Kim and I met in 1984 in Minnesota where we were both going to college. Within a month I proposed and she agreed. About a year later, I made it official with a ring and a letter to the future inlaws. Four months after that, we were married and started our adventure together. Within the next few years, babies started appearing and before we knew it, we had three kids and a house in Deephaven, MN. We stayed there for about 10 years and then we made the move to Tyler, TX to pursue a "great job" with Brookshires Grocery company in 2001. It seems like a long way to move, but it was made much easier because we were finally able to live close to my brother who had lived in Tyler for about 16 years.

 

After we got settled in Texas, we were finally in a position to pursue the dream we had of adopting internationally. In 2003, we made the long trip to Kazakhstan to adopt a sweet little 6 year old girl named Alma, now our not so little 11 year old Zoe. After a few years went by, we knew the adoption bug wasn't done biting us. Be began the process of adopting again, but it seemed every road we tried was blocked for one reason or another. Surely in a world with over 100 million orphans we could find one that would work out for us. It was obviously just a matter of timing. When we finally found our latest little girl from China, it only took a week for us to make the commitment to adopt her and just a few months to get all the paperwork put together. At this point, all our paperwork is done and we are just waiting to travel.

 

Our life isn't just about adoption though. We have three great biological kids too. Hannah is 21 and a senior at University of Texas at Tyler, where she will graduate from this spring with a degree in English and a minor in Political Science. She loves nearly any kind of sport or adventure, the latest of which will be living in Nepal for two months this summer teaching sherpas English in the shadow of Mt. Everest. When she returns, she is seriously looking at a future in missions.

 

Tyler is our 17 year old high school senior. He home schools part time, takes dual credit classes at Tyler Junior College part time and works part time. Despite all that, he still finds time to be active in the youth group at church and play electric bass for a local band. He isn't quite sure where he is headed in the future, but really, how many 17 year old boys do?

 

Zach is our 16 year old high school sophomore. He too is home schooled, but will probably graduate next december and head off to Tyler Junior College full time. He loves to study and seems to be headed toward an engineering major. He works like crazy, but seems to enjoy keeping busy.

 

We introduced Zoe above, but didn't tell you much about her. She is 11 and she too is homeschooled, though she is a part of a few coops where she takes classes like science that are hard to do in home setting. Her passion is animals. If she isn't chasing bugs in the yard or watching Animal Planet, she is reading books about animals. She is the most social of all our kids so far so it definitely a change of pace for Kim and I as she is always racing to get her school and chores done so she can go hang out with one of her friends.

 

Well, that's us. We will expand it more as time permits, but for now, we really want to focus on blogging for our trip as much as possible.