Still Waiting...

It's so hard to wait. We are 2 days overdue and our babymama is doing everything she can to get our baby girl here - but she's only gonna come when she wants to. Kind of being stubborn if you ask us. haha!

Luckily, we have our puppy dog to keep us busy and the prospect of Halloween on the horizon - so what better way to pass the time than dress our dog up in Halloween costumes!

Heading to California

Today is our due date! The baby should be born anytime in the next few days (cross your fingers) - so we decided to head down to California for the birth. It was a lot of fun driving down, even though it took much longer than usual, but we stopped at a few fun spots along the way. Below are 3 pictures of us at the Stonehenge on the Washington border, about a mile from the freeway. We had always wanted to stop here whenever we passed the turnoff sign. It was a beautiful view!

We drove until we got to Grants Pass, Oregon and the weather really started to take a turn for the worse. We talked with my parents and they said the weather was only going to get worse and were worried about rock slides along the way. Thankfully we did so, because the next day when we were driving, we saw some remnants of a few large slides. So we stayed in a hotel in Grants Pass and slept in a bit. Our dog, Maggy was in heaven and we took some pics of her enjoying her own bed.

We finally made it to California!!!

Brandon enjoying some yummy pumpkin candy corns.

We stopped at Jedidiah Smith State Park and used the facilities. Brandon had to take a picture of himself being a tree-hugger for one of his co-workers that use to live in Northern California. I don't think Brandon really understands the term "tree-hugger". haha! :)

And of course, the trip wouldn't be complete without stopping by and saying, "Hi!" to Paul Bunyon himself and his good 'ol Babe the Blue Ox.

If you're from Northern California, you definitely know about the Golden Bears that adorn the Klamath River bridge.

Soon after we got to Eureka - we saw our baby mama (who looks amazing!) and got to meet her awesome sister, Emily (who her and her husband are pregnant too and due in February). We are so excited to meet all the people that will be in our baby's life forever, every new person we meet is so kind and we feel so blessed that our baby will have such a kind and loving extended family.

Well, this will probably be our last post until our baby girl is born. I am sitting here typing this post in the same spot that I typed the post when Mandy decided to place her baby with us 5 months ago. Wish us all good luck, and everyone keep praying the baby gets here quickly.

...thankful...

We can't believe the generosity we have felt and received through out our adoption. From the very beginning we have been overwhelmed with blessings. We have received very generous donations from individuals that wanted to remain anonymous. We are just pouring out with gratitude and it is so remarkable that anyone would donate to our adoption and not want to have any recognition. We hope that whoever has given to us is reading this and knows how grateful we are.

When we were at church one day, our Bishop came over and handed us an envelope and said that someone had wanted us to have this. There was a generous donation and a beautiful card inside that said,

"Do you dream of the joys

of your new little baby -

The dreams

that you'll see come true,

The marvelous moments

of laughter and fun

That lie in the future

for you?

Dream on and be happy,

Parents-to-be,

As your time

of fullfillment draws near,

Dream on and look forward

to still greater joys

When your precious new baby

is here!

Hope this gift will bring that

'Dream' a little closer to Reality!"

The card was unsigned and all typed, with no way for us to figure out who did it. As the weeks turned to months on our journey through adoption, we have been surprised and again, overwhelmed at everyones generosity. We would be at church and people that we hardly knew would give us $10 here or $60 there. Friends we hadn't spoken to in years donated through our paypal account. We have had 3 garage sales where we raised just over $2400 ($700 of which was due to a raffle we had at the first sale, with all donated items from local businesses). The garage sales wouldn't have been possible without the items donated from many friends and families. We also had the ladies, we hardly knew, from my brothers' office donate items and even stopped by to show their support at our first garage sale.

We had one amazing woman who was a friend of a friend donate $100. We had (and still haven't) ever met this person, and we came to find out that her husband had just recently passed away. We were amazed that during her time of struggles, she had the desire to still help those around her. We had one of our friends baking and selling cookies to raise money, and through her, one of her sister-in-laws made a couple blankets for us to sell. Every extra cent we had went into our adoption fund, and our wonderful families gave to our fund as well. Then another person came forward and gave us such a large donation that we actually could almost see the finish line to reaching our goal.

