2020

Dear friends, It has been a while since we have published an update on the house, the adoption, and life in general. As I write we (the world) are all under quarantine, a shelter-in-place order, due to the pandemic known as COVID-19 or the coronavirus. I'm attempting to work multiple jobs from home, while Randy continues to go to school during the week to provide lunches for the students in our community. But we've discovered that there is a lot that home remodeling, adoption, and life in general can teach us about how to quarentine. For example, today is the final day that our drywall crew will be at the house. Which is what they have been saying for the past three weeks. Just one more day... Home remodeling always takes longer than you think it will. And so does a quarentine. Every day the news is the same: we need more time. But you know what. The extra time in the home remodeling has been worth it. Because we've taken the time to do things right t...

On March 1, while I was driving home from a church meeting, a black cat crossed my path. I wouldn't call myself superstituous, but I noticed the cat. I noted the color. And I wondered if, on some plane, it could be a bad omen. An hour later my dog got run over by a car. While driving to the veterinary hospital I told Randy: "I'm not saying it means anything, but a black cat ran in front of me while I was driving home earlier." Later I told a woman about the cat. "It's only bad luck if he is running from the right to the left." "He was," I said. "Oh," she replied, suddenly serious. We made more trips to the hospital -- both to the veterinary hospital and the human hospital -- in March of 2019 than we have in the entirety of our 5 years together. Cinnamon spent a week in the hospital, undergoing hernia surgery because her insides had more or less been torn in two. The week after she was released we were back at the h...

If you’ve never taken a road trip with a 10-year-old boy, here is my depiction: Rand : “Hey Van, look, a volcano!” Van : “Cool.” Rand : “Hey Van, look, a buffalo!” Van : “Cool.” Rand : “Hey Van, look…” Van : “What’s for dinner?” It has taken me a few states to get used to this. Rand and I imagined Van being mesmorized by literally everything that passed our windows. Lassen volcano, a Bengal tiger, the ocean... but we can’t even get him to look out the window! The couple of times we’ve tried to force him to he’s simply fallen asleep (this kid can nap for hours!). To be honest, I was pretty disappointed at first. I had the expectation that experiencing this trip through his eyes would be a new way of seeing the world, with child-like wonder. But he’d rather read a zombie book for the third time than marvel at the random waterfalls along the highway. Disappointment was my attitude going into our trip north to Mt. Rainier in Washington state. It was recommended to us ...

The past few days have been filled with highs and lows. Highs because we’ve had friends in town visiting, and our first holiday party of the year (which of course involved a taco truck!); lows because we had 3 kids scheduled to go home who just kept waiting and waiting for their dad to show up. He said he would be there Friday. All day they waited. Would he come before school? After school? No doubt he would be there by 7 p.m. And then Saturday came. Would he come in the morning? Or wait until “visiting hours” from 3-5. The fish must really be biting if he still wasn’t there by 8.  And then the call came. Late Sunday morning. He said he would come at 5 p.m. Every 15 minutes the kids asked me how much longer. Even throughout the folks visiting, gift giving, taco eating, they waited in anticipation for the real gift – going home for Christmas.  But then another call came in. From the authorities. Who said the girls couldn’t go. The home wasn’t safe for them. Maybe i...

Randy and I set off huge fireworks last week with the kids in honor of our one-year anniversary at Sonshine Hacienda . A year ago we were nervous and excited, expectant of all that our time here would bring. It hasn’t been anything like we imagined. The kids, obviously, bring us the most joy. There are 17 here now, but 18 others have come and gone in our time here — 35 opportunities to love and care, to provide a safe and nurturing environment. We’ve seen them arrive, dirty and hungry with intestines full of worms, arms covered in cigarette burns, eyes black and blue. And we’ve seen them leave with new clothes, new shoes, new spirits of hopefulness. They’ve taught us so much about what is important in life. And they’ve stretched our patience to the limits just like any other child. Our teenagers lie and manipulate just like yours do. Our toddlers throw tantrums just like yours do. Our kids get the flu and throw up all over their beds just like yours do. O...

I was sitting on the floor playing with 9-month-old Milly when our handyman Pablo walked into the room holding a toilet flapper. Assuming Pablo's task for the day was to repair the flush valve I asked, “Which toilet broke?” He knelt down beside me and replied, “Do you have gasoline?” “Gasoline?” I said. “You mean like an extra gallon?” “Gasoline,” he repeated. “We used to,” I said. Everyone seems to run out of gas in San Felipe, so we are constantly loaning out our gas can. “Ask Randy.” “Randy told me to ask you,” he said. “Me?” I couldn’t fathom why Randy would tell him to ask me for gas, unless he needed gas money and Randy didn’t have any money on him. So I asked, “Do you need money to buy gasoline?” “No,” Pablo said. “Randy said you have gasoline.” “Randy is crazy. I don’t have any gasoline.” Pablo shrugged his shoulders. “I will use a hose and syphon some from the boogie,” he said, referring to the dune buggy with flat tires sitting in ...

