for a Family Forest post, but I don't want her to feel like she's just part of a saga... but I DID want to share it with you all because I think it's really cool! :-)

So now you're all caught up. And I'm exhausted because Jon and I have been getting up at 5:00ish all week as part of a new work schedule he's trying--into the office by 6:00 AM, home at 4:00 PM. It's working great--I'm getting more done by 8:00 AM than I sometimes get done all day--except for the 4:00 PM part. He started this on Tuesday, and on Wednesday and Thursday he got held at the office until after 8:00 PM! Those are some long work days. Poor guy. Anyway, getting up early, working out hard, and staying up late to watch Idol on DVR is all starting to catch up with me. So I'm going to curl up with my cat and some NCIS reruns. I'll catch you all later.

Katy’s Family Forest, part 10

So much of the next few years, Jan and I just spent time redefining our relationship. Who were we to each other, exactly? What were the expectations? The parameters? Honestly, we're still working on that.

After all, to Jan I have always been her daughter… but that's still a little bit weird for me. I mean, I have a mom (and a dad J) and it's not her. She was always a family friend, and someone who I really liked, but I felt no real connection to her, no familial love. It was difficult to just flip that switch. And I think we both struggled with how much we should expect to be in touch, how often we should see each other, that kind of thing. No real template exists for this kind of relationship, you know? We had no Robert's Rules of Order to follow, no Miss Manners to consult. So we muscled through, and though there were times that I was frustrated with her—and I'm sure vice versa—we managed. J

And now comes another sticky part to the story. Although most people who know me "in real life" know about this, I'm hesitant to put it out there on the blogosphere, because I know not everyone is going to have the same viewpoints and opinions that I do. That's OK. Please understand and respect that this is my story, and I am not trying to put anyone down, but just to tell the story from my perspective. OK, there's my disclaimer.

So a few months after Jan and I had "reconnected," I started to notice a pattern. Yes, Jan moved a lot, as I had mentioned before. But she also rarely lived alone. Most of the time that I had known her, she'd had a roommate—and not the same roommate, but a series of them. Honestly, this had never struck me as odd, that two single women might just want to share an apartment; but shortly after that first time she came to see me as my birth mom, she introduced me to her new roommate. Let's call her Pam.

The very first time that I met Pam, I knew. They weren't just roommates. And THAT is really when I started to think about the fact that Jan had lived with several women in the years that I had known her. Now that doesn't mean that every one of them was a girlfriend, but looking back I'm pretty sure that Pam wasn't the first one.

Still, I was only 19 and honestly had never known anyone who was gay, so I asked my parents if they thought that she was. They weren't sure either, but weren't ruling it out. I decided that at that particular point in time, Jan and I had enough to deal with, and I was going to leave well enough alone. It didn't take long for me to be certain, though. I could just tell every time I was around the two of them. Sometimes I could tell by the way they talked and laughed together, other times by the way that they fought; but each time they interacted, it wasn't just as women who shared an apartment to cut rent in half. Oh, and then there were the matching gold and diamond rings that they wore on their left hands. That too.

I could tell that Jan thought I didn't know, and I could tell she preferred it that way, so I still just chose to leave it alone. Still, it raised a lot of questions for me… I mean, obviously at some point she wasn't gay, so when did this happen? Why? How long ago? And yes (please remember, this is my story), I believe that homosexuality is a sin… So what did this mean for her salvation (as she was—and is—a professing Christian)? And how would it affect our relationship?

These are, by the way, questions I still ask myself. To this day I don't know all the answers.

In the meantime, my own personal life was getting back on track. After my big heartbreak the same summer I learned about Jan, I had a few more rough months… but then God really got ahold of my heart, and fortunately He's never let go. Things turned around dramatically sometime around Christmas of my sophomore year. I realized that I was weary of being so darn stubborn, and I just needed rest in His arms and His love—as hard as life as a Christian can be, it's so much easier to let God lead than to attempt to do it on your own.

