Extended paternity leave!

Because I haven’t posted any entries most of this week, I have several things to catch up with you on.

1. Lots of Ice. My paternity leave was extended this week due to some heavy winter weather. We had a large accumulation of snow and ice that started at the beginning of the week. Click on an image below to enlarge.

I went to work for 2 hours on Monday before all of this started, and then classes have been cancelled ever since. The time off this week has been fine, but this is actually kind of a bummer because we’re going to lose our spring break in order to make up the snow days, but I guess it couldn’t have happened at a better time. I got to spend one more week at home with my little man.

2. TPR court date was this week: Feb. 13 was a very important day for our adoption. As most of you know (if you’ve been reading our adoption story), there were some legal risks associated with Zane’s adoption since we took him home before the termination of parental rights (TPR) was final (risks that we were willing to take in order to bring him home as a newborn and not have him go into temporary foster care). Legally, his birth mother could have changed her mind (even a week or two after Zane’s placement) and asked for him back. Without the paperwork being processed by the court, we would have had to oblige. Granted, we spent some time getting to know her so we were sure that this was not going to happen . . . but it was always still a possibility (how terrible would that have been?). Anyway, that is no longer a concern. The court finalized the TPR on Wednesday of this week. Now we just have to deal with the state of Missouri for the next 6 months. As long as they don’t discover some sort of neglect or unfit home environment, everything should go smoothly (I joked with Rachel that we’ll have to hide the chains and whips in our dungeon every time the social worker comes over. Rachel added that she’s going to have to be careful and not develop a heroin addiction), anyway . . the adoption will be officially final in about 6 months, but the most serious legal risk is now past us.

3. My photography website: I now have a website up and running for my photography business. As many of you know, I’ve been doing photography pretty seriously for the past year or so now – Thanks in large part to our good friends, Beth and Jason St. John who have allowed me to be their daughter’s personal photographer since her birth in Oct. 2006. Thanks also, in part, to Grandma Charlyn (who is a fine photographer herself). The two of us have had many digital photography collaborations from which I’ve benefited immensely. And of course, thanks to my newest inspiration, Zane. Between me and Grandma Winkler, this poor kid is going to have more pictures taken than the president.

Anyway, I like doing this photography thing and I’m not too bad at it so . . . as I often do with most of my hobbies, I’m going to try and make a few bucks off of it (I do need to start a college fund for one little guy in particular you know). So I’ve spent most of my time off this week building my photography website. I’m happy to say it is finished and ready for viewing. Hopefully people will like what they see and it will generate some business.

If you’d like to see it, click here (**NOTE** You may need to enable pop-ups) or on the logo below (the web address is www.tysonzahnerphotography.com). And feel free to send me an e-mail with your thoughts and/or suggestions.

My Photography Website