Ghana go to Ghana…Trip 1

Hi!

3 Days, folks.  3 Days till we leave for Africa and 4 days until we meet our daughters in person.  Wow.  I thought I would post our itinerary in terms of what we will be doing, so that you could be praying for us specifically each day–if you would be so kind.  Without further ado…

Saturday/Sunday (May 4-5th):  Travel Days.  Leave at mid-day on Saturday from Seattle.  Arrive in Ghana in the evening on Sunday.  Prayer requests:  That we would make our transfer in Amsterdam with all luggage, and that we would have uneventful flights on both l-o-n-g legs of our trip.  Also, please pray for David and Jenny and their care-giver, Brooke.  We have all confidence in her and in them and in the God who watches over them.

Monday (May 6th):  On this day, probably as you’re all waking up, we’ll be meeting our new daughters for the first time.  We head first to the orphanage to drop off our donations and visit.  Then, we go to the foster home and meet M and C.  We’ll also be dropping off a care package to one of the little boys, and taking lots of pictures for parents-in-waiting.  Prayer requests:  For our hearts to be peaceful, and for a fantastic first meeting with everyone, but especially with our girls.  Pray for a smooth transition from the foster home into our care, as we’ll be taking the girls with us, and spending the remainder of our trip with them.

Tuesday/Wednesday (May 7-8th):  These days are “hang-out” days,  to be spent at our hotel, swimming and getting to know the girls.  Water wings?  Check.  Diving rings and water balls?  Check.  Sunscreen for Doug and Gretchen?  Double check.  Thankfully for all of us, there will be another couple and their two new daughters at the hotel, too–all from the same agency and foster home.  I think it will be a comfort to both sets of girls to have some familiar faces, and I’m sure it will be comforting to us parents to have another couple walking the same journey.  Prayer requests:  That our time together would be sweet.  That the girls would not be fearful, and that they would be able to sleep.  That the awkward moments would be few.  And..uh…stamina for Doug and me.

Thursday (May 9th):  Court.  This is the pinnacle of our trip.  Our POA will gather us at 6 am for a 2-3 hour drive to the Cape Coast, with the girls.  We’ll then have to wait for our case for legal adoption to be heard.   Our case could be heard right away, or we could be waiting all day.  While waiting for our case, we’ll be introduced to the girls’ birth mother.  At this point, we’ll be allowed to (through our POA) ask for permission to take pictures, and ask questions about the girls, etc.  We’ve heard that this is a very emotional experience (duh!) but a good one.  It can tend to be awkward, though, the longer the wait for court.  Should we pass court, the girls will be legally our daughters.  Their visas will be applied for and issued after we receive our court decree.   Prayer requests:  Pray that we are seen by a judge who is supportive of international adoption, and pray that we have favor upon us with him.  Pray for the emotions of all of us, especially the birth mother.  Pray that we PASS court, and can leave Ghana with the knowledge that we’ll return very soon to bring home our daughters.

Friday (May 10th):  We’ll be spending a little time with the girls, and then they will be picked up and taken back to the foster home.  After that, we’ll pack up and head to the airport.  We leave late at night on Friday, and return to Seattle by mid-afternoon.  Prayer requests:  Pray for a sweet good-bye, and traveling mercies back to our home-grown kids.  Pray for our stamina, because we’ll need to hit the ground running (D back to Buffalo on Monday).

I can’t thank you enough for your love, support, and encouragement.  Love, Gretchen

Short and Sweet

We have a confirmed court date! Ghana go to Ghana very soon! Within less than 3 weeks, God willing, we’ll legally be the parents of M & C! Squeeeee!

Where we stand…

Hi,

I hope all is well with you.  We’re still waiting to bring these girls home.   Surprise.

But…there has been some movement, and I have some prayer requests, so I want to share.

Our dossier is in Ghana, and we’re awaiting a court date.  At the beginning of the week, we were in a bit of a panic/so very happy because we thought we might be headed to Ghana at the end of this month for a 5/2 court date. Though this is still a remote possibility, it appears highly unlikely now, because the Social Welfare Director (SWD) for the Central Region was out last week; thus, our power of attorney (POA) was unable to secure that court date.  Our POA will attempt to see the SWD early/mid next week, and will ask for a 5/2 or 5/9 court date.  As with everything in this international adoption process, there are *no guarantees* that he will attain either, but he’s moving forward with that intention.  It could be June before we get a court date.  We just don’t know.

