Anniversary plans....The Best laid Plans gone awry

Our 20^th Anniversary is coming up in April and we originally planned on going to New York for 7 days but as they say the best laid plans….

We have some friends who were going with us (we chose dates outside our actual anniversaries) to celebrate their 30^th together and thought it would be a great trip with so many friends and family to meet up with and of course the amazing shows and just being in the city.  I LOVE visiting New York and we always try to plan our trips around baseball games. We have friends there or close by and I was looking forward to seeing them and meeting his new wife and son.  I was looking forward to Carmine’s, a Yankees game and Broadway shows as well as spring in Central Park.

Well then the attack in Brussels happened and our friend’s wife said to cancel their part of the trip (We’d extended our days to spend time with them in the city).  Then a couple days ago I lost my grandma so we canceled the 7 days in the city to save some of Don’s vacation time and will be going to Florida for a couple days instead.

I’m pretty excited actually because I’d originally offered up Florida as one of our trip options.  Don has been to Florida so many times he kind of dismissed it by offering up other trips and since he was stationed there for basic training I went with it with my own counter offers (especially since we just went to Disneyland in January).  I have wanted to go to Universal for the Harry Potter stuff (and last time I went to universal studios in LA or anywhere I was 12) and we’ve never been to Epcot.  I can’t believe it but we made an action packed theme park vacation for 3 ½ days.   I’ve bought us tickets for Epcot, Universal park hopper and for Busch gardens in Tampa.  Day 4 we fly home in the evening so we plan on going to the beach that day because let’s face it you can’t go to Florida without going to the beach and I’m a beach girl.  I Love the beach; I pretty much spent my childhood at the beach and it’s a great exfoliation opportunity for your feet.

Needless to say we're super excited, especially since Don will be traveling for work on our actual anniversary.  This isn’t something new; we’ve dealt with it before and really all that matters to us is the acknowledgement of starting our lives together which was 5 years before we made it official. 

Hopefully soon we'll be worrying about how to change diapers in a theme park or while waiting in line places.

After vacation adoption goals and our Anniversary

So we've been home a week and life is settling back in.  I know everyone says it but if you’re waiting to adopt, don’t wait to take vacations.  Even taking a break from adoption for a weekend can really help renew yours and your partner’s enthusiasm to become parents through adoption.

I really pushed back on taking a trip to Europe because I was worried about the time, costs, and what if’s on the adoption front.  I can say I’m glad Don just bought the tickets and made the arrangements as a surprise. While on vacation the topic of adoption, infertility and foster care was all discussed briefly with our friend’s then filed away to the back of our minds while we took in all the sites and culture.   I’m back with a new vigor and that’s a good thing.

The day we got home I received the email I hate getting.  “It’s time to renew your FBI clearances”, which also means our home study renewal is also quickly approaching. So I've printed our paperwork out and will start filling it all in to submit to our state social worker before June so she has time to come out and then write up our home study for Independent Adoption Center, our agency in California.  The paperwork itself isn't going to take long to fill out with this being the third home study I think we've gotten used to it and maybe the third time is the charm. What takes the most time is trying to rearrange schedules to get fingerprinted.  Our local office has one hour open in the morning and one hour in the afternoon but it isn't at easy times or days to make.  The other time consuming part of the renewal is the physical from our doctor that takes a minimal amount of time but it always takes her a week or two to write it all up to submit so we have to plan that accordingly. She also has specific days that she’ll do the adoption physicals making it a bit tough.  All of this however will get done in due time as it always does.

Today is our 19 year anniversary though so that paperwork can wait another day. I truly can’t believe we've spent the last 24 years together and have been married for 19. It honestly seems like yesterday we started dating, moved to WA, and got married. I’m lucky to have married my best friend and love him more with each day that passes.  I can’t wait for us to include children and become parents but until then we enjoy each other, our pets, and families. 

Live, Laugh, Love, get dressed up and have a food fight. :) 

I hope everyone has a great week ahead and maybe plans a little get away to take a mental break.