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.

An Oops that led to a room swap and our weekend

We’ve been busy working on the craft room and the game room.  We finished what was supposed to be the game room last year and then packed up all of my crafts, sewing and collections and moved them into said game room.  Fast forward to a few weeks ago where we started painting the craft room (now that last year’s construction is over).  We chose to do it in 2 colors so that meant long drying times to ensure it was dry before spraying the next color.  Well after spraying 2 coats of gray and waiting it became apparent it’d be so much work to tape off the ceiling and walls so Don decided to roll the Orange.  Much easier and it came out great!

 Painted walls and new cabinets 

My craft and sewing tables as I attempted to organize

So once it was all dry we started hanging cabinets for storage.  They look great and then we moved in furniture and I started digging through boxes to begin sorting and putting things away.  That’s when the problems started.  The majority of my Scrapbooking stuff wouldn’t fit in the cabinets.   Then we set up the game table in the game room and there wasn’t enough space to move around the table with Chairs.

That led to us revisiting Home Depot for shelving to put in the game room and once that was in we moved all the furniture out of the craft room and into the game room.  Guess whose room that game room is now.  Yep, mine and I’m still going through boxes but at least the cabinets in that room can hold all my craft stuff and then we moved the sewing cabinet back in there.  With the smallness of the room Don will do his painting in the game room and now he even has space to play his drums since the game table folds down to a smaller table. The added bonus to that is not just good exercise but it opens up the storage area under the stairs next to my desk.  So I get to use that space for anything I just want tucked away like my extra sewing machine or that box of vacation shirts I want to make into a quilt. Don is even thinking we could build a train layout around the room.  I think it’s a great idea.  I’d love to unpack the trains more than once a year for the Christmas tree.

my new room cabinets are filling up

Parker waiting to help me unpack this box

So while I’m doing all that unpacking  Don is going through all our music and reorganizing it all so it’s easier to find and put on our phones.  Yay! No more low volume older music versus high volume new stuff playing in the car.  It should all be leveled now.  That’s how we spent Saturday and then Saturday night we had tickets for the theater.  It was for the play Assassins .  When we were given the tickets I looked it up and was like huh, weird content for a musical.  Well it totally works and it even had us talking about it all the way home from Seattle.  I even looked up two of them because I wasn’t familiar with their stories.  No time like the present for a history lesson.

Sunday was nice and fairly lazy.  I unpacked a few boxes and reorganized some stuff and Don continued to work on the music.  We even played our first game in the game room last night.  A game Don was given for Christmas and I wasn’t sure I’d like it (Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures) given that it’s a starship combat game but it was fun.  I can see us adding the expansion packs to it over time.

That’s our last few weeks.  Here’s to a great week of unpacking.

Forever in our hearts and always on our mind

Dear Baby,

We can’t wait for your mom to find us and ask us to be your parents.  We don’t know if you’ll be a boy or a girl but we are excited to find out! I can’t wait to see your beautiful face in your first moments and hope we get to be a part of it with your birth mom. I know, even when you spit up all over my hair and shirt or have that up the back total blow out just how happy I’ll be to clean you up and how very grateful I’ll be that your birth mom chose us. 

I see so many cute things when I’m out shopping and think how great it’s going to be to bring it home for you one day. I admit though I have broken down and have a bunch of things already from jammies and onesies to burp cloths and bedding. You have so many quilts because your grandma is overjoyed you will be here someday, hopefully soon. Maybe you’ll have a favorite you just have to have with you all the time like my brother did. She loves to sew and also made you car seat covers so you can sleep soundly without the sun in your eyes (although mom’s car has tinted windows to help with that). In fact when your grandma found out we were hoping for you, she bought the crib on our wish list.  We haven’t put it up yet but when you’ve found us we will get the nursery all put together.  We also have the cutest red leather toddler chair for you when you start to grow and want your own personal chair like mom and dad have.  I’ve been collecting books for you too.  I can’t wait to read them to you every chance we get, but especially at bedtime.  I have many more on our wish list for you and hope you have many favorites among them.

Speaking of growing up, we are almost finished redoing the craft room and when you get a bit bigger you will get to have so much fun in there with us creating whatever you dream up.  You will get to finger paint and color, on paper, not the walls (we hope!) and play with clay and play-doh.  I can’t wait to see your creations.

Your birth mom will be forever in our hearts and always on our mind.You will always know her greatest sacrifice was out of love for you.

