Entries Tagged 'Family' ↓

We’re finally taking some much-needed, long-overdo vacation time. Our last vacation time, spent packing in Mooresville, moving, and unpacking in Clearfield, certainly wasn’t restful or renewing!

We’re in Woodbury, NJ (east of Philadelphia) visiting Joleen’s aunt and uncle, Jim and Wanda, whom Ethan is meeting for the first time.

This morning, Wanda, Joleen, and I played mini golf.

On the way to the mini golf course, Ethan fell asleep. We put him in his stroller where he slept through the first several holes. After he woke, he was content to watch us play from his stroller. The all-terrain stroller came in handy today as the golf course had a lot of hills and steps. It was fun.

Tomorrow, we’re planning to drive to the eastern side of the state where Ethan will see the Atlantic Ocean and play in the sand on the beach for the first time.

This kid sleeps at the darnedest times! He occasionally falls asleep in the car, on walks, and during his mother’s sermons on Sunday mornings.

But he almost never coordinates his naps with our naps! For instance, when I’ve tried to nap when he’s around, he’s poked at my eyes and come beside me and yelled some string of syllables (don’t worry, Daddy is around watching him when my eyes get heavy).

Ethan just needs to work on his timing a little bit!

This is an interesting week. Because today, Tuesday, August 12, 2008 marks 6 months since we received Ethan on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 (i.e., “gothcha day”), we’re reliving and experiencing even more memories and flashbacks (of our time in Korea) than normal.

Yesterday marked 6 months since we met Ethan for the first time (see 1,000 Words and The Meeting for what our perspective back then in Korea).

Thursday will be 6 months since we arrived home on the longest Valentine’s Day ever (due to the time zone difference, we had an extra 14 hours of Valentine’s Day). See also First Hours with Ethan and Ethan is Home!.

While we will celebrate “gotcha day” every year in our home, the 6 month milestone is meaningful, too. Ethan spent 6 months in a foster home (after 2 months in the SWS hospital/home), a milestone that we have now matched!

An article about our family appeared on the front page of today’s edition of The Progress News.

The article is currently posted online here, but it may not be available long-term; if it isn’t, you can click here, which should open the saved file in your browser, to read it.

The article focused on our new ministry appointments in Clearfield (at West Side and Centre Grove), as well as our recent/current experience of bringing Ethan into our lives from Korea.

The article included a link to this blog, so we welcome those of you who have stopped by. To read our previous posts, just scroll down the page (you can go back as far as you want by clicking on “previous entries” at the bottom of each page). You can also click on one or more of the “categories” in the sidebar on the right if there’s a particular topic that interests you.

Feel free to leave a comment on this post if you have a question or comment. You can read and/or post comments on this, or any, post on the blog simply by clicking on “comments” underneath the post you want to comment on.

For those following our journey of adopting Ethan, we invite you to check back on Tuesday and Wednesday for some reflection on a couple important milestones. Also, we’re hoping to add a section to the blog called “Ethan’s Adoption” (a link will appear at the top of the page) which will summarize the whole story and point to some of the more central (adoption-related) posts from the past year or so.

Thanks for stopping by. Welcome!

On Friday (our day off), we went to the grand opening of Dunkin Donuts here in Clearfield (near the new location of The Meadows). Dunkin Donuts was very busy while we were there.

After a few bites of our flatbread sandwich, Ethan ate a good bit of a glazed donut (which may explain why his afternoon nap was delayed for a few hours!).

One of the reasons we went to Dunkin Donuts on opening day (besides trying out the new location and getting a donut on our day off) was that it brought back memories of Seoul, Korea. While we didn’t eat at Dunkin Donuts while we were there (regrettably), we did eat at Dono Studio, another donut cafe (see what we wrote about it while we were in Korea in this post, including a photo of our meal there ). We discovered while we were in Seoul that donut shops, in general, and Dunkin Donuts, in particular, are booming in Seoul.

On the surface, this might sound contradictory to what I recently wrote about change. Often, when we think about routine, we think of monotony and things that stay the same.

But really, routines are simply habits or systems for getting things done. and to be most effective, the habits/systems/routines must change from time to time.

I like to change or tweak my routines, periodically. My recent post on task management is an example that. In order to keep growing, you must have routines, but you must also keep changing them.

I first learned about the importance of shaking things up from weight lifting. Weightlifters make their greatest gains (strength, endurance, muscle growth) when they first start out because the new routines are a shock to their bodies/muscles. However, muscles become resistant to the routine after a few short months. In order to keep growing, weightlifters must change up their routines every few months. It’s called the “confusion principle.”