Fortunately, this also seriously changed the type of guy I was looking for. Whew! (That was me breathing a sigh of relief for myself.) I had one semi-serious relationship with an old friend from Bible quizzing, but honestly that was over long before we broke it off. Still he was a decent, intelligent, nice, respectful guy—nothing like anyone I had dated for the two years prior.

And then while I was home for Christmas break in my junior year, I got a phone call from my aunt. Her youngest daughter—3 or 4 younger than me—was making some bad decisions in the boy arena, and my aunt asked if I would try to talk to her. Ha, like I had been a great role model. At least I could speak from experience! So I called and asked if I could take her out to lunch. She asked me if I would pick her up from work to go.

Julie was still in high school, but was also working… hmmm, now that I think about it, I can't quite figure out how that worked. Maybe she worked after school and during breaks or something, I don't remember. Anyway, her boss was a man named Jon. She had gotten the job because her sister was married to one of Jon's best friends, and her family had gotten to know Jon over the years… And by "her family" I mean both her immediate and her extended family. As in me. I had met Jon when I was only 12 (he was 17), and I had a HUGE crush on him. For YEARS. All through junior high and high school. The last time I'd seen him was when my cousin and his friend had gotten married—we were both in the wedding. I had a boyfriend at the time, and I cried the whole way home from the wedding, because I still had such a crush on Jon! My poor boyfriend had no idea what was going on. Poor kid.

No wait. I had seen him one time after that. Yikes, this is even worse. He was the owner of a teen club, and I went to it with Julie… just to see him. YEAH, like the fact that I was still young enough to be admitted to the teen club that he owned would be real impressive……. (By the way, he does not remember that night. Just as well. Not one of my shining moments.)

Anyway, that had been two or three years ago. Since the wedding, I had graduated from high school (valedictorian of my class), gone to college (with a huge scholarship!), excelled in all of my classes (the only girl in my particular field of study!), and was doing just fine, thankyouverymuch. I was not nervous in the least to see this guy I had drooled over for a good six years of my life, and I of course had no interest in him now. That, by the way, was my pep talk to myself on the way to Julie's office, where I was quite likely to run into Jon again.

I went in, anxious both about seeing him again and trying to have this serious talk with my cousin who I was quite certain didn't even want my advice. I didn't need to worry about the second one. She had known what was coming and decided to avoid it by playing off of my first anxiety… she invited Jon to come to lunch with us.

Katy’s Family Forest, Part 6

I am definitely not an expert on domestic adoptions, so I don't really know what the typical one looks like or how or where that first meeting usually takes place. But I know that mine was special.

My parents met me at the hospital, the day after I was born. It was especially memorable for my dad, who hadn't gotten to hold his sons until they were out of the hospital—back in the days when dads were kept at arm's length during the hospital stay. This time, though, not only did he get to hold his newborn baby, but he got to feed her too. In fact, they wouldn't release me until I took a bottle for my parents, so my dad sat down, held me, and said, "I'm your daddy. And you need to drink this bottle." And I did. J See, I've always been a Daddy's Girl.

As I mentioned before, my parents had kept this whole adoption a secret, so they had some explaining to do when they got home. My brothers, now 8 and 10, suddenly had a new baby sister to figure out… but even they were easier to convince than our church family. No, they weren't opposed to the idea of my parents adopting a child—they just didn't believe it! About a week after they came home with me, they attended a church picnic. Everyone kept asking, "Who's baby is that?" "She's ours!" my parents would proudly respond. And then they'd hear, "……Nooooo… Who's is she really?" No one could believe that they had kept such a secret or that my parents' hopes of adoption had finally come true. But there I was!

Those of you who are familiar with domestic adoptions know that they aren't finalized overnight. Although my parents had taken me home rather quickly, it was several months before everything was official. In fact, the final adoption hearing wasn't held until February of 1980.

It's important here to remember that we're talking about an adoption that happened almost (yikes!) 30 years ago. So before you read this and then e-mail me and say, "That's not right! We did this or know someone who did that or…" whatever, please remember that this was a long time ago. Some things have changed. Are we all on the same page? OK, then keep reading.