Backing up…what does a court date do?  The court date is our reason, essentially, for our first trip to Ghana.  This is the legal adoption part.

In case you’re interested, here’s a look at what our first trip might be like:

• fly out the weekend before the court date (Sat)
• arrive in Accra, get picked up and transported to our hotel, which is about 45 min from the airport, on the east edge of Accra.
• Sunday – Collect ourselves
• Monday – Trip to the orphanage and the foster home. MEET THE GIRLS! Give our gifts to the orphanage director, her son (POA), and the foster mama. Take girls to our hotel.  Lay low for a couple of days, getting to know the girls and hanging out at the hotel.  Since they’re not officially ours until after court, we won’t be parading around Ghana with them and going to touristy spots on this trip.
• Tue/Wed:  Hotel w/girls  Probably swimming as long as they will tolerate it!  Oh, we’ll be so hot!!!
• Thur:  Long, hot day.  Court.  We’ll be picked up early in the day, sweating in our Sunday best (tie for Doug–pray! ), and taken on a longish ride to the courthouse, where we’ll wait for our case to be heard.  Now, there is a possibility that we’ll sit all day, and the judge won’t get to our case.  If this happens, we’ll be very disappointed, but not despairingly so, because our POA can, technically, do this part of the process for us.  This is also the day in which we will meet the girls’ birth mother.  Through our POA, we’ll be able to ask permission to take pictures of the girls and ourselves with the birth mother (we’ve heard they are usually amenable to this), as well as ask her questions about the girls, etc.  We’ve been told to prepare for an emotionally exhausting day, as we could be sitting across from her for hours, as we all wait.  But…what an invaluable part of the process in these children’s story!   They aren’t abandoned, but rather, all of their parents love them and have worked together to make a plan for how best to care for them.
• Thur night or Fri am, we say g’bye to our daughters.  *Sob*  How does one prepare for that?
• Fri/Sat return to the States.

After that, we wait upon our court decree, the girls’ (new) birth certificates, and apply for their visas…

General thought is that we’ll return for them approximately 2 months after court, but this is (again) subject to being sooner or later, based on when the paperwork is finished.  Are you sensing a pattern, here?

So…for now, we wait.  I’m currently taking donations for supplies through our church and local friends, including:  new and gently used clothing and shoes, games and toys, and medical supplies.  However, should any of you wish to donate any of the above items, please email me, and I’d love to collect them.  gretchenjhannaATgmailDOTcom.  Even if we don’t receive it before this first trip, we’ll be taking another humanitarian load of gifts over for our second trip.  We will be giving to both the orphanage and the foster home.

I’m also working on pillowcase dresses for the girls at the orphanage.  This is probably as much to keep my own hands busy as it is to help out the orphanage, if I’m being totally honest. But it gives me joy, and satisfies my nesting instinct until we can start getting their room ready.  Doug is doing his part in admiring the dresses, even though the mess encroaches on his part of the office.

Prayer requests:  Please pray for our my patience with waiting.  Pray that our entire family’s hearts would be prepared for this huge adjustment.  Pray for the details to come together for our teen care while we’re away, and for our POA to get a court date.  And pray that each of those sweet, waiting children would know that they are loved.

Sorry this was long.  Hope it answered any questions you may have, and please ask questions in the comments if you have any.

Thank you! xxxooo

Foster Care!

Today, we received a couple of pictures of the girlies in their foster home.  I know these pictures are distorted, but they are all I dare post on the web.  Still, you can see that they are, indeed, real little girls, and that the process is moving forward.

Our dossier was mailed out last week, so I’m not sure of its current status.  Our sweet social worker is on vacation this week, but has maintained contact w/us and with the office just in case one of her families receives a court date, etc.

It does my heart good to see M and C on the couch, with their foster mama and her helper, and in the midst of 3 other children from the orphanage.  What an adjustment for all of these children, yet, to go through it in a little familiar group must be of some comfort.  They are friends, and we hope to maintain some contact with each other as we go to our separate homes in the states.

Several of us adoptive moms who are at similar stages in this process with our agency, have really bonded.  What an encouragement to know that even if I’m not able to visit with and take pictures of our girls, they will love on them and grab as much footage as possible when they are in country–and I’ll do the same for them.  How’s that for the longest run-on sentence?  Lordy!  Alas, “Advanced Composition”, “Advanced Grammar”, and “Advanced Vocab” are in my 26-years-since-high-school brain.

We are awaiting a court date, now.  Could be anywhere from the end of April to the end of June.

We’re also scheduling a fun-filled day of vaccinations at the travel clinic at UW.   A funny for you:  When I called our family clinic to see if we needed an appointment for a Yellow Fever vaccination, the receptionist fairly choked on her latte.  ”Yellow Fever? Hold on.  I don’t think we have that.”  Back to the phone.  ”Yeah, we don’t DO Yellow Fever, here.”.

Alrighty, then!  I do suppose we’re a bit of a rarity in suburban Seattle. But I didn’t think we were that unusual.  :)

 Our C.

Our M.

Update…It’s getting real…

Howdy!

You have no idea how comforting it is to know that y’all are reading and cheering for us on our wild ride. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Having a baby the “homegrown” way (or is that “ingrown”? HA!)  and adopting are similar in many ways.  They both have a gestation of sorts (at this point, I’m gestating a T-Rex), and they carry with them the promise of new life.  They both have unknowns.  With internationally adopting a waiting child/ren, you get to see a picture of the child.  Even though ultrasounds have come a long way, baby, this picture is even greater than a 4-D ultrasound.  However, the rest of the picture of the process of international adoption is much less unpredictable than one’s 40 week pregnancy.  Governments and agencies within them don’t always run like clock-work.  I know the analogy is imperfect (e.g. what about preemies, etc.?), but since I’ve only been a mom to birth children thus far, it’s one I think about.

So, as I give these updates–which are so good for my soul to share–I share them with you with the caveat that what I predict may be not exactly how things pan out.

This week, we:

• Sent little care packages to the girls, via our agency (with our dossier) which included 2 little outfits each, flip-flops, “jewelry”, a dark-skinned baby (little, with a beanie body), underwear, a photo book of their new family and surroundings, the board books Are You My Mother and Goodnight Moon, and a prayer that everything would fit/work/be a blessing to them.
• Sent our dossier to our agency.  This means we have officially provided Ghana with the paperwork they’ve asked for in order to approve us for a court date (for legal adoption)
• Mailed in our request to the United States Center for Immigration Services (USCIS) for re-fingerprinting and for updated immigration status (e.g. instead of adopting one child, age 0-5, from Ethiopia, we are asking to be approved for 2 children, ages 0-9, from Ghana.
• Heard back from our agency that the dossier was received by them, and is leaving for Ghana today.
• Heard back from our agency that our social worker is trying to find out about a court date (best case scenario 1 month – worst case scenario 3 months) for us to begin planning our first trip.
• Heard that we are being sent all manner of travel info for Ghana, and that we need to start working on obtaining our Visas and getting Yellow Fever and Malaria meds.

Putting those little scrapbooks together and pulling together the little items for the care packages is the first time this “pregnancy” has felt real.  Up till now, it’s been a great idea and a beautiful picture of “what if?!” and “wouldn’t this be nice?”.

We’re farther along than we’ve ever been in the process, now.  Praise God.

I’m sure it’ll feel really real after that yellow fever vaccination.

P.S.  Looking forward to a car trip to CA for spring break.  Our last vaca with our “big” kids.  Going to relish every moment!  They are such amazing supports to their dad and me. Okay, Gretchen…breathe.  No time for the ugly cry…

Care packages for 2 sweet girls:

Oh.Em.Gee. Yippee!

Big thanks to those of you who prayed for the family I mentioned in my last update.  They are now a family of 5, complete with new sister from Ghana.  The other 2 families ahead of us in this program are in Ghana, or on their way very shortly to collect their wee ones.

Which means…drum roll, please…

There will now be room in the foster mama’s house for our two girls!  This is huge.  These children haven’t had a family-like unit for over 3 years, so they’ll be learning what it’s like to be part of a family and receive more attention than they’re used to receiving.  Although a move to foster care will be an(other) adjustment, it will be helpful to gear them up for a move to the States.  But…obviously, nothing could adequately prepare them for their life in the US.  Talk about mind-blowing.  E.g. We used to cook/eat dinner over an open fire.  Now we cook dinner over this flat, black, glass thingy.  And we eat inside. Oh, and it rains a fair bit here.  And our dogs are pets.

If all goes as planned, the girls will be moved to the foster home within a week!  As soon as they’re moved in and settled, our power of attorney (POA) will let them know that we’re adopting them, and will share some emailed pictures of us with them.  They’ll receive a more detailed scrapbook and small care package from us, when our dossier goes to Ghana (hopefully within a couple of weeks).  We have heard nothing but excellent reports from the other parents re: this foster mom.  Evidently, she prepares the children quite well, and reviews their scrapbooks with them, so that they can familiarize themselves with their new family.