I hope you find us soon little one because we already love you so much and we can’t wait to meet you both. 

Love mom

Frequently Visited States

Our agency posts stats every month and it can be exciting or discouraging.  This month was discouraging. We met most of the expectant parent intakes (they are shown by a number so they are anonymous except to the agency) except they chose state restrictions. I know to help make the letters they do get more manageable they are asked for specific things they are looking for in hopeful adoptive parents so the agency can narrow it down for them based on our own profile questionnaires. Now I understand where they are coming from with over 600 waiting families it'd be daunting to get even a third that many profiles to go through. They may also want to be sure they are close enough for face to face visits and we understand that but seeing state restrictions for states we frequently travel to, hurts. So this post is about states we frequent or could frequent because of close ties or we drive through it on our regular trips south.

California:

Don and I were both born and raised (for the most part since my parents divorced I also lived in NV and WA) in southern California. We routinely travel to visit family and friends there and thus we also drive through Oregon, so an expectant mom in Oregon or California would have frequent visits lining up with our travels and would be just one more bright spot for additional visits home.  We always stop to visit friends in Northern California then head south and stop to see them again on our way home.

Now on top of our  California connection we also have direct connections to Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Texas. 

Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee:

Don worked in Atlanta for over 2 years so we grew many friendships and that we'd visit multiple times a year, including Dragon Con weekend.  We are guaranteed to be there one to two times a year.

Alabama and Tennessee are less likely now but if we had birth parents from there it'd be a priority. When Don was working out of Georgia we'd drive to see our friends but since he's been mostly home we plan on Dragon Con weekend every year so we spend 4-5 days together on vacation in Atlanta and have a blast catching up.  Now one of my best friends lives in Tennessee and we text, Facebook, and face-time regularly. In fact recently we face-timed while Don was driving to our friends place on super Bowl Sunday for about 20 mins. (Don was driving so it was safe).  I haven't been to Tennessee since I was 16 but I do look forward to going back to visit and what better excuse than the parents of our child live there and so does my BFF.

Texas:

My brother and his family moved to Texas and Don and I lived in Texas for a couple years so we have friends and coworkers we visit there. Don even travels for business to Texas still so traveling there is easy and frequent. Speaking of Texas, we used to drive to surrounding states for the weekend or vacations so that's not out of line for us either. We LOVE to travel!

So in short, I understand most parents can't guarantee multiple visits from a far off state but we can and so it's discouraging to see the limitations each month when we'd otherwise be a letter they'd receive; especially when it's places we regularly visit anyway. It of course doesn't mean they'd give us a second look but it's the fact we could be considered and not automatically discarded based on where we live. I know it'll continue because it's the way this process works.

 I also know that no matter where our baby's birth parents live we'll be thrilled to come for visits.

 Our Dragon Con meet up

 with our friends from Atlanta in Italy

Goofing off in New York

Giant Silent Void or 28 months and counting

I realized recently that I haven’t really talked adoption in quite awhile in my blog posts except in short blurbs.

Well, honestly there is nothing to report.  We’ve had a few contacts that were scams and were presented with a couple different situations that were way out of our range but otherwise it’s a GIANT.SILENT.VOID.   

I’m so glad to have the friends I’ve made in the adoption community though to share the wait and the ups and downs of it all. Today’s topic seemed to be the Last Minute Hospital List and someone mentioned only 8 more months until they’re eligible for the National list and I said yep, us too, especially since we aren’t eligible for the agencies local list since we live 2 states away.  She responded with I hope you never see that list and I needed that.  I hope neither of us sees that list but it’s good to know it’s there.

So with not much going on I’ve taken the time to refresh this blog with easier to navigate pages and have updated the color scheme. I’ve also starting making a private adoption website as just another way to spread the word it’s been 28 months and counting and we are SO ready to be chosen.

The website is nice because I can keep it pretty streamlined unlike Facebook, Twitter, or many of our other sites where you have to dig through tons of info.  I like that if all you want to see are pictures I can have nothing but tons of pictures to look at or if you want bullet points on some of our favorite things it’s there. It’s definitely a work in progress but if you would like to have a look you can find it HERE. 

On another note we'll be going to a Super Bowl party at our friend's place and I can't wait.  Really hoping for a Denver win but we'll see how it goes, Carolina was a tough team this year.

