March 1-15, 2018 - 3 years 8 months

I only had Kadin with me for two days in March: the 1st and the 30th… A whole month without him.  Even as I write this in May, I feel the knot of emptiness come back.  It was horrible.  I survived.  

I love this little boy more than I thought possible.

Playing out on the river, with a beautiful view of Denali in the distance.

Kadin shows me the 5 cars he wants to take with him to the "other house" for the next month.  

This sums up how I feel all of March, while Kadin is "not with me". 

At least Bucky keeps me from sitting on my butt all day!

January 4, 2019 - One night in Cancun, Mexico (3 years 6 months)

My little world traveler.

Oh my god, he's behind a wheel and it has a motor…

And he is having SO MUCH FUN!

After the cars and the rides, we found a playground nearby.  There were at least 30-50 kids running around like crazy.  It was occasionally so overwhelming for Kadin he would just run a lap around everything, stop, jump up and down, and then run back into the mayhem.  It was still packed at 10pm but we were exhausted from all the travel that day and I carried him back to our hostel.  

December 1 - 15, 2017 - 3 years 5 months

Kadin pulls another kid with his awesome balance bike on skis during the Wilderness Woman's Contest in Downtown Talkeetna. 

An early gift of my original MatchBox Cars Carrying Case with about 20 of my cars that I've kept for all of these years.  I'm glad he was as excited to receive it as I was to give it to him.

This year we did a "composite" tree with two little sprucelings zip tied together to make one Alaskan Christmas Tree.  

Biking in the gravel pit at sunset – that means at 3:30pm.  Arrrgh!

After all that biking, Kadin didn't even want his hot cocoa and even with a cookie in his hand, he still was about to say, "Me no like fotos, Mama!"  Arrrgh!