We are looking forward to bringing home our son, Micah, age 8, in the late spring or early summer of 2016. We have been looking forward to becoming a family of three since receiving prior approval back in September. We had the glorious opportunity to host this young man in the summer of 2015 for three weeks. He is full of life and adventure. He loves to watch airplanes, fire trucks, construction and other big vehicles around town. He enjoys swimming, watching television, and playing with toy cars. His favorite outing this summer was to the Louisville Zoo and playing video games at Gattiland. Due to a hereditary metabolic condition, he must follow a strict diet. We enjoyed finding new ways to make popular American and Chinese dishes this summer. Thank you for helping us to bring Micah home to his forever family.
Author Archives: Darla Sutton
Hosting Micah
In March of 2015 we partnered with Nightlight Christian Adoptions to host a 7 year old boy with the English name Micah from China. Micah came to stay with us for three weeks during July and August, and we took him on a lot of sightseeing trips. The purpose of the trip was to help him find a forever family and give him the opportunity to see what it would be like to became a permanent part of an American home.
Here is a glimpse into what we did during this summer stay. We took him to a horse farm in Lexington, the Kentucky Science Center, The Kentucky Derby Museum, The Louisville Slugger Museum, the Louisville Zoo (where his favorite animal was the tiger), and to Gatti-Town.
We also took him to meet some of our family members in Tennessee and Florida. This was challenging since he doesn't speak much English. He got to meet Darla's brother, Lee and his wife Crystal and their two children, Kaylee (age 7) and Levi (age 6). His favorite activity was to ride Darla's niece and nephew's four wheeler and their toy backhoe. Early one morning before the rest of the house had woken up, we found him on the toy backhoe in his pajamas and slippers! It was funny to see him interacting with Kaylee and Levi even though there was a language barrier. We found the Google Translate app to be very helpful as well as Darla's survival knowledge of Mandarin from when she used to live in China.
We also took him to Florida to meet Benjamin's parents, and while we were there, we took him swimming and discovered that he loves the water! After swimming at Benjamin's cousin, Wesley's, house, he woke up the next morning asking if we could go again, so we took him to the beach! It took him a while to get the courage up to get into the waves, but once he got in, he didn't want to leave.
While in Florida, Micah also got to visit the fire station where Wesley is the Captain, and he got to sit in the fire truck and wear the fire suit that the firemen wear.
Micah has PKU (phenylketonuria), which means his body cannot process one of the amino acids in protein. Micah has to have a low protein diet, and he has to supplement his diet with specially made formula that has protein that is ok for his body. His diagnosis makes it challenging to pick foods that he is able to eat, which frustrates him because he wants to eat all kinds of food.
After Micah went back home to China, we decided that we wanted to adopt him. We have been doing our home study, background checks, and immigration paperwork, and we are almost ready to submit our dossier to China for approval.