After that it's home where I have to prep for Jury Duty for the next few weeks. Really not looking forward to that at all.

San Diego - The rains came!

Our trip to San Diego came about for a few reasons. 

1.        We had tickets to meet our potential match that fell through so the tickets had to be rescheduled into a personal trip.
2.        We discussed where to go and back to Hawaii was one of them and San Diego was the other.  With the rescheduling fees and the cost to go to Hawaii in winter being so high we Chose San Diego.
3.      .  Even though I grew up in Southern California, San Diego was only visited a couple times as a small child to go to the Zoo and Sea World.  The only time prior to this trip I’d gone to San Diego as an adult was to get a hotel with Don and some friends so we could cross the border and go to Tijuana when I was 18. We only slept in San Diego so it’s not really a visit I consider as being in San Diego.

 So to those who asked “Why San Diego?” the answer is above all Why Not!? It’s usually temperate weather and has plenty to see and do for a couple days. Well, El Nino had other plans this year which put a damper on what we could do but we still had fun.

I checked the forecast about a week before our trip and noted that it had a 50% chance of rain.  Now California has been predicted to get rain to pretty much no avail, usually if it does “rain” it’s more a dew mist and gone or a light rain which is why they’ve been in a severe drought for years.  I checked the forecast a few days later and it was up to 70% and 90% rain but still no big deal, right? Wrong! I forgot just how rain happens in Southern California after living in Western Washington for so long.  When it says Thunderstorms that translates into flash floods and 3” of rain dumped on you in minutes causing said floods. Even Thunderstorm flooding in Texas doesn’t happen that quickly, at least in the area where we lived.  So now you know it dumped on us for the 4 days we were there and I’ve never had so many flash flood warnings on my phone as I did there for 4 days.

Day one:

Arrival

This was our day flying in and we planned to just check into the hotel, find a store for drinks and snacks for the room and head over to Coronado.  This is also the day we got a call from LA on our 800# that I missed. 

We find our hotel and joy! It’s under renovation.  I was skeptical but our room was already renovated and was nice and clean. So I grab my lap top and check on said call, no message.  So we left for the Coronado Hotel.  It’s the first time I’ve seen an ice skating rink on the beach.  We stayed for the sunset and headed back to Old Town for dinner at a place Don went to with a friend back in 2006.  They serve traditional moles and have at least 2000 types of Tequila. They had guava margaritas this time (Don said they didn’t have margaritas 10 years ago).  We both had one of those and I had the chicken verde (I don’t like moles; too much going on and usually too sweet) because ground up green chilies is yummy and Don had the tamarind mole with langostino.  I tried his sauce and yep, too sweet glad I got what I did.  So day one complete and if you’re wondering, yes, it’s raining.

 having an appetizer to tide us over until dinner 

 Coronado Hotel

 Sunset on Coronado Beach

The ice skating rink on the beach (behind the barricades)

 Guava Margarita Selfie

 Don's dinner

My meal

Day two:

San Diego Zoo, Stars Wars and more

This is the day I wanted to go to Disneyland.  After some convincing though we chose not to because it was also 100% rain in Anaheim so we decided on Balboa Park with the museums and zoo.  Well it isn’t really raining although the chance for it increases through the afternoon so we chose the Zoo.  Don had never been and I hadn’t been since I was around 7 years old.  We have umbrellas so we’re set.  Yes, the rain would have the last laugh. The first thing we did was take the bus tour so we got to see a bunch of animals that wouldn’t be out later as we walked the park. Ok the rain and wind started so we stopped by a shop to buy hats, I wanted one to cover my ears so I picked a panda hat and Don just opted for a baseball cap.  As it would have it I really wanted to see the pandas and they’re in the back of the park and by the time we get back there it’s raining so hard the animals went back to their rooms and we missed them.  Of course by now I’m soaked head to toe, we’re at the back lower part of the park and the water is flowing everywhere especially over my shoes.

Now at home this wouldn’t be such a big deal, go home change and throw the clothes in the wash.  However, silly me, queen of taking too many shoes, only brought the one pair on this trip. So soaking wet we’re off to find another pair of shoes I can wear so we can go to the movies (Star Wars, finally!) and later dinner.  Found a pair that weren’t 6 shades of neon but they are boots and I don’t have socks for boots which leads us back to the mall on the morning of day 3 after they were rubbing my calf raw.