Us.

Squeal!

One.more.step.

Some Positive News…

Hi,

Tom Petty was right.  The waiting is the hardest part.  I believe it’s a good thing that God only reveals his plan fragment by fragment, because if He had told me, “Gretchen, you’re going to go on a journey which will start out as 6-12 months for an older child adoption in Ethiopia, and end up being almost 2.5 years, and you’ll adopt two children, older than you’d imagine adopting, from Ghana…” I’m not sure I’d have had the where-with-all to buy in.

There are times when I feel like Gilligan (or, let’s face it, GINGER) on the 3 hour cruise.

However, TODAY I will celebrate.  A family in our agency’s pilot program is bringing their daughter home on Tuesday!  THIS Tuesday.  I’m thrilled for them, especially since I am now friends with this child’s mother.  She was the person who generously chatted about our adoption agency and encouraged us to trust in this new Ghana program.  I believe they have been about 7-8 months from start to finish with their adoption, so this gives me great anticipation and encouragement for our adoption.  The other families in this first “heat” are also moving fairly quickly toward this end, as well.  Can I have a woo hoo?

With this timetable in mind I’m very hopeful for a mid-late summer “gotcha” date.  Keep in mind that we need to be flexy if nothing else.  Yes, flexy is the new sexy, I’m guessing… Where was I?  Yes…matched in Jan, so praying for a tomorrow  an August time-frame.

If you feel led to do so, please pray for the family, above.  The husband is flying out this weekend, and bringing home their daughter on Tuesday.  Getting out of a country with an adopted child who looks very different from you is sometimes tricky.  Regardless of official paperwork we carry and the bajillion hoops that folks must go through (and SHOULD go through to prevent human trafficking), it’s very scary when officers at the airport question why you’re bringing this child to America.  Some of them (I’ve heard) are fantastic and supportive of international adoption, but others will interrogate and hint at wanting “gifts”.  So, my prayer is for an amazing reunion and an easy journey home.

Tidbits and baby steps…

Howdy,

Today, I received copies of  the girlies’ birth certificates.  Each a perfect Valentine, if you ask me.Just one more baby step in the right direction of them being “our” girlies, rather than “the” girlies.  Of course, at this point, the two are synonymous in my heart.  We have a late summer girl and a near-Thanksgiving girl.  

Our home study visit (for the rewrite) is scheduled for March 4th at 1:30 pm, PST.  Please keep that day and our family in your prayers if you are led to do so.  

We’re still waiting on some doctors’ forms for the hs, and will submit more forms to our physicians for the dossier (after the hs), so if you could also pray for those to be filled out in a timely manner, that would be awesome.  The sooner everything is filled out, the sooner we can submit all this paperwork to our agency and to Ghana. Evidently, one needs to prove in several ways that one is healthy enough and mentally sound enough to raise a child.  Trust me, if D and J haven’t broken us, no one can.  Oh, I kid.  I kid.  No one could be more pleased and proud of her kids than I.  

That’s about it.  Just a tidbit and a baby step, but wanted to bring y’all along. 

Blessings, G

 

Note:  I ask for prayer because of my faith; however, I’m so glad you’re reading and supporting us, regardless of your faith.  Just wanted to put that out there, because some may wonder why I’m leaning on Jesus and prayer so much.  Answer:  Because it’s part of who I am.

We’re Expecting! We’re Expecting!

Oh, how I’ve longed to write that title.  We’re expecting.  Two!

It’s my pleasure to announce that we have been matched with 2 sibling girls, M and C, who are living in Ghana.  In case you’re not familiar with Africa, Ghana is a country about the size of Oregon, located on the west side.  It borders The Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Togo.

For those of you who have been playing along, you might notice that not only have we changed from our original adoptive country (Ethiopia), but have added one more arrow to the quiver.  ;)

To summarize, and avoid boring you too terribly, I’ll say that our original agency didn’t do anything wrong. We were just on the long end of a long wait, and did not see any fruition in the near future.  If we had no other children, this might mean something less significant, but we do, and they have aged nearly 2 years in this process.  In (*sob*) less than 2 years, David will be in college, and Jenny will be a junior.  So… we started exploring other options, because it’s really important to us that David and Jenny and the new family members have time to really become a sibling group of four before D and J start flying too far from the nest.

