Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we do play requests. Got a comment asking about this bit of the travel decision-making process, so here's our justification:

We hear the pai gow tables at the new Wynn Resort Casino are even hotter than the ones at the Casino Jai-Alai, and, y'know, Vegas might have rides for the... more

Here is current news from families who are in Ukraine now.

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Wade and Julia adopted 2 children in 2003. Then they returned and adopted 2 teenagers in 2005. And now they are returning for Katya (15 years old).

They met Katya in 2003 during their first adoption and tried to adopt her in 2005, but her paperwork was lost and had to be re-filed. Katya is from the same region that my daughter is... Kharkiv.

Wade and Julia had their NAC appointment today, March... more

This information has been pulled straight from the State Department Website. Please take a moment to read the information. If you are not familiar with the Hague Convention, please follow the links offered within the article. This is a pertinent piece of news for all prospective and currently adopting parents.

Intercountry Adoptions and the Hague Convention: Guatemala

The United States intends to ratify in 2007 the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. When the Convention enters into force for... more

Communication is one word that the world is bound by. We can talk to people out on the ocean in a ship. We can watch and talk to the space shuttle as they explore the planets.

Every day we use communication to get our work completed. Without good communication nothing would ever get done. No one would know what to do, when to do it, or where it belongs.

In a world full of fast cars that offer you the OnStar System so you can communicate with them for every vital need from an accident to a flat tire, or you can pick up a cell phone and dial up Hawaii or Japan, it seems almost redundant that the very people we really need to communicate with we simply do not make time for.

The... more

Amy never did projects. Somehow she even managed to avoid doing Science Fair! Huh? How can a kid get out of doing a science fair project? In my day, that would practically get you expelled from school!

Well, guess what? Apparently Beth doesn’t either! To add insult to injury after last night’s disastrous interaction, today I find out Beth has once again blown off a project…

Considering I am going to talk to Foster Cline this weekend, one might think I have a better handle on how to respond as a Love and Logic parent… but man,... more

The weather is bad here. Lots of wind (typical for South Dakota) and rain today, the skies were gray and nasty and it is chilly out. Just not a go out and have fun sort of day. This kind of day drives me nuts. I get all cooped up feeling and kind of cranky, ok, according to Danny a lot cranky.

So today we did some cleaning. We have company coming next month and our guest bedroom was NOT fit for guests. So we have been working on making that more hospitable, less like a family of wolves lives in there and more like a normal couple lives in the apartment. So during my cleaning I got really crabby, like beyond belief crabby. So when we finished up I proposed that we get out... more

Earlier I talked about how to tell your boyfriend or partner that you are pregnant. In this post, I'll talk about breaking the news to your family, who are the next group of people that definitely need to know.

If you have a rocky relationship with your parents or if you are worried about the severity of their reaction, it's tempting to want to hide your pregnancy from them as long as you can. Feelings of shame and fear are very common for women in crisis pregnancies, and it doesn’t matter if you are 14 or 40—they happen to adults as well as minors.

So while you may wish you could to keep the news to yourself, please remember that nothing good ever comes from secrets or lies.... more

Today was an emotional day. It is March 30, 2006 and it is the best of times and the worst of times. My husband and I have been trying to conceive for two years. We have had a pregnancy in my tube, and a miscarriage. It has been an emotional roller coaster for us both and we kind of came to a point of if it doesn’t happen soon, we are going to take a break. I guess in a way we were accepting that we might not be able to have a child of our own. My new cycle should have began yesterday and my monthly visitor was a no show. I did a home pregnancy test last night and as we... more

What made the article written by Catherine Texier in the NYTimes that I wrote about earlier today so absurd and yet interesting to me was that my husband and I spent a night in a similar Russian apartment in Moscow, completely by accident and under duress, and we ended up loving it!

(The article was about her trip to Moscow with her boyfriend and how she didn't like it there - it was too poor and her boyfriend and his family dressed liked slobs, etc. etc.)

I haven't gotten to that point in my "Our story"... more

The Hague:

OK, because of distractions (as previously noted), this will be a briefish overview of this commentary on this mammoth document of international law.

Ethica has some problems with the way the Hague Conventions have been written into the regulations in the United States:

In several critical areas of child and family protection, the regulations may actually... more