Mid-May Garden Update

The garden is really humming along. Eli and I did have one mishap from planting too early. We lost the first tomato plant we added too frost. I just couldn't help myself and planted too early.

We have harvested some romaine lettuce. Used it in a salad and also on Tuesday for Taco night.

The newest and maybe most fun edition is a pepper plant from my friend Needham. Needham works with my and lives in North Carolina. He is in Bloomington, IN this week helping IU with a project for work. There is a pepper lady in Bloomington and Needham is a hug pepper fan. So he bought some peppers for himself and picked up a Cascabel pepper for me. When harvested I am going to dry and then grind these peppers and use them in chili and similar dishes.

Happy Cascabel Pepper.

Here are some photos of how the rest of the garden is going. From bottom left, we just planted cucumber seeds. Then there are peas (Eli and I need to create a trellis). There is broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, then spinach, lettuce, romaine, onions, then some carrots, more lettuce and a broccoli.

The other box is not quite as full yet. Starting at the bottom left we have a grape tomato plant, the cascabel, then some beans we planted as seeds and a bean plant Eli grew in school, and finally a regular tomato.

2nd Home Study Meeting is in the books

We continue to make progress in the Home Study process. On Monday, Leslie and I meet at the BCS offices with the Adoption Specialist. We each meet with her individually as well together as a couple. In this meeting we focused on our childhood, how we were raised, what we remember about growing up. All in all an interesting exercise. You don't spend a lot of time thinking about these kinds of questions.

So what are the next steps? Well, we have our 3rd of 4 meetings scheduled for 6/2 at the house. This one will involve the kids. We are starting in on the initial educational requirements. We have an online set of classes that will fulfill 10 of the 30 credit hours we need. We also need to get working on the second set of paperwork. This is for the Dossier. The Dossier is all the paperwork that goes to Haiti.

Keep those prayers coming. For now, we need prayers of patience and perseverance.

Enjoying the "firsts"

So, up until recently, Eli has expressed very little interest in riding his bike. By 6, most kids have mastered this skill. But Eli, he'd rather zip around the neighborhood on a Razor scooter. Well Sunday, peer pressure won out.

He came into the house on Sunday afternoon and asked me to remove the training wheels on his bike. He wasn't alone. There were three other neighborhood kids with him, all wanting to teach him to ride a bike. We got the training wheels off no problem and then came the learning part.

To my amazement, he was riding in on his own in less than 5 minutes. Once I could convince him to let me help him get started, that was all it took. I helped him with his balance and away he went.

Now, you can't get the kid off his bike. He even showed up to meet me in his bike helmet last night when Leslie and Katie went to choir practice. So later that night we took a friend of his and went on a long ride around the neighborhood. And believe me, the kid has little fear on the bike and acts like he has been riding for months.

I've got to say that while there is some sadness that we are working through some if the big kid "firsts" (losing a tooth, riding a bike, etc.), I'm more excited about how both kids are maturing and growing as individuals. It is incredibly heart warming to witness and be a part of.

Which brings me to the thoughts swirling in my head about the adopted child. How old will they be? Have they been born yet? What firsts will we get to be a part of? How many of those firsts will be different than Katie and Eli? Can we get Katie and Eli to be as engaged and excited about all of this as us? Do we really know what we are doing in trying to adopt?

I suppose the length of the process is also designed to help bring some amount of clarity or peace to these swirling questions.