Christmas Letter 2010

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Christmas 2010

Greetings from Bend, OR (Warning: THIS IS LOOOOOOONG)

As I type this, our boys are out of school on Christmas Vacation and playing outside in the snow and the girls are upstairs taking a nap. I have a quiet moment and decided that rather than working out, THIS is what I have to get done :) I have typed and re-typed how to begin this year's letter. I am always amazed at how much I have to say and how many words it takes to actually say what's in my head. I think I should probably start at the beginning of 2010....(or rather the very END of 2009)...

It has become a tradition in our family to enjoy a quiet New Year's Eve at home.... eating junk food, drinking martinelli's, and watching New Year's Rockin' Eve while trying to stay awake until midnight.... 3 out of 6 of us made it to welcome 2010 and our year began....

It has been a year full of unexpected blessings, one big unexpected loss, a near loss, and alot of in betweens....

The Blessings

the biggest blessing was our long-awaited daughter, Selah, from China finally arrived home to us this year! Click here to read my blog entry 2 days after our referral. The one thing I didn't mention in that blog post is that on the friday night that we received our referral, we had just gone out to dinner at Leilani's on the waterfront at Whaler's Village and was approached by a couple that was thinking about adopting. When they saw Anna with us, they naturally thought she was adopted from China and asked about the whole process... we told them that we had been waiting for a referral from China for 4 years and that Anna was from Taiwan. We mentioned that we had sent in our medical checklist to adopt a special needs child from China just one month ago and expected a referral in about a year (little did we know that we had a referral sitting in our email inbox right then!) I mentioned in that post that we thought Selah would be a heart baby but she ended up just having cleft lip and palate.... I didn't mention that I was a bit surprised about this when we got her referral because there was something in me that really, really thought she would be a heart baby.... when I returned home after our vacation, I received a translation of Selah's Chinese name from our agency and her middle part of her name "XIN" means HEART.... We did get our heart baby after all... it just didn't look the way we thought it would :) God is amazing. This was the first glimpse of Selah...

Isn't she precious??

The email from our agency requested that we contact them right away to let them know of our interest ... it didn't take a long drawn-out prayer time to figure out she was ours.... we felt peace about it right away and as Aaron said "You just don't say "no" to something like this when it just falls into your lap." We just know that all along God was giving us peace to pursue her.

On June 16, we left on our 2 week journey to China. (if you want to read about our trip, I blogged here) All 2 weeks of our trip with our entire family was recorded in writing.

We had some wonderful additions to our extended family as well... My sister Sheryl and brother-in-law Howie, welcomed Holden Wade Faber into their family in October, and Aaron's brother Judah and his wife Tricia welcomed their first child, Sixten Solomon Askew in November.

Our Loss

On April 16, 2010 (April 15th in the states), my mother, Hatsuko Matsuda passed away. My brother received a call from the nursing home that she wasn't doing well and had rushed in to see her, but it was too late. She died without any of her children or loved ones by her bedside. I had just got done running on a trail with Anna in the jogger and a friend that I carpool with and took a quick trip to Target with Anna when I received a facebook message from my sister Sheryl on my phone. She said that mom passed away and that she tried to call me on my home phone... No matter what your relationship is with your mother, nothing really prepares you for the moment you are told you no longer have a mother..... Although she had not been part of my life for so long and she really wasn't there for me even while I was growing up, I still felt an intense sadness in my heart... I circled around Target in disbelief that my mother was gone and ended up leaving the store without anything. The moment I got in my van, I was able to cry as Anna watched me, wondering what was going on... As I pondered my relationship with my mother that day, I realized that most of the crying was because while someone is alive, there is always hope ... but once they are gone, it is over.... you can't undo anything or change anything...it's over. My tears were not about missing her daily, it was about having missed the opportunity to have a mother.... grieving what I never had and now never will.... God worked out the timing perfectly, as we had planned our vacation to Hawaii right after my mother's death. I had alot of quiet time during my morning run to ponder my mother and work out some of the emotions while I was there.... right before we received our referral news about Selah. I am so thankful that I was able to visit my mom 2 years ago when we went to pick up Anna in Taiwan and that our boys and Aaron were able to meet her. When I saw her for the last time that day, I somehow knew in my heart that it would be my last time.

Our near loss

In March, during spring break, Aaron's dad had an MI (heart attack) and ended up having open heart surgery. He bounced back very quickly and was home within 3 days after surgery. During the surgery, a mass was found that ended up being lymphoma and for a few months, there were some thoughts about possible other masses growing, but recent CT scan showed normal CT, so no further treatment is required for now. We thank God for that and continue to pray that there will not be any more cancer news in the future.

and now onto the more "in between" stuff of our year....

Aaron & I

We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this year ~ and, to make the celebration last even longer than the usual 24 hours, we ended up celebrating it for about 48 hours... mostly traveling from China back to the USA. We were in China on our way home on July 1st and came home to the US on July 1st. Not the most wonderful way to celebrate a huge milestone anniversary, but the trip was SO worth it. Aaron is still with Desert Orthopedics and commutes to work on his road bike daily (even in the snow). We are in the process now of building a house in a more walkable/bikable neighborhood within Bend. We purchased the lot and now have an almost 'final' plan of our new house. We will probably break ground sometime in February, and our builder projects we'll be in our new house before Thanksgiving . We are excited about the new move, as it will put us within walking distance to trails, parks, schools, restaurants, coffee shops and will give us more opportunity to connect with neighbors with kids our age.

