Here's a story I haven't told

well, i'm on a roll. i went through my phone photos and I have plenty to talk about.

This is a picture of the sweet hill supper. The sweet folks in our church decided to build a grill in memory of my dad. They dedicated it at the supper and surprised my mom.

Jess and I knew, of course, because we had to get my mom there.

This was such a fitting tribute to my dad. He was always happiest behind a grill. It didn't matter whose it was, or what he was grilling, he loved it. He and mom even drove to Nashville to christen our new grill. I think he was afraid it might never know a grill master unless he cooked on it.

Such happy memories!

I'm so thankful for a church that loved my dad and continues to minister to my family. It's such a great demonstration of the body of Christ.

a day to write. finally.

i recently turned 33. a palindrome. and it wasn't much fun.

my life in a sentence: i'm never exactly where i thought i would be at any given moment.

i don't know why i think this way. honestly i don't. nothing in the last 10 years has been what i would call "normal," but really, whose life is?

i've been looking back over some old journals and things lately and it's been so funny to really see how much i've changed and how much i've remained the same.it's that last part that is so hard. remaining the same. i so want to be BETTER.

i've been dealing with comparison lately as well. i really feel like this is the crux of what is wrong with 99% of people i know (self included). comparing yourself and your life to that of others makes you feel wrong. i'm wrong because i'm not like ______. there's trouble because i don't have babies yet. it's bad that my house isn't as big as theirs. my job doesn't make me turn cartwheels like hers does. but i have a tendency to miss life when i'm thinking like that.

i'm me. i have an a-MAZ-ing husband. i can cook a mean pork tenderloin. i have a family that loves me despite any shortcomings i think i have. i have really great friends (that i don't see often enough). i live close to a taco truck. i have an apple green ottoman.

i'm reading and re-reading one thousand gifts by Ann Voskamp. it is about finding joy every single day and being grateful for everything, even the crappy things. i don't think she uses the word crap, but it speaks to my heart. in it, she talks about loss and even being thankful for that.

i continue to work through the dennis situation and this is the way i'm working though it. by being thankful. thankful for meeting him and thankful for mothering him and thankful for losing him. not grateful that i have a hole in my heart, but grateful for the lessons God is teaching me through it.

i continue to work through the loss of my dad in the same way. i'm thankful for his life on earth and i'm thankful for his death. ALL is grace and i will glorify the Father in the midst of it all.

i also found a post this morning from john piper, sharing the story of ian and larissa, a couple that decided to get married even after his tragic, life-altering accident. do me a favor (although i suspect that it will reward you), and read and watch their story HERE.

i am in awe of the blessing of marriage in my own life, and was once again reminded that when you get married, it is to further the kingdom of Christ above all else. i am so thankful for jon and his leadership of our family.

that was alot, i know. i am grateful to come out from a dry spell.

Memories and perspective

So tonight I got to "chaperone" pledge week activities. And that brought back a million memories.

I went to a private Christian university. As such, we didn't have national sororities. But we have "social clubs" which are the equivalents. Without the hefty dues. And being a part of that system was a really great part of my college experience. It truly taught me social graces. It taught me to value female friendships. It gave me some of the greatest female friendships I will ever have.

But watching those activities tonight reminded me of a couple of things I would have told my 18-year-old self.

1. it's not about you.
2. It's not as funny as you think it is.
3. It's not as bad as you think it is.
4. Soak it up.

Come to think of it, these are things my 32-year-old self could take to heart. Perspective is something that I think we all lack at any given time. Tonight gave me a little of that and as always, I'm grateful for the lesson.

Not willing to let a year go by....

i'm pretty stubborn. i know. it surprises even me sometimes.

There are more than a few reasons why I haven't blogged in awhile. I've recently realized that the pain of Dennis leaving was kind of a lot. As an adoptive mom, it's pretty hard to deal with the idea that you chose a child and he didn't choose you back. In fact, he un-chose. Negating my own choice. And I just have to accept it and accept myself. And accept him all over again in a way that I didn't expect.

And as far as writing about it? I am learning that it is more gratifying to write the bad, but ever so much easier to write the good. It was easy and fun to share the tale of an older international adoption that we were sure would turn out well. Sharing our shortcomings as parents? Not so fun.

But. Life goes on. I have a fabulous job that is rewarding in ways I'd never expect. That is definitely a post for another day, but the basics are that I raise money for students at an institution that built me. And it came along at such a perfect time - God's time.

