State of the Family 2020

The biggest news we have this year is the imminent arrival of our 3rd child via adoption from China, Jesslyn Zora. We were hoping to be able to bring her home before Christmas, but unfortunately the authorities that be have conspired to keep that from happening. We are still holding out hope that we can get it done prior to Chinese New Year at the end of January, when the whole of China will shut down for weeks. Everyone is anxiously awaiting her arrival!

Jaedyn has taken to 1st grade well. In particular, her reading skills have improved drastically, and we're continually amazed at the way she can sound out multisyllabic words. But then she gets tripped up by some simple word that we take for granted is, by all accounts, just weird – and we remember that she is still just in 1st grade. She continues to attend Chinese classes and is improving on that front, perhaps in part due to our disingenuous insistence that otherwise she won't be able to communicate with her new baby sister at all. She's also started a more serious (read: expensive) soccer program, and seems to like it fairly well.

Kaleb is doing well. He loves Paw Patrol and PJ Masks. He's learned to spell his name. He's still in soccer, and we've started him in a Chinese program as well. He got a new bike with training wheels, and we're trying to get him transitioned from his balance bike to that.

Kyla has recently become certified as a lactation consultant after after 3 years of hard work. She continues to work part-time at a pediatric clinic, and her new credential has opened up opportunities to work with breast-feeding mothers.

Jake has switched jobs as his entire division was let go from Oracle due to dwindling revenue. He's now working as a product manager for Administrate, a training management platform. He's enjoying making a big impact in a smaller company again and has quickly taken a leadership role.