On the day of the final hearing, the judge took my parents into his office individually to ask them some questions. Both of them were a little nervous when he started asking about money. "Have you helped the biological mother with her expenses?" he asked. "Medical expenses? Helped her with her rent? Food? Clothing?" They explained that they had wanted to—had offered to—but that she had gotten a job with benefits, so she hadn't needed any help. Apparently a law had been passed during that time that said pregnancy could not be classified as a "pre-existing condition," so she was able to get everything covered. (As an aside, a friend of hers had also basically blackmailed my biological father into helping her financially through her pregnancy, so that helped to cover her non-medical costs.)

The judge continued to press them. "You didn't help the mother of your child at all?" At this point, I think they were getting a little nervous. Was he going to take away their baby because he thought they didn't care enough? Should they have insisted on helping with something—some costs along the way? But then the judge softened. "Good. You see, if you had given her even one cent, this would have been considered a black market adoption, and we would have had to take the baby away." Praise the Lord for working out those details—can you imagine if they had helped her financially, out of the goodness of their hearts, only to have it bite them by having their child taken by the courts?

The rest of the hearing went off without a hitch. And at the end, the judge admonished them that I was now fully theirs. "You are now responsible for her every need," he explained. "If she needs food, you provide it. If she needs clothing, you provide it. If she gets sick as you leave this courthouse, it is your responsibility—she is fully your daughter." They accepted this responsibility and left, now officially a family of five.

And the next week, I came down with pneumonia.

Katy’s Family Forest, Part 5

This is where it gets tricky. Not because it's uncomfortable to share, just because I don't know where to start! Do I tell you my parents' story as they told it that day, without all of the background? Do I give the background and spoil the ending? Do I tell my birth mom's story first? Do I try to interweave the two????? Well, I don't expect you have the answers to those questions, either, so I might as well just pick a place to start and go with it. J

I sat down with my parents that day, expecting them to give me a basic layout of how they got me—maybe what agency they used or what county I was born in or… something. I thought they would point me in the general direction of what courthouse was storing my super-secret-biological-records. I thought it would be a 15-minute talk.

I had no idea.

I'll start with some background information on my parents. They had two boys of their own (I hate that phrase, by the way. It makes it sound like my brothers are "theirs" but I am not. And I am, for the record, completely "theirs."), but always wanted to adopt. My mom had been raised by her aunt and uncle after her biological mother died from complications during childbirth. She had five older siblings, and her dad just didn't feel capable of handling a farm, his five older children, and a newborn. She wasn't officially adopted, but her biological "aunt and uncle" were her real parents, my grandparents. She knew her biological father and siblings, but wasn't really raised with them. She was, for all intents and purposes, adopted, and she knew that she someday wanted to adopt, too.

The fact that they had two biological children made adoption (in the 1970's) difficult. I know that at least one time (maybe twice?) before I came along they actually had a baby in their home, but when it came time for the final adoption hearing the judge took the baby away, since they already had children. They looked into international adoption, but for whatever reason (I'm sure they told me, but I can't quite remember now… cost, maybe?... or maybe it just wasn't "clicking"…. I just don't remember…) that didn't come to fruition.

By the late 70's, they had all but given up. Then one day my grandma called my parents and said that she had found a bassinet that she wanted them to have—she firmly believed they would one day get the baby they were hoping for. (She was an amazing woman, but I never had the privilege of meeting her—she died about three months before I was born.) And another time, my dad had a dream that he would have a daughter named "Kathryn." They didn't know how realistic it was to hope anymore, but the hope was returning anyway.

And then one day, they got the phone call. My mom's sister was Dean of Women at a small Bible college. She had a new (single) student who was pregnant and who wanted to give her baby up for adoption… were they still interested?