That house we closed on a year ago last week? it's still a work in progress but we are settling in. It's home and I'm grateful every day that we live here. It is a gigantic blessing to live so close to my mom. We see one another pretty frequently. We share meals and laughs and tears. And you don't realize that sharing is a gift. it used to take weeks to plan to share a meal. And now? Sometimes we don't even plan it. Ditto for living closer to my sister. I'm beyond grateful for the time we spend being adult sisters.

And since i last posted...Jon has transitioned into a completely new role. We both work at Ouachita, and when I tell you that this is a miracle, I promise I'm not being dramatic. It has been a year of learning God's sovereignty.

Thanks for letting me do the quickie update on the last 364 days. More to come.

brought to my knees

i'm pretty sure everyone who reads this (both of you) knows that we have had some heavy stuff hanging around the Watts/Merryman house(s) as of late. it's been maddening, really. when i wasn't dealing with death or sickness or sadness or runaways or confusion, i was dealing with bankers and realtors and potential or soon-to-be-past employers.

this morning, i woke up with a heaviness in my heart. that i might never be the woman i was meant to be. that i don't love strong enough or make good enough decisions or even write enough thank you cards. that maybe i really am a horrible mother and shouldn't try that again. that i might never make it to peaceful.

and then this afternoon, i'm working. and i got a little distracted. and i read a post by a really great blogger who posted on a really great community site. and it makes a whole lotta sense to me and where i'm headed these days. click on over to (in)courage and read this post by angie.

let me know what you think about that...

moving on...

we thought it appropriate to bring a little closure to the last chapter.

updates: we tried desperately to get Dennis to come back to Arkadelphia. we laid out legal, financial, educational and emotional reasons to him via letter and email. we tried to arrange a meeting. he would have none of it. jon tried "running into him" at his job. Dennis looked at turns sad, mad and indifferent.

he has since removed us as friends on Facebook and blocked us from any contact.

his pictures that we could see (before the block) did not even look like him. maybe those pictures were the real Dennis. if they were, he has been putting on one heck of a performance.

we are working through our feelings about the whole thing.

in the meantime, our Nashville house sold. yep!! so thrilled. we are here in it this weekend packing up all our stuff so that it can join us in our adorable new home in Arkadelphia. we close on Tuesday on the perfect home for us. just 2 miles from my mom. crazy. it feels good to settle into the town that grew both of us. we can totally see God's hand in the whole thing. and we are thankful to be part of His tapestry.

thank you to anyone who has had a part in our story...even if it is just reading this blog and maybe praying for us. we have no idea what the future holds for us. but we would be crazy to think that it will be boring.

a pause, perhaps

i can't write this. i won't write this. i don't want to write this.

the fabulous story that began with a tornado...and progressed through college...and lasted through a plane crash...and a couple of relocations...that we thought had brought us to the beginning of a family...

...has hit quite a bump.

the story is not over. nope. not at all.

but it has a chapter that jon and i most certainly didn't see coming.

dennis left us. the child that we were called to adopt and bring to america -- the child that we helped to attain american citizenship -- decided he didn't want to be part of this story any longer.

i'll skip over the details...the ones that most assuredly would have been featured on some reality show or made-for-tv movie. but here are the facts: dennis left us on a sunday. when he should have been serving others. and took a car but left a note that said that he appreciated the experiences we gave him, but that he longed for more challenges and the next chapter in his story. that he never could see us as family. that we had more love to give than he could receive. and he left.

as most parents would, we panicked. and i am proud that we panicked. that real, raw parenting kicked in and we called the cops. and we talked through the options. should we report the car stolen to find him? maybe. should we stake out the spots where we thought he might be? no. should we breathe deeply and pray? absolutely.

and as the day grew long, we realized that we would not get him back...at least for now. jon hopped in his car and came up to nashville so that we could think as a team.

and it has been almost a week and my heart hurts as badly and possibly worse than it did to begin with.

dennis has decided that he doesn't want to be part of this daily story. and that's OK. it has to be OK. there's nothing for me to do but wait on the Lord and his impeccable timing and pray that in the meantime i might glorify Him.

i would ask that you pray for dennis -- that he comes back to our family. we pray that he understands how much we love him and want the best for him.

i would ask that you pray for us -- that we never lose sight of the call to be joyful in every circumstance and to be anxious about nothing.

i would ask that you pray for all the troubled children of the world -- that they find the answers that they need.

feeling a little food-y.

so two months of being alone can take a toll on a woman. the first 7 weeks, i ate things that are almost too horrible to mention. think: a slice of bread, two string cheese sticks and a handful of baby spinach. it's just tough to cook when you are missing your chief eaters.

but a couple of weeks ago, i got my favorite thing in the mail (except checks made out to me), my real simple magazine. love. it had four weeks of menus as one of its cover stories, which tickled me pink. i am a weekly menu-maker and piecing menus from a hundred magazines, cookbooks, web pages and blogs can take a couple of hours.

so i decided to taste-test a couple of recipes to see if my beloved men (and momma) would eat them.

there's one of my first recipes: lemon tilapia with roasted potatoes (or something like that). delish. i think my fish-fearing husband would even love it.

then i made a pasta with eggplant, fresh mozz, and tomatoes. the beginning looked like this:

...and it tasted so good that i forgot to take an after photo.

but tonight takes the cake. i got the new food network magazine last week. and tonight i made ravioli with butter - sage - walnut sauce.

it started like this:

and ended like this:

luxurious was the word that came to mind. healthy i would not consider it except that it was vegetarian. but it was so luscious. i looked up at one point from devouring it and wanted someone to share my thoughts with. only it was just me and max. and i don't feed him from the table.

i really wanted to share this meal with jon and dennis. i know they would have exclaimed over it and had seconds and then they would have gotten up and done the dishes. that would be bliss.

but i'm going to make the most of my time alone. and if i cook every recipe in every medium i own, then so be it. i'd just better be ready to buy some new clothes.

what's up with the merrymans?

i ran into a rolling hills buddy on saturday afternoon. it occurred to me that the only way we've documented what's going on right now is through facebook status updates.

it also occurred to me that what we're going through now is every bit as serious as dennis's adoption and that i need to enlist the help of my friends to pray us through it!

shortly after my dad passed, jon and i began to work toward moving back to arkadelphia. we prayerfully began considering our career paths, putting our house on the market and how to tell dennis. (i'll tell you about dennis in a post very soon).

we love nashville. nashville was an excellent place to begin our marriage and start our family. we love the culture here and the people here. i LOVE my job. no...really. jon LOVES his job. reconciling this with the pull toward "home" was one of the most difficult decisions i think i will make.

the first step was to petition sweet sleep to allow jon to work remotely from arkansas. miraculously (and i do NOT use the word lightly), sweet sleep agreed that it was profitable for both jon and sweet sleep for him to move south. the opportunities for expanding their ministry increase exponentially with having a staff member in a different area. we took this as God's indication that we were moving in the right direction.

next step: tell my job that i need to move. again, one of the hardest things i've ever had to do. i truly find purpose in my job and i might not be stellar at it, but i maintain pretty well. i've been stretched and grown this summer in the aftermath of the flood and the re-building of the hotel. however...my thought was...i'll stick around until we find a replacement and the house sells and then off i'll be...4 weeks, tops.

which leads us to where we are now. step #3: sell the house. in the worst market in 26 years. we've lowered the price, gotten featured on the today show...in this case, the only thing we're short on is time and that's the one thing that will make the difference.

so, on August 16, dennis and jon made the trek to arkansas so that dennis could start school. this is where faith comes in. we know we're supposed to be closer to my family (and jon's, too). we know that we are being called like CRAZY to a simpler life. we know that everything in our heads and in our heart are pointing to this move.

but right now we're in limbo. i'm still working for opryland (praise the LORD). our house is still on the market (85 days and counting). i'm learning to live alone, having really never lived alone in my life. i'm learning to wake up each morning and to place my faith and hope in the only One who can make this all end well.

please join us in praying that our beautiful home sells soon. i'm ready to live with my husband and son again. but...we will glorify HIM no matter the circumstances...who is able to bless us more richly than we can even ask.

New Sweet Sleep Video! Pass it on!

remembering my dad

i realize i have not achieved frequency on this blog. life just happens. and i get kind of scared of writing what's happening to us because writing makes things quite real to me.

on june 8, just a little while after i posted the last entry, my daddy passed. he left the pain of cancer, but more than that, he left a legacy.

jim watts lived his life well. when i was very young -- about four, i think -- we had to do a project in pre-school. it was a book about our family. we had to describe our life. each item or person in our life got a page. on my daddy's page i said, "my dad makes money," and i think i drew a picture of a coin. i truly believed that that's what he did for a living. in reality at that point he made ball bearings. but in the twenty-plus years that have passed since i wrote that entry, i've learned that my daddy never worked to make money. he worked to provide for his family, yes. but my dad used his occupation (whatever it was at the time) to touch people's hearts.

my dad prayed with people. he prayed for people. he did good for people. he sacrificed so that total strangers might know the love of Christ. and that is truly, truly humbling.

my dad's visitation and memorial service taught me so much about who he was. there wasn't a single person that didn't tell jessica and me how proud he was of us. how he talked about us daily. how much he loved my mama. how great of a cook he was. how much of a giver he was.

music and cooking were "our" things. we shared a love of great tunes and recipes. it's been tough for me to cook since he died because who am i going to call to brag on myself? in some weird way, i cooked to make him proud. and, Lord help me when elton comes on the radio. he taught me to love all kinds of music and that good music makes the good times even better.

i pray that i grow more like my dad now that i'm aware of what makes a life well-lived.

it's been a journey learning to be a family of all girls. we are thankful for the men in our lives. scott and jon have been amazing rocks for all of us and we are so proud of dennis. and we have been lovin' like crazy on our newest family member, baby dean.

here's to new beginnings and cherishing the memories of those who've gone before us. i love you, dad.

it's never too late

i will not apologize. life for the merrymans has been a little less storybook and a lot more soap opera in 2010.

i realized that i miss the release i feel when blogging. also: for those of us that grew up wanting to be writers...it's the closest we might come. if i don't blog, i'm giving away that one shot i have for now. so...

rollercoaster. that's the only way to describe it.

i need you to pray for my daddy. about 4 months ago, my dad looked as healthy as a horse. seriously. he lamented about the fact that people didn't "know" he had cancer and when they saw him on the street, they would say, "jim, you look so good! i thought you had cancer!" and he would say, "yeah, but i don't feel good at all!"

well...his "wish" came true. because of all the chemo and treatment, he looks sick. i'm pretty sure he'd agree with me. he's jaundiced and bloated and sick.

i believe my dad will be healed. but i've learned that it is harder for people to feel better when you look crummy. for this reason alone i pile on concealer :) please pray that my daddy's cancer will LEAVE his body. please pray that his jaundice will LEAVE. please pray that his bloating will LEAVE. and then...take care of your own body.

in other news: my place of business was flooded by the horrific May 2 flooding in Nashville. i have learned to use all that crazy teaching in crisis communications from OBU. who EVER would have thought that i would be fixing the hotline at 3 in the morning?? that's the kind of stuff you hope will never happen! i still have a job (thank the Lord!), and we are wading (pardon the pun) through the aftermath. i now office out of a double-wide trailer and my days are spent waiting and hoping for the day when the hotel will open.

jon is doing really well. he is on foreign soil...some of his favorite foreign soil of all time. he is in moldova caring for orphans. oh, that we could all be so fortunate.

dennis is doing even better. he (again) logged straight a's. he netted an internship with NPR that he promptly turned down (another post for another day). he is working away at blue coast burrito and is quite the skilled fish taco maker. his mother (that would be me) hopes that he becomes a chef.

who knows what the future holds? well...God. that's who. because we're pretty sure we have NO idea. and we're excited about whatever that entails.

catching up

i'm embarrassed that it's been awhile since the last post. we've been quite busy at the merryman house. january - march is jon's "busy" time in his new job (hence the lack of posts on the food blog) and my job picked up significantly after the new year. which is good, but leaves little time for reading and writing.

it's taken me over two months and i'm not finished with my current read, john irving's last night in twisted river. he's my favorite author, but for some reason this one's a bit cantankerous. if you think you've never heard of him, you probably have...he's the brains behind "simon burch" and "cider house rules." i've never taken two months to read anything ever. pretty sure that's not a record i'd like to continue to beat.

i'm behind on all my magazines, too...i've committed a cardinal emily sin and started ripping out recipes before i've had a chance to read the whole thing. there's just not enough time.

parenthood...oh, parenthood. i feel like all i've been doing lately is complaining. pretty sure the honeymoon's over -- while we thought we had the world's most mature teenager, turns out he just hit the moody phase pretty recently. nothing...absolutely NOTHING is his fault and he pretty much hates being in the same room with us.