This process included speaking with people who had adopted through smaller agencies, and looking for children on a waiting children website.  It also included the idea of opening our hearts to more than one child.  As I was perusing a waiting children website, I noticed M and C, and after sharing their pictures with Doug, a.k.a. the best husband ever, we decided to follow up in getting a little more information about them.

At the beginning of January, we completed due diligence on the children’s agency, who is representing families with a pilot adoption program in Ghana.  Their numbers are stellar in the other adoptive countries that they serve, so we decided to see if we could speak with a family within this pilot program.  After speaking with that family member, we decided to switch agencies and countries.  I cannot tell you how amazing it is that I actually felt as if the hand of God were guiding us…The woman with whom I spoke also has 2 biological children, and her husband and she have also made the difficult financial decision to part ways with a previous program, wherein they were also pursuing an Ethiopian adoption.  Oh, and she’s also a faith-filled believer in Jesus, which connected us right away.  Wow.

As you can imagine, I want to plaster the pictures of our “gestating” girls all over Facebook and this blog.  However, I must refrain from doing so until they are officially our daughters.  Also, I know you understand that I must be vague with names and places.  I would hate to do anything which might have the slightest potential interfere with our adoption.

However, I can tell you some stuff.

• They are adorable.
• They are sisters, and their ages are 6 and 7.
• They live in an orphanage, and do receive some school.
• They speak some English, though this is not their first language.
• They are adorable.
• We will take two trips to bring them home.  As soon as our homestudy revision and dossier are completed (read:  a whole bunch of expensive, legal-schmegal paperwork and careful process to make sure we are who we say we are, can parent children, and that we pay our bills, etc.), we will send our dossier to our agency.
• After a quick review, our agency will forward the dossier to Ghana, where it is reviewed.  We are then issued a court date (probably about 2-3 months after our dossier makes it to Ghana).
• During the first trip, we’ll meet the girls in their orphanage, have the opportunity to have them stay with us in our hotel, and will officially adopt them.  We will likely also have an opportunity to meet some of their birth relatives.  Doug and I will plan on going without David and Jenny on this first trip.
• Then, we leave our daughters behind (WAAAAAAH!) for about 3 months, and return home to wait upon another set of paperwork (their visas, embassy clearance) to allow them to be released from Ghana and enter the United States.
• We are still deciding whether it’s feasible and wise to bring David and Jenny along for the 2nd trip.  We’re counting on the first trip over to give us more clarity in making that decision.
• They are adorable.  And David and Jenny have been pretty darned adorable throughout this long process.

I’ll post again when we get our dossier complete, and have our immigration/fingerprints approved (sigh…again).  We are thrilled and excited, and definitely scared. This whole process is fragile, mighty expensive, and could blow up on us.  However, we walk in faith, and realize, much like a woman who is in her first trimester of pregnancy, though the risk of miscarriage is there, there’s also incredible hope and potential.  I rest in the fact that this process is in God’s hands, and that He is sovereign, no matter what.

Thank you for staying the course with us, friends and family.  Love you all.  Please pray for us, as you feel led to do so. xxxooo Gretchen

Merry Christmas 2012

Welp…here we are again.  Christmas letter time…What to write so one is newsy enough without sounding braggy, too happy, too depressing, or too boring?  ’Tis a fine line.

Okay…As I’ve pondered, I’ve come up with a bit of a theme.  Are you ready for this?

2012 has been the year of the mile:  Airline miles, milestones, and miles on my car.

In February, Doug began his job as Director of Delivery Services at a software company, specializing in healthcare insurance software, called HealthEdge.  The company is based in Boston, and his main client is in Buffalo, so he earns air miles nearly every week by commuting cross country.  We don’t love the time away from him or the toll that travel takes on him, but free miles ease the pain a bit:  spring break was in Kauai this year, and we were able to go to Colorado to see family.  Other than a quick trip to Canada with the family to Victoria, BC for Canada day, Doug has not left the country in over a year.  But, I guess Buffalo IS pretty close to Canada.  Come to think of it, he did pop over the border to see the prettier side of Niagara Falls.   He was also able to visit his childhood home in Fairport, during one of his summer evenings spent in NY.   He misses the folks in Shanghai, and enjoyed his work experiences over in China, but he also appreciates being in the US marketplace and closer to his peeps.  We like that, too.  We have “discovered” Skype as an alternative to our evening phone calls.  It sounds silly, but  the saying about a picture being worth a thousand words holds true. Doug would probably tell you he hasn’t played golf as much as he’d like to,  but he’s been out a couple of times.  He continues to cheer for our pathetic alma mater (University of Colorado) football team, as well as our local teams, the UW Huskies and the Seahawks.

