Poor Adam!

First of all I'm sorry that it has taken me forever to post again on here. I'm going to try to be better at it.


In July we were all excited because we would be going to my family's house in California. We were busy getting packed and talking about all the fun that we would be having there. We had our plan trip set for August 4th. I would be flying out with the kids and then Kary would come later.


Adam was so social this summer! He was always playing with someone and going to friends houses or they were coming to mine. It was fun to see him open up so much. When we lived in Thailand he didn't ever want to leave the house!


On August 2nd Adam had a friend over and they were playing down in our unfinished basement. All of a sudden I heard screams of pain! I ran downstairs and found Adam laying on the floor next to the fooseball table and I couldn't get him to settle down. So I helped him upstairs and laid him on the couch. Come to find out he had been on top of the fooseball table trying to walk in between the bars. He had lost his balance and fallen off. His leg got stuck in between the bars...but then he fell to the floor. Now understand it was a friday afternoon at 4:00 pm. Kary had gone to youth conference the day before with Gavin and Sean. I took a look at Adam's legs and noticed that his right leg looked a little different than the other one. So I made a quick decision to take him to IHC instacare before they closed. I knew that if I waited too long than I would have to take him to the emergency room if he needed medical help. Five minutes away and $35.00 vs. 30 minutes away and $85.00. I decided to drive the 5 minutes and have them take a look at his leg. Well, they x-rayed his leg and it was definately broken. They put a splint on his leg and told me that we had to wait until monday to cast it because they wait for the swelling to go down. I started to panic....our flight was on monday! How were we going to get to California if we couldn't make the flight! They scheduled our appt. with the orthopedic surgeon for 8:00 a.m on Monday morning. It turned out that our flight was at 5:00 pm that evening! Thank goodness it all still worked out.
Here he is with his first cast! He wanted bright red and he had to wear shorts all the time. It was a good thing it was still summer and the weather cooperated with his wardrobe needs!
We borrowed a wheelchair from Kary's parents and that saved our life! We made it back from the orthopedic surgeon just in time to get ready for our trip to California. This would add an extra element of fun to our trip!

They Got Us!

We were trying to slide by under the radar at church. We were enjoying going to church with no responsibilities because we knew that would change as soon as we were given callings. Our church records finally came from Thailand to our ward here two weeks ago. I was asked to be Primary President and Kary was asked to be Young Men's President! Double Whammy!! I don't know if they think we are superhuman or what! All we can do is give it our best try. I am excited to be able to work in the primary. I love the primary! That is my favorite place to be! This next sunday will be my first week in there...but I've already asked the outgoing president to come in and conduct. I think the kids need a transition from outgoing to incoming. I think it will be better for the kids to have the previous president let them know about the changes and introduce the new presidency.Our shipment from Thailand finally arrived here on February 21st...Gavin's birthday. So we are still trying to unpack and get things put away. It's tough because we are in a smaller house here than we were in Thailand, so our furniture and things don't fit like they did in the house there! Needless to say we have made and will make many trips to Deseret Industries to give away the excess.On top of everything else this week I am sick. Bronchitis is wiping me out! When it rains it pours.
Posted by Claudean at 8:26 PM 2 comments

It's February and Still Snowing!!!

It has been the snowiest winter in Utah history since the 80's!! It has been snowing almost every other day for the last 8 weeks! Finally this weekend, Feb. 9th we have sun! But the weather people tell us that the snow is not over yet! Adam is absolutely loving the snow! He wants to go play in it every day. One day he came inside and declared that today was the funnest day in his entire life! That declaration came after just sledding on our little snow mound in the front yard! We've been over to the park a few times so that he can go down the "big hill". The first time we went to the park Adam came down the hill and ran almost head on into the swingset! What fun that is! He has since learned how to bail off the sled when it's needed.Sean and Gavin have also had fun at the park going down the "Biggest Hill". It's not huge, but it's funner than not sledding at all.

Back in Snowy Utah!

