Pardon our recent bit of radio silence, as we just returned from a whirlwind trip to Pittsburgh to see my dad married off in style. During the past few days, Brian and I have had the joy of reconnecting with much of my family we don’t see very often. Part of that included getting to share our plans to adopt a child.

Something I find really notable about sharing our own adoption story is that it seems almost everyone knows of someone whose life has been impacted by adoption.  I look forward to our own journey being added to this collection of stories of love, hope, and eager anticipation, and that it might open someone else’s heart to the idea of adoption.

One thing that stood out this weekend though was my own realization of how excited I am to share my own childhood experiences and cultural traditions with our child. We are trying very hard to better understand our child’s ethnic heritage, but this weekend was a nice reminder of all the traditions, memories, and experiences we’ll be able to introduce to him or her– the wonder of a Pittsburgh wedding cookie table, the delight of polka-ing with family, hearing about family outings to Kennywood, the Strip, and countless casual references to perogies (I stopped counting at 10…).

Who knows if they’ll ever want or be able to ride the Thunderbolt some day, but if I can (almost) teach Brian to polka, I can teach anyone!

The cookie table is an essential part of any Pittsburgh wedding. This photo is from our wedding in 2005– compliments of the baking expertise of my extended family.  Son or daughter, wherever you are out there, I hope you like cookies. And dancing.

As far as updates go, our paperwork is still stuck in Springfield (insert sad trombone sound here), but we’ve been given the green light to gather our final documentation for our dossier.