The Guys

Those of you following my blog for a while realize I have four sons and four daughters, but for those of you who are new, I'll reintroduce them starting with the oldest three boys.

Tyler is my birth child, born in 1990. We were living in ND (USAF) at the time but moved to Okinawa, Japan when he was 15 mo old. We were only there 9 mo because it was determined he was special needs and we were sent to SD. Cold to warm to cold. He was diagnosed with ADHD and language issues. I guessed he might be aspergers, but no one really gave it much thought until he 15 and it was obvious to people that he was indeed aspergers.  Anyway, from SD we went to England, then to GA and eventually where we are in the FL panhandle now. So Ty had lots of chances to see cool things and travel growing up.

College didn't work for him and the military turned him down since aspergers is a form of autism. So he worked road crew last summer and really did well at it. He was one of the few capable drivers and would have been a shift leader except that he had a chance to go to Job Corps in KY, and that's where he is now.

It took a while to figure out what field he would train it. Way back he wanted to design video games. He gave up on that because the classes were difficult for him. (Aspergers affects a lot of different areas like social skills, coordination, stress control etc.) He wanted to do something physical, but recently began computer technology (CT). He went bowling with the CT kids last week. This week they have had a couple of snow days. He is near Mammoth Cave in the middle of nowhere on country roads. 

Adam is younger than Jeff, but he joined the family first, so I'll put him next. He turned 19 in January. Rick and I always knew we were going to adopt. We just didn't know when or how. Adam was our first adopted child, and we got him at five months old through Bethany Christian. Because I did some "cheating" in order to get his newborn hospital pictures, I've always known who his mother was. She was a very talented young lady who had both softball and art scholarships to college and knew she wasn't ready to parent. I told Adam about her bits at a time over the years and last year I put them in touch through facebook. Got to love social media. It took a long time for her to acknowledge him and that's okay. She went through her whole pregnancy without even her best friend or parents knowing she was pregnant. Most people still don't know she has a birth son. 

Adam definitely has his birth mother's athletic ability.

Adam went to marine boot camp in July planning to go into the reserves, go to college and then join as an officer. But he neglected to do what he needed to in order to start college in January. Hopefully he can start in the fall. He wants to do something like SWAT or another very active career. In the meantime, he goes to his reserve duty one weekend a month.

I love this photo of my tough marine greeting his dog after being gone many weeks.

We adopted Jeff from Haiti in 1998 when it only took 6-12 months, not four years!! He was almost five when he came home. Some of you know that it was a constant struggle with behavior issues with him. I wish more had been known about it at the time because he has so much good about him that he didn't show anyone.  He went into the army in 2011 and went to Afghanistan last year

He's a pretty typical guys who likes cars, women and hanging  out  :)

Before leaving for Afghanistan, Jeff was on the army 10-mile team. He competed in Washington DC finishing the ten miles in just over 50 mintues!!! (Yeah, that's my four mile time!!!)

Jeff is back at Ft Bliss, TX right now.

So that's the oldest three guys. I'll talk about the oldest three girls next and then the twins, (because it is always something new with the twins).

Love my guys!!!
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