scene 1:
me: "did you notice the black paint on the carpet and not clean it up?"
him: "yes. i just didn't tell you about it because it's not paint."
me: "even though it's right beside your paint table?"
him: "this isn't paint."
me: "mmmhhm. so, why didn't you tell me about it?"
him: "i didn't think you'd care."
me: "what happened the last time you got paint on the carpet?"
him: "you freaked out."
me: "right, so shouldn't you tell me about paint on the carpet?"
him: "i guess. if you want."

scene 2:
me (calling his celly at 5:30 p.m.): "hey, dennis...i hope you're at home because there wasn't anything on the calendar and if you're not at home that means max hasn't been out in 10 hours. call me when you get this."
him (calling 10 min later): "um, emily, i told you the other night that i had play practice probably every night."
me: "but did you put it on the calendar like we asked?"
him: "no, but i told you i would probably have it."
me: "but you DIDN'T PUT IT ON THE CALENDAR?"
him: "no."

poor max. he almost didn't make it out the door when i got home.

on the cancer front: mom is almost, almost done. she goes for one last scan next month and if she gets the all clear, they will take her port out. my dad is on round 2 of 3 on the latest treatment. his doctor says he's ahead of schedule and is reponding well to the treatment.

i think the world knows by now, but my little sister has a bun in the oven. it's been so fun checking in with her on all her cravings. she has (thankfully) not been sick so far, and her only complaint is that her clothes don't fit. i keep reminding her that at least she has an excuse. some of us can't wear our clothes and don't have a growing being in our belly.

i feel better having purged. have a great, snowy weekend.

happy new year...for real.

what an amazing day. i'm pretty sure that my husband would disagree, but today was my perfect day.

10 a.m. wake up.

10:01 feed max

10:05 get a wild hair and tell hubs that we're eating paninis for breakfast

10:30 read martha stewart living AND watch the Today show...all while drinking coffee

11:00 prep sandwiches; tell hubs to grill bacon (so smell doesn't permeate the house)

Noon Eat yummy nutella-bacon-peanut butter paninis

12:14 a.m. start the TAKE DOWN OF CHRISTMAS

12:31 stub toe

12:35 stub another toe

12:39 stub another toe

4:00 put last shiny silver ornament in its holder

5:05 get in the shower (after vacuuming, mopping and putting last shiny silver ornament in holder

6:00 start dinner

6:05 put for sure last shiny silver ornament in holder

10:33 blog about it all

10:35 find one more *&%^$ last shiny silver ornament.

it really was an amazing holiday season. i feel like i'm getting the hang of working...endless parties...buying gifts...keeping a clean house. what if all this time....that THIRTY ONE was what i was aiming for?? i think i'm well on my way.

fo' real...happy new year. may 2009 be WAY better than 2010.

on account of i'm the lazy half...

i haven't had a moment to post lately...what with the christmas and the cleaning and the cooking and the shopping and the...

but my brilliant husband is off this week. not only has he kept the house clean, but he also cleaned out the garage.

when he wasn't putting gold stars on his chore chart, he launched his brand-new blog: eat, drink and be merryman. because if there's one thing this family does well, it's eat. head on over and check it out.

happy new year, y'all!

bits and pieces

i am off today. my (fantastic) boss knew that i was just about to break into pieces and highly suggested all week that i take some time off for me. when i finally dug out from beneath a mountain of work, i could see that, yes, i could use a day off and i didn't have any meetings on friday, so here i am.

i feel a tiny bit guilty...ok, a big bit guilty... because my family is all at the hospital with my dad. he's recovering from a new cancer treatment. there's really not a whole lot i can do for them other than pray. an extra body gets in the way when you're in a semi-private room. but the good news is his doctor thinks this treatment is just the thing to kick-start the killing of more of the cancer in his liver.

jon is in atlanta with sweet sleep. i have been alone all day, and here's what i've done: enrolled in my benefits at work. took max on a long walk. drove to starbucks and was A.PALLED to find out that a triple-grande now costs $5.41. i will NOT be going back there for a while. came home and read martha stewart on my front porch in a rocking chair, drinking my million-dollar-java. and then. i tackled the "spare room."

