The short version of the season we’re in:

We are sending the boys to a private school this fall. The boys will legitimately benefit from the Eton Academy environment. Eton specializes in teaching kids who need intentional attention in the learning arena, which is extremely common (although largely unacknowledged) with adopted kids who have traumatic backgrounds.

Eton will provide them a solid educational and character base that will carry on to their high school and college years and really, the rest of their lives. This academy will give them hope they have not had in the public school environment (as hard as public schools try, it’s often not enough to make lasting impact in this type of circumstance).

Please consider partnering with our family. At least send us a note of encouragement by letting us know that you're praying for them.

Thank you; and we hope to see you at our house for the get together next week!

I read this prayer this morning and have found encouragement in it. I've been contemplating it as my morning moves along.

Here are a few photos (that help me consider those thoughts and remember perspective) from last week's camping trip with some dear friends of ours.

This past week has been great to be with my family. I'm bummed to have not gotten to experience Glacier National Park, but I'll get to at some point, I suppose… I love my boys and their mother more than I enjoy the backcountry. It was the right choice this week.

Anyway, I'm getting caught up on some freelance stuff tonight. Also, as you might have seen on Twitter, I've been working hard on our branding the past couple days. Stay tuned!

So today was scheduled to be my last day of work before leaving for a backpacking trip to Glacier National Park. If you've been following Jessica's blog (http://choosinglovenotfear.tumblr.com/) you know that I'm now going to be on a "staycation" with my family instead…

Regardless of staying home or being away, once I get these last diagrams* finished and posted, I'm turning my KCC email off.

*These are the diagrams left to finish. Mostly, I need to put in the turn notes so it shouldn't take me too long. I'll be striking them through as I finish them so if you're really bored, you can keep this post open in your browser and refresh every so often to track my progress. (Though, if you're that bored, let me know and I'll delegate some things to you.)

• 130828 midweek stage *DONE
  
• 130831&0901 weekend stage *DONE
  
• 130904 midweek stage *DONE
  
• 130907&08 weekend stage ("not a fan." wk1) *DONE
  
• construction diagram for "not a fan." assembly *DONE
  
• email to portable campus with my sketch suggesting how they might accomplish it *DONE

Update, you may have noticed that I haven't checked things off yet. I keep adding/doing other things (emails I should send and such) to my list instead of finishing these diagrams. Some odd version of writers block I guess. Soon enough, I'll check the above off. Jessica, in the meantime has opened her computer and turned on The West Wing. Nothing like some good inspiration for creatively getting things done.

Ok, apparently "strike-thru" longer works on my site. I suspect because I switched to using Markdown to allow me to imbed videos. Hmm. I guess I'm going to have to learn how to use Markdown…or I could just give the link to my YouTube page, I guess. Anyway, for now I'm going to keep checking things off. Let's try adding "*DONE" to the end of each line finished in addition to the strike thru I have here in Evernote.

I took a break & read my wife's latest post. She's been blogging daily since we started this program - http://choosinglovenotfear.tumblr.com/ - here writing here is just one more point on the long list of things I think are amazing about her.

Anyway, I thought I'd copy/paste part of one of her posts earlier in the week that explains what "the program" that we've been doing is:

• The program is 3 levels, with level one being first and toughest. It is one or both parents with the child at all times. And the child is never more than 3 feet away from you. It involves a strict schedule (eat every two hours, emotional/cognitive activities, physical activities, house work, bonding activities, and goals for each child).
  
• Everything has to be visual and verbal. Hence, there are huge posterboards and a white board taking over one wall of our house, with goals, mantras, the schedule, unacceptable behaviors, and unhealthy/healthy words to say.
  
• There are no electronics (and I do mean none). We don’t do anything besides answer phone calls until after the boys go to bed (which is why you won’t see a blog post before 9pm).
  
• The program is parents only. The boys cannot play with friends and really cannot interact with other adults. Thus we’ve said "see you later" to everyone we know for a time. It’s like we’re in Europe for the month (except not really; not at all).
  
• If the child will not participate in an activity, then you have them sit in "time in" with you. This is the opposite of the more well known "time out." Time outs are terrible for traumatized kids because it isolates them. Time in keeps them contained, safe, and in proximity to people.
  
• The suggested time frame for level one is 45-60 days. We are seeing what we can accomplish in 30. We’ll see.