After a pleasant and chatty lunch, we head off to a park that is popular with kite-boarders. He wanted to check and see if there was enough wind for any of his kite-boarding buddies to be out on the water. The wind was perfection, so, one young man with his kite was just heading out to the water as we arrived. Several more launched as we watched.

We walked down the steps to the beach and then plunked ourselves down to rest on a long thick log strewn across the sand. As we sat there watching, Chris watched enviously as his friends frolicked on the water. His blue eyes were sparkling in the bright sunlight. You could hear the kiteboarders screeching with excitement as they enjoyed the day on the water. "It's what we do out there," he said. "It is so much fun that we constantly are making sounds like that," he said as I commented on the enthusiatic sounds that I heard the kiteboarders excitedly making. My son put names of the tricks they were doing and described the different kinds of kites for me.

As we watched the young men flipping and jumping into the air and then popping back down to the water, we chatted about a variety of topics. He asked how my conference was and I spoke about some of the speakers and topics. I mentioned that one young man at the conference had told about how he had been teased about being adopted when he was young.

"Never do I remember being made fun of for being adopted," he responded. “I liked it – it made me feel different. I remember announcing that I was adopted for 'show and tell' in the third grade”. "Really", I said. "What exactly did you say?" I queried. He said he didn't talk about how he felt about, just that he stated the fact to his class that he was adopted. After that he seemed not to want to elaborate further, so I didn't push. We continued to talk about adoption though.


To Be Continued.......................................