SpaceX launch

Exciting news today that SpaceX launched their Dragon capsule in the hopes to dock with the International Space Station. I am keeping a close eye on this for a couple reasons. I like knowing current events related to NASA. I also have particular interest in following anything happening at the International Space Station because I am helping with the development of an exhibition about the station at the Science Museum of Minnesota. I can't wait to hear about how the docking of Dragon goes on Friday. Hoping everything is successful and then the US will again be able to launch our own cargo to the space station.

Here is an article at Universe Today if you want to read more about it. Picture credit: Ken Kremer.

mischievous nephew

We are taking care of my two nephews for one evening while my sister and her husband get away. They are visiting us from Germany and a hotel without kids is a nice treat in Minneapolis. So we have four boys in our house. Things have gone rather smoothly. We walked a trail through the forest. Dinner and playland at McDonald's. Playtime and movie at home. Then this morning while I was showering and Bryan had the four boys, the thing I thought most likely to happen with a foster child happened with my nephew. A computer was destroyed.

Bryan left our nephew in the living room by himself with a task. He was wiping furniture and cleaning and enjoying it. Bryan was in the basement with the three big boys for maybe 5-10 minutes when he came up to find a disaster. He found his laptop that was put away, taken out and almost all of the keys and plastic connectors pulled off with blood on the computer keys and carpet from my nephew's little 2 year old fingers. We went to wash his hands and discovered the toilet filled with toilet paper with toilet water everywhere. My oh my did that kid have a fun time in those few minutes. We already knew that any kid in our house would know that the computers are our most prized posessions and my nephew probably also knew that from his house. We had been told to watch out for foster kids destroying what is most important to you. I didn't expect this from my cute nephew.

This nephew is such a little sweetheart and has been loved on a lot by us the last few days. He will never forget this story and Bryan may really need a new computer. God continues to remind us that people are more important than things. My sister does not have an easy job raising her little Curious George.

transitioning out of foster care

On Sunday I packed up the last of our little foster girl's stuff at our house. Everything was ready to be moved to her new home and new foster/adopt family. The boys and I said goodbye and see ya later while Bryan was at work. I was handling things pretty well. Saturday and Sunday were hard days because of dealing with 3 kids with behavior issues while Bryan was working. So in some ways it was a relief to say goodbye to one child. I knew the hardness of that would still hit me. Our family went to church Sunday evening and the emotion of it all hit me. I am still dealing with feelings of failure in what we hoped would end in adoption. There are feelings of sadness from all of us that we will miss this little girl. We are hopeful and excited about her new life. We also feel like celebrating our freedom. We have felt more confined to our house with three kids and their behavior issues. So we have mixed feelings of sadness and celebration, disappointment and hopefulness.

Monday night we got to see the new family of 3 for dinner as all 7 of us ate together. This was planned because Bryan missed out on the joint goodbye on Sunday and it was nice to have another thing to look forward to. At dinner we were reminded that little girl is still in a state of stress. She was overly loud and doesn't fully understand that she has left our house permanently. I am sure this will take some time to set in for her. We were also reminded that our attention is now focused off of this little girl and onto our two boys. The boys behavior needs to improve and get back to a healthy place. Neither of them ever had tantrums before this little girl entered our house and now at 5 and 7 years old, they are both having major emotional and physical breakdowns. We know our boys are resilient but they need a lot of love and attention right now. We are happy to provide that for them. I am amazed at how much quieter our house and cars are when there are only 2 kids instead of 3. I am enjoying the quietness and working through all that we have experienced in the last 6 months of foster care. Thank you again for your prayers and thoughts. We appreciate them.