Parenting Practice

Again, it has been quite a while since I posted. This is because of two things: school, and the adoption site. School was unusually busy, with final projects, assignments, and of course, my research. In addition, I started interviewing with companies. Yes, I know it's early, and it's definitely weird, but they seemed excited and willing to work with me. So enough with the excuses... what's new?
Well, we've finally finished the adoption website. There of course is still room to grow, but this just about our final draft. So, why don't you all go take a look, and let us know what you think (your feedback last time was invaluable...) The next step is for us to get cards, and then to begin distributing them. Thanks to everyone who offered to help. We'll keep you all in mind and send you some! We're excited things are possibly going to be working out for us soon. Granted, it may be 4-5 years away, but every time we pray about it, Renee and I have the overwhelming feeling that God has a specific child ready for us, and we just need to do all we can to find them and to trust Him to lead them to us. That's comforting.
Renee has been pretty busy the last month as well, taking care of her niece and nephew one day a week. They are currently being taken care of by Renee's mom, but that's an exhausting job, and so Renee offers to help. We usually try to do one fun thing with them, and then take them to our apartment to take naps, eat, and maybe even spoil them with a Disney movie (oh, the power of Nemo... what did parents do before that movie???). One of the first weeks in October we all went to one of Boston's zoo together, and here are some pictures of us. Both Bowman and Ivy loved the ostritch, although Bowman got bored if the animals didn't come and move all around just for him. It was actually quite fun, but after taking care of two kids right of the bat, both Renee and I thought it was a good thing that we'll be getting them one at a time.

We also get some good parenting practice in when we go visit Brett and Erin in NJ, but their baby, Aeriana is so cute that she takes very little effort. Well, it seems that way, but that's just because she has us wrapped around her little finger! We tried to play some new games (which, by the way to my family, are great fun and you should try... Bonanza and star-munchkin) but didn't get much in due to our frenzied rush with trying to get the website done. It was pretty much an "adoption website spectacular" between the pictures they took of us, and the programing that Brett did, they deserve more credit than we do for the website! Here is one of the pictures that they took of us. Renee as usual looks nice... maybe one day I'll have an accident that horribly disfigures me, and the resulting plastic surgery will help my face look normal, eh? :)
So our final parenting practice? Cats. No, not my idea. No we didn't get them for ourselves. My friend here in Cambridge is a lonely older gentlemen with many animals, and he asked Renee and I to watch them while he travels to Khakistan for a month. Wow. That in and of itself is an adventure. Since this post is already long, I'll have to tell you about that one later. There's already lots of stories, but I'm going to try to get a video of the best ones. At this rate, we're going to be pros by the time we find our baby!