Hale Family Tales

I want to thank you for keeping us warm so many winter nights.

I want to thank you for keeping us dry during many a summer rain.

We brought our Ellie Grace home to you.  We yearned for your safety and familiarity from the other side of the earth.  We told her we were bringing her home.  You showed her that this house was home finally for my sweet little one.  She has slept peacefully in her tiny bed in her light yellow room.  Thank you for sweet dreams.

Hannah has dressed up, constructed forts, welcomed many friends in the name of play inside your tall walls.  Countless times, I have heard her voice echo down the hall from her room as she mimicked the voices of her Little People, then her Polly’s and now even her Barbie’s.  She has learned here, read here, grown here.  Thank you for her time to play and grow.

We have worked here, welcomed here, and worried here.  We have planned, dreamed, and gazed out your windows.  Seasons have been evident here: the howling north wind, the green hills in summer, the geese flying over head when they return to nest every year.  This place has been a safe haven to relax, rest, and recooperate from that big world out there.

Thank you, Yellow House for standing tall and strong around this little family.

This is such a bittersweet time for me and our family as we prepare to move to Denver.  I think, overall, everyone is fine and will weather this well.  We all are the type to focus on the future and take the good with the bad.  I thought I would record some of the feelings we are having at this point:

5 Bad Things:

1.  Hannah isn’t getting to complete her school year with Awana’s, Co-op, and her Drama class.  While she loves to be homeschooled, she is a very social person and loves her friends and teachers in these activities.  She is taking this very well; she shed a few tears, but her sense of adventure is taking over and she is eager to move to Denver and meet new friends and become involved in new activities.  We have made such good friends in our homeschool community, it has been great to be with other families who hold the same values we do and who understand the ups and downs of homeschooling life.

2.  We have been with many of the same doctors here in STL since we moved here.  We use the same pediatrician who came to see Hannah in the hospital when she was born.  They helped us prepare for and make sure Ellie was healthy when she came home from China.  While they haven’t had a child adopted from Ethiopia before, they were up for the challenge and said they would be whatever help they could.  I have already asked Ryan to check with folks at his new office and if anyone gives any glowing comments about their pediatrician, I want their number.

3.  Our Adoption Specialist, Aimee, helped us through the whole process of completing Ellie’s adoption and has gotten us to this point waiting for Treasure.  She knows her stuff paperwork-wise, is happy to help us through the shaky emotional stuff, and has such a satisfaction in helping families add to their families through adoption.  One day right before we left for China to get Ellie, she came over to our house, sorted through all of our paperwork making stacks to sign now, sign later, explained “the brown envelope” for naturalization once we got back stateside.  Her proficiency gave these first-time adoptive parents peace that we were prepared paper-work wise to go get our baby.

As you talk with folks about their adoptions, you hear about better or worse AS’s.  I always considered it a blessing that we had a great one.

4.  We had this home built and put so many of our ideas and touches into it.  We are leaving this home.  While I like our new house, it will take some time for it to “feel” like home.  Of course, I want my children to be least affected by the suspended feeling you have after leaving one home and waiting for the new one to fit just right.  Also, my flowers are going to wake up and turn green soon.  I won’t be here to see them.

5.  Most of all, we are leaving some very important people in our lives.  Ryan and I have spent most of our marriage here.  There are people who have invested heavily in our lives and whom we care about deeply.  There are kids we waited for to be born who we won’t see grown up.  There is one special family whose kids were very young when we moved here, and are amazing teenagers now.  It would be great to see them as they begin to soar on their own.

OK – with a big lump in my throat, I am moving on to the positive.  Someone told me just yesterday that I am that kind of person, so here I go with determination:

1.  The Mountains, The Weather, The Scenery.  Enough said.

2.  Ryan is as pleased as punch to live in Denver.  He said several years ago that the only place he would really be interested in moving to would be Denver.

3.  Adventure -We are all pretty eager to explore our new area.

4.  A smaller home – hopefully equals less time feeling frustrated over my lack of time for housecleaning and more freedom to read books/play blocks/go to the park with my kids.  They won’t be this little for long.

5.  Hmmm.  I think the above 5 things put me in a gloomy mood, sort of matches the winter sky outside my window….hmmm, oh yeah, the over 300 days of sunshine that Denver boasts!  That is, in fact, a good thing.

We have been to Denver and back.  I can say that the clear, blue Colorado sky is much on my mind today while I sit and look out my dining room windows at the low, cloudy, winter horizon here in the mid-west.

It was quite a whirlwind week.  Here are the highlights:

-We looked at at least 13 homes over 5-6 days and settled on a charming, little home in Littleton.  Ryan and I both liked it instantly and all else paled in comparison.  The owners (we are renting) are wonderful and I think it will be a great situation.