Lesson learned always take more shoes even if you think you won’t wear them and avoid this situation altogether.

We get back to the hotel and as we enter from the parking garage we noticed lots of people milling about and someone in the lobby saying we have to move you…..then as we approached we noticed part of the ceiling had come down.  UGH! They explained the water had gotten in and fried the electrical so we had been placed with other hotels in the area because we can’t stay in a hotel without fire alarms, water damage, and that they would fix it over night and we could return tomorrow.  So we walked up to our room on the top floor, packed and made a couple trips back down to the garage and were off to the hotel down the street.  Don talked to the guy at the desk to just switch our reservation to them for the remainder of the trip and he said he only had that night.  Once we arrived in room, Don got on the phone with the hotel customer service and our room reservations had changed.  We stayed in that hotel for the remainder of the trip. Thankfully he did that because they were still working on the other hotel the next day when we stopped by to verify we’d been checked out.

Day Three:

USS Midway Museum

This is what Don really wanted to do on this trip.  He loves ships and I’d never been on a carrier. After being in subs and WWII battleships I must say it’s super roomy.  It was nice that the majority of the rain could be experienced inside but we did go on deck and Don took some video and the end shows me bundled up, wind whipping my hair in my face and him asking what I think of carrier life to which I replied “It Sucks!” Seriously feel for the men and women who serve and deal with the high winds and rain who work on the flight deck.  After the flight deck we braved to stay outside and wait in line for a tour of the captains’ deck.  That was a cool tour given by a navy vet who actually worked on the ship.

After the captains’ deck tour I was ready to go relax back at the hotel and warm up for a bit before dinner.  Good thing we left when we did because I’d get flash flood warnings on my phone 5 mins into the drive back to Old Town.  Sure enough about 5 minutes back in our room and the street outside started to flood. That changed our dinner plans, especially after watching the news and seeing just how high the water was in some areas of the city. So goody we got to go back to El Agave which was across the street from the new hotel. I wasn’t really hungry because we had a late lunch on the ship so I had a margarita while Don ate and then ordered quesadillas to go.  Not sure what I ate later that night but it really wasn’t good, I should’ve just ordered the verde again. Now what they serve as quesadilla was 4 small tortillas one had mashed potato, another was a funky mole mushroom, and one had green chili which was good and chicken vegetable.  They didn’t have cheese as listed on the menu, which to me is what makes a quesadilla. Even Don said his dinner was just ok that night so if you visit go for the 2000 tequila varieties and the Moles.

Day four:

Disneyland 60^th Anniversary

It’s about a 90 minute drive from San Diego to Anaheim and Thursday proved to be the best day to go.  I’d prepaid for our parking pass and tickets so if it was raining we could just use them another time before the end of the year.  Luckily it was dry in Anaheim and on the way we stopped for In n Out burger at probably the largest location I’ve ever seen.  The last time I was at Disneyland I was 18. We’ve been to Disney world just haven’t been back to the one in California in forever and good grief it’s the same and yet so different. They are taking out a big chunk of the park and making into the Stars Wars theme so it was a big deal for me to get to see the park as I remembered it.  They have changed so much over the years but it’s mostly untouched as far as layout and what rides they have.  Space Mountain is still there but they changed the name and removed the Black Hole stuff and made it Star Wars but the ride remains super fun. I made a point of doing a few of the story land rides (kid rides) and Peter Pan is still the best. The best part for me was that the holiday decorations were in place.  I’ve wanted to go to Disneyland or Disney World during the holidays for a long time.  Not just to see the decorations but because the Haunted Mansion ride gets turned into the Nightmare Before Christmas.  I was not disappointed and really wished I could’ve taken more pictures.  I also wish I could’ve taken pictures on the Jungle Cruise because that was decorated really well but it was dark when we took it, the downside to Disney in winter is how early the sunsets. At one point we stopped to have an afternoon snack and sat down in the town square just across from Sleeping Beauty’s castle.  There was a duck that stopped by to grab up a crumb that dropped, so I pulled a small piece off and she stepped right between my feet, doe eyes up, neck stretched and took it from my hand and came back again.  I really wish I could have gotten a picture of her doing that she was so dang cute. Someone else tried to feed her and her mate but they ran away.  When I was done I walked over and handed her a parting piece and tossed one to him as he was a bit more wary. I took a photo of her as I was leaving.  When we crossed the square we noticed someone else feeding a mallard some of their corn as well as I had done with the female in our area.

