Spain Dad, a baby blog

Alleke wants to show you where her blankie goes when she gets up in the morning… Watch Blankie on Vimeo.

The first time I contemplated Alleke’s spirituality was at the dinner table. She was staring at me from her high chair while I prayed, and I realized that although I had no idea how to make God make sense to a 5-month-old (let alone myself most of the time), Alleke was still watching me, and [...]

My new nephew is here! Charlie Alan was born Sunday at 7:43 PM CST. He weighed 8lbs 1oz and was 20.5in long (3,7kg and 52cm). Charlie is my sister’s fourth. Hopefully I’ll have a photo up soon. In the meantime, here’s my sister Monica and her husband Jeff.

One is “blankie” and the other one is… Watch the video.

The first step in an international adoption in Spain is to attend an informational meeting, which in our case, was held by the Instituto Madrileño del Menor y la Familia (IMMF), the government agency which handles adoptions in Madrid. Both April and I were expecting the informational meeting to be, well, informative, answering some of [...]

The woman in the fur coat reaches up and presses the button. The sign at the front of the bus illuminates, “parada solicitada.” We watch as the the woman and her two friends make their way through the bus, each stopping to say a kind word to Alleke, before they find a spot near us [...]

I kid you not: McArabia, McDrive by amerune. April and I like to play this game at the end of the day where we ask each other what was the best and worst part of the day. When I got back on Saturday, April asked me the same questions about my week in Morocco. The [...]

Last week I traveled through Morocco in Northern Africa on a work trip. I travel a lot less now that I’m a parent (sound familiar?), so I took advantage of my free time to walk the streets, eat a few meals out, and take lots of photos. Feel free to watch the slideshow or pick [...]

This is the second post in a two-part series about how to make long distance relationships work with your family. Here are a few methods we use to keep in touch with our families from a distance. I’ll try to be as specific as I can in case you would like to try them out [...]

April and I have always said the most difficult part about living abroad is being away from our families. Now that we have Alleke, even more so. It’s not just a matter of April and I maintaining our family relationships, it’s a matter of giving Alleke the opportunity to begin and grow them. Alleke helped [...]