when jon and i bought this house, we had very specific purposes for every room except one. the "nursery." we are pretty sure we want babies, but really haven't felt God specifically show us that that's the road he wants us walking. so, until he does, we have a spare room that houses the lives that jon and i led before we were married.

there are boxes and boxes of CDs, books, journals, sheet music, pictures. there are paintings and framed art that we've never hung. there are two bases to our washer and dryer. there are 43 pairs of old flip-flops. we've attempted to clean it out before, but basically, we just rearranged the crap. pardon the harsh language, but if you know me at all, i don't dig clutter. at all. this was that one room that we lock when company comes over.

most of you know that after college, i moved to new jersey to nanny for a fantastic family with three older kids. the boxes upstairs hold many of the memories i have of those beautiful kiddos. man, do i miss them. there are approximately 72 journals from that time that mostly have the first three pages filled out...the subject matter is generally (1) i'm homesick (2) i wish jon would hurry up and ask me to marry him and (3) lists. but mostly...it's the second. :)

there was also a bulletin board. the bulletin board hung in my nanny-room in new jersey right beside my bed. it's the kind with the criss-cross ribbon that you tuck things in. here is what i found tucked in:

let me break this down for you:

* 2 tickets from shrek 2

(the movie jon and i took my nanny-kids to immediately following his marriage proposal...the proposal that i didn't answer until after that movie...and dinner...and a train ride into the city. poor guy.).

* 1 ticket stub from a john mayer / counting crows concert in jersey

(if memory serves, this was the only concert i ever attended by myself. and it was awesome).

* 1 ticket stub from matchbox 20 in little rock.

(i flew all the way to little rock to see rob thomas with my friend hannah and her then boyfriend, clint. i bought a one-shouldered top and pink MAC eyeshadow so i could have "come hither eyes" and hannah says she did sit-ups for a week).

* 1 ticket stub from matchbox 20 in jersey.

(notice it was less than a month after the little rock show. i was surely a freak. a freak that had cash to burn).

* 1 disney world and 1 universal ticket

(jon and i visited orlando on july 4th weekend after he proposed to celebrate our engagement...despite the wonderful places we've gone together, this might have been my favorite vacation).

i love walking down memory lane. thanks for indulging me.

so many things.

i am officially done with the 4th qtr rally. some companies do quarterly meetings. mine does "rallies." at my job, well..they're my job. yesterday, we did ours. and it was pretty good. i will try to post pictures tomorrow. but it's the reason why i've been unable to blog for a bit.

things are good at the merryman household. jon is the happiest i've seen him with his job in a year or so. he's got some good new challenges and he (as always) will be amazing at it.

dennis won second place at an art competition. good news: he won second place. bad news: because i've been working so much lately, i saw his entry this morning...and i thought about using a post-it-note to write, "great job!" this is not OK. and i was sure to talk about his good job tonight at dinner.

on that note..we decided to use a dinner a'fare this month for our dinners. and it has changed. my. life. we've used them before, but i think they've upped their game. every meal is yummy. and we saved on our budget. it is such a weird thing for 3 adults to eat. if you make a full recipe there are leftovers...but if you half a meal for 6, one of you (namely the teenager) feels hungry afterwards. so tough are my life-choices.

got word from my momma today that my dad goes in for an alternate treatment next week. after his second round of chemo, his tumor has (slightly) grown. his chemo embolation is next thursday. i totally guessed at what that means...funny thing is, my mom believed me. have you ever wished that everyone believed you like your mom believes you? that was a side-note. please pray that the treatment shrinks his tumor unbelievably. that's what i'm praying.

tonight, i'm just thankful to be watching the cma's and glee and then the crazy triple CSI series alternately. how great is it to have a family?

it starts.

jessica and i used to have a nintendo 64 that we LOVED. no really - spent hours playing it. one of our favorite games was the lion king. and at the beginning of it, simba's dad would say "it starts." anyway. random fact.

this morning, dennis drove to school all by himself. i was a nervous wreck. i woke up at the crack of dawn and made a sausage lentil soup to go in the crock pot because i knew i wouldn't be able to sleep.

dennis came downstairs and i gave him the "your cellphone must be off when you drive" speech. the rule is that he has to call us before he leaves, turn it off, drive to the destination, turn it on and call us.

well, he just called. i am worry-free until 3 p.m. when he calls to let us know he's on his way home.

i am not ready for this.

October in Paris

Hopefully you love a good Dennis story as much as I do, cause this one made me smile.

