Adoption

At the Department of Human Services Building

Turning in our paperwork

Yay! We've officially begun the adoption process!

As some of you already know, Robert and I haved decided to adopt a child (or sibling group) through the State of Oregon. Back in November we started a series of classes on Foster Parenting and Adoption through the Department of Human Services to learn more about children in need in our community. We let a few months go by as we thought and prayed about it, and although we had initially been leaning more towards Foster Parenting, the Lord has really turned our hearts towards adoption. Because we hope to have a few biological children as well, and will be able to experience infants, we are open to adopting older children (0-5 years). These children are not your typical adoptable babies; they are children who have been taken out of their homes due to abuse or neglect (or both) and have been living in foster homes while their parents are given the chance to either change their behavior or lose their rights to the child. We know it will not be easy to raise a child with such emotional needs, but we also know that the Lord will give us the strength we need to carry out His calling to love the "fatherless" for we too have been adopted into the family of God! We have finished all required classes and 90+ pages of paperwork, and hope to begin the home-study process in the next few weeks. Please keep us in your prayers as we go through this process; that it will be timely and that the Lord will lead us and the judge to the right child/children for our family.

Smith Rock

On Friday we hiked Smith Rock with some friends from church and had so much fun! It was a 3.5 mile hike and we ate dinner on the summit. We took Kai and he had a blast with Aspen (black lab) and Sage (yellow lab puppy). It was an absolutely gorgeous day and we had such a great time visiting and fellowshipping with our friends. The group plans to do this hike every Friday this summer and we're going to do it with them as much as we can! And as accident-prone as I am, I'm happy to report that my only "injuries" were four gnarly blisters from my shoes rubbing the wrong way on our descent:) I took our camera hoping to capture the breath-taking views, but realized, uppon arrival at our destination, that the battery was completely drained. So the photos above are "borrowed" - and I'll try to get some of my own next time!

A Visit with the Gundersons...

Last week Robert and I were able to make a second trip out to Roach, Missouri to visit our dear friends Paul, Sheila and their adorable 8-month old son Nathan, who are finishing up their second year of training at New Tribes Missions. They will be heading to Indonesia in the summer of 2009 and we want to see them as much as possible before they go! We were able to spend about 4 days with them and had such a wonderful time just visiting and playing with their beautiful baby - who is constantly on the move! We took some lovely walks, ate some delicious meals (thank you, Sheila!), learned how to play Pinochle, and Sheila and I even managed to get a canoe ride in. The Gundersons are such dear friends and we so appreciate their sincere, whole-hearted love for the Lord.

Davis 2008

Cheers!

Well, it looks like visiting Ben and Mary during Spring Break is becoming a Bennington tradition! We just returned from another lovely trip to Davis, California where my best friend Mary and her husband Ben live with their host of pets Leia (cat), Barley (cat), Guinea (guinea pig), and "Despy" (Desperado the snake). We spent 6 days with them in their magical land of endless parks and flowers; Davis was nearly empty (all the college kids were gone) and the weather was absolutely gorgeous - 73 and lots of sunshine. We spent most of our time playing Thurns and Taxis (a very tedious, yet extremely fun board game), eating good food, drinking good wine, walking our doggie, riding bicycles, soaking in the hot-tub, and Mary and I even got in a good game of tennis (well, we don't really know the rules but we managed to hit the ball back and forth a few times!) It was a delightful trip and we look forward to another one next Spring!

Back to School

I (Holly) am delighted to annouce that I will be, yet again, a student of French. During my final year as an undergraduate at UC Irvine I took three quarters of French and was enamored. I didn't really have the time (or energy) to continue it during my Master's program, but now that I am teaching Spanish part-time, at a college, in a Foreign Language Department... I can finally resume my passionate affair with la langue francaise! In fact, the class I will be taking next quarter begins right after I finish teaching, and is just down the hall! My plan is to take the entire 200 level, and then... qui sait?