Wordless Wednesday- Spring flower planting

12 Years Ago

On this day 12 years ago I was very stressed out. But it was also a good day. It was the day that I married the man of my dreams and we began a wonderful adventure together. We were married in MN, he flew in from TX, I flew in from CA and our wedding magically appeared (Thanks to some parent fairies in MN). The wedding was fun, but the 12 years since has been great. I want to thank you all - Amy for introducing us, Pea for flying in from WA and John for flying in from TX - for being a part of our wedding, and all of our wonderful friends and family that have supported us through the years. We promised each other we would stay married for 75 years, we still have 63 years left, but who's counting?

A Spring Day

We had a great spring day yesterday!! We have no pictures of course because I forgot to take any. The picture is of some kids off the website for the beach. We had some friends come over for lunch. They are a family that has a boy in Liam's class and a girl in Lance's class (they also have a cute little preschooler! but we don't have one of those yet). We have known them for 3 years, but just started hanging out with them this year.

Ryan grilled some brats and we ate lunch and talked while the kids played. Then we decided to go to a park/lake across town. They brought their fishing poles and the kids fished off the beach. It never reached 70 degrees yesterday, but all of the kids (except Lance) were in the water by the end of the day. They dug in the sand, fished and went kayaking. They were there for over 3 hours. (Lance and I had to go to violin practice for the last hour). Our friends offered to drive Liam and Ryan home from the beach because we had practice by our house. Then Ryan called back to say they were stopping to buy some pizzas on the way home because it was dinner time. We all ate pizza and the kids played some more. At 8:30 the kids started getting crabby and tired and we had to say good bye.

It may be boring to read about, but we had a great day. We love hanging out with good friends. Now that one of my best friends in MN lives in another suburb and has gotten too busy (you know who you are Heather) we have had to branch out and make new friends. This past year we have made some really good friends here in MN and I finally feel like MN is home. We had a great dinner party last weekend with friends and there are some other families we love hanging out with. I always hated leaving our friends in WA, TX, OR (and where ever Jon and family are stationed) because I would think that we will never have friends like that again in MN. Now we have our good friends here and our "old" trustworthy friends other places. Let's all just hug:)

Wordless Wednesday- Spring at Last!!

Lance's wish list

Lance's birthday is around the corner and I thought I should get up his wish list. Not that we are begging for presents, but if you are thinking of buying something you have an idea of what he likes. He gave me a list and I noticed a lot of video games on it. He would also welcome socks, underwear, uniforms and things for his violin.

Cowboy Lance

The boys wear uniforms to school, so for group fundraisers they have out of uniform days for 50 cents. Sometimes they have a theme that the kids have to wear that day. Today was an out of uniform day, come dressed as a cowboy/girl. Liam chose to not dress up (he hates the idea of paying money to not wear a uniform, my conservative) and Lance (with the help of Grandma and Grandpa) dressed up. Lance was really excited about dressing up. Hopefully he had a great day being a cowboy.

A funny video

I was sent this funny video from my sister-in-law today. It may be old news to internet savvy people, but it was new to me. I think it is really funny. I think it comes from a show called the Milton Show and I would like to give credit where it is due.

Adoption Update

Today in the mail we got our I-171H from Homeland Security. Part of the adoption process requires us to submit the I-600A form (Application for Advanced Processing of Orphan Petition) to our local USCIS office, which we did at the end of February. Once the I-600A was submitted we waited a few weeks before receiving a notice with an appointment time to have our federal fingerprints done. This was an interesting experience, the people that did our fingerprints were such stereotypical government employees. After our fingerprint clearance we receive the I-171H letter from USCIS (Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition) stating that our fingerprints have cleared. Now that information goes with our file in the Philippines saying we are ready to adopt.

This doesn't help us with the "pile" we are waiting in for a match, but it makes it better when we finally get that match. We really need to start working on the things we are in control of; painting the basement, rearranging bedrooms, buying beds. Generally getting our home ready for our kids.

More missing teeth

We just can't keep teeth in our kids' mouths (or money in the tooth fairy's pocket). Liam lost another front tooth last Friday at school. It was lunch and I was there to help with a fundraiser. Liam walks over and opens his mouth and hands me the tooth matter of factly. Then all of his friends wanted to see it, so I took it for a trip around the lunch table.

Today Lance lost at tooth at breakfast. There were tears and a whole lot of drama. You would think someone stabbed the poor child for how much pain and anguish there was.

It's hard to believe they can be such opposites of one another and yet such good friends.

I'll try to take pictures soon of the toothless monster Liam.

Swarm Game

Our vantage point
Yesterday we got free tickets to go see the Minnesota Swarm. None of us had ever been to a Lacrosse game before, so we were excited. Oliver's family had invited us, so we went to the hospital to visit with Oliver than we headed to the game. It was only two blocks away at the XCel center, so we just walked over. There are 4 quarters in lacrosse and they are 15 minutes each and it is very fast paced. It held the kids attention most of the time. The only time we ran into a problem with kids was when Liam got thirsty. I told him there was no way we were going to spend $4 on a bottle of water, so he just had to suffer. I did hear often during the game how he was going to die from not having water, but he finally quit when I told him there is a Burger King on the way home and we can have an Icee there as a treat.

Liam and Oliver's sister
We did lose the game and it was a play off game, so that was a bummer. Lance really loved one of the moves. The guy was behind the net and he scored by throwing the ball in from over the net. They both had fun with watching the game and the excitement of the crowd.
Liam and Oliver's brother