Travel update and a test

This is a test to see if the blog updates ok from e-mail. In case
we're unable to connect to the website, I wanted to make sure this
worked as a backup!

So, we're leaving Wednesday morning at 6am. We fly to Newark & then to
Shanghai. We just found out on Friday that we'll need to stay a week
longer than we originally planned. Some of us are excited about this
and some of us aren't excited about this (well, just one of us isn't so
excited :)). This is due to being unable to get an appointment with the
US Consulate. So, it looks like we'll be coming home around the 15th of
October (though that's not set in stone yet). Though it will be a
little harder to stay longer, we're thankful we'll be together and know
that God arranged everything up until now - and are confident He'll
continue doing so from the other side of the world!

We're going to meet Jian for the first time (and keep him with us) on
Saturday, Sept. 25th at 9:30am! (that's 8:30pm CST Sept. 24th). WOOHOO!

OK - back to packing. Hopefully next time you hear from us, we'll be in
China!!

Meet Jian

Well, it is finally official!  Meet our new son, Jian Lee Bergeron.  This is a picture that was taken a few weeks ago when he learned that we were trying to adopt him.  September 22, which is exactly four months after our home study, we will be departing for China!! 

We will be flying to Shanghai, will spend a couple of days there, then take a train to Nanjing.  The adoption will take place there.  We will then fly to Guangzhou to complete the paperwork to bring him back to the United States.  We hope to be back by mid-October.

Tanner is thrilled, both to be flying on a big plane, taking a fast train, and getting a brother!  He prays daily for Jian and thanks God for making his brother.  We are thankful to have many people in our lives helping us to prepare both for the trip and for having an older son!  I guess we'll need to change the name of this blog at some point too. :)

Tanner has been doing pretty well lately.  We have some prescriptions to take along with us in case he has a migraine in China, to help us avoid having to go to a hospital there. 

We want to write out all the amazing details that God orchestrated for this to happen, because you can't help but be amazed! But, for now, we wanted you to know that it's official, and we need to get back to preparing for our trip!


We would love your prayers for safety and protection on the trip, good health for us all, especially Tanner to not have any migraines, and for our bonding as we become a family.  We hope to be able to update this blog as we travel if you'd like to follow along!

Cleveland Clinic, the end of summer, and a family of four

It's hard to believe the summer is almost over and school is about to begin again!  Of course it definitely doesn't feel like the end of summer since it's been over 100 degrees here lately.  We've had a busy few months and of course most of the things I had hoped to accomplish, were never done, but, some great memories were made - who will ever remember that the closets weren't cleaned or that math homework wasn't completed.

Since it's been awhile (again) since I've posted, this might be kind of long....sorry!

Since going to the Cleveland Clinic on July 23rd, we had a wonderful and restful week up at Glen Lake with my family in Michigan.  Tanner loved the water and playing with his cousins.  Here we are on the Sleeping Bear Dunes.

I have a lot of other pictures from Michigan, but, they're hard to add on here, so I'll add them to Facebook soon (hopefully).

After arriving home from Michigan we have enjoyed visits with Jon's family for a couple of weeks including a fun day at a waterpark in the Dallas area with the cousins.  Tanner loved that too!

So, for our trip to the Cleveland Clinic.  It was a tiring few days and on the way there, we discussed our hopes for the visit and both anticipated that we wouldn't really learn any new information, but, were happy to be able to have another opinion.  We were also unsure that all the traveling would be worthwhile, but, in the end we were very happy to have gone.  The doctor we met with is a pediatric neurologist who specializes in headaches.  After spending over 2 hours with us, we were pleasantly surprised that he had a new plan for Tanner.  There weren't any new medications, but, we were happy to follow up with a new plan.  He believes that Tanner does have both migraines (with cyclic vomiting syndrome) and daily chronic headaches.  He told us that it's very rare for children to have daily chronic headaches, but, that does appear to be the case.  For this, we're going to do some bloodwork and hopefully switch around his medications to try to get these better controlled.  For the migraines, we have a plan to follow as soon as his symptoms start with multiple medications that will hopefully control the migraine and avoid hospital visits.  He also has Tanner trying to avoid some specific items that can be triggers for migraines for the next 6 weeks. 