So Dennis has been in Disney World since last Thursday with his Mass Media class from his arts magnet. I realize this is way cooler than anything my high school every did and I'm pretty sure that goes for you, too. :)

When I left for Dallas last Sunday to tell childrens ministers about orphans, Dennis reminded me this would be the longest we have been apart since he came home from Moldova. I didn't think much about it, but I miss him... And I love that this is home for me and for him.

So I called him today, because I miss him, and wanted to make sure he wasn't doing drugs in Disney World with those hooligans he goes to school with. I know if my dad would have called on a school trip I would have been mortified - no news is good news, right?

Here's what transpired.

"Hello?" He says in a muffled, slurred voice. "Jon?"

"Yes - it's me."

"Jon, is that you?"

"Yes! It's me!" I say loudly to my foreign child. "Where are you?"

"I'm in Paris!" He says... (I giggle to myself)

"In Paris, huh - you must be in Epcot?"

"Yes, I loooove Dis-uh-ney Whirrrled!" (I'm positive that is how you phonetically say how he says Disney World.) "It is so amazing - everything they do visually is amazing - I'm watching painters paint on the street! Like in Paris! And today I went to Ireland and heard Irish music and they have a CD of all the music from all the countries and I will buy that one for sure!" (He's had this crazy obsession with celtic music - I think I mentioned that before. He calls is - Sell-tic and I make him say Kel-tic.) He listens to it as I teach him to drive... Kind of makes me crazy... :)

My next question, since his speech is fast and slurred is, "You haven't been doing any drugs, have you?"

He says: "No, that part of the park is closed." :) (He gets that sarcasm from me - it's hereditary.) :)

"Oh - for renovations, right?" I jest - and he agrees. :)

I hear kids in the background... "So, what are you doing now?"

"We are walking to the pastry! It is amazing!" he says.

I don't correct him with patisserie -- because I picture him walking towards a huge pastry and it makes me laugh. I ask, "So are you overwhelmed?"

"Yes." He says. "But in a good way. I love Dis-uh-ney Whirrrled. But I miss you. How are you? How is home? How is Emily? How is Max?"

After answering his questions, I let him go - to enjoy his last night in Disney World with his friends because, as he told me, he'll be home tomorrow, well not really tomorrow, but he leaves tomorrow and then he will see me. (He gets home Thursday afternoon.) :)

I can't wait to hear the stories, see the pictures, and hear about his trip. It's almost his birthday and in these past almost 2 years he's seen more and done more than I know he could have ever imagined. The memories that would have been heartache and struggle are instead memories of mickey mouse shaped ice cream bars and october in paris - in Dis-uh-hey Whirrled.

Parenting an adopted teenager is a wild ride but one I recommend. It can't be any worse that the Tower of Terror - and when it resembles that, I need to remind myself that if it wasn't for us, for God calling us to adopt Dennis, and for this sweet boy that came into our lives - we'd never have Paris.

driving miss emily

so, jon's travelling this week. i hate it when he travels. sometimes when he leaves, i have this feeling of "ahhh. alone time," for about 3 seconds and then i remember that it's lonely being alone.

jon is the point person for getting dennis to school. i'm not sure how i wiggled out of it, but that's one duty that he just took. with that, he's pretty much taken on the job of teaching dennis to drive.

when jon left on sunday morning, i thought, "hey, let's see how well dennis is progressing. i'll let him take me to church." and that did not go so well. i got to thinking that big d is a little nervous driving me around. he kind of drifts into other lanes when he's driving. he's not so good with the lane changes. and he doesn't really multi-task that well. like he can't turn on the wipers without riding the brake.

anyway, so yesterday, he's driving home from school and i notice that he's holding his hands in front of the a/c. hmmm. he does it just about every time he's at a stop light.

and a big tahoe-suburban thing pulled right in front of us. without even thinking, d just swoops into the next lane, avoiding a collision. my first words were, "good job." and then: "did you check behind you before you switched lanes?" and dennis says..."no." at this point, i feel my heart get real big inside my chest. and my breathing was pretty shallow.

and then he stops at the light and holds his hands up in front of the vent. and he says:

"my hands get sweaty when i'm nervous."

and i almost wet my pants as i suppressed my laughter.

today, after school, i'm going to take him somewhere to teach him not to turn so wide. seriously, it's like he's parking an El Camino. only he drives a toyota.