Doggy Days

Last Saturday we went to Thanksgiving Point for their Doggy Days.  Usually Thanksgiving Point does not allow dogs, but they have a special day that you can.  We thought it would be fun to take Gracie because she could play with other dogs and could get some exercise.  It was really fun and both Isaac and Gracie had a good time.  Gracie tried to play with dogs 10 times bigger than she is and Isaac tried to eat leaves.  I think that we will go again next year. 

Around the bend

    Years ago I did about a 15 mile hike at girls camp.  Every year the girls that were fourth years had to do a hike to get certified for that year.  The hike consisted of carrying a pack with all of your supplies, hiking, setting up a camp, and doing all the other camping stuff that you do.  I don't remember too much from the hike, but I do remember something that we were told repeatedly during the hike.  Of course with the heavy packs we were tired and continually asked how much longer we had until we got to the camp.  Our leaders would say, "just down the road and around the bend".  After about a dozen times of going around a bend and not being there we should have known that it was something that our leaders were telling us to keep us going and maybe to keep us from whining so much. 
     I have been thinking a lot lately how "just around the bend" has been relevant in my life lately.  I have been thinking about how at the beginning of this year I would have never imagined that I would have the life that I have now.  First we added Gracie to our family and she has been a great companion to us.  Then just a few months after that we welcomed Isaac into our family.  At the beginning of the year things seemed so hopeless, but I did not know how great things were going to be soon.  If I had been able to peak around the bend, I would not have felt so hopeless. 
   Of course life does not work like that we can't peak at what is going to happen in the future and when we are in the middle of what is happening in our lives it seems that it will never get better.  I would like to say that after all the years that we were trying to adopt and went through so many disappointments that I learned a lot of things.  I am not sure how much I really learned because sometimes I was just too full of bitterness and anger to see anything good in what our situation was.  However, what I think that I did learn is that it is important to have hope because you might have to turn around a lot of corners and feel that you are never going to get to the destination that you want, but eventually you will turn a corner and things will work out.  I have realized how glad I am that we did not quit when things seemed so bleak and hopeless because we were so close to where we needed to be and if we would have given up we would not have the happiness in our lives that we do now. 
    OK, I know that, this probably sounds a little cheesy but I was thinking that maybe I should write about this in case someone feels the way that I used to and they just need to know that things will get better.

Saved

   I know that I have not talked a lot about Isaac's adoption, because for some reason I have not felt like I should write about it for our blog.  I am not quite sure why.  I am willing to talk about it with people in person, but for some reason I just don't feel right writing about it where anyone can read it.  However, I read something the other day, that is adoption related, that I wanted to write about. I have heard from several places that adoptive couples try to adopt children so that they can "save" them.  A lot of times the term "save" is used in international adoption, but I have also heard it in domestic adoption.  I know that I am not an expert on adoption but I have to say that any person who is adopting to save a child, should not be adopting.  Adoption is about bringing a child into your home to be a part of your family.  No one would say that they saved their biological child and that should never be said about a child that is adopted.  Saying that you are saving a child, insinuates that the child owes you.  That is not what adoption is about.  No child makes the choice of what family they belong too, so parents should never make a child feel like they owe their parents. 
    I guess the reason that I am writing about this is because I love Isaac so much and could never think of him as a child I saved.  We did not save him, he was placed in our home to be a part of our family.  We are his parents, not his savior and he is our son, not a person in our debt.  We treat him just like he was our biological child, and love him that way too.  He does not owe us anything for adopting him.  He has brought so much joy to our lives and made our family feel more complete.  We feel so grateful and humbled that we get to be his parents and we are so grateful to his wonderful birthmother who chose us to be his parents.  We did not save Isaac, if anything we owe him for making our lives better, but that is what family hopefully does; make each other's lives better.  I just hope that when he gets older that we have been good enough parents that he will be able to say that we made his life happy and that we were good enough parents to deserve him.

Adorable

I know that I am biased, but isn't he just so adorable even with drool on his chin.  I am so blessed to be his mom.

