Practice

Emily and I have had 7 dogs over the past 4 years.  Believe it.  The only one that's actually ours is Madeline, whom we adopted from Ouray, CO in March of 2009.  We came to foster the others by way of English Springer Rescue of America (ESRA), an organization that takes in, recuperates and places abused, neglected or surrendered Springer Spaniels from all over the US.  This organization has a network of foster homes where the dogs stay until they're adopted permanently.  I like to think now that back then we were in some way practicing for this adoption.  Of course we understand the difference is stark.  To say that raising a child is significantly different then fostering a dog for a month would be an understatement.  Theo taught us at least that much.  But the experiences with our foster dogs really were invaluable.  Patience, gentleness, discipline, love: these lessons have informed us in big ways.

Pete (and Maddy) 

                 Edith                   

Jazz (and Maddy)

Tuggers (and Maddy)

Step 2

We are the proud owners of clean FBI records!  Sean and I had our finger prints taken 6 weeks ago and got the results back recently.  Not that we expected any problems, but it's another step we're glad to have done.  When we told the volunteer taking our prints what we were getting them done for she gave us a big congratulations!