Noah

Noah turned 12 this year in August and is now in the 7th grade. wow.... 7TH GRADE! That just sounds old and as I type those words, it makes me sad to think that he only has 5 years with us (unless, ofcourse, he chooses to live with us while he goes to college or something.....) I recall thinking WAY back when he started kindergarten that I should maybe hold him back one year and now I'm kinda wishing I would've! ;)... He did great in 6th grade and continues to do well in 7th grade. He is now doing math that no longer comes easy for me, which makes me feel old :). He takes piano lessons weekly and seems to really enjoy the challenge. He is actually now better than I am at playing piano.... in fact, he is surpassing me in almost everything and is very close to catching up to my height. He continues to love swimming and competed in February at LEST (Lutheran Elementary School Tournament) with his school. He also participated in Spelling bee at LEST and did well, but was taken out with the word PAROLE. He is a great big brother especially to the girls and is becoming such a wonderful (almost) teen.

Calvin

Calvin turned 10 in April and is in the 5th grade. He loves his teacher, Mrs. Valentine, whom he had as his Kindergarten teacher 5 years ago. He is also doing great in school. He has always been our happy, positive kid and he continues to cheer the whole family with his personality. He takes guitar lessons and seems to really enjoy playing. He also loves going to youth group at our church weekly. He is becoming more and more responsible and no longer needs my help with homework and school projects. He also swims and will be competing at LEST in Feb 2011, along with Noah. He is a sweet brother and I find him doing sweet things for his sisters like reading books and playing with them.

Michael

Michael turned 8 in July, and in the 3rd grade. He is our artist and our wise son. He is witty, has an amazing sense of humor, is sensitive and kind. Just this morning, I was asking Aaron how I looked (jokingly because I knew I didn't look that great) and Michael quickly said to Aaron "Dad you need to smarten up and act dumb!" Where does he get this stuff?? He also loves to draw and has a series of comic strip that he writes for fun called "Dumb Charlie".... it is about a boy named Charlie that does alot of unwise things. He is also taking piano and doing great with it. I love hearing the sound of piano playing in the house and imagine that it will get even more beautiful as they become more skilled players.

Anna

Anna is 2 years old and doing great! She has been our little princess from day one when we got her in Taiwan, and this year, her world changed when she realized that she no longer was going to be the ONLY princess in the house! While we waited to get Selah, she was SO excited and kept asking "Where's my sister?" but once we went over to China and she saw her sister and realized her sister was here to stay, she became quite jealous. While in China, we had some issues surface that was tucked away in her little heart... it was quite challenging to love on a new daughter, while trying to make sure that Anna felt she was not being replaced. I am so glad we were able to take all 5 kids with us to China, but there were times when I wondered if she would've been better left with Grandma where she would definitely get lots of love :) Once we were home in our house, Anna was almost back to her normal self and has been improving ever since. Now, the girls are great friends and they no longer show signs of jealousy toward each other. Anna is pure joy... I love listening to her talk. She is constantly asking questions. I love this age where it seems they change almost on a daily basis.

Selah

Selah turned 2 in October, and is now doing great .... She did really good in China overall.... On the day we received her, she was actually quite quiet and content but once we got to our hotel, she cried for about 3-4 hours, which was totally normal and somewhat expected. Her transition to us has not been as easy as it was for us when Anna came to us. Anna was MUCH younger (7 months when we got her) and she was with one orphanage the whole time... With Selah, she had been abandoned at one orphanage, lived there for 8 months, was transferred to a great Children's Home 6-7 hours away, had 2 surgeries, and was moved to foster care.... So, in her short 20 months of life, she had gone through 3 transitions and for her, we could tell that she wasn't sure whether we were another transitional family or not....Trust came slower for her, but she is growing in trust so much. She had a fistula (a hole on her palate where the skin separated after surgery) so we had her surgery done to close the fistula on 12/2/10. she did AMAZINGLY well through the surgery and recovery, but just this morning, I noticed that she was getting another hole right where she had her surgery.... it looks like she might have to undergo another surgery to correct that, but only time will tell what will be required. She is talking alot, but because of her palate issues, she is unable to pronounce most consonants. The only one she can say are "m" and "n". So, she is able to clearly say "mama" which makes me happy, but Aaron is called "ah-ah" :) She has started weekly speech therapy .... we are given exercises to help her develop the sounds of letters "m", "b" and "p" and will probably move on once she's mastered those.

As this year comes to an end, I can't help but be thankful... through all the UPS and DOWNS God has been our constant strength. Even when we were not as faithful, He still came through in so many ways. I pray that 2011 is less eventful for us :), but know that no matter what our year brings to us, We have a God that can help us through anything.

Merry Christmas (belated!) and Happy New Year to all of you who endured this LONG post :)

Askews (mainly Pam) :)