I can't even begin to tell you the emotions and excitement and concern and everything else that my parents were going through then, because, well, I wasn't there. I can't even tell you a lot of the details about how it all happened. But I'll tell you as much as I know…

The adoption was handled privately (without an agency). My parents and my birth mom both used the same lawyer, so that everything would go as smoothly as possible. And when it came time to go before the judge, my birth mom specifically told him that she wanted my parents to have her baby because they already had children of their own—she wanted her baby to have siblings. It was all coming together.

Meanwhile, my parents kept this whole situation a tightly kept secret—not even their parents knew. Only my aunt, who had "introduced" my birth mom and parents (They had actually never met, but you know what I mean...), had any idea. As hopeful as my parents were, they had been burned before and didn't want to start spreading the news to quickly.

And then, it happened. They got the phone call that it was time. Their new baby girl was here—July 13, 1979.

Katy’s Family Forest, Part 3

The months following Logan's birth and death are a bit of a blur. I believe that his calling hours and funeral were the first week in July… and then 4^th of July weekend I went to Internationals for Bible Quizzing in northern California.

As I mentioned before, I spent countless hours studying for this event. It was my sixth and final year in quizzing, both at the local level and on my district's International team, and I wanted to do well so much that I ached for it. To explain all of the emotion and history behind that week would be a book in itself, so you'll have to get the short version and just take my word for the rest. It was something I wanted more than just about anything else I can remember. And at the end of the week, my prayer was answered—but in a different way than I had hoped. Our team took first, which was just an amazing victory! I personally, though, did not do well at all, and had a couple of notable failures that really stung. It makes sense, looking back—the week-long competition ENDED less than two weeks after Logan died. It was a lot to ask of a 17-year-old girl. But I couldn't see that then. I was thrilled to have been part of the team, and so happy for my friends who had done well, but just starting to feel like I was falling apart.

I spent that last night at Internationals up all night, saying goodbye to my friends, most of whom I would never see again. There were some I had seen each of my six years there, and others who I had just met that week. And there was one in particular… a boy… such a cute boy… who had stolen my heart. I'd known him for several years, but knew that I was not likely to ever see him again (He lived in another state.), and I didn't want to say goodbye… so we stayed up until about 4 AM, when he went to go back to his room and pack for the trip home. (OK, I feel the need to clarify here that we were at a Bible Quizzing competition. Yes, we were up all night, but in a group setting—totally G-rated here. J)

And so began my birthday—yep, the day that I said goodbye to my friends, the day after one of the best and worst days of my life thus far, the day that I embarked on a family vacation with my parents without ever having gone to bed the night before... was also my 18^th birthday.

My parents, fortunately, were sensitive enough to know that I could not handle any deep conversation about my seeking my biological roots that day. We were, as I said, leaving directly from the competition to go on a family vacation, first south in California to visit my aunt and uncle, then up to Seattle to visit my brother and his wife (a different brother). So we had a little "happy birthday to me" breakfast at their hotel, and that was it. They let me rest and get myself together a little bit before even bringing it up.

I think at the same time, though, they didn't want me to think that they had forgotten, or that they would go back on their word. So the next day as we sat down to eat, they reaffirmed their willingness to help do whatever they could to help me find my biological parents—whenever I was ready. Here it was… the day that I had been waiting for… the moment had come… So I looked them straight in the eyes and said………………………. "No thanks."

Katy’s Family Forest, Part 2

Welcome back! Before I talk about 1997, we have to back up a bit to the fall of 1996. I don't want to digress too far from the main story, but this is important—both to my adoption story and just in general—so please bear with me. It is likely that this entire entry will deal with something completely separate from my adoption, but it really does have a lot of bearing on the story, at least in my mind.

It was a Sunday afternoon in early fall when we found out that my brother and his wife were expecting their first child. And not just their first child, but the first grandchild for my parents—the first niece or nephew for me! It was such an exciting, elating announcement for us all! Of course, we were all torn because we also knew that my brother and sister-in-law were planning to move to Colorado the following year. L So we began to prepare for both of those big changes.

