February 5-7, 2016

Reserve some time for you! Join other adoptive and foster moms for a weekend to connect with others who are in the trenches. Receive encouragement and rejuvenation while being pampered and having time to rest and relax. Take a breath and enjoy the beauty of nature. Enjoy worship, led by Keith Petersen and encouraging messages by Kristin Berry, co-author of The Adoptive Parent Toolbox and the blog www.confessionsofanadoptiveparent.com, and Jennie Owens, an adoptive mom of three, speaker and foster parent trainer. Experience times to share struggles and victories with moms who understand what you’re going through. Deadline for purchasing tickets is January 31, 2016, at 11 PM.

Thanks to a listener leaving a comment asking if we ended up adopting our foster daughter I'm here with an update. This Monday June 8th we adopted our foster daughter! Now she's just our daughter! Above is a picture of the cake my wife made for her adoption party. We are so blessed to have her. I really need to record a new episode! I'm sorry it's been so long. Hopefully I'll be recording soon with all the updates I haven't shared. There's a lot to fill you all in on.

In this episode I finally give an update and share what it was like to go to an evaluation to see if my wife and I are fit parents to provide a forever home for our foster daughter. As I recorded this we'd had her in our home for a year.



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website: http://www.fosteringwithlove.blogspot.com

In this episode I talk about how hard it is when a foster child who's been with you for a while has to leave. This time a 4 year old boy we were caring for had to leave because he was showing signs of sexual abuse. Listen to the episode to hear about this terrible yet all to common issue.



Download the .mp3

website: http://www.fosteringwithlove.blogspot.com

If you click on this link you can see a brief local KHQ News segment where you can hear a few seconds of an interview I did. It's great to see our news cover the other side of a big drug bust - the fact that many children are taken into care by Child Protective Services and brought into the system. I'm glad I could be a small part of spreading the news.

In this episode I talk about how wonderful it was to make our little foster guy feel special on his fourth birthday. We had the privilege to throw a foster child a birthday party again, and it was really cool. It was one of those days where my wife and I said to each other "These are the days that make it all seem worth it." What an honor it was to celebrate turning four with our foster child. He had a huge smile on his face that day

Download the .mp3
(click the link to play the audio in your browser or right-click to download)

website: http://www.fosteringwithlove.blogspot.com

Listen to what happened to the two little guys we had for a few days and about our new placement of a four year old boy and his five year old sister, and their little brother who we didn't end up taking. 


Download the .mp3 (click the link to play the audio in your browser or right-click to download)
website: http://www.fosteringwithlove.blogspot.com

We've received news of kids coming into care before the police are going to take them. Hear how I feel about the sad situation of knowing kids are going to be taken from their home before they do and an update on what happened with our last placements. 


Download the .mp3 (click the link to play the audio in your browser or right-click to download)
website: http://www.fosteringwithlove.blogspot.com

In this episode I talk about how we went about getting re-licensed to be foster parents after our break from doing it for a while and we had a middle of the night placement of two kids! Brother and sister. Sad stuff. We're back on this foster parenting journey again. 


Download the .mp3

(click the link to play the audio in your browser or right-click to download)
website: http://www.fosteringwithlove.blogspot.com

We've filled out the paperwork, faxed and emailed more paperwork, had our fingerprints taken again for the background check and we are now once again approved to be foster parents. Your license lasts three years in Washington state where we are I believe and we let ours expire because we had a lot going on with home schooling and jobs and all sorts of new things but now we're going to be foster parents again. 
Unless we get a placement our first time fostering again will be respite care overnight for a friend who's a foster parent. I'm guessing there will be a new episode, hopefully more than one, this February of 2014. Thanks everyone!

For many reasons we let our foster care licence expire. We needed to focus on our kids. We pulled our oldest two out of school and started homeschooling, we decided my wife should stop working full time and come back home, etc. What does any of this mean to you? It means that no this podcast is not dead yet even though it seems that it has podfaded. There will be new episodes in 2014. We will be doing foster care again. New adventures will be had! I almost recorded another farewell episode to close this bad boy out for good but I'm glad I didn't. That said, yeah... I'm sorry it's been so long since there has been an update let alone a new podcast episode around here. Come next year there will be new episodes. Thanks everyone and I hope you have a terrific holiday season. Since I have nothing for you hear but a promise of things to come, I give you a heart warming Christmas tale that I wrote and recorded back in 2010. It's called "All I Want for Christmas is a V.R. Supercube." Enjoy.

 A Gift to you dear listener:
                                                                                                               
Download the mp3  

Also if you're looking for more Christmas fiction to enjoy, check out my blog post on how I read and/or listen to Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" every year. In this post and this sentence below you will find links to legally free fantastic copies of the novel in both eBook and audiobook formats. Enjoy! Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas!