January

While I'm busy blogging, I might as well try to wrap up as much about January as I possibly can.  My gosh, people!  We've been busy!

So, Astrid headed back to school on January 2nd, and she had decided over the break that she was going to see if she could join the basketball team.  Happily the coach agreed and I got a text asking me to pick her up after practice.  She has enjoyed getting to know the girls on the team, as they are some different people than she has gotten to know in cross country and in school in general.  I can't keep all her friends and acquaintances straight, which she finds frustrating. She'll be going on and on about Jane, and if I ask "Who's Jane?" she rolls her eyes and sighs deeply and says "JANE!  THE ONE IN THE PLAY!" or whatever.  But she's got far too many people she is friendly with.  It's not my fault, Astrid! :-D

So basketball has become a consuming sport in our lives. She asked if she could watch the boys play one night, so I took Leah to see the game after vision therapy.  I grew up in a VERY small town and in the winter, the only thing you could count on for entertainment was going to watch high school basketball.  I had forgotten how much I totally loved it, so I spent the time teaching Leah some of the finer points of the game.  Astrid was impressed.  Well, this touched off in me a wave of nostalgia, and now all I need to hear is the word "basketball" and I'm all in!  The boys played at the local university during the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, so we went to that, and we've also been to see Astrid's team play a home game.  It was a close game and unfortunately she didn't get to play, but we had fun watching her teammates come back from an 11 point deficient to win by 9 points.

We also went this past weekend to see the Fredericksburg Grizzlies play basketball at the college.  A former host family owns this American Basketball Association team, and we have been invited to many games.  This was the first one we could go to and it was a great time.  The Grizzlies lost by one point in a game whose scores went into triple digits.  It was pretty incredible.  There was lots of music and dancing and fun.  So I'm looking forward to lots of basketball this winter.  It will make the time go by much more quickly.

Astrid also auditioned for her school's spring production, a play called something like In-Laws, Outlaws, and Other People You Wish You Could Shoot.  She started rehearsals this week.  It's going to take up a TON of time, and I am a bit nervous about that, but I am looking ahead to the end of the road when I get to see her on stage and how proud I will feel of her and I know it will be great.  If you are free the weekend of March 25th and would like to see Astrid's American stage debut, contact me and I'll give you the information!

Also as part of the school's activities, Astrid joined up with some of her fellow upperclassmen to participate in Canstruction, a local event to collect canned goods to donate to the food pantry.  Local teams assemble, collect as many canned goods as they can, and then use those canned goods to create a display at the mall.  Astrid's school collected cans for weeks, and then she joined the group of kids building a Nascar stadium out of cans (they called it Nascan).  She was amazing at letting Leah hang around her and her friends, and they had a great time doing the building.  There were a lot of great displays there, but I'll selfishly say that FA's was the best!

Also where school was concerned, Astrid had to make a video for her biology class.  It had to show the beginnings of the universe, the creation of Earth after the Big Bang, and then from the dinosaurs to humans in 2 1/2 minutes.  She decided to cast Leah as a dinosaur, and Leah had been practicing for weeks as to the proper dinosaur stance, growling, and more.  On the day we shot the video, I spent some hours creating a dinosaur tail, we researched what colors dinosaurs were (interestingly enough, many were purple), and serving as assistant to the director, the star, props mistress, meteorologist, costumer, and more.  It was a lot of work for a 2 1/2 minute video, but Astrid got a great grade on it and we had fun doing it together.

A rare siting for the Leahsaurus in the wild

We also took some time on Martin Luther King weekend to go up to Baltimore to visit Leah's birth family.  We try to see them once a year but it has been a while since we've seen them, so it was past due.  We drove up Sunday afternoon after church and had a great time.  Astrid fell in love with Leah's little half-brother, Baby Za, who is just 2 years old.  Baby Za did not mind the attention whatsoever.  While we were there, Tasha, Leah's birthmom, had to run out to pick up some furniture she had purchased on line and Astrid asked if she could ride along with her.  It turned out to be a good thing she did, as apparently there were a lot of stairs and the furniture was quite heavy!  Tasha said she would never have survived if it hadn't been for Astrid's help.  I think they had a lot of fun together.  Leah was happy to see her birth family and we had a nice day.

Afterwards, we had dinner with Bill and Linda, our friends from the cruise who we had seen briefly when we went to Philadelphia in the fall.  Bill brought his motorcycle, as a while ago, Leah developed a fascinating with motorcycles and black leather jackets (which thank you God seems to have faded into the background).  He let both girls sit on it after dinner, and Astrid looked entirely too happy to be perched up on there.  It was too cold for the girls to go for a ride, but perhaps another time!

The next day, we decided to take a little road trip down to Bowling Green, VA, where the movie Loving takes place. You might remember that in December when Claudia was here, we went to see the film.  I had wanted thereafter to go visit the Lovings' grave sites and "thank" them for their courage and integrity and faith and love.  I think they really helped pave the way for my little family's transracial adoption.  And it was good for Leah to see that the Lovings were real people.

It took us about an hour to get down there.  I thought maybe with it being MLK Day, there would be a lot of people around, but it was totally quiet and we were the only ones there.  There was a small path on which to drive into the cemetery, which Astrid was totally opposed to, having never driven into a cemetery before, but we went in despite her objections.  We had stopped to get flowers for the graves, and Leah charitably split them in half.  It worked out that Leah gave her half to Richard Loving and Astrid gave hers to Mildred Loving.  It was very sweet indeed. 

