Big Mess

I knew he was being too quiet.

Sore Backs

Last week we got our back patio poured! Yippy. . . . over 400 sq ft dedicated to outdoor fun. Here is a photo taken right when it was done, (can you see Spencer's reflection in the bay window?)



On Saturday we had a great time outside. Dave built some steps from our back door to the new pad. They look great. They are pressure treated red wood and I plan to stain/seal them this week. It is so exciting to see it all come together.

Saturday was a busy day for us, we were working in the yard from 8:30-5:30. . long day. We built the steps and worked on the back bed. The back bed has a rock barrier between the grass and bed, but Dave and I would like a concrete mowing strip. When pricing it out it was kind of expensive, but Dave's dad did his own strips and they look great. So, we pulled all the rocks out and prepared to pour our own curbing. We got about 12 ft done and by Dave's calculation we have about 6 hours worth of labor left. Doing it ourselves will save us a lot, it is about 1/3 the cost. And we love doing projects together. Spencer had a lot of fun too.

Life is good here.

Weekend Update

We had a good weekend. We got price quotes from 3 contractors to pour our patio and one came in about 10% less then the others. . . so we have a winner! Depending on the weather it looks like they will come out on Wednesday to give us our outdoor living space. I have been kind of crazy about looking at outdoor furniture and rugs and fireplaces and gazebos. . . ahh it has been fun.

Here's my vision:


Here's my budget:


So, as you can see. . . patio this year. . . furniture and fun deco later. On Saturday we did some prep work to get the space ready for the pad. We had a bed of gravel out where our patio will be (to control weeds) and we didn't want to loose all that gravel. On Saturday morning Dave and I spent the morning shoveling the gravel and putting it in a bed on the back of the house. I hope this will help keep the weeds at bay.

I know it doesn't look like a big change, but let tell you it was a lot work and I do not see a future career for myself as a gravel shoveler.





This weekend Spencer also got an adorable Easter outfit from his Grandma. He was so cute in it I thought I would post a picture of it, he wore it to church yesterday. Hooray for cute boys in my house.



One final weekend update. I got my class assignment on Friday and on Saturday I got to look around my new online class. I have additional training this week and I hope it all goes well. My class has 35 students. . . I see lots of grading in my future.

Chicken Tamale Casserole

I just tried this new recipe. . . so yummy. I wanted to make tamales, but then realized it was a boat-load of work, so settled on this easy and tasty knock-off.

Chicken Tamale Casserole

Tamale Layer
1/4 c. shredded 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese
1/3 c. milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon ground cumin
few dashes of hot sauce
1 (14 3/4-ounce) can cream-style corn
1/2 c. corn meal
1/2 c. flour
1/2 T. Baking Powder
1/4 tsp salt

Cooking spray

1-2 cups favorite salsa (I used the Wal~Mart black bean and white corn salsa)

Chicken Layer
2 cups shredded cooked chicken (I used dark meat, but white meat would be great too.) I fried the chicken before shredding with 1/2 an onion, chopped

Shredded cheese (as much as you like)

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. Combine all tamale layer ingredients in a large bowl, stirring just until moist. Pour mixture into a 13 x 9–inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
3. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until set. Pierce entire surface liberally with a fork; pour salsa over top. Top with chicken & onions; sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven; let stand 5 minutes.

Patio?

We moved into our home 4 years ago and when we moved in we planned to put in a deck or patio later. Well, it might be later.

At the back of our home we have a 20 x 22 ft area that we planned to install a deck/patio. Here are a couple of shots so you can see it. These pictures are from last summer.



So we have been calling around getting some quotes, it would sure be good to have a patio this summer. But, as always (and like most Americans) we live within a budget and it is all about seeing where we can find room.

Speaking of budgets and $$$, my training is complete for CTU. I find out on Friday if I will get a class to teach next month. They said they really try hard to offer classes to the newly trained faculty, but it all depends on how many enrolls. It would be great to teach a class but I have been a little stressed about the new job, it will be a boat load of work. It is always a boat load of work to create a new prep. . . but I am ready for the challenge. . . and paycheck :)

This aint my first rodeo

Yesterday we had our homestudy visit for our domestic adoption. Alan, our homestudy provider, was great. He was professional and had a great approach. I know I will look forward to working with him for the rest of the homestudy and our post placement visits.