We were very thankful that our neurologist here sent us there and are eager to see if these new ideas will help.  What a blessing that we have knowledgeable doctors, the means to travel halfway around the country to find help, and health insurance to help with the expenses.  We're so thankful for all the Lord has provided!  We're sad that Tanner will probably always suffer with these headaches, but are thankful there are hopefully some ways to help him. 

So, one more bit of news....2 months from now, we may be a family of four!  It's a long story we'll have to write out here later, but, for now the short version is this.  There is a 13 year old boy in China who is deaf that may become our son by September 29th.  We would appreciate your prayers for this, for God's will to be done!  There's obviously a lot more to this story :)  this has been a possibility since the end of May and it's still up in the air as to whether everything will go through or not.  Adoptions in China are a lengthy process and so for this all to happen, will be a true miracle and a wonderful testimony.  Tanner is thrilled and prays every night for God to keep his brother safe.

Thanks for keeping up with us and caring for our family. 

Summer Update!

Well, it's been a busy summer so far! 
Before I even get to summer, I've been meaning to post an update from this past spring!  I've tried unsuccessfully to edit a short video clip, so, instead I'll just add some pictures.  In April we went to Isaiah's Place for the dedication of the new barn.  It was a wonderful weekend and especially memorable because the barn was named in honor of Tanner!   What a special time for us, and so fun to see the surprise on Tanner's face when he realized it was his name on the barn.

Another spring event was that Tanner completed the 3rd grade successfully and passed both the reading and math TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) tests!!!  This meant that he was able to start summer 2 weeks earlier than I had planned!  We were all somewhat surprised and also thrilled that he passed!

In June, we attended Family Weekend Retreat at the Texas School for the deaf where Tanner loved spending time with other deaf children. 

Also during June, Tanner completed 2 weeks of swimming lessons, loving every minute!  He was excited to complete the seahorse level this year and move up to the crocodiles next year. 

We've also enjoyed the summer reading program at the library, playing with friends, swimming and getting excited about summer trips! 

We just returned home from a trip to Cozumel, Mexico.  We went with several friends and my parents met us there as well.  Tanner loved spending time with Grandma while the rest of us went scuba diving.  I don't have all of the pictures downloaded yet, but, here's one for now.

We are looking forward to a few days at Isaiah's Place next week for ASL VBS.  It's very close to Jon's parents, so Tanner is excited to be able to spend some time with Grandpa and Grandma as well. 

The last week of July we are scheduled to go to Michigan to spend some time with my family at a cottage on Glen Lake.  We always look forward to this time of nice, Michigan weather, swimming, climbing the sand dunes, spending time with family, playing games and lots of rest.

Prior to the cottage, and after arriving in Michigan, we'll be driving down to the Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, Ohio) to see a pediatric neurologist who specializes in headaches.  Tanner's neurologist has run out of options for treating his migraines and is hoping a fresh set of eyes can look at him from a different perspective and hopefully have some new ideas for treating Tanner.  We're excited that there may be some new options, and yet are trying not to get our hopes up too much. 

So, that's our summer through July. I'll try to keep up a little better throughout the rest of the summer.

Happy Birthday Tanner!

Today is Tanner's 9th birthday! It's hard to believe he's already 9! The other day he asked about his 1 year old birthday party. I explained we weren't with him for his birthdays when he was 1, 2, and 3, he didn't seem to mind. I told him I would show pictures of his birthdays with us, and decided to put them all here. I have some other posts to catch up on, but, I'll have to do that later - we're heading to Atami (Tanner's choice - sushi and Hibachi grill) for his birthday dinner.

This morning I was feeling a little sad about missing his first three birthdays, but, realized if we hadn't missed them, we never would have had Tanner to begin with! What a blessing that God chose us to be his second set of parents, we are so truly thankful!

4 years old!

5 years old!

6 years old!

7 years old!

8 years old!

9 years old!

Happy Birthday Tanner! What a special gift you are!