Merry Christmas from the Whalens!
This may be a little late, but we have been in the States for the past month, and are just now getting back to the blog. Also, we have Christmas cards, but not very many addresses. Everyone has been moving this past year! Maybe I'll just post the letter on here :)
Dear
Family & Friends,
This year has been filled with lots of changes for us! After finalizing Asher’s adoption, we packed
up and moved out of the country. It was
off to Albania! We finally began the
overseas portion of Sean’s career. We settled
down in “Little America” in the middle Tirana, Albania, and found ourselves surrounded
by wonderful people.
Sean has been busy at work. He enjoys what he does, and is very happy with his career and all that it brings to him and to our family. He finds himself using the word “No” a lot. We joke that he has finally found his calling
in life!
Shauna has settled down in life; she has become accustomed to being a
stay at home mom. While she is currently
suffering from a severe case of “Mommy Brain” as a result, she loves being able
to spend time with Asher and watch him grow and develop. And he has done just that!
Asher has had quite the year!! A week after we moved to Albania, he
started sleeping through the night – Hooray! We just figured he was always on
an Albanian schedule. Since we’ve
arrived, he hasn’t stopped moving. We
bounced him all the way to 9 months when he started crawling, then he started
walking at the end of 10 months, then started jumping at the beginning of 11
months, and has been climbing and getting into anything and everything
since! Life has been on the move for
everyone involved in his world.
In fact, we are currently beginning the process of adopting another
child. We feel that Asher needs a sibling
and are looking at several options (international and domestic) for child #2. We would greatly appreciate your help in
keeping your eyes and ears open for a special birth mother who is considering
placing her child with a family. Feel
free to drop us a line if something materializes: swhalen@gmail.com.
As a family, even with all the changes that have taken place, we have
tried to embrace it all and make our time here count. We have traveled to several countries this
year; seeing the incredible sites of Istanbul, Budapest, and driving our way to
lesser known places like Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia and Kosovo. Getting to know the people in Albania has
been fun, and we are excited to continue our time here. We will be in Albania until mid 2013 and are
excited to get our next list of possible assignments, which should be out in
the next month or so.
We wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Fantastic New
Year! If you happen to be in or near
Albania before March 2013, you have an open invitation to drop by and stay with
us!
Love,
Sean,
Shauna, and Asher Whalen
We also wanted to give you a taste of the Albania New Year's firework display. It was incredible! The fireworks started in the early afternoon on New Years Eve, and continued for the next three days :) The view was phenomenal! Pretty much every household in the city was setting off fireworks. Absolutely incredible!
We hope everyone is doing well! We were so happy to see everyone in the States that we met up with, and hope that we get to see those we missed on our next visit. Thank you all for being such incredible friends. We feel so blessed by you all!
Come back!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete