Annual Family Visit

Every year my parents and my sister Tosha's family come to visit over spring break. My dad was in a play this spring, so he didn't make it, but we still had a great time! My brother Larry and his family were able to come down too. They stayed with some friends in Mesa, but we still got to see them a few times. Thanks everyone for coming to visit! You're all welcome to come back!

There was a little bit of excitement on the way here. My sister had their van fully loaded and they were ready to leave IF Wednesday afternoon. They didn't leave until almost 7pm, and didn't even come all together!

They were topping off the car fluids when they noticed oil in the radiator, or something like that. Long story short, a gasket had broken, car wouldn't make it and was going to cost a couple grand to fix, and take some time. A rental car was going to cost almost a thousand dollars. There were 3 sad adults and 4 very sad kids.

THE SOLUTION: My mom, sister, and 3 older kids drove down late that night in my mom's car. Shawn (brother-in-law) and the baby flew out the next day. Much more complicated, but so glad they still came!

Highlights include: Museum of Natural History, Out of Africa Wildlife Park, Phoenix Children's Museum, My 25 birthday party with a bunch of wonderful family, miniature golfing, swimming (90 degree weather in March), splash parks, picnics, shopping, games, football, movies, and lots of yummy food! Whew. It was a lot in 10 days, but we had a blast =] 

Museum of Natural History: Final price for 4 adults and 3 kids, $6.00. Have I mentioned our free Culture Passes? They're awesome, and so is this museum. The adults and kids had a great time. Here we are panning for "gold". You even get to take it home!

Out of Africa: 1 1/2 hour drive, freezing cold and windy weather, 5 adults, 4 kids, a couple of coupons, final price...much more than $6.00, but still very fun!

They have a couple of shows with tigers and bears, where the employees play with the animals and show off their hunting skills. It was really cool to watch. Bottom Right: the employees would jump into the water to get out of the way.

We left Phoenix a steamy 85 degrees. Camp Verde had to have been no warmer than 55 degrees, with a cold wind. No pants, no jackets, no sense. Luckily I had a bag of DI clothes in the trunk. Yes, those are sweat pants and shorts on our arms. Don't judge us...We made due with what we could!  

The lionesses were by far the highlight of the day! After sitting around and ignoring us for 5 minutes, one lion decided our nephews weren't too bad. They would run in front of her habitat, and she would chase them along the fence! Back and forth they went for several minutes. If they stopped, she would crouch down as if to pounce. They loved it!

 

The second lion the boys caught the attention of was not as friendly. She didn't like them being near her one bit and kept roaring at them, really mean like. When she started digging at the bottom of the fence to get out and eat them, the adults felt it was time to go elsewhere!

Note: If you were stupid, you could stick your fingers through the fence and touch the animals, or lose a finger. That's how close you get to them! They even let you feed a lion and tiger, and pet giraffes, camels, and snakes!

The Children's Museum. It was my birthday that day, so me, Adam and my mom went to lunch instead of the museum. I think we made the better choice!

All the kidos at our house for a birthday bash.

Some evening downtime.

Miniature golfing at Castles and Coaster. They have 4 different courses, they they are really fun.

While the boys rushed through the course, we took our sweet time, and many photo oportunities.

Sad little boy, but I love this picture. He looks like the Incredible Hulk!

I adore all of my nieces and nephews, but this little guy was my very best friend this trip! He's in that hilarious 2 year old stage, where everything they do or say cracks you up. The boys (young and old) got him saying "I got ladies!",  "Oh yeah, Ladies", and my personal favorite :(  "Hairy bum, Katelin", which he still runs around the house saying!

Thanks family for visiting! We'll see you next year! Next week Adam's parents come to visit, and we can't wait!



The Selection Process

Our adoption profile has been up for a little over a month now, and we have had 3 (and a halfish) contacts which we think is really good (even though our profile has been viewed over 230 times).

The first contact we received was from a girl named Sara, who lives here in Arizona. We emailed back and forth every day for about a week, and then asked our caseworker what to do next. She suggested we could meet Sara for lunch, and maybe bring a caseworker along. We met Sara at Olive Garden for lunch about 3 weeks ago. She was really great. We still make contact about once a week, but she is still in contact with other couples as well. She's due with a baby boy in July and has until then to make a decision.

The second contact was from a girl who didn't even write her name in the email, just an Idaho phone number. She is due with a baby girl in August. We emailed her back and didn't hear anything, so a few days later I tried calling her (a little awkward since I didn't even know who to ask for). Once I told her why I was calling, she said she had picked a family the day before!

Last week I was looking up our profile and the system couldn't find it. I called our caseworker and she said someone in Michigan had put a "soft hold" on our profile. That means that someone was seriously considering us and didn't want anyone else to pick us until they made a decision. It would have been very exciting if that person had actually contacted us! Whoever it was removed the hold a few days later.

The 3rd contact came today from a girl named Veronica. She is due in September and doesn't know the gender yet. She said we were the first family she looked at, but then our profile disappered before she contacted us, so she made sure to send an email when she saw we were back up. I emailed her back tonight, so we'll see where this goes!

It's exciting to have a couple of people interested, but we're keeping a bit of an emotional distance. Either of these contacts could be the one, or neither of them could be. We know we'll end up with the baby we are supposed to though! For now it's still great to get to know other people and find out what matters to these mothers who are giving someone such a priceless gift!