-Ryan reported to his office and worked his normal schedule except “ducking out” a bit early a few days to look at a house or two with me.

-My computer harddrive died and we had to find a Mac store for some repair work.  Actually, not that hard to do in a town like Denver.  I counted at least 5 Mac stores just driving around.  STL has only two.  While I don’t consider myself a “techy” it was frustrating to be without a computer while trying to find rentals, look up maps, and keep my mind straight (Before leaving STL, I had created a spreadsheet listing addresses and pertinent info about many of the homes we were wanting to see.)

-My in-laws came into town to help out where needed – and boy, were they needed.  They helped with the girls of course and were a great support to me as I navigated my way through the various areas of Denver deciding which would be the best part to settle.  Ryan was so bogged down with work that he really had to leave a lot of the leg work up to me.  I was so thankful for the help – and company.  One day, Grandma kept the girls at the hotel to swim while Grandpa and I went to look at a house.  We ended up driving for a couple of hours around Denver.  We had a huge map and two GPS’s going.  I teased about the women’s voices on the GPS’s.  Mine was named, “Norma Never-Lost.” while Grandpa’s was called the grumpy, bossy one for her stern voice.  Actually, I learned a lot about finding my way around Denver this way…

-My girls – while a bit weary at times – trooped along and we made it through the week rather well.  I am not much on buying toys “just because”, but I did take them to Build-A-Bear Workshop one afternoon and they both picked out a silly pink monkey to stuff and dress.  I ask you, what is better than one pink monkey with hearts?  It is two pink monkeys.  I don’t care, really, they were troopers and I was happy to treat them.

Thankfully, they both seem fine about the move.  I think we will have some ups and downs, but I think they will be fine for the most part.  I have learned over time how to read my Ellie Grace and as long as Hannah knows what to expect she does fine.

-We took the girls up to Keystone on Valentine’s Day to ski.  First time for them and only the second time for me.  Ryan skiied alot when he was younger.  He wanted to get the girls started on this new adventure.  They did great overall.  Ellie hung real close to Daddy.  She figured out early on that if she didn’t want to go anywhere to bend her knees and lean forward in her boots.  She assumed that position a lot.  Hannah made it down the bunny hills a couple of times on her own, cried when she fell, and complained about how hard it was to get up.  All par for the course in learning how to ski.  Next time we’ll do ski school, but this was a great adventure and got everyone – especially Ryan, very excited to move close to the mountains.

So, the movers are going to come and do a walk through, and then return in a week or so to pack up our life here in Missouri.  For now the details are swirling, but I know we will all land safely in our lovely new home in Colorado.

I watched the new episode last night where they move into a larger house since the large number of children in their family are becoming larger children and need more space.

Of course, now that the decision has been made that we will be moving, my time (and definitely mental energy) has been revolving around the logisitics of “how” to get this done smoothly, efficiently, and with keeping balance for the kids.

That was not the show to watch right before going to sleep.  I tossed and turned all night last night thinking about how many times I saw Jon running up and down the stairs, how many beds he was taking apart, moving himself, and reassembling at the new house.  Never once did he say anything about losing the bolts or screws.  If you think about how many tiny pieces of hardware that is for that number of beds, that is an astounding feat in and of itself.  Plus, the whole time you are seeing adorable children running around this great new yard with their toy trucks and exploring their new world.

I have a new perspective thanks to the documented misery of the Gosselin family:

-I have only 2 children.

-My husband’s company will be moving us; hopefully, eliminating much of the need for me or my husband to deal with little, tiny pieces of hardware.  (Not our forte, we admit it.)

-Kate was away on some sort of business trip up to the actual day they were moving.  Not me – no business trip – I’m just a SAHM.

-Did I mention?  I have 2 children.

We’re at the top of the hill and about ready to swoop down the track.  Which is better/worse, the anticipation or the actual “tummy tickler” feeling?

We are moving.  Soon.  My husband started a new job within his same company (he’s worked for them for 12 years) with their technology division in Denver.  We will be heading out there next week to look for housing and explore the area a bit.  Ryan will work in the office as well that week and the girls and I will do a bit of school in the hotel and explore our new city.

We have lived in St. Louis for almost 11 years.  I told Hannah that this season is called, “Bittersweet”.  St. Louis has been our home for a long time.  There will be some hard good-byes to invaluable friends who have meant so much to us.  God placed people in our lives who have helped form our ideals and convictions, whom we have shared life’s ups and downs – people we have “done life” with.  There will be some landmarks that we have taken for granted as ours that we won’t visit or frequent anymore (I was near tears this week when I drove by our doctor’s office/hospital where we have such great physicians and where Hannah was born).  I won’t be seeing my plants green up and turn beautiful once again this spring.