And the other day we found an envelope in our mailbox with just a blank card and $50 inside. We were shocked. Then last night. For some reason Brandon just went to the front door and opened it to look outside. There on the front step was a large manilla envelope. Inside we found another anonymous donation with a book titled, "From God's Arms, To My Arms, To Yours". This book is really just the lyrics to 6 songs that are about adoption - each song is either from the birthparents perspective, the adoptive parents or the childs.

It was wonderful to read the lyrics to these songs and feel like someone understand and was able to put how we felt into words. So many people don't truly understand the heartache we have felt these past 8 years wanting so badly to have a family. The many nights we would just hold eachother and cry. Pouring our hearts out to God asking, "why?"

We have been so blessed by everyone around us. We aren't just grateful for the donations, but also the kind words we have received - they are just as equally important. Whenever someone gives us encouraging comments, we feel so enormously loved. This experience has been so emotional for us. And to realize that we are loved by many, helps us to get through each day. From the beginning we wanted to share our story to be able to try and help those that may feel they are alone, because we have felt that way too. We found a whole new family of people that were going through the same things we were and we have been able to talk with them and hopefully one more person will realize they truly aren't alone.

We don't know if it's because we are getting so close to the end, which is really only the beginning, but we are so much more emotional than we have ever been in this journey. We are blessed to have such beautiful and wonderful birthparents. It's starting to become real what is happening and yet we can't even imagine what it will feel like to actually be able to hold our baby girl in our arms. It makes us cry to just think about our dreams coming true. Have you ever felt that deep down hurt in your soul? Our hearts have ached for so long to be able to have this. We are deeply appreciative to you all and hope that we haven't forgotten to thank anyone that has helped us. We thank everyone for helping us on this journey physically, emotionally and mentally. We look forward to hopefully being able to pay it forward somehow to you all.

Questions???

We have gotten so many questions from people about our adoption and we want to answer as many as we can. So if you have a question for us, leave it as a comment on this post and in a few days we'll answer every single one!

Last Weekend Away

We decided we needed one last little getaway before the baby was born. There is this really awesome bed & breakfast about 30 minutes from our house that I had always wanted to try out - Cameo Heights Mansion. It was pretty much amazing. The second we got there, we finally felt relaxed. It seems like the closer we get to the baby being born, the more stress and anxiety we feel. It was so nice to be able to just get away and talk about everything that is going on and our hopes and dreams for the future.

We stayed in the German suite which was fabulous. We had a fondue dinner in our room that was beyond words. The first course was a fresh spinach salad with apples, toasted walnuts, bacon, goat cheese & tarragon honey mustard vinaigrette dressing and crusty artisan bread. Then they brought us our second course which was a cheese fondue blend of mozzarella, parmesan and romano cheeses w/fruits, veggies & breads to dip. The third course was actually pretty fun. They brought us up a raclette grill and we grilled our own filet mignon and pork tenderloin, plus a ton of yummy veggies like rosemary potatoes, green beans, onions, peppers and more! Then if it couldn't get any better, the fourth course was a milk chocolate fondue w/fruits, sweet cakes, homemade marshmallows and nuts. The plates were overflowing with foods! It took us over 2 hours from start to finish.

We got a beautiful little gift box full of homemade soaps, bubble bath and these really cool bath salt bombs that we put in the huge jacuzzi tub that made it fill with bubbles - it was phenomenal!

We went swimming and played ping-pong (which I almost beat Brandon!) and we played chess (where I wasn't even close to winning).

Then we had breakfast in our room in the morning. First we got the most amazing mint chocolate hot cocoa and fresh squeezed orange juice with a cup full of fresh fruits. Then they brought us some yummy apple danish's that were fresh from the oven and delicious. Just when we thought it was over, they brought us a big plate full of eggs, sausages and the best pumpkin pancakes with a carmelized maple syrup and carmelized bananas!

It was the perfect weekend away and we enjoyed every second - we highly recommend this place to everyone!