And then came January. That's when we got "the visit" from my brother and his wife. The one that immediately followed their ultrasound. The one that I can still remember like it was yesterday. My mom, who is an elementary school teacher, was still at work, but my dad and I were home. They weren't able to wait until she got home—they needed to talk about it right away. Something was wrong with the baby. He had a condition called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Oh goodness, I can't even begin to explain what exactly that means, but basically everything worked fine in the womb; but within a few days after the baby was born, his heart would no longer function correctly. To this day I feel like I've been punched in the stomach when I think about it.

Over the next few months, as I was studying, preparing for graduation, and trying to select a college for the fall (which I didn't do until April of my senior year!), Kurt and Mary were busy researching HLHS—treatments, hospitals, life expectancies, etc. They decided to have the baby at University of Michigan Hospital, because they had a strong success rate with this condition, which was wonderful because it was only 3 hours away. The baby would need 3 surgeries in the first 2 years of his life, the first one shortly after birth (anywhere from a few hours to a week, depending on how well he was doing when he was born). They also turned down her job in Colorado, because the altitude may have caused a problem for his condition. They bought a house close by, since they had been renting but now knew they would be staying local.

Finally, the weather started to get warmer, and with it our hopes all started to rise. My sister-in-law graduated with her PhD in something-rather-complicated-but-I-think-it-has-Neurobiology-in-there-somewhere. (I'm pretty sure that's not the official title, but that's basically it in layman's terms. J) I graduated as Valedictorian of my high school class, and got to enjoy the fun perks of that. (Seriously. We got to do some really fun things!) I was also very involved in Bible Quizzing, and was preparing for Internationals—the Christian & Missionary Alliance's championship among all of the districts. It was my final year, and I was determined to do well. I spent anywhere from 4 to 8 hours each day studying the book of Matthew.

We got the call that my sister-in-law was in labor on Saturday, June 21—early on Saturday. We all packed our bags and headed for Michigan, hoping that we didn't miss the arrival during our three-hour trip! We didn't need to worry! J Logan hung out in his mommy's belly for a few days, not making his arrival until Monday (evening!), June 23. It was a long weekend, full of a lot of fast food and card-playing at the Ronald McDonald house. J We were ecstatic to see him, and the doctors said he was doing amazingly well.

On Tuesday, my parents and I made the drive back home. Of course, we didn't want to leave EVER, but my dad had to get back to work, and it looked like Logan wouldn't need his first surgery for a few days, so we planned to head back up the following weekend. By Thursday morning, my mom couldn't wait any longer and went back up without us. My dad and I were supposed to join her the next day. Unfortunately, that never happened.

I don't remember if it was my mom or my brother who called, but I remember answering the phone and I remember knowing that something was wrong by the sound of the voice on the other end of the line. I handed the phone to my dad. And when he got off the phone, all he could say was, "Logan's not going to make it."

Early morning on Friday, June 27, just four short days after we welcomed him into the world, Logan went home to be with his heavenly Father.

The days following that phone call are a blur of family and tears and… so many things. But I need to stress here that although this is one of the hardest things I have ever experienced—not only for my own grief, but because I watched my brother and sister-in-law and parents grieve as well—it was also absolutely amazing to see how God worked through it all. He brought my brother and sister-in-law closer to Him. He brought them closer to each other, and closer to my parents. He allowed them the sweet joy of getting to meet that little boy, and also spared them the pain of raising him for 2 or 3 years, only to lose him to HLHS then, as happened to friends that they made during their stay at the Ronald McDonald House. Logan's story is sad for us, but glorious for him, as he got to be loved so dearly on earth, and got to go home to heaven so quickly. And he touched so many lives in his four short days, I do not doubt that God used him in many ways that we may never know.

Wow, that got long and heavy, I know. I apologize again for seemingly getting so far off-track, but it's important that you know all of this to know my mindset when my 18^th birthday came, just a few weeks after Logan died. But I think I've given you enough to chew on for one day. I'll pick up there soon.

