This happened to my family. Years ago my father was contacted through Facebook by a woman claiming to be his daughter. She was, and while it took my father some time to reply he did and the only change in our life is that the number of people we consider to be family got a little bit larger. At first I was mad at the mother. Mad that she kept this from my father and never gave him that chance to raise his daughter. My father is a family man and knowing he had fathered a child he would probably stayed in the community but he was miserable in that town. That is ultimately why their relationship ended and he moved to the city. I think she knew that, knew that he wouldn’t have been happy there and I’d like to think that she did was what she thought was the best choice at the time and I cannot fault her for that. Ultimately if she hadn’t made this choice for my father then maybe he never would have met my mother and my whole family would not be. How can I be mad at a woman when her choices may have given me the family that I love? In the end my parents 30+ year marriage is still going strong and I have not only another sister to love but also a niece and a nephew I am getting to know. Love does not divide it multiples and I could not imagine knowing I had a sister and not accepting her into the family.

Bichon Frise. They do not have a short coat but they do not shed and are a good breed for someone who sufferes from allergies. They tend to be very smart and friendly as well as easy to train. The ones I have known have all been good with children. I have known three full Bichons and two Bichon crosses and if I was ever to get a small dog (I much prefer large dogs) I would get a Bichon.

I’ve never had an LDS missionary come to my home but I did meet a pair of missionaries on a train when I was in Croatia. They were wonderful company, taught my friend and me a few words of Croatian, and shared quite a few amusing travel stories. If any of you LDS moms out there had a son serving a mission in Croatia in 2007 I may have met your son and you did a fine job in raising him.

BBC also aired Victoria Farm, Edwardian Farm, Tales from the Green Valley and Victorian Pharmacy.

:iagree: Thank you for this post. It made me smile when so many comments here had me close to tears. I wish more people believed as you do. The world would be a much better place.

Ask her prof. Mine almost always had extra copies of their text around and they may be willing to lend it to her. A good friend of mine borrowed the text from her prof for the entire semester. Failing that, if its only a few pages she needs to study, maybe she can ask a classmate if she can photocopy what she needs from their text.

BF until I was almost 2. All of my siblings were bf for that long and I know my youngest sister wasn't weaned until after she was 2. My mom got a lot of flack from friends and family over choosing to bf us. My mom use to bake her own bread and make homemade yogurt. She canned fruits and veggies every year and made homemade baby food. We all wore cloth diapers and she made most of our clothing until we were old enough for school. Now that I think about it my mom would have fit in very well with the hive.

If he had a reaction to the rabies vaccine it should have shown sooner in my experience so I'd be inclined to agree with the vet that it is heat related. I'd wonder about Anhidrosis personally if he is not sweating even though he is hot. I think what you are doing is the right approach. Keep him cool and keep him hydrated. Watch out for dehydration. I've hear of people feeding beer to horses that won't sweat but I've never done it myself.

Is he sweating?

:lol::lol::lol:

I'm part of the 'younger generation' and I would defently say it is common knowledge amongst my friends. Then again I read I Have Lived A Thousand Years when I was twelve so perhaps I'm not the most accurate representation of my generation.

This might be what you're looking for http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/sotwgeo.htm

Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story

Instead of Hotel Rwanda I would really recommend reading Paul Rusesabagina's autobiography An Ordinary Man.

I grew up in a family of five and it never felt big but rather just right so I'm going with anything bigger than what we had. :lol:

If you like police drama check out Blue Bloods. I like it far more than Law & Order.

National Velvet

Years ago when I was living in California I had someone insist that the capital of Alberta was Calgary. Now I'm not sure how we even got on that topic but I was born and raised most of my life in Alberta so I think I know. She swore it was bigger and thus the capital. It may be bigger now but at the time I don't think it was not to mention the absurdity of that argument. I replied L.A. was larger than Sacramento but that doesn't make it the state capital. She insisted it had to be the capital because the train went through Calgary. Again I argued that the train went through my old home town of 2000 people and that didn't make it the capital of anything. Eventually I pulled out an atlas and pointed out that Edmonton was the capital of Alberta. She insisted the atlas was wrong, turned up her nose at me and left content that in her world Calgary was the capital of Alberta.

:rofl: There are five kids in my family and believe me we could have put away that much food. My little brother was the worst. I don't think that kid was ever full. I though you might get a kick out of this story. My mother called me the other day laughing. It seems she ran into the owner of the local grocery store when she was shopping. It's just her and my father home now so she only had two little bags of groceries to pick up which is a big change from two full carts she used to have. Anyways, he was chatting with her as she put the groceries in her little car and asked her "Don't you miss that old blue van?" We used to have a big blue 8 seater van we dubbed Lurch but since all the kids have flown the coop my parents have downsized. A little surprised my mom answered "no." He laughed and said, "I do, I especially miss filling it with groceries." My mom laughed so hard she cried.

:bigear:

Thank you everyone for your advice. And you are right looking back on my post I do see how I came across as judgmental. I appolagise for that and will try to become more open minded and less judgmental. I do feel I need to defend myself on here and this is why my first post of so vague. My sister told me of their intent to adopt and expressed my concern ONCE, she gave her side and I backed down and have not nor will I again bring it up. In hindsight, perhaps, I should not have brought it up at all but I can not change the past. As I said my issues with my brother in law are a personality clash not an issue with him but more of an issue with me. I do not believe he will be a poor good father and would certainly not try to prevent them adopting for that reason. I really just want to know what the process will entail and how I can best support my family through this.

Thank you for your answers. It looks like I have some reading to do. Two of my cousins were adopted and it never crossed my mind that anyone would see them as less then biological family. Any adopted child would be my niece or nephew period. No ‘adopted niece’ vs ‘real or biological niece’. She was looking into adopting from Brazil last time I talked to her. I do apologize. I was being intentional vague as I didn’t want this to become a discussion about my sister and brother in-law but rather how I could support them through the adoption process and after. Truthfully, I do not like my brother in law very much. Now don’t get me wrong he is not a bad guy by any means, perhaps a tad arrogant and entitled, but our personalities clash terribly. I would hate for my personal bias to influence your answer. My concern is that my sister does not truly understand some of the difficulties she will be facing. She is a very opinionated person and does not do well when someone challenges her. She seems to believe that the training she received for her education degree has prepared her for dealing with any problem a child may have. I, on the other hand, respectfully disagree with that assessment. When I was a younger I spent a lot of time working with a friend of the family who was a foster parent and believe me I got an education. My sister on the other hand never did this and the bulk of her contact with our friend’s foster sons was with the one who was a close friend of my younger brother. He had none of the violent or aggressive behaviours that some of the other boys did and because of this I’m concerned she has, perhaps, an idealist image of adoption. Unfortunately my sister refuses to listen to my concerns or those of our parents claiming that we just do not believe in her or support her. Because I cannot influence her decision I want to at least be as supportive and helpful as possible.

My sister and brother in law are looking to adopt either domestically or internationally. I have a few concerns for personal reason that I will not get into on here but ultimately the choice is theirs and not mine and do I wish to support them in whatever they choose. So my question is for those who have adopted or who have had family member adopt. What should I know or what did you wish family members knew before hand and how best can I support them through this process?

One of the characters is gay and becomes involved with another male character. There is a gay kiss in the third book I believe but nothing explicit.