Entries from June 2008 ↓

The big story this weekend is Ethan’s endurance. Ethan continues to grow as he experiences new things.

In the recent past, highly social activities seemed to have (emotionally) taxed and drained Ethan. But no social event that we’ve participated in so far is anything like annual conference. For two entire days, we’ve been immersed in a sea of people. I’m pretty sure we’ve interacted with more people this year than in the previous 9 years combined.

Early this morning, a little sleep deprived, Ethan was a bit clingy (but not too bad, really). We were a little concerned about dropping him off at child care, but once again, he did very well.

While Ethan was at child care, Joleen and I both wrote for the Daily Link (our articles from today’s edition are currently published on the main page, but you may have to scroll down for previous articles after tomorrow’s edition is added). The articles are a goods way to find out what’s taking place at annual conference. (Someday, I suspect worship services at annual conference will be streamed live over the internet. It’s probably not a question of if, but when.)

At lunchtime, I fed Ethan baby food while Joleen went through the lunch line to get her food and some food for Ethan. But just about the time she got through the line, I had to take him out of his high chair because he was falling asleep! We put him in his stroller, where he slept for the next hour (actually, yesterday, he didn’t even get to eat anything — he fell asleep by the time we reached the cafeteria — he hasn’t been napping during child care).

We spent the afternoon and evening together. In the midst of the “worshipful work,” we heard two great sermons — one by Rev. Dr. Ron Parks, pastor of Calvary United Methodist Church in Harrisburg, and the other by Bishop Sally Dyck, bishop of the Minnesota Area of the United Methodist Church. (Perhaps we’ll say more about these messages later, maybe even after we receive them on DVDs.)

The worship has also been great this year. Mark Miller (who led worship here in 2005 and 2006) returned this year along with Marcia McFee. Mark and Marcia teamed up to lead worship at last month’s 2008 General Conference.

But again, the big story for us this weekend is Ethan’s endurance. Through two long days, he continues to do well. We still have a long day ahead of us, but we will head home Saturday evening.

But who knows, Ethan may end of sleeping much of next week!

Wednesday morning, we drove to Camp Hill, PA where we met with Cindy, our caseworker from Adoption Horizons, for our second (of three) post-placement visits. Basically, it was an opportunity for us to talk about Ethan’s progress. It went very well.

That leaves only one more post-placement visit. Sometime in the fall, we will go to court to finalize our adoption of Ethan.

Later Wednesday afternoon, we checked into our room at Messiah College. We are assigned to a dorm room with a living room, kitchen, private bath, and a bedroom with 3 twin beds (2 of the them are stacked). The room also includes a pack-n-play, which Ethan is sleeping in (it’s the first time we’ve travelled away from home that he is able to sleep in his own bed!).

Annual conference started this morning at 9:30 and ended a little more than 12 hours later. The big test today was leaving Ethan with total strangers for the first time when we dropped him off at child care for the morning session. We didn’t know how Ethan would handle it, but he handled it very well!

We kept him with us for the afternoon worship service. Then, while Joleen wrote for the Daily Link during the afternoon’s “worshipful work” session, I wheeled Ethan around in his stroller while he slept for well over an hour (mainly in the hallway where I was able to catch most of what was happening in the main auditorium).

After dinner, it was my turn to write for the Daily Link while Joleen hung out with Ethan for the rest of the evening.

Ethan has certainly changed the dynamic of annual conference for us. Simply put, Ethan is a huge attention getter. As Cindy (our caseworker) told Ethan yesterday, “You’re going to be a big hit at conference.” Indeed, he has been!

We’ll try to take some photos tomorrow — today, being the first day at annual conference with Ethan, and having a lot of extra stuff to carry with us, we just didn’t want to bother with the camera. But we should be ready tomorrow.

For now, here are some photos of yesterday’s arrival in our dorm room …

Since we brought Ethan home from Korea in mid-February, we’ve made two trips to Wilmore, Kentucky — to defend our dissertations and to graduate. Tomorrow, we head back out on the road for our third trip in as many months.

This time, we’re going to our conference’s annual conference (the yearly gathering of United Methodist pastors and local church representatives to do “worshipful work,” or what John Wesley called “holy conferencing”), which will be held at Messiah College.

But, first, we’ve gotta take a time out to thank God for his protection!

A couple weeks ago, as we began the long drive to Kentucky, we noticed a warning light on the dashboard of Joleen’s car. As we continued to make our way to Hollidaysburg, PA where we planned to meet up with Joleen’s mom and step-dad, Joleen flipped through the pages of her car’s manual to find out what the warning light meant.

After some searching, we learned that the light indicated that one of the tires’ air pressure was too low. We pulled over and did a walk-around of the vehicle but didn’t notice any obvious problems. When we arrived in Hollidaysburg, we increased the air pressure of the front right tire from 27 to 34 psi (following the manual’s recommendation).

After driving over 500 more miles to Kentucky, plus the return trip, the warning light never returned. In fact, we sorta forgot about the problem. However, while driving home yesterday, the warning light came on again.

Today, I went out to the garage to check the tire pressure. But I didn’t need to check the pressure because the tire was flat!

We called Dix Honda in State College, PA and I made a trip to the dealership to get the problem solved. BTW, the service department at Dix is the best service department we’ve ever worked with!

As it turns out, the tire had a puncture on the edge of the tire wall, which was not repairable. The service manager told me after the tire was replaced with a new one, “This is the kind of puncture that can go boom anytime!”

Well, after having driven well over a thousand miles, most of which were at Interstate speeds of 70+ miles per hour — and on the eve of making another out-of-town trip — that was a sobering moment!

Anyway, back to annual conference: we always enjoy annual conference, and this year should be especially interesting as Ethan joins us. There, Ethan will meet a number of our friends and colleagues for the first time.

We expect it to be a bit overwhelming for Ethan, though, so we’ll have to use some wisdom in making sure we incorporate enough down time for our family. Tentatively, we’ve scheduled Ethan to be in child care Thursday and Friday mornings (that could be an experience in itself) while we try to keep him with one or both of us during the afternoon and/or evening sessions.

For the past several years, Joleen and I have written for the Daily Link, the newspaper that reports on the events of annual conference. Since we don’t know what annual conference with Ethan will be like, we’re cutting down our involvement a little this year. We each have volunteered to write one article each day.

It looks to be a good few days! Annual Conference begins Thursday morning and concludes Saturday afternoon.

And, for the first time, we *should* have internet access while at Messiah College, so please check back later this week to see how annual conference is going and how Ethan is doing. Also, look for a report on our second (of three) post-placement visit with our caseworker regarding our adoption of Ethan, a visit that will take place in Camp Hill on our way to Messiah College on Wednesday.