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Sunday, November 6, 2016

Life Keeps Going

2016 has been a busy year. A is a junior and doing well in school this year. We are blessed to have his biological mom, L, living in our town now. They have really built a bond that is beneficial to both of them. It is great to see how my family has embraced L as a family member.

J & D moved into an apartment with their mom and sister this summer. Reunification is a beautiful thing. These boys were with us for nearly two years and will continue to be part of our lives. We are helping J with driver's education this fall, taking him for his required drives. Fifty hours of driving is required before he can get his license come spring. We celebrate holidays together and see them regularly.

After thinking we might be a one kid family for awhile, in October we took in another neighbor's son for the long term. AM is adjusting to our crazy clan. We have two goals with AM: (1) help him graduate high school and (2) help heal the relationship with his family.

Since we keep taking in teens not associated with foster care and the requirements to stay licensed get more stringent each year, we handed in our license. It did not make sense to us for our agency to send a caseworker for north Seattle once a year to inspect the house and interview the family when we were not taking in foster children. It is a waste of resources as I see it. We will continue to help local teens as needed by keeping them out of the foster care system and off the streets.

We officially added another family member to the clan - Hillary got married and we welcomed Johnny as our brother!


In late October we lost Isabel, our 17.5 year old cat. We got Izzy two weeks after we got married; Mike nursed her back to health the first night we got her because she got stepped on by a child. She gained the name "Rubbermaid Kitty" because she recovered overnight. This year she died in Mike's arms where she felt safe. She will be missed.

Isabel - the Christmas Village Monster

With all these changes, I threw in another one - I quit my job after 7.5 years and will begin a new job December 1. It is still fairly local so we will stay in Mason County. We are enjoying our kitchen remodel which took five months instead of six weeks. After five years of no usable kitchen, it is nice to having counters and cabinets. And we got the fridge moved from the dining room to the kitchen! Below are some before and after photos.

Before
After


Before
Before
After