HELLO FROM YOKOTA!

Hi everyone! We're all still doing good here in Japan. Finally getting settled in a bit and making this house home. The kids are doing great adjusting. It's funny 'cause I wonder all the time why we had to come here. Not negative, just what God's big plan is for this and He reveals it to me all the time, little by little which makes it much easier to be this far away. All the kids are doing amazing. Ryan's behavior is really coming along and his speech & development is progressing everyday. We are seeing great change in him. His new school is WONDERFUL for him and there are tons more services available for him than what he was getting before. We've not even been here two months and he's already getting new hearing aids and a new hearing system for him to use at school. His teacher told me today that things just seem to be coming together with him and that she sees something new everyday that is progressing. His focus is dramatically increasing. He's following directions, participating with the group appropriately. Taking good cues from his teachers by their tone or facial expressions. We're so proud of him! Jalen is doing great!! His teacher is putting him into a group for accelerated learning since they can't technically go to gifted yet so we're happy about that of course. He has no idea that he's any smarter than his friends and I want to keep it that way so what she's doing is perfect in my opinion cause he doesn't have to be pulled out of class for anything. She's just gonna accelerate their cirriculum in the classroom. Also, we have a couple of neighborhood boys his age that he's made really good friends with and he's outside playing with them all the time. This weekend he was out from sun up to sun down climbing trees and digging for rocks and making "mud coatings" for them! :) I almost started crying seeing how happy he was. All three of the kids love playing outside with the neighborhood kids everyday. Our doorbell rings a thousand times a day even on the weekdays! :) Laela is definitely terrible twos! :) She's hilarious though. Just growing up too fast. I can't believe my last baby is almost 2!!!! I've made a friend with one of my neighbors and we cut up a good bit. Her boys are 6 and almost 4 and her baby girl is 3 months. Eddie already had a friend here that he used to be stationed with at Maxwell. Also,some of you might know, Eddie is on special assignment here and not working in the contracting office. So he won't deploy while he's here. He has to go tdy once or twice a month for a few days at a time but no deployments for four years. That said, we just found out this week that contracting just went to 6 months on, 6 months off for deployments. I can't imagine! Thank GOD we are here. Hopefully it will have slowed down by the time we are finished here but if not, he said he's getting out. He said there's no way he's doing that type of rotation. We'll see! So like I said, everytime I question His plan for us, He shows me He has lots in store for our family. We miss everyone so much and wish we could see everyone more. But we feel confident now this is where we're supposed to be for the moment. I got the sweetest letter in the mail from Lynn and it made me feel so close to home. For a minute I didn't feel a million miles away. Thank you Lynnie for taking the time to write and send it. I know everyone wants pictures and I promise I will send them soon. MY CAMERA IS OUT OF COMMISSION :( I love my fancy camera and can't wait to start using it here. But the battery charger for it somehow didn't make the move so I have to order a new one. As soon as I get it I promise I'll be getting lots of pictures out. LOVE TO EVERYONE!!!!!!

Sad News

Hello everyone. We are finally settling in in Japan. We love our new home. We miss our families but we are all very happy with things here. LOTS to do and see and we just hope we can get it all in while we're here. Yes, there is that much that we could actually leave in 4 years wishing we had seen something we didn't. Anyway, I'll move on to the subject of this post. If any of you have followed or read our timeline, you know that adoption has not always been something on Eddie's heart. It has been on mine since I was a small child. However, he has broken the news to me that his heart is not in the adoption process. I respect his honesty and his wishes for our family but as you might suspect, I am quite sadened by it. It has been a very tough process to get over this "hurdle" in our lives but we are moving forward and enjoying our wonderful family. There is really nothing I can do about the situation. I wish badly that adoption was something he wanted as badly as I do. But we can't change someone's heart. I know many of you will read this and think he is a horrible person for letting me get this far with it and for taking this away from me. Which is what I thought for a little while too if I'm being honest here. However, once all the anger peeled away, I was able to see that he was just trying desperately to make me happy and thought he'd eventually grow to want it as bad as I do. He wants nothing more than to be able to make mine and our children's dreams come true but thank goodness was honest enough with me NOW before we brought a child into our home. Who knows, someday maybe he'll change his mind and approach me about it. Maybe not. I've accepted that it may never happen. I know that some of you may also be wondering what we'll be doing with the little bit of money we raised toward our adoption. At the moment we have only raised $200 which may sound like a lot to some but for those of us familiar with the adoption world, we know that's a very small fraction of the total costs. Anyway, I have been in contact with a representative from one of the local orphanges here in Japan. We plan to donate the money to the orphanage. I will still be checking back from time to time to follow your journeys. Best wishes to you all and God Bless you and your families.

Allison