Everything intertwined....

So.... to catch you up.

We hopefully managed to get Mike to leave by threatening quite a bit from here. We haven't heard that he has returned. We finally had to tell him that he was not welcome to be at the house until we returned home on Monday. He and his friends were eating all the food we had gotten for the other boys for the week and were trashing the place. The whole thing was very disconcerting, stressful and exhausting and sort of tainted me for the evening.

However, I did get to meet Brenda McCreight finally, which was a great treat. I'm sure this will not be a surprise to any of you who read your blog but she is delightful. Even after only having one hour of sleep the night before she was fun and engaging. Me, not quite so much after the afternoon of eviction from afar, but it was fun to see her and Pat and some of his staff again, as well as to meet a couple new people. It is fun at NACAC to be able to do so.

One of the blessings of NACAC is perspective. I sat next to a friend from Pat's agency last night who certainly is dealing with stuff much tougher than what we are currently dealing with. While I don't like celebrating other's hard times, it is nice to be able to be grateful as opposed to whiney when our lives compare with others who have it worse.

After dinner last night, which was quite delicious and in a lovely place we headed back to our friends for the evening. I didn't even take my computer into the house (don't faint now) and thus had no time to blog last night or this morning.

Drove back from Amherst to Hartford this morning so I could present with my peeps from Adopt America Network about Technology and Tenacity... it was a fun session. Not a lot of people there, but those who were there were engaged and asked lots of questions.

Following that presentation Bart joined me to attend the annual meeting of Voices for Adoption over lunch. This was followed by an AdoptUsKids presentation on social networking and email mass marketing which I found quite interesting.

I'm now in the lobby of the convention center again, waiting for Bart and catching up my online stuff. He and I are having dinner back at the house with Bill and Jane -- marinated grilled lamb, I understand. A bit of a Greek theme I'm told. Bart and I present tomorrow morning.

So far so good at home -- either things or good or nobody is telling us otherwise. When I have some more emotional energy I'll check on them.

And by the way, Kyle has a teaching job -- for those of you who were praying for him. Same school, same grade as last year. So they will start their marriage with insurance and at least one of them employed which is a huge answer to prayer and a big relief.

And John gets out of jail tomorrow. His girlfriend and her dad will pick him up.

So we have the good and we have the not so good all intertwined. Kinda the way we roll....