Our routines have been thrown into a whirlwind in 2008 (a good whirlwind, but a whirlwind nonetheless), but we have still tried to have routines in our lives. Some of our daily, weekly, and monthly routines include …

• Daily/weekly planning
• Sermon prep (which I’m planning to write about in the future)
• Regular day off (on Fridays, a change from Mondays which we’ve always done before!)
• Tracking personal income and expenses (using spreadsheets) including a number of ministry and/or tax-related documents/spreadsheets.

But the newest routines we’ve developed this year have been related to Ethan — an evening routine that includes getting Ethan ready for bed, reading a Bible story, prayer, and taking turns each night giving him his milk in a sippy cup (formerly, formula in a bottle); whoever puts Ethan to bed, gets him dressed the next morning and prepares his breakfast, etc.

However, it’s some of our before-Ethan routines that we’re in the process of reestablishing and redeveloping. Having been a family of two for 14 years, our rhythms were fairly well set. Ethan has dramatically changed how we do life and we’re still finding our new rhythms. Adding a move to new ministries to the mix, needless to say we’re still discovering and settling into the new rhythms, including …

• Morning TWG (”time with God”) — works best when we rise earlier than Ethan, who is an early riser himself!
• We want to get back to practicing the weekly Wesley Fast (see my post on fasting from last year).
• Reading — after a 4.5 year degree program, we have to redevelop our own reading habits — choosing our own reading material and reading it on our timetable. But we have plenty to choose from as can be seen in our previous post, Reading Pile; BTW, the pile has grown since that post!).
• Exercise — before hitting crunch time with our dissertations at the beginning of the year, followed by becoming parents in February, we had an exercise routine that involved lifting weights and/or walking most days of the week; now, we try to walk as often as we can by taking Ethan in the stroller. But as we get settled into the new life, we hope to redevelop some better exercise habits.

What are your routines? Which are most helpful? Which are in need of a shakeup?

More firsts for Ethan. This time, it’s his first haircut. The haircut was a bit overdue; we waited as long as we could. We wondered how he would handle it, but he handled it extremely well!

The Fireman’s Parade ended where we were seated about 8:30 pm. We packed up the stroller and returned home.

By that time, Ethan was ready to go to bed. We followed our evening routine (getting Ethan dressed for bed, reading a Bible story, praying with Ethan while he drinks milk from his sippy cup). Tonight was my turn to give Ethan his milk and put him in bed, and just about the time I returned downstairs, the fireworks began at the Clearfield County fairgrounds behind our house.

Joleen and I headed outside to watch the fireworks (with the baby monitor nearby). Because of the loud noise, Joleen went to check on Ethan, who was standing in his crib quietly, at that point. She brought him outside where I was taking photos of the fireworks.

Standing outside, the fireworks were a bit too intense for Ethan so he and Mommy returned to Ethan’s bedroom where they finished watching the fireworks from the upstairs window in Ethan’s room. He soon went back to sleep, thankfully!

This week is the Clearfield County Fair, a big week in the life of Clearfield. One of the highlights is the Fireman’s Parade which took place this evening.

The parade is like one continuous block party. Someone told us you have to “earn” a place along the route, which can take years. It’s a good thing we have hospitable church folk! As we went out this morning, just a half block from our house, to place our chairs by the parade route, we found that most of the spots were already taken. But Rick and Becky were passing by in their pickup and invited us to their corner for their party.

We had a great time with great folks and great food. It was amazing how many church people from both West Side and Centre Grove we bumped into on the way to our seats on Weaver Street, a few blocks away from where we live, especially considering that we’ve only been here one month!

Ethan enjoyed the parade tremendously. He let out squeals of joy like we never heard before as the fire trucks passed by. And when the bands and music played his foot would go round and his hand would tap to the beat. He even waved, arm outstretched, at one fire truck crew.

Saturday, July 26 was the Loose Reunion. Loose is pronounced with a long o, as in “low.” My maternal grandmother, Sara Aurandt, was a Loose.

There are now only two surviving siblings from that generation — my great aunt Esther Strayer who lives in Newport, PA whose health prevented her from coming this year, and my great uncle John Loose who lives in Martinsburg with his wife Beulah.

Until last year the reunion was held at the Beagle Club just outside Williamsburg. My mother hosted the reunion again this year at her home in rural Williamsburg. As you can see by the pictures, food and conversation are the main stay of the gathering.

This was Ethan’s first family reunion. He and my cousin Kevin’s twins got to “play” together again for a bit (read about the first time here). The twins are just two weeks older than he. Ethan also let his great great uncle John hold him.