My story is a complete mess. I never intended to have seven kids, but things happened. We opened our eyes and we couldn’t say no. We said yes even though we didn’t know how to do it. We said yes even though we weren’t ready enough. And things are so out of control, my imperfections […]
to begin. to fear not doing something more than fearing the risks. to ask that one girl/guy out. to start a new business. to take dancing lessons. and then dance. to pick up a new (and positive) habit. to travel. to learn a new language. to start saving money. to start giving money to a […]
Lose 20 pounds Read 1 book a month Be a better spouse, parent, friend Finish school Get a better job Save money Learn a second language Floss These are a few examples of goals. And this is the time of year we set them. Which isn’t bad. But as most of us have experienced, setting […]
The adoption process is done. Sean is our son. And the immigration process is practically done. We have Sean’s visa. All we have to do is come home. But we decided to spend a few nights in Beijing. He has never been outside of his city, much less his province. He has never seen some […]
It wasn’t on my bucket list, but it should have been. On Thursday we visited our first Chinese amusement park. The park featured exotic animals, like Disney’s Animal Kingdom, but better. It was actually one of the best amusement park experiences I’ve ever had. You can see a few pictures below. As far as the […]
The building is beautiful, but you can’t touch it. You can’t get near it. The only way to walk inside is to have an appointment. And then go through security. And They will check every part of you to make certain you don’t take in something dangerous, like a gun or a cell phone. We […]
Our first adoption took us 16 months from start to finish. We had barely started the process before we chose to adopt Sean. But only barely. From the time we were given permission to pursue him to his adoption was only 3 1/2 months. I don’t know how quick the quickest adoption is. I’m convinced […]
Part I For most of us, the goal of our lives is to limit our own suffering. We avoid going to the places we know it to be. When it crosses our line of sight, we close our eyes until it passes. We live in self-fabricated protection from the harsh realities others are face on […]
Being adopted is somewhat like being born in the sense that you show up empty handed. At least with adoption they let you keep the clothes on your back. So we took Sean out to get him some new clothes. And we bumped into Lebron James while we were out. He already had his Christmas […]
Today we met our son. This is Sean Xinmin Statton. We arrived to the civil affairs office before him. The office was small and we could easily hear every time the elevator doors opened and sometime walked down the hallway. While we finished paperwork, we listened for foot steps to approach the door. We had […]
