I’m in yet another hotel room as I write this. Yesterday was spent having an upper GI endoscopic exam, followed by a really fun party with my vet school classmates. The upper GI exam confirmed that I will need to return for endoscopic surgery sometime after the first of next year.


After taking a nap to sleep off the happy drugs from my GI exam, we headed to the home of one of my classmates for another party. Beth and Dora were the only two kids there. Many of my classmates commented on how polite and well-behaved they were. The girls spent some of the time running around with the Border collies that also accompanied us on this trip.


As I mentioned in this post, several of my classmates had already asked me for more information about ATN, on behalf of friends, employees, or relatives. The same held true at the second party. One classmate has an adult daughter who was adopted from Korea; another classmate has an employee who is an adult adoptee and who just adopted from China. I passed out more business cards and broadened a few horizons, and wrapped up the night taking pictures of everyone and eating homemade ice cream.


Today we drove back south to Indianapolis and showed the girls all the places we had lived as kids, and the schools we attended. Boy, have things changed. We took pictures of houses, schools and the first vet clinic where I worked. It was fun to get the “second batch of kids” up to speed on some of their parents’ history. We had dinner at the Nashville House restaurant in Brown County, Indiana—home of these awesome fried biscuits and home made apple butter. Have any of you ever eaten there? I have many memories of family times in Brown County and it was a pleasure to share them with my girls. Now they can start building memories too. Dora was in hog heaven eating fried chicken and mashed potatoes—she enthusiastically declared them to be her favorite foods!


Before heading to Nashville, we visited with some former neighbors. One of them commented how glad he and his wife were to be approaching an empty nest … and he said something about “starting to enjoy themselves.” I guess I must be pretty weird, because to me, enjoying myself includes kids. Another family we visited just laughed at our penchant to show up at their home with yet another new dependent. My husband said we’d always have dependents … and one day soon, grandkids!


We are meeting my doctor friend and his wife for breakfast tomorrow and heading home after that. It has been a fun trip.


Photo of my fellow adoptive parent classmate admiring our mug shots taken in 1978; second photo of the house where my parents lived when I was born.