 Couldn't resist wearing this shirt to Disney now that they own Star Wars

 My Duck friend 

 Haunted Mansion

Town Square tree

We had a drive ahead of us so we left before the parade and as soon as we crossed the San Diego county line it began to pour.  It was just so weird to vacation in Southern California and have it actually rain the whole time, we only got a reprieve by going to Disney but it was still a bit windy and chilly.

Friday we flew home.  It was a quick but fairly eventful trip. We tried to make the most of the crappy weather and I think we did pretty well by seeing as and goodness knows California absolutely needs the rain.

December 2015 - Where I've been

Good-bye 2015 and Hello to a New Year!

I haven’t written in a month and I needed that time off to focus on us and getting the house back in order after the construction completed.  Seems like it’s all I’ve talked about recently but we really accomplished a lot of small and not so small jobs around the house this last year.   It feels great to finally get some of these things done.

 Our first project was redoing the basement bathroom

Then we moved on to flooring

 We also repainted and added cabinets to this room

 We hired a contractor to redo this half of the basement and stairwell

Finished and furnished - new living room

So December was full of fun.  We returned from California late on Sunday after Thanksgiving and Don had to get on a plane the next morning for Houston.  I took the time to dig out the decorations so I was ready when Don got home that weekend to go pick out our tree.  I am like a kid in the candy shop on a shopping spree giddy about getting the tree.  If we do nothing else I just want a Christmas tree and the ability to decorate it and the house while listening to Christmas music.  Don is less interested because live trees are heavy but he does it for me every year (and I tell him every year he must really love me!).  I do look every year for a fake tree that I like without being a pre-lit tree but to no avail.  While I’d still probably get a small live tree, I have to admit having a fake one in the garage would be great. 

 This is now our dining room all decorated for Christmas

Ok, so the tree is home and set up, we have 12 days until Christmas.  Then we planned a gaming party for the Monday and Tuesday before Christmas.  As I’ve mentioned before Construction leaves a huge amount of dust and it just keeps coming even after cleaning up so I asked Don to help clean the kitchen walls, ceiling etc.  He went up to the kitchen and said you know if we’re clearing out the kitchen to deep clean, we may as well repaint and replace the temporary cabinet we put in 12 years ago.  Now if he is up to paint, I’m all for it so I jumped at it.  He made his way to the big box store on Tuesday while I began clearing everything from the kitchen. He picked out the paint which is something I normally do and he chose well.  It’s a sort of cranberry color which goes well with the other accessories in the kitchen and our floor is grey so we painted the ceiling grey instead of white.  It sounds quick and easy on paper but it’s a kitchen.  The walls were cleaned twice, as well as sanded down and wiped down again and they were still resisting the paint. We should have had it done in a couple days but I finally finished putting the kitchen back together on Sunday night at 10pm. Our guests were due to arrive around noon the following day.  Whew! At least it got done.

 new cabinets and kitchen color

The game day holiday party we hosted was a lot of fun.  We played every expansion of Talisman (hence the 2 days and we still didn’t finish it before people had to head home). Our friends from up north just stayed over and a good thing too since it snowed all afternoon and evening. We were supposed to have a white Christmas this year but it happened a few days early.  Our yard is great to sled in when it snows but we didn’t get enough on the ground.

 Talisman game

snowing 

Christmas day was great! My mom was able to come which is something I’d worried she wouldn’t be able to do.  She was released from the Hospital the 2^nd week of December but I was worried about her not being able to sit for very long.  They did leave shortly after dessert though since they’d stopped and saw my grandma for a few hours before coming up here. I’m just glad she is on the mend and getting better every day.

my mom showing me the blouse I got her as one of her Christmas presents

our nephew showing off his new shoes

So that’s pretty much the December review.  Not much else happened after Christmas except making homemade Donuts the day after Christmas. Our nephew ( the one pictured above) had surgery today to remove a tumor from his foot and luckily it was benign, yesterday they thought it was cancer after looking at his MRI. So ya seriously over 2015!  We stayed in for New Years Eve this year which was great. 

 Happy New Year!

I’m seriously glad 2015 is over.  It was a rough year but it’s made my resolve all that more strong. 

We have a trip coming up in a few days and I can’t wait to get someplace warmer for a few days. 

Here's hoping for a great year for all of us in 2016.