Our Life Lessons: MIA Return.

We've gone MIA in the past month and half.

Over the last 6 weeks, we've had Spring Break, Easter,

a Flat Stanley visitor,

Great Paper Airplane Contest,

LDS General Conference,

started swim team practices, finished as a couple a few really good books, and started classes to be licensed as a foster family.

In effort to not write a saga, I'll hit a few of the high points. We should share some of our low points too but that won't be happening today.

Spring Break: We made a list of the things we wanted to do - swim lessons, old movies like the Apple Dumpling Gang, practice different sports,

Flat Stanley touring to a science museum and the desert, and Easter camp. As usual we planned more than we could do. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day,

Dairy Queen's birthday with a free ice cream cone,

and attended Carmina Burana.

Easter: We spent the week learning about Holy Week.

In the middle of the week, the boys hosted an Easter camp for their friends. We condensed Holy Week into 2 days with different activities. They really liked dying eggs. A big shout out to Heather Lotti for being another adult. She is awesome!

For the first time ever our family held an egg hunt per request of the boys. They were so happy with it. They even got new outfits for Easter.

Books: Sweetheart and I have read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and Rising Strong by Brené Brown. The conversations the topics have provided have been stimulating and helpful in problem solving around our home. We liked them so much we wanted to share it with you.

Great Paper Airplane Contest: For the last 2 years, Underfoot has participated in the contest. This was Hurricane's first year. They were SO EXCITED! Hurricane threw his plane well enough to proceed to the next round.

We went and checked out the rest of the museum. Underfoot especially liked the Space portion.

After Hurricane proceeded and Underfoot didn't; Underfoot felt sad naturally. Sweetheart pulled Underfoot aside and talked about how it is hard to watch others succeed when we don't. He continued by saying the hardest part is to be happy for others when it is something we want so desperately. Sweetheart used the example of us wanting more children and to watch our friends continue to have children. Underfoot understood because he has also expressed sadness about wanting more siblings. We are happy for our friends but wonder at times what we could have done differently or wanting to understand God's plan in our experiences.

Foster Care: We have not had much success with the adoption process. We've reached out to through an online outreach service that will be closing at the end of April. Other avenues we have researched and pursued have not work out as well. Another option to our family is foster care. We have high hopes that we will still be able to adopt. The agency we've chosen requires 12 weeks of courses with the inclusion of another home study and background checks. We understand that foster care is not adoption. We also recognize that foster care has the potential to turn into adoption. This might be one of the high-low points for us. We have such hope but aren't sure where this journey will take us.

LDS General Conference: This weekend is always a highlight for us. We learn to be better, how to improve ourselves, and take hope in the future.