When Randy and I visited Sonshine Hacienda in August of last year to finalize the plans for our move to San Felipe, one of the first words I realized I didn't know how to say in Spanish was "share." Imagine working with children all day, and not being able to tell them to share? The lack of this one word in my vocabulary made me feel completely incompetent. But this one was easy for me to memorize, because as soon as I learned it I started saying it every day, often multiple times a day: COMPARTIR (pronounced: comb-par-tier): to share Of course, I've added lots of other words to my vocabulary in the two months that we have been here. ( Google translate  and I have become fast friends.) Other important words to know when spending time with children are: puzzles - rompecabezas  kick - golpear fall down - cayó trust - confianza angry - enojado itch - picar stuffed animals - peluches hair bows - moñas  lice - piojos Give it to me - darmelo ...

What an interesting and busy weekend! On Friday, we took the younger kids down to the Malecon ("seafront") for a festival put on by the cultural center for Americans who either visit or live here during the winter (the flier sent home from school called them "snow birds"). The festival was entirely in English, had free food and beer and door prizes, and featured several different types of music and dance. They kept trying to get Randy and me to sign up for things, and we were grateful to not be tourists. Four of our girls danced in the ballet and one of our boys played guitar. All of our dorm moms came to support the kids and cheer them on. We celebrated their accomplishments with cotton candy. In the evening, Randy and I went to the condo of some friends who are in town visiting. It was a nice little getaway and we were grateful to have a dinner without tortillas. I think it will be very important for us in the future to have this time with friends from ou...

We woke up Friday morning, feeling confident that our second day at the Border Crossing would meet with instant success. They might wave us straight through, or ask for a small fee, but either way we anticipated having lunch in San Felipe with our kids! Jovi and I walked around the city of El Centro in the morning, and when we returned to the hotel saw Randy shake hands with a man in the parking lot. What could that possibly be about? The night before, while searching for a hotel on my phone, I found several advertised at $17, “for adults only,” so I wasn’t exactly excited about Randy doing any dealings in the parking lot. But when I approached, Randy introduced me as his wife and the older gentleman shook my hand with glee and called me “sister.” He drove off, and Randy told me that the man had grown up in a wonderful children’s home after his dad died and his mom couldn’t afford to take care of him. We have stickers on the side of our car that say “Sonshine Hacienda” so he had...

On Thursday morning, Randy and I had a short two-hour drive to El Centro, where we would return the U-Haul and transfer its contents into a trailer pulled by Gary and Karen, the directors of Sonshine Hacienda. We were so excited to see them! Even though we hadn’t yet crossed the border into Mexico, it felt like we’d arrived. During the morning drive, a semi-truck kicked up a rock and cracked my windshield in two places. So, while Gary and Karen ran errands, Randy and I found a local glass repair shop. They were so nice, quick, and did great work. We took their business card and promised that if we couldn’t get all our needs met in San Felipe we would return to them. We met up with Gary and Karen again and went out to lunch at Sizzler. I was craving something healthy, seeing as we’d been grabbing fast food for the last three days. The Sizzler salad bar was just the ticket. We had an opportunity to talk and reconnect and share all of our excitement over our arrival. Kare...

In 2003 I left my job in Yosemite National Park (Wawona, California) to live with my grandmother in Bella Vista, Arkansas, and become a full-time writer. But instead of heading east, straight to her place, I started out going west. I put my feet in the Pacific Ocean and got sunburned on the beach. I listened to Paul Theroux talk about his latest book, Dark Star Safari , at the Capitola Book Cafe. I bought local honey and oranges at the Santa Cruz farmer's market. I spent an afternoon in Shakespeare's Garden at Golden Gate Park . I saw protests and arrests in Berkeley -- President Bush having just declared war on Iraq. I slept at a fire station in Napa and ate Olallieberry Pie in Pescadero . I didn't have a cell phone at the time, so I called my grandmother from a pay phone along the way. I told her about my latest adventures. "Are you lost?" she asked, thinking I should be halfway to Arkansas by now. Some had the same reaction when Randy and I moved out ...