August
22, 2012
Dear
Children,
The
past few months have been a little crazy. July started out with a
family reunion. Your Aunt Rachel wasn’t able to make it with her
family, but the rest of us where there. We stayed in cabins at a
campground and spent most of the time just hanging out with each
other. It was nice to get to see all your aunts and uncles and your
cousins. It was the first time that many of us had been together at
the same time since your mother and I got married. It was also nice
to get out of town and have a break from the stress of looking for a
job. The hardest part was coming back home afterwards. Our
apartment felt really empty after spending that much time with
family.
Once
we got back we had to switch over to moving mode. Since I graduated
from BYU, we couldn’t stay in on-campus housing any more. We found
a nice condo that costs a little more than we were paying before, but
it’s also quite a bit bigger. The landlord also allows us to have
pets. That means that as soon as we had the essentials unpacked we
headed to a shelter to pick out a kitty. We named his Reeses because
he is orange. When he’s not playing us to death, he’s loving us
to death. He really loves his people. I know you didn’t get to
help pick him out, but I bet you’re still going to enjoy having him
as part of the family.
Then,
a week into August, we had an adoption conference sponsored by
Families Supporting Adoption that we attended. We had wanted to go
last year, but it was too far away and we didn’t want to spend
money on a hotel unless we had to. We ended up leaving the
conference with some mixed feelings. Some of the presentations and
classes were really good and gave us some ideas of how to talk about
adoption more openly. On the other hand, it was hard hearing
everyone else tell stories about quickly their adoption went or how
easily they found their children, or how many children they have
adopted. I know we will get to the point where we have stories like
that to share about you, but it can be hard to see that from where we
are at right now.
I’d
still been applying for jobs like crazy and getting interviewed at
least three or four times each week. Unfortunately, I seemed to be
everyone’s second choice. Principals wanted teachers with more
experience that I currently have and everywhere else I applied didn’t
want to hire someone who was likely to leave for a teaching position
in the next few years. I finally got a call from one of the
assistant principals I had interviewed with. She offered me a job
for a position that had come up last minute and she thought would be
a better fit for me than the position I had applied for. So now I’m
working as a facilitator for high school distance learning classes.
I get to sit in the classroom with the students and try to figure out
how to operate the technology. As luck would have it, the entire
system went down my first day and I ended up sitting in a room with
three students and no way to connect to the instructor. I know they
were bored, but there wasn’t much to do about it.
I
want to apologize for not writing a letter last month. Things were
busy, but I still should have made the time. One thing I can promise
you is that I will always make time for you. No matter how busy
things get, my family will always be my first priority. I love you.
Love,
Dad