In terms of milestones, we’ve had quite a few.  A sad milestone was saying good-bye to our beloved Murphy–our 15 year old Dachshund–in February.  However, good ol’ Murph gave us a final gift–we believe he sent us the perfect little dog to take his space (for no one could take his place).  Our Lowla, adopted just a month after we lost Murphy, has been a joy.  We call her our otter pig (think:  Homer Simpson’s Spider Pig song), because she has a slick, beautiful coat like an otter, and she snorts and snores like a pig.  She’s affectionate and practically perfect except for those oopsie poopsies.

Jenny’s milestones included finishing the 8th grade at Brighton School, complete with graduation and trip, which included visits to VA, Washington DC, Philly, and NYC with her 8th grade class (I got to tag along on the trip, too–so exhausting  awesome!).  She also started her freshman year at Henry M. Jackson High School.  She’s moved up to the high school youth group at church, and is also working with the kids in Kids’ Inc., our elementary Sunday school class.  She continues to be our resident social butterfly.  We usually have an extra girl sleeping here every week, or a missing girl, who is sleeping at a friend’s house.  Wouldn’t change a thing.

David’s milestones include the fact that he is now a high school junior (mom faints–both kids in high school!).  He has taken the PSAT, and is starting to think about college (gulp).  He is also interested in driving, but we’re taking that one slow and steady, given all of the highway driving around here.  He has really taken on the challenge of living healthfully, and is working out with his trainer, three times a week.  He had to say good-bye to a gaming group, which was a real loss for him (he still remains in touch with those folks), but he was able to find a couple of other groups to be a part of.  He is now leading many of his Role Playing Games (e.g. Shadowrun, Deathwatch), too.

Last school year about did me in, in terms of driving.  I’m not sure how many miles I put on my car, but I drove a minimum of 40 miles, in 10 mile increments, at least 5 days a week, and usually between 60 and 100 miles.  Ergo, my not-as-faithful-as-I-wished-for minivan gave up the ghost last August at 141,000 miles.  We were on our way to Oregon for a long weekend, and she just died about 90 miles from home.  Here’s what’s not fun.  Driving home on the hottest day of the year, in second gear, and with the a/c spewing heat.  Alas, our tranny was gone baby gone.  Very grateful to have a lovely, new, working car.  Don’t love the car payment, but whaddayagonnado?  In fact, we had so much fun replacing my car, that Doug’s car got jealous and “blew up” a month after mine did.  And then there were 2 new cars.  Spoiled we are.  This year, as Jenny takes the bus and goes to a local school, I’m driving much less.  My body is so thankful.

Nothing incredibly new or different for me.  Just keeping the home fires burning and taking kids from Point A to Point B.  Grateful to be able to do so, and so thankful for my network of dear friends which surround me, both locally and those with whom I catch up using Facebook.  How I wish I could say that we had achieved the milestone of our completed adoption, but alas…not yet.  One day, when the time is right, it will happen.  For now, I remain more than content with my cute husband and my amazing high schoolers.

May God bless and keep all of you this Christmas season, and may He prosper you in 2013.

Love,  The Hannas

P.S. See below for pictures – in no particular order, as I am technophobic.

Doug surprised us with a carriage ride the day after Thanksgiving after dinner with some dear friends. Downtown Denver.

Our steed was Kino.  He took us around Downtown and back to our hotel.

Kids on the carriage.

Denver City and County Bldg

Sayin’ g’bye to Grandpa Hanna

Doug and his folks. It’s kinda rare that grown ups are pictured with their parents, so I thought they should have a pic together. 11/24/12

Fossil Creek Park – a MUST visit when we go to Fort Collins.

8th Grade Graduation (with Gpa Charlie)

Victoria – Canada Day

Canada Day

1st Day Junior Year!

Waimea Canyon – Kauai

Spying on the Monk Seal.

8th Grade Trip – May 2012

Annie and Lowla

Hanna Family Thanksgiving

9/29/12 Durwin and Lydia’s Wedding

Enjoyed seeing my dad, Erin, and niece, Aislin at the wedding, too.

Yes. Yes, she is beautiful.