This was our 5th homestudy (well technically our 6th, because we moved during Spencer's adoption and need an update for him . . . so Spencer's adoption had two homestudies.) The visit was about 2 hours and it included the tour of our home and we talked about our families and parenting style.

We have our second visit next week and if everything goes smoothly (I still need my medical letter) our homestudy should be completed the first part of April, then we are officially on the list to be matched with a birthmother.

So yesterday went very well. Yesterday was also the day my sister moved into her new home! Spencer and I drove up on Friday to help pack and move some things, and Saturday we all went to help unpack and hook up her brand new dryer. Tiffani is so happy to be in her new home. It is much more spacious then her apartment and she already picked out some great paint colors.

I think our family is having a house warming party at her home in a couple of weeks. She will be a fabulous hostess and everyone will get to see their home unpacked and settled.

So, the weekend (even with daylight savings) has been great!

P.S. Here is a photo of Spencer. I took it right before we left to help Tiffani move, but unfortunately I didn't get any other photos at Tiff's house, sorry.

Cool Video

Dave showed me this music video. This video is so cool. This was done in one take and volunteer engineers from NASA helped put this together. . . Just Wow. It took over 60 takes for it all to work.

Cleaning at midnight

I am usually in bed at 9:30PM. So if I am up at midnight it must be a good cause. The Oquirrh Mountain Temple is only about 15 minutes from our house. About twice a year our stake is asked to volunteer to clean the temple at night. I was so excited for the opportunity to help clean the temple, I signed up immediately.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple

As volunteers, we were suppose to arrive at 9:45 PM. I came to the temple in my Sunday clothes and brought a pair of white tennis shoes. When I arrived there were 3 full time workers there, and 27 volunteers. Everyone was given a set of white scrubs to clean in. We all waited in the baptistery chapel and then a member of the temple presidency spoke with us for a few minutes. It was such a sweet feeling to be there.

All the volunteers were separated into three groups, 6 people were assigned the restrooms (there are 17 in the temple,) the rest of us were divided into two groups. Group # 1 was focusing on doing a detail cleaning on one floor and Group # 2 was doing a general cleaning of the other 3 floors.

The temple already looked clean, perfectly clean. It was like dusting and vacuuming a place that was just cleaned. I was assigned to dust the base boards on two of the floors. They were already so clean. The custodial leader told us that each night they do a detail cleaning of one floor, and a general cleaning of the other floors.

Sealing Room

After all the cleaning was done, they said we could stay as long as we wanted and enjoy the quiet solitude. It was so cool to be able to be in the temple at night. It was completely peaceful and such a great place to be. I spent some time in the sealing room and celestial room.

Bride's Room

Celestial Room

More on the domestic front

My online friend Betsy (who I met when we were living in Texas through her blog) asked for some more details about our domestic adoption and why we chose the agency we did.

Here are some main points:

1. Our agency is called "Adoption Priorities" based in San Antonio, we first came into contact with them in 2007 when they did our homestudy and post placement for Spencer. We met Amanda Way and she was so professional and friendly. She is also an adoptive parents (2 children born in Russia). She has a perfect blend of being compassionate and thoughtful but also very professional and timely. She would bend over backwards to help us and was extremely knowledgeable.

2. Adoption Priorities is a Christian Organization. We also believe that creating families is not just a secular endeavor, but a spiritual one too. I love the fact that our agency is also guided by knowing that God has a plan for each family and they treat us and prospective birthmothers with that in mind. This Christlike concern and ethical behavior is in all that they do.

3. The price of the program is very similar to other domestic programs (around $20,000) and this program does not adjust their rates based on race. Many other programs we looked at did this (i.e. it was more expensive to adopt a white child then a black child.) We are open to other races and we will most likely not adopt a white child, but still charging families different fees because of race seemed unethical to me.

4. We love the way the program is set up. Each family pays a portion of their fees into a "Birthmother Fund." Every prospective adoptive family pays the same amount. In other programs the adoptive parents pay for the actual costs of the birhtmother, it could be a little or a lot. There is a lot of uncertainty in the costs with some other programs. We also like the equalization factor and knowing that our fees will not change at the last minute.

5. When our agency is showing Family Albums to the birthmothers they show them one at a time. They listen to the birthmother and what is important to her and try to match her with a family with some of the same perspectives. The birthmother looks at one family and decides if this is the right family, if she feels the family is not the right one they show her another album. This format I think takes away the competitive nature I have seen in domestic adoption. She will not be looking at 5 families at once and look to see who has the biggest backyard or is the "coolest".

6. The emotional roller coaster is also diminished. You are not told you have been matched until the last trimester. The birthmother may have chosen you in the first trimester, but PAPs are not involved or contacted until the end of the pregnancy. This gives the mother time to think about all her options, decide if she really does want to place and make sure this is right for her.

7. If you are matched and at the end the mother decides that she would rather parent the child, all fees paid are transferable. So, even if we are chosen and a child is not placed with us, we can start the matching process again without needing to pay new fees.

8. But the bottom line for us is this: This program feels right for us. We spent time fasting and praying about what is best for our family and have been trying to figure out the Lords plan for us. We feel that this is part of the eternal plan for our family.

I hope that wasn't too long winded. . .

Google Reader Fans

One draw back of making this blog private is that Google Reader does not work.

There is a solution.

You create a new blog, and post there when you update the private blog with a link to the new post. My sister Kate has done this and I have loved getting my Google Reader updates when there is a new post.

So, I have created an updates blog: http://updateslibraryofadventure.blogspot.com/

If you love Reader (like I do) I hope this will make keeping up with us less of a chore :)

Family Planning

In January we got the news from our Kazakh agency that the wait times from our international adoption have exponentially lengthened. In September they told us "any day now", in October, "any week now" and in December "any month now." Then finally in January we had a candid and frank discussion about time lines. They said no one from the agency was traveling before June. And let me tell you when June gets here, they may say "no one is traveling this year." There are a lot of unknowns and one of the reasons we were drawn to this program was it had a track record for being consistent. . . Now? Not so much.

Dave and I spent a lot of time thinking and praying about the matter. We really want to add to our family and we have had 4-adoption attempts to prove it. Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now adding a 5th adoption attempt to our resume. International adoption has become too volatile, so unpredictable, that it is not a reasonable way for us to add to our family. I think about China, it has been 3 years since we started the process and 2 years since we have been "logged it." Nepal fell apart right when we completed the dossier and now after a year of being with the Kaz program "it's not looking good on the report Leroy."

So, our attention has been turned to domestic adoption. I had a very powerful spiritual experience that we are to add a child to our family through domestic adoption. Dave and I both feel that this is the way we are to go. So we decided to start the process. Last month we did a lot of research and looking at agencies. We finally narrowed it down to the top 3. We just kept coming back to the agency we worked with while we lived in Texas, so caring and professional. We both really like how they have their program set up. The waitimes are very unpredictable (like all domestic adoptions.) You wait until you are selected by a birthmother. They project wait times at 6-24 months. They have a small but active program. Most of the children they place are minorities and we are open to either gender.

We are in the process of gathering paperwork for the homestudy. Paper wise, this process is so much easier then international. Nothing notarized, nothing in triplicate, nothing signed in blood. . . it kind of doesn't feel real because it isn't very complicated.

We have our home visit with our social worker in a week (on March 13) and I am hoping we will have all our paperwork ready to submit by April 1. I know it is a little aggressive but I like to have a goal and something to look forward to. Once all our paperwork is "in" then our agency can start the matching process and show our album to prospective birthmothers.

I finished the family album this week and it is on its way to our agency. It was fun to put together a photo album to introduce our family (I used shutterfly of course.) It was a little intimidating to wonder what to add and what she would like to know about our family. Our agency was wonderful to review the letter and album and give us some pointers and suggestions. I already feel so good about our agency.

I am really feeling excited about the process and adding a little one to our clan. Who knows what will happen next, but I am willing to let go of the reins and see where we end up. It could be a 2 month trip to Kaz or a 2 week trip to Texas (or both in the same year.) Either way we are doing what we need to do and putting the rest in the Lord's hands.