Intro: Below is the sermon manuscript that I preached on August 10, 2007 after my wife and I and our new son Mason got home from Guatemala. I meant to post this a long time ago, but I had to make a few edits. I didn’t really make all the edits and I [...]
Most of you know, we have recently adopted our son from Guatemala. It was an amazing experience. We are excited to have our son home. Unless you have adopted, you can’t even imagine what its like.
While we were down in Guatemala we met many families who were still in the process and were [...]
Since our family finalized our adoption and brought our adorable son Mason Carlos home from Guatemala we’ve obviously received a ton of questions about the process.
The first thing people usually ask is: “How long did it take? ”
The answer there is: A LONG TIME! We started the process in January [...]
Tonight, my parents hosted a little get together for all of their friends (many were friends who have known me since I was just a little weasel) to come and welcome Mason into our family. It really was a neat time and we were excited to have so many people be so excited about [...]
Melanie, the two boys and I are headed to Chicago this weekend to introduce Mason to our family and friends back there. I grew up in Chicago and my two brothers and their families all live in the area still. It is always great to be in Chicago (if for nothing else than [...]
So, we got home last night after a long 12 hour day of travel. But, it was way worth the trip! It was awesome to see Cole again. Its funny, after you have been holding a child who weighs just 14 pounds, you realize just how big your four year old really is!
We’re [...]
We are officially in the good old US of A. We got through immigration with no problems and we’re sitting in the D concourse at Dallas / Ft. Worth waiting for our flight to Philadelphia.
Since I had been sick on Tuesday, I hadn’t eaten anything at all. Mostly because i was scared to… [...]
So, sorry for the lack of updates that last two days. I’ve been laying in bed since Monday night at 8:30 with some kind of food poisoning.  I threw up four times Tuesday. Yeah, that was a good time.  But, I think I finally have it out of me so I should be good for [...]
So this morning we woke up at 5:00 am and headed down for an early breakfast. After that we found our ride to the US Embassy to get approval for Mason’s Visa (no, not the credit card - the document he needs to be able to travel back to the US).
So, long story short, [...]
So, I was thinking, here I am writing all these letters to Mason and I know that there are a bunch of people reading this blog who are so very excited about him being part of our family lives.
So, I wanted to invite you to write something to him as well.
Just click the “comments” link [...]
Dear Mason,
So, today is the third full day we have known you. It still doesn’t seem real. When I look at you I can’t believe you are with us and we are here and that we don’t have to give you back. So many of the other families are down here to [...]
We hung out at the pool for a while today and then its started to rain so we headed inside. Right now we’re meeting the many new couples that are coming for the week.
More updates later. But click on this picture to the left, or one of the ones at the top right, [...]
Dear Mason,
Hey there buddy. I figured I would put a little picture of you in this note. Its always helpful to see what you looked like when you were a kid. So here you are.
This is actually one of the rare images we have of you not sleeping! Like I wrote [...]
So, a quick update. We met Mason this morning around 9:50 am (mountain time) and we’re spending the day sitting around the pool. He’s been sleeping in the stroller for about an hour now and I just came up to get a good book (Embracing Grace by Scot McKnight - seems fitting).
More later, [...]
The trip has begun. Melanie and I will be on the road in 15 minutes (10:00 am Eastern Time).
Hopefully we’ll find some internet access along the way or when we get there and update you on things…
So, in less than 48 hours we are going to be holding our new son. (In case you are new around here, my wife and I are adopting a son from Guatemala). We started this process in January, 2006. So, as I am sure you can imagine we’re just a tad excited. [...]
So, I’ve pretty much gotten no work done today what-so-ever. That’s because I’ve been fighting the annoying service known as Feedblitz which we USED to use for our weekly updates at The Well. But, since their service stinks, we’re now trying out listbox.com for sending out updates. We’ll see how that goes…
Oh, [...]
It is painful to share, but my wife Melanie had a miscarriage early Monday morning. She is physically doing alright and will have some minor surgery on Tuesday morning.
I was just observing yesterday with a friend how our family has gone through a roller coaster of emotions with the news that our son Mason is [...]
Yep, that’s right. Its been a crazy two weeks around the Hiestand house. First comes news of another new baby and Friday night we heard from our adoption agency that we are officially done with the final part of the adoption process. (Actually, the papers were signed off on May 11 and they sat on [...]
Yeah, that’s right. We’re hopefully about 5-7 weeks away from finalizing our adoption and it turns out my lovely wife is definitely prego. She’s about 2.5 months along and after a week of walking around like deer in headlights, we’re starting to try and figure this whole “2 kids in 6 months” thing [...]