Here it is January 2008 and we are back in the U.S.A. Let me catch you up on a few things. First of all Thailand thinks Kary and I are too old to adopt and already have too many children! (What?) So much to our disappointment we won't be adopting from Thailand. The social worker we worked through kept making us believe that we would get approved to adopt and it would happen soon. Well, soon never came and we were finally told that if we wanted to adopt we would have to wait until we moved back to the U.S. and then send them an updated homestudy before they would continue the process. Just to do that and finish an adoption would cost us about $11,000. Yikes! We originally thought that we would come back here to Utah and foster/adopt. I'm not sure yet if that is the right thing to do or not. I would love to have a little girl...but I'm starting to believe Thailand may be right....I'm getting to old to take care of babies full time! Time will tell what happens next.Our foster baby Tara has adoptive parents that are trying to finish paperwork and get to Thailand to pick her up in a few months. Her adoptive parents live in Idaho so we will be able to occasionally see her. When we left we gave Tara to her adoptive Grandparents to be her foster parents. Her soon to be grandparents are serving an LDS mission in Thailand right now and with permission from the mission president they will be her foster parents until her a-parents will be able to come and get her. Everything has worked out so well for Tara. She is a special little spirit and doors have been opened for her to be adopted by Johnny and Kindra. Giving her up was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I had foster babies before...but they only were with our family for a couple of months at the most. Tara was with us for a year! She was part of our family and it was heartbreaking to hand her over. Both Tara and I went through a grieving process. I think I'm still going through it. Tara will be named Jasmine by her adoptive family and I need to get used to referring to her by that name. Work finally agreed that we could stay in Thailand until the boys finished up their semester of school in December. So December 24th we flew from Thailand to Salt Lake City. We arrived in the middle of a snowstorm and it hasn't stopped since we came. Today, January 9th, we got 21" of snow and more is predicted to come tomorrow! Welcome to Utah!
Posted by Claudean at 4:47 PM 0 comments

Moving

Well we just found out that we are moving back to the United States in October 2008. I called Khun Angkana, our social worker with the DSDW to tell her and she didn't seem too concerned. So I'm not sure if things will work out for us to adopt or not. I guess I need to have more faith that things will. Kary and I are a lot dissappointed that work will not let us stay until December. They are being very "cost" concerned...not concerned for us as a family at all!We finally found a family for Tara and now we may have to leave before her adoption is final. That breaks my heart.

Our Foster Babies...

This little sweetie pie is our foster baby Tara. She is usually such a sweet calm baby, but today she has been quite fussy. I think she may have caught the flu that we have had around here this last week. Let me tell you about Tara. She was brought into our home when she was 1 month old. She has achondroplasia, dwarfism. She is very tiny. She is now almost 4 months old and she doesn't weigh more than 10 lbs. and she probably is only 17" long...if that. She is a very sweet baby though. She LOVES to be held. You could hold her all day and she'd be just fine with that. She sleeps better when you hold her, than when she's all alone in her crib. Her mom has given her up for adoption and I hope she can find a forever family through adoption. Everything else about her is normal...she'll just be short. My little boy Adam just adores babies and he has been so sweet with Tara. I do foster care through Holt Sahathai. They are a good organization. All of their babies that get adopted are cared for in Foster homes first, no orphanages. I got started doing foster care about 1 year ago. I heard about fostering one day when I was volunteering at the Pakkret Orphanage here by my home. After much thought and prayer I decided that I really wanted to help by doing foster care.


Our first baby was a little boy...Chayanut. We got him when he was 6 weeks old and had him for two months. We had to have him go to another foster home because we were going to the United States for home leave for 6 weeks and he could not leave Thailand. He was a doll! He was a crier though. In fact we nicknamed him, "Chayanut cry a lot!" It was very hard to hand him back over to Holt. On my way home from Holt I cried and cried.




Our second foster child was given to us after our home leave in August of 2006. She was a beautiful little girl named Pumiraht. We nicknamed her Lia. She was a real sweetheart. When she turned four months old her mom decided that she wanted her back. I actually got to meet the mom and it was good that she could take her back and raise her. It's always sad when the babies leave. I always seem to go through a bit of a depression...but I keep coming back for more. It is so rewarding to look into these sweet babies faces and know that I am helping to the best of my ability. They sure receive a lot of love in our house.
Posted by Claudean at 8:29 AM 0 comments

My Air Conditioning Finally works!!!!

We have lived in this house for a year and my air conditioning in my bedroom finally works right!! It was crazy! We would call our landlord and she would send out someone to fix the air conditioner, someone that she already has paid money to. Last week these same two guys came to fix the air and they were here for 7 hours! When they left they said the air worked. I went upstairs and did it work? NO! So the next day I called my landlord back and told her that the air was still not working. She sent the guys out again and they came back for another 3 hours. Again...they said it was working. But NO it was not! I've been so frustrated with this situation so I finally had my maid call a handyman from the Nichada office. He has done work for us before and he always can fix anything. So she asked him if he could come and see if he would be able to fix it for us. He came, checked it out and told us that he would be back on Friday (after work) to fix it for us. He came tonight and was here for 2 hours. Does it work? YES! I paid for it myself. It cost 2,500 Baht, which equals about 65 US Dollars. Boy was that worth it! Hot season is going to be upon us soon and I want to be prepared!