Dallas: Part 2

Let me first say - I "stole" some of these photos from Jen. :) She was all prepared with a camera and we left ours in the car.

Friday was our day just to hang out and relax. We went to a really nice mall and bought nothing, went to a matinee (Slumdog Millionaire - excellent!), and had a fantastic lunch at La Duni. For real, the lunch was amazing and we finished it with a cupcake since we had heard that they had good dessert. Cupcakes will NEVER be the same - I seriously need to figure out how to make one that good and it was beautiful! Okay, I'll admit that we even went back just for cupcakes after our anniversary dinner on Saturday night - it's a very good thing that we don't have one around here. :)

Friday night, we had a great time with our friends, Megan and Kc. She cooked a delicious dinner and he added us to their "Wii family." The girls ruled in tennis and Mario Kart was definitely dominated by our hosts. We are pictured below with them at the wedding.

Saturday, we attended the wedding of Jason & Courtney. It was beautiful and we were so glad to share in their day! Jason has been a friend of mine (and then ours) for many years and we met Courtney this past year - she is so sweet! I also had a chance to meet Katie for the first time - I love her blog! She is just as great in person and I hope we can get together now that we've officially been introduced. :)

The Happy Couple! Courtney was stunning!

The reception was on the 42nd floor of one of the buildings - it was so nice and the view was incredible!

Saturday night, Andrew and I went to Blue Mesa for dinner to celebrate our anniversary. It was also very good. I loved that they served a mix of chips with their salsa - blue and white corn chips and sweet potato chips. The latter were surprisingly good with the salsa! And as I already mentioned, we happened by the cupcake restaurant for dessert which we took back to our hotel.

Sunday, we met up with Jen, Megan & Kc for lunch and enjoyed visiting. It was great to spend some time with Jen before we headed back home.

Megan, Jen & Me - friends for years!

Sunday afternoon, before we went to the airport, we had a chance to see our friend Saige. We met Josh and Saige in Kazakhstan when we were all bringing home our boys. We instantly clicked with them and miss them so much! The boys were all away but we were so glad to see her and catch up! It was a great ending to our trip. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture. I know you are all shocked by that. :)

So, there you have it. It was a full but very good weekend. We found a few things to bring home for the boys and a thank-you gift for my parents for caring for our children. We arrived home safe and a little tired. :)

Does It Get Better Than This?

Dallas: Part 1 :)

Andrew decided to upgrade our rental car to a convertible.

The weather was gorgeous - a couple of the days were in the 80s!

Enjoying our fun ride with my very pale skin!

My sweetie of seven years!

Vacation Pics...Finally!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The No Good Day

The first day home from vacation is going...not well. :) Schedules, rules, and routines have been forgotten. Give us a few days and I'm sure we'll get back into the routine. This was the longest time we've been away as a family (other than Kaz which doesn't count). Right now, I'm looking forward to naps all around. :) But we had a wonderful week and weekend so it's totally worth the challenging start to the week.

I've spent this morning sorting clothes, gettting rid of some, and getting ready for massive amounts of laundry. I have a lot of 12 month and above clothes and have been debating how much to keep - the problem is that it seems like a lot but there are actually clothes for summer and winter combined which makes it not so much. So I've put some in donate bags but I'm keeping the rest at least until I see what we need - I really don't want to re-buy everything.

Tomorrow is Patrick's 3rd birthday! We aren't having his family party until Sunday but I'm going to try to make tomorrow special. We will probably go to the Children's Museum and maybe the park. And I'm going to make cupcakes for the boys to decorate. Homemade french fries will be on the menu sometime this week since they are Patrick's favorite (I forgot to put that on my menu plan).

Finally, I'm opting out of hosting a Bloggy Giveaway at the carnival this week but there are a ton of people participating so feel free to have some fun! You might even win something!

More Vacation & Congrats!

We've decided to extend our vacation for a few days - just the four of us. So we will be home on Sunday. We were planning to go camping in August but won't be doing that, so this is it. Hopefully the weather will be nice so we can head to the beach tomorrow! Today we went to a Dutch Village which the boys really enjoyed! I'm planning to make a slide show of pictures but probably not until early next week. I need to get the hang of uploading photos with the new camera. We now have uninterruped internet access so I'm planning a couple of posts that have been brewing. :)

I was so excited to receive a call from one of the doctors I work for telling me that they just got a referral yesterday for twin girls through international adoption. I'm sooo thrilled for them! Our little office of about 10 has had 3 families adopt over the last couple of years and another is considering it - the love, support and common connection has been awesome! Congrats to Dr. Y - I can't wait to meet her little girls in a few months!

Stay tuned for posts on marriage, the suburban mom, and next week's menu plan - in separate posts. :)

Vacation Misc.

I'm sitting here trying desperately to focus on the work I need to get done before baby #3 makes his arrival. I have deadlines yet can't seem to form coherent words. Nothing like working on vacation - we've both been doing that. :) It has been such a joy to visit with friends we haven't seen in years and family that we rarely see - that is one of my favorite parts of this conference/camp. It comes around only once every four years and we try hard to make it. This is the first year for us to have kids (and for many in our peer group) - it makes it a bit more challenging but still totally worth it!

I'm super impressed with the campus this year. They are working hard to be more eco-friendly. They even have cups made from corn and disposable spoons made from potatoes. They boast using local ingredients and hormone-free milk. Impressive on a college campus!

The boys are doing well for the most part. Patrick seems to be potty training himself this week (that would pretty much be a highlight for me!). They aren't too sure about their class - we've had one successful day and couple not so much. :) We'll see how tomorrow goes. I'm hoping this will prepare them for preschool since it starts in about a month.

I'm working on a list (based on much of what you all shared!) of things that I need to find/purchase when we get home. I'm sure it will be a busy few weeks but this is my labor of love as we anticipate welcoming him to our family.

I really should get back to work - amazingly it's not doing itself. I'll try to write more interesting posts one of these days :) - I'm afraid I've been a bit pre-occupied! One note, we LOVE our camera! It's awesome!

Alive :)

Hello everyone! We are alive and well but internet is not very accessible here. We are enjoying our time, getting some extra rest, not cooking (yay for me!), catching up with people and having a wonderful time sharing our news with family and friends. :) There are so many kids here and a large number of families who have adopted which is always fun! The boys weren't sure about their class yesterday but so far so good today - at least nobody has come to get us. :)

We still have a hard time believing all that has transpired in the last 10 days. We pray for C and the baby every day. We feel honored and humbled that she chose us - we assured her that we felt her decision was loving and courageous (she kept apologizing during our meeting). I cannot imagine making such a difficult choice. We love her and we love the baby! We see God's hand every step of the way and are so thankful.

I'm trying to get to e-mail! Please know that we are so grateful - it's just the internet situation that has kept me from getting several of you e-mailed!