On a personal note…

I can't help but write a more personal entry today, as this weekend has been a rather big one for me. In fact, as I sat down to write what was on my heart, it became more than just a little post. So I was inspired by my friend Erin (who, in turn, was inspired by The Pioneer Woman J)—who is writing out the story of how she and her husband got together—to write my own story for you all. Not my love story, but the story of how I, at 28 years old, came to meet my father for the first time.

I hope that you will all enjoy this little piece of me, as I know it will be helpful for me to write it all down and share it. It is an amazing testament to God's goodness and the love of a family.

And so, without further ado…

Katy's Family Forest, part 1

I don't ever remember being told that I was adopted—I've just always known. And I don't mean "I've known" like it was some sort of childhood suspicion that no one ever talked about. It was just a normal aspect of my life. It's a part of who I am, like having brown eyes or being left-handed. I'm adopted. The woman who gave birth to me knew that she couldn't provide the home and love that I needed, and she found a family for me who could. End of story.

In fact, it was so normal for me that I couldn't imagine life any other way. In elementary school kids used to ask me what it "feels like" to be adopted. I would ask them what it felt like to not be adopted. It was just life for me, nothing unusual. My parents brought me home from the hospital when I was 72 hours old—I'd always been theirs, and they had always been mine. My brothers, like it or not, were fully mine as well. J My adoption was a source of humor in my family—"You're such a dork! I'm glad I'm adopted!" or "Aren't you glad I inherited that from you, Mom?"—but never, not once, was it a sore spot or source of division. My family was my family.

Not that I wasn't curious. I had no idea who—or even where—my biological parents were, and sometimes I would see people on the street… at the fair… even on a bus when I was visiting my brother in Seattle… and wonder, "What if I'm related to that person?" Even people I knew—especially single relatives and family friends—were objects of my curiosity. It was a fascinating daydream for me, but not a sad one. I knew what a wonderful family I had, biological or not, and I have always been thankful to my birth mom for giving me what she knew she couldn't provide.

Along with being very upfront about my adoption, my parents always made it clear that once I was 18, I was free to explore as much (or as little) as I wanted into my biological family tree. They would provide as much information and help as they could, and they would support me as I did any additional digging on my own. I always knew that, and I always planned to do it starting on July 13, 1997 (my 18^th birthday).

Little did I know what God had planned for me in 1997.

Stay tuned for more……………..

A Mother’s Day Tribute… to my husband :-)

I know it has been almost a week since Mother's Day, but I just had to brag on my hubby a little. He is such a gift from God.

Let's start with planning. I am normally in charge of all gift buying in our house (except my own J), but this year I just could not think of what to get for our moms. "Don't you worry about it," he said, "It's taken care of." He even got all of the cards! WOW!

On Mother's Day, I was scheduled to sing in the praise band at church, so I had to leave the house around 7:00 AM. When I came back to pick them up at 9:00, they were standing outside ready to go—he had even done Grace's hair! (He was so proud of himself. J) AND they were all in good moods, which doesn't always happen. They gave me two cards, one from Jon and one from the kids. What a great start to the day!

After church, my parents and mother-in-law came over for lunch. I did a lot of the cooking, but because I wanted to, not because I had to. Jon was there helping, and he immediately took over all tasks that he knows that I don't like—unloading the dishwasher, chopping vegetables, and he even changed a poopy diaper!

After lunch he cleared the table and got us all ice cream. Then he gave each of us (my mom, my mother-in-law, and I) our cards. Each one had in it a gift certificate to a spa, a gift certificate to a restaurant that I've been dying to try, and a whole Mapquest plan of our girls' day. (The three of us are all very close, so we will really enjoy a day together.) It was such a special gift!

But the best part of the whole day wasn't what he did, it wasn't what he bought, it was how he did it all. He had such a wonderful attitude. He never once complained or sighed or hesitated to jump in and help. He wanted to do whatever he could to honor me—and our moms. And that was the best gift of all.