Newborn pics

A week after we brought Isaac home my sister in law was so generous and took newborn pictures of him.  I had done some looking on Pinterest of different newborn pictures and decided I wanted to do them outside and in an orchard.  My sister in law was so nice to do them, even though I am sure shooting in an orchard is not super easy.  I bought a little wooden crate at Michael's and my dad stained it to look like it was weathered.  I wanted it to look like the fruit bins my grandpa used when they had their orchard.  Isaac was really good during the shoot and I was super excited to see the pictures.  To say I am pleased with the pictures would be an understatement.  I think that they are gorgeous and I am so grateful to my wonderful sister in law who was so willing to give up her time to take them so that we can have these beautiful pictures. 
    Just a side note:  Afterwards we decided to go to Popeye's because the orchard was in Provo.  It was after 9 and when we got there we were told the wait would be 45 minutes.  We left.  Can you believe 45 minutes for fast food fried chicken?Popeye's is pretty good, but not that good.

 I just love that in the pictures with me he looks like he is going to cry, but he is so peaceful with Jason.

He is just so adorable.  Sometimes it is hard to believe that he is our son.  We are so lucky.

  

The Wait is Over

 
If someone had told me five years ago that waiting five years would mean that we got to have this little guy in our home I would have been more patient.  Today we became the lucky parents of this wonderful baby boy.  It was such an amazing day and it would not have been possible without the selfless act of his wonderful mom who placed him in our arms today.  We will forever be grateful that she trusted us to be his parents and raise him and that she sacrificed so much for him.  We feel so blessed.  He is such a joy to us already. 

Our first family photo

Madness

  So I am not trying to ignore my blog, it is just that it is really hard to get anything done with a little puppy who gets into everything.  Right now I am letting her gleefully tear apart some Artic Circle coupons while I get this blog post written.  Apparently all the toys she has are just not as fun as paper we get in the mail. 
   March is my favorite month, partly because it is the beginning of spring and the weather warms up, but mostly it is the beginning of the NCAA March Madness tournament which is one of my favorite things of the year.  This year the second and third round games were here in Salt Lake City and we had tickets.  To say I was excited is an understatement.  I have been looking forward to this since the last time that we went three years ago.  I was really hoping that Oregon would come here, they did not, but it was ok we had lots of fun anyways.  For the most part the games were good, there were some blow outs, but even they were fun to be at, even if it was just because we got to make fun of the horrible cheerleaders.  I mean come on all they did was clap and shake their pom poms, they could have at least done a flip or something. 

Here we are on the second day of the games with our official tournament t-shirts.  

 This is my elusive Papa John's pizza that I wanted.  The first day of the games I really wanted a pizza, but when I went to get one none of the Papa Johns were open.  Which is weird because they had lots of people there so why wouldn't they be open.  So I decided to get a rice bowl.  By the time I got there they were out of rice and noodles.  Which was ridiculous because they knew about the games you would think that they would have plenty of food.  So then I saw there was a Papa Johns open so I went down there and when I got in line a lady came out and said they would not have enough pizzas for everyone.  So instead I had chicken fingers.  So the second day I finally got a pizza and decided to take a picture of it.  To be honest it was not as good as I had hoped.

 

This is the guy that we fondly nicknamed Bumblebee man, because of his overalls.  He was a fan for Wichita St, who beat Gonzaga, ruining my Mom's bracket. 

 

 And here is the court with the players from the Gonzaga game, which was a pretty good game. 

 

So that was our tournament experience this year.  It was awesome.  As a side note I won our bracket competition this year, by being the least sucky and having one team that made it to the Final Four.  So I guess all those hours of watching basketball did not really help me that much because we had the puppy do a bracket, we put the teams on paper and whichever one she bit that was her team very scientific, and she got as many teams in the Final Four as I did.  In fact we have the same title team.  It was still fun and we are thinking about maybe going to Portland in a couple of years to watch the games there.