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Life With Joanne

#FloridaBlogger | Unschooling mama | Adoption x5

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Florida Butterfly Rainforest (Adoption Anniversary)

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Two years ago our lives changed forever. ❤️❤️

Six years ago, at the ages of one and two, our grandbabies moved in and we took custody. Two years ago on this day we adopted them and went from being grand parents to parents to a four and six year old (after adopting a 5, 8 and 11 year old, eighteen years before).

Adoption is not for everyone. You need a thick skin to shield you from ignorance and bigots, from all races and types of people. At times, it’s been rough on us, having five children that we adopted, especially adopting two that have different skin colors.

Loralye and Landen have brought joy, love, stress, tiredness, laughter, happiness and the privilege of being their parents to both of us.

⭐️ To Pinky and Tank, we love you more than you’ll ever know. You’ve made our hearts full and complete. We love you, Mom and Dad. ⭐️

We spent the day at the Butterfly Rainforest, in Gainseville Florida. My husband and I have been there several times and I’ve visited even more with our homeschool group, Ocala Homeschooling when I homeschooled our older three. Here’s a post from one of our past visits in 2013.

We all had butterflies land on us. Of all the times I’ve been there, a butterfly never landed on me before. One of them landed on my face, then moved to my nose, then turned and actually stuck his antennas up my nose!! It took every ounce of strength not to scream, and rip my face off (check the pics)

After that traumatic experience, we explored the rest of the Florida Museum of Natural History. I’ll post photos on another thread.

We picked up lunch at BurgerFi (yummy vegan burgers) and bought a bunch of cool stuff in their gift shop. Then we ended the night with dinner at our favorite buffet, Ocean Buffet in Ocala, Florida.

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Filed Under: Forever Parents, Travel + Adventures

About Joanne Greco

Joanne Greco is a wife, mom to five and pet mama to four cats. On her family lifestyle blog, Life With Joanne she writes about Florida living, adoption, homeschooling, family fun and more.
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