As for the Sweet – the mountains, the over-300-sunny-days-a-year that Denver boasts, a career opportunity for Ryan (which is important in this day and age).  We are all adventuresome and are looking forward to living near the mountains and getting to know our new area.  Ryan said, offhandedly, a couple of years ago, that if he were going to move anywhere, it would be Denver.

So, off we go, on this next adventure.  I am praying for my girls to see this and walk through it positively and courageously.  Hannah has already had a few tears over not seeing her drama production through.  I was sorry for her.  She had won a great part in it and was giving up something very important to her.  I’m not sure what her director said, but Hannah is at peace with it now.  I pray for more great opportunities – and great people in my children’s life in our next leg of our journey through this crazy thing called life.

Loves to play in the snow!

Today is prefect for enjoying the 6 -7 inches we got in the last day and night.  The stuff is powder with no ice and the sky is clear and blue with no wind.  Perfect!

There are snow angels, big boot tracks and little boot tracks, and sled marks up and down every hill.  More fun will come when Daddy heads out to the hill for sledding.  He is the biggest kid of all!

There is a down-side for a homschooled kid, though.  Hannah hasn’t realized what a “snow day” is.  We do schoolwork with long breaks for playing outside, then back to the work at hand.  Our productivity on a day like today usually allays my guilt over missing school for doctors appointments and other things.

Today, though, it was hard to make her come in, but, alas the lure of “sweet cocoa” did the trick.  That and the realization that she couldn’t feel her toes.

(I have some great pictures, but am still learning about our new editing software for posting to the blog.)

“Yesterday is history, Tomorrow’s a mystery.  Only today is present, I think that is why they call it a gift.”

Ryan started a chocolate fight with the girls tonight while we were enjoying our dessert of sliced bananas dipped in melted chocolate (Yummy!)  I thought Ellie was going to cry when he first smeared her, but she got into it when she saw the chocolate on Hannah’s face.  They got him back a little, but he definitely did more damage.

I love it when he is in this goofy mood – and so do his little girls.

that we would have several days at home without work or school this week after all of our Christmas travel. It has been a relaxing week around here working on a couple of projects and spending time together – generally catching our breath before it all starts again.

On New Year’s Day, went to a family game place and played video games and drove go-carts. It was Hannah’s first time solo and she was a bit wide eyed at first but her determination was clear that she was going to do this by herself. Ellie rode with Daddy, of course, and was tickled that they got the Home Depot car since orange is her favorite color.

Another day we went to see Bedtime Stories. It was a great movie with all the humor and good storytelling that is synonymous with Adam Sandler these days. I laughed out loud many times. Ellie is growing up…normally she would have been on my lap the entire movie. This time she started out on Ryan’s lap due to the logistics of the popcorn and stayed the entire movie. Daddy is the guy these days with the fun of going to the movies, go carting, and the tickle-fests in the evenings. Mom seems to be the, “brush your teeth,” and, ” I said no fighting,” voice in their ears.

Ryan is heading back to work this afternoon so we are officially ending our hiatus, but it has been a great couple of weeks and we can definitely enter 2009 with our batteries charged.

Some highlights:

-Ryan started a new job.  He loves it – it is almost like a new baby in and of itself.  He works hard and I admire him for it.

- Hannah learned cursive and her addition and subtraction facts.

-In February, Ellie had a second set of tubes in her ears and her adenoids removed but she continued to have issues all winter.  I am keeping my fingers crossed in that so far this fall and winter she has had only one ear infection even though she has had a case of the sniffles a few times.

-We decided to adopt another child this time from Ethiopia.

-Hannah played her first piano recital.

-Ryan led a mission to help a church in Swaziland set up a chicken farm micro-business to support the large number of children whose parents have died from AIDS.

-I learned that homeschooling is very much a full-time endeavor and love (almost) every minute of it especially when I remember the amount of commitment it requires and allow myself to forget about the dust multiplying on every surface and the gunk in the corner of the shower.

-Our house has been on the market since summer.

-Ellie moved to a toddler bed.

-Hannah crosses the street to go the the neighbor’s house to play.

-Saturday has become the official house cleaning day.

-I learned to blog.

-Ellie learned how to write her name.

-We spent more time this year with both sides of grandparents than in the last few years.

-I took a marvelous, relaxing vacation alone with my husband.

In the next year…

-we will have another child in our family.

-we will have a resolution about whether we will be in St. Louis or Denver.

-Ellie will be done with her pacifier (sooner rather than later).

-we will get in touch with an old friend whose husband we just found out passed away a couple of years ago from cancer.

-we will laugh with our kids everyday.