February 2, 2016
Well, it has been quite a fun and busy few months since I last wrote. It seems so long ago already – Thanksgiving! We had a lovely first Thanksgiving with the boys, who got to spend quality time with their foster grandparents from Arizona, who visited with us for about a week. Christmas was a lot of fun – they got to see all of their immediate cousins and other family too.
We had an amazing day in NYC and got to visit with both of our McDermott cousins and our Roper family. We enjoyed a fantastic Afghani meal, saw Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central, and quite a few other things that I can’t recall at the moment. The boys loved it and we are looking forward to going back – preferably on a clearer day. It was so foggy when we were there that we couldn’t see the Empire State Building, even when we were quite near to it.
Over the holidays we also managed to get to Philadelphia for a day at the Franklin Institute, where we saw the Genghis Kahn exhibit and the Planetarium. Rounding up our flurry of field trips was a three-day jaunt to DC in January, where we trekked around the city with other cousins, had another amazing Afghani meal, and pretty well museum-ed ourselves out.
We are staying put now for a bit. The boys have soccer on Friday and Saturday evenings through March and Hedayat (James) is in track, with meets every other weekend and practice pretty much every day after school. Ghani (Sam) is working on getting his driving permit. We have had lots of doctor and dentist visits – catching up on things that were let go for quite a long time.
We have had some challenges, as you might imagine. For Nolan and me, it has been a bit difficult figuring out our responsibilities in relation to LCFS. We seem to be through the worst of that now; and though we certainly still don’t have all the answers we would like, we are a little bit clearer about which things require permission. We are also at a point where we need to have regular household chore schedules and rules like curfews and such. Not that the boys are just out on their own yet, but that will come and it would be better if we had clear expectations before we get there I think.
The boys are doing well in school. Their English is improving all the time and they are getting more comfortable here. Slowly they are doing things by themselves, like ordering food or checking out at a store. There are so many things that we take for granted… it is humbling.
Recently they got to see democracy in action… the school board was considering shutting down their school to convert it to an all-day kindergarten. Nolan and the boys went to a school board meeting and Nolan talked about how valuable the school has been for our boys. The teachers were all there as well, and ultimately the board decided to find another place for the all day kindergarten, and to leave the Newcomer Academy intact. It was pretty neat that the boys got to participate in that process.
The boys loved the snow. They had been asking for quite a while – “when will the snow come?” So they were quite enthusiastic when it finally got here, and they spent many hours shoveling and snow-blowing.
I am hoping for a few months of relative calm so that I can catch up on some things (accounting, pottery orders, etc.) and maybe even get my office a little bit organized. Many things are still in a state of at least partial discombobulation after the move. The projects are endless and it can be overwhelming. My studio is getting whipped into shape, though. I will start having a few students and folks who will use the studio to work independently. Between the pottery and the dip business, I could use an extra 40 hours a week! I really can’t do it all, and I am not willing to give any of it up, so I am just going to continue to muddle through, dropping balls when I have to and picking them up when I can.
I will update the photo album soon…