A real-life grown-up birthday party!

For the first time since moving to California, this year we have enough friends to throw together a last-minute birthday party! It makes me feel like a total weirdo to even announce that like some sort of accomplishment, but adulting is hard and making adult friends is part of the challenge. This blog set out to track the journey of returning to my home country after a decade abroad, and to that effect I'd say this is a pretty big milestone on the path to calling this place home.

"Tell them I'm very excited"

Our family narrative may never include the traditional "she said yes" moment, but now we have one very big "he said" moment. Last Wednesday, James's team gathered to break the news that a family had been identified for him. Suffice it to say, things went well. A member of James's team described it as the highlight of their career. As the story was relayed to us, by the time he finished reading our family bio, he was already asking how soon he could move. And when his social worker clarified that we wanted to be sure he felt good about this whole situation, James told her, "tell them I'm very excited." Let's just say the feeling is mutual. 💞

A Valentine's Case Update

How are you allowed to feel when the answer to your prayers is made possible through the realization of someone else's nightmare?

I've been swimming in emotional turmoil since the excitement of last Tuesday's email: unanimously approved! Check AdoptUSKids: a Case Update notification just for us. What better Valentine's news could you hope for?

Before we'd even finished composing our excited reply to James's team, my worries creeped in. We'd just been approved for a kid without even knowing the sound of his voice. How would he feel? James still has no idea that we even exist. Yes, he knows families have been asking about him, and yes, his team has been checking in with him about plenty of aspects of our home and family to ensure he could be happy with us, but it's all been abstract until now. Suddenly, there are two very real human beings for James to learn about this week. Do I think we could be a great fit? Yep. But do I also know we're not everything he'd hoped for? Yep. A friendly dog won't be waiting for him in his new home, and there won't be a car in this new driver's garage. How will that news hit?

How much joy are we even allowed when James is entering our lives through a series of heartbreaks that led him to AdoptUSKids?

Vacillating between visions of family vacations, work-outs, and shared dinners, interrupted by thoughts of a child alone in the world tossed into a new life without much choice in the matter, well, it's not the best recipe for a good night's sleep. I'm completely thrilled that Nicolas and I are on track to welcome someone into our home who's hoping for adoption as much as us. And not just anyone: James shares many of our tastes, interests, and even quirks, a real catch if you ask us. I'm also terrified. We're about to dive into the deep end, James included, assuming he gives us the thumbs up this week.

There's no clean way to wrap up this story as it stands today. So much is uncertain. But it looks like there's lots of potential, and maybe also hope.

New Year's in New Orleans

 

With just over 24 hours remaining in 2022, we rolled into our home away from home at the India House Hostel, complete with fat fluffy hostel cat Taj Mahal.

Ringing in the new year with Craft Comedy at Zony Mash.

Over the next few days, we meandered around the French Quarter, the Warehouse District, and the Garden District, frequenting St. James's Cheese Company, one of the few places without a fried dish on the menu. We criss-crossed the town in street trolleys, listened to live music at the Spotted Cat, and sipped on mint juleps on Bourbon St.

Our last day in town went better than predicted: from the storm clouds that never really broke to the email informing us that we'd at long last gotten our certification as foster parents! We spent the bulk of the day in the City Park admiring the imaginative sculptures and finally sampling beignets from the Café du Monde.

We caught a flight home with the bestest passenger.

An in-person Christmas

Another Christmas in the books, which wasn't a given after two consecutive years of pandemic-related cancelations! Finally able to be in-person around the holidays, we resumed the classics: Repak Family Christmas Eve Dinner, Aloia Christmas Day Party, Cousins Campout, and even the latest Bowling with Grandpa. I'm proud to say I even got my first chance to buy my grandpa a beer! We hit up Philly to check back in with our former East Bay roommate who's thriving in the sub-zero East Coast temps, and we managed to pack enough layers to get ourselves through a few of those sub-zero days. I knocked out the big childhood-room-clear-out without making adding too much excess to our fully stocked two-bed/two-bath condo, and we made friends with Olive the dog. All in all, a successful trip back east. Happy holidays!

When the troubles began

Last week we set up our very first Christmas tree! Our hearts may be aching that our favorite child won't get to enjoy its glow this year, but it's there and we can feel a little fos/adopt-parent-y in spirit. Much to our surprise, the cats paid it no mind —until tonight, that is. When we look back one day and wonder when the troubles all began, when the little monsters emerged from our fur angels, look no further than tonight and those deep, dark, desiring puss-in-boots eyes.

Ca y est !

Thirteen years since I first Googled how one obtains French nationality, having heard talk of its attainability among the students living at the Cité U, ça y est, I can finally check off interview for a second nationality from the bucket list. I'll admit it was a bit surreal to travel to the first place I ever lived outside of the EST time zone, a journey very much in the opposite direction of France from where I come, to sit for said interview, but I suppose life never ceases to surprise. After my interview and a quick stop for some surprisingly good Persian ice cream, I had the chance to tour Nicolas around UCLA's campus, where I'd spent the summer of 2007: my first big home away very much away from home. I was disconcerted to discover how very much a brain can forget over 15 years. I knew my text books have all since become jibberish, but even some of the basic landmarks en route to my favorite destinations surprised me. I guess losing those memories cleared way for some new ones when I finally made it across the pond. Talk about home away from home - soon to be made official with the passport and all, on espère bien.

Los Angeles in winter time: other than Christmas lights on palm trees, hardly the exotic holiday destination one might hope for. But send me to Kansas for all I care, if it's to attend my French nationality interview, you'd best believe I'll drop everything to be there!