American Adoptions -- America's Adoption Agency
 We consider the opportunity to adopt to be the biggest blessing. Already having children has taught us that being parents is the best thing we can possibly be and our lives are already child focused. We cannot wait to add another child to our home. Our prayers are with you as you consider adoption and our family. We cannot thank you enough for the opportunity.  |
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Our leisure time is filled mostly with family fun. Game or movie nights at home, bike rides, relaxing at the family pond, going sledding, or any number of other things that are special just because we are all together.
Shane enjoys spending his "away" leisure time playing whiffle golf in our yard or in the yard of one of our friends. Several of the dads have built whiffle golf courses in their yards and they get together and play a couple rounds every now and then in the summer. He and his buddies also enjoy movie nights at one another's houses. Soon our rec room will be finished and they can enjoy nights of vintage video games as well.
In Kelli's "away" time, she enjoys scrapbooking, sewing, or doing other crafts. She also enjoys shopping in Amish country (they have the BEST food). Each year, Kelli looks forward to Vacation Bible School with the same excitement as the kids. She leads the worship time and enjoys every minute of it. Just this year, she was on the receiving end of SIX pies in the face since the kids did so well raising mission money.
We also spend some leisure time with another family each week. We have a meal together and the kids all play while the adults talk. It is a refreshing and relaxing evening that we enjoy every time.
Although we live in rural America, we have found our lives to include lots of cultural diversity. In Shane's family, we have two teenage nieces who were adopted transracially. Kelli's parents have welcomed 2 girls, one Brazilian and one biracial, into their home as their daughters. Our church has several families who have adopted from different cultures. One of Kelli's best friends has 2 biracial daughters who, according to 2 of our sons, are going to be daughters-in-law someday.
As for in our home, we include as much diversity as we can. We celebrate holidays from other cultures with food and games from that culture along with a study of that culture. Our always growing library has books that feature characters from other cultures and ways of life. We would love to add favorite books and meals from the birthfamily's traditions. In our homeschool, we strive to include perspectives from many different cultures as we learn current and historical events.
We believe that all people are of one race, the human race. Because we firmly believe this we think it is very important to learn about many cultures and not just the culture in which one is born or grows up. We want all our children to learn about and love people of all cultural backgrounds.
In each season, it's the simple things give us the most pleasure; strawberry picking and planting garden in spring, Sunday afternoons in the summer floating on the pond (or learning to dive or playing on the slide) and cooking over a campfire, canning and freezing veggies and fruit keep us busy in the late summer, trick or treating,soccer season, and visiting an apple orchard in the fall. In the winter, we enjoy sledding (if it snows), drinking hot cocoa and playing board games in front of the wood stove.Kelli's favorite "big" tradition is that we never go anywhere on Christmas Day. Christmas Eve (like Thanksgiving) is spent at Nanny and Pappy's house so we can stay home on Christmas Day. We open gifts, and eat a turkey dinner with "all the fixin's". We get batteries in all the gifts and play with them. If we are lucky and it snowed, we go sledding. There is no rushing from one house to another. We just enjoy our family and the time to celebrate Jesus' birthday.
One of Shane's favorite traditions is going turkey hunting with Kelli's dad in spring. Some years we'll pack up the tent to spend a week hunting and camping in Southern Illinois. This "guys only" trip is fun for the hunting but also the time in camp and at the local mom-n-pop restaurant.
Simple traditions make every day special in our home.