Almost as soon as she placed the flowers, Leah fled to the car, saying she was too cold.  Astrid asked me if we could say a prayer, so I said that would be nice.  First she had to school me on the proper stance for saying Danish prayers, and then said an empassioned and lovely prayer of some sort in Danish.  I have no idea what she said other than "Mildred and Richard", but it did feel like the right thing to do.  The graves are very peaceful and I was glad we went.  That evening, we went to see the movie Hidden Figures, which I don't mind telling you was absolutely incredible.  It was so affirming to see those ladies in action and I hope Leah got a lot out of seeing smart, strong black women doing incredible things. I think I only cried about 6 times.  It is an absolute must-see movie, we all agreed.

Now, you may have heard that there was a hotly contested presidential election here in the US in November, and many people are very unhappy about the results.  I am one of those many people.  This past weekend, we had a chance to get very politically active.  AFS had warned host families that it advised against the students participating in demonstrations due to safety concerns and we were to take that under advisement in making plans for how we would witness history. 

Friday here in Fredericksburg, some people organized a silent inauguration.  The idea was for us to assemble in the local park and at the moment when the president took the oath of office, we would observe a 15 minute silence.  I took both girls out of school early and took them down to the protest, as I felt that it was important that they witness history.  As we all feel generally the same way, it was good they used their presence to voice their opposition to the regime.  The event was very moving.  It was attended by many friends of ours.  It was pouring rain, so there were lots of umbrellas, but everyone was happy to be together to support each other in our nation's darkest hours.  Rev. Doug from our church was the keynote speaker and there were lots of reporters and press there to cover the event.  You can read about it here. If you click through the pictures, you'll see one of Leah standing by herself, and you can see Astrid's scarf in the background. :)

On Saturday was the Women's March on Washington.  I decided I would use an abundance of caution but that we were not sitting out the march at home.  I had no doubt it would be historic and I wanted to go and I wanted my girls to go.  We spent Friday evening making signs and Astrid came up with her own lovely sentiments.  On Saturday morning, we drove up to my sister's, met up with her family, and caravaned up to the Metro, which we rode into DC.  Spirits were high and we met amazing women from all over the place, just on the train ride.    We got to the march site and unfortunately, Leah immediately had to go to the bathroom.  I took her and we were thus separated from our group.  I spent much of the day in a panic of what was going on with Astrid, but it turned out she had a great day with my sister and her family.  You'll have to ask her about it, I wasn't there. :)

We were all reunited later in the day at the cars and everything was fine.  As you all know there were no reports of violence, it was peaceful, and it was a truly incredible day full of spirit and resistance.  I would not want to be the current administration right now, to be sure.

The one picture I got of us all on Independence Ave. before we were separated.

On Monday, we had the opportunity to express our opinions in Richmond at the state government level.  In the late summer/early fall (Astrid was here, so I know it wasn't too early in the year), the UU hosted a speaker from One Virginia 2021 to speak about the situation in Virginia with gerrymandering.  Gerrymandering is a situation in which the politicans carve up the maps of the state to make it so that they are more likely to win elections.  Thus, the politicians choose us, we don't choose them.  They decide where to draw the voting lines and determine who votes in which areas.  Virginia is the fifth most gerrymandered state in the US, and we had the opportunity on Monday to go to Lobbying Day at the State Capitol to speak with our lawmakers about the situation and encourage them to support two bills that would allow for non-partisan redistricting of the state.  I decided to take both girls to Lobbying Day.  It was a unique opportunity for them to meet our elected officials and to get to observe the state Senate in action as we had been invited into the gallery.  We drove down to Richmond at 6:30AM Monday morning, far earlier than the girls even have to get out of bed for school, and attended a training on redistricting before heading out to see our lawmakers with others from our area.  Our first meeting was with Delegate Bill Howell, who is our representative in the Virginia House and is also the Speaker of the House for the state of Virginia.  It didn't go well, as he had no interest in non-partisan redistricting.  He likes the system as it is, largely because he can count on his own job security.  But it was good to meet him and we got an education on lobbying.  Our second appointment for the day was with Senator Richard Stuart, who was unfortunately unavailable.  We were able to meet with his legislative aide, O. T. Crowther, however, and have a conversation with him about the importance of redistricting along non-partisan lines, and he was actually quite open to the idea.  The girls got a picture with Mr. Crowther afterwards and he was very good to speak with and a good listener.  He didn't realize Astrid wasn't American, so he encouraged her to register to vote and he also encouraged Leah to be a voter, which I thought was extremely moving.

Afterwards, we went up into the Senate chamber at the Virginia State House and witnessed the Senate in action for a short time.  The members of our group were welcomed and publicly acknowledged, and that was pretty neat.  They even introduced "Susan Kosior and her two daughters".  :)

Afterwards, we went to the Marshall building for lunch and a debriefing and then on home.  It was a fascinating day--I was absolutely terrified as I don't know anything about lobbying and talking with politicans, but I learned a great deal and I think the girls did as well.  I was very pleased we went.

So now they are back in school and things are hopefully settling down a bit.  As we head into February, we will have play practice and basketball, and thankfully winter break when we are heading south to see Savannah GA where Forrest Gump was filmed.  Mama needs some sunlight and warm weather--the girls can tell you I've been a bit grumpy lately!  Other things on the horizon for this busy family include a benefit for St. Jude's Hospital, more political action/organizing, Lukas Graham in concert, a chili cook off, upcoming AFS mid-winter orientaton weekend and a ski trip, movies, birthdays, and more.  Stay tuned!