My Prince

Yesterday Lance and I celebrated our five year anniversary. We had a very laid back day and a sweet, romantic dinner at The Waters Restaurant. We reminisced about the last five years, realizing we have moved six times, lived in three different states, graduated with both bachelors and a Juris Doctorate degree, helped take care of a sick parent, lost a parent and two babies, adopted a puppy (who is now our baby), traveled around the country and to Finland and shared many more laughs, good times, tears, worries, frustrations, heartbreaks, prayers, and lots of love.

In honor of our anniversary, I wanted to list a few little-known facts about Lance that make him the wonderful, unique husband that he is.

1. He brings me a glass of water to my nightstand every night in case I get thirsty.



2. He tells the same quirky jokes over and over again. Sometimes annoying, but mostly, endearing.



3. He loves to eat anything that is not good for him...ice cream, alfredo sauce, brownies, cookies. Whenever I send him to the grocery store, he always comes home with a food that is not on my "eating healthy" list. But once he grins and gives me his puppy dog eyes, I can't help but smile at this sweet antic.



4. He gets up early every morning to walk our dog because I like to sleep in.


5. He loves children movies and movies made in the 80s/early 90s. He would rather watch Curious George than Ocean's 13.
6. He will do the dishes every night I cook. He claims that is his job.

7. When he cooks, he follows a recipe to the "T" down to the amount of time he needs to boil the pasta. This exactness is carried to every aspect in his life.

I am so grateful that we found each other. It has been a great ride so far and we are looking forward to the years ahead. Here is a recent picture of my bubba and our little girl. (And Sammie the Cockapoo...Sofi's buddy.)

The Best Way to Spend Money

This Saturday we volunteered at RESOLVE's Adoption Conference in Pasadena. It was an all day event and we learned a lot about adoption, finding out when to move on from infertility treatments to adoption, birthparents, international and domestic adoption. You name it. Every woman there cried at least one and a few men were moved as well. A wonderful, touching experience.

Attending this conference made me think about our lives and the challenges we face. We have to make very tough choices. Either we adopt or buy a house. Either we save up money to do IVF cycles or we save up money to go on a trip to Hawaii with Lance's family in a few years. We can't do both. We can't afford to do both. I am sometimes very discouraged by these decisions we are forced to make. So many of those around me don't and won't ever have to make this type of sacrifice to have children. (Though I recognize that all women do sacrifice for their children...just not always in this way.) For lack of a better adjective, this just sucks.

After sharing this idea with my friend Jen B. at church today, she said, lovingly.
"Well, what a better thing to spend your money on."

She is right. This way is not always easy, but it will be worth it. So, we will gladly forgo Hawaii in 2011 and buying a home with a yard and save up our money so we can do everything within our power to have a family. Not just one child, but the 6 we always dreamed of having.

We want to adopt domestically and internationally someday. Lance said he would love to have children from the U.S., from Russia or Ukraine or Kryghystan, and Asia. We may end up doing infertility treatments again. And one day, years from now, I will read this post and smile to myself and look at my little family, knowing the hard work, sacrifice, mourning, tears and love that went into finding all those that needed to be a part of our family.

Jen, you are wise beyond your years and a great friend.

We...Are....In

One of my all-time favorite movies is "The Cutting Edge" starring Moira Kelly. It is a story about an ex-hockey player who grudgingly learns how to figure skate in order to become a far-from-pleasant female figure skater's partner. For each character, this is their last chance to make it to the Olympics. As you can imagine, they hate each other at first but in the end...well, it wouldn't be one of my favs if there wasn't a bit of romance and a happy ending, right?

Anyway, there is a line from the movie where their Russian trainer says "We....Are.....In," as they watch a pair of skaters fall during the Nationals. Basically, he meant they were going to the Olympics.

So, I use that saying now. We...are....in.....Pepperdine accepted me to their M.A. in Educational Technology program. Bienvenue Malibu!

I am still waiting to hear from Cal State Fullerton. I was told the decisions will be sent out the first week in June. Keeping my fingers crossed that I will get to make a choice between these schools.

Weekend of Nostalgia

During the first weekend in May we decided to take a shortened road trip to St. George, UT to visit our mission president and his wife (Kim and Pam Johnson, a.k.a. Kimo ja Pammi). Sofi was dropped off at her favorite doggie hotel Friday night for a weekend long playdate while Lance and I left first thing Saturday morning to make the 6 hour trek through the desert. We were home by Monday for Lance's a.m. meetings and for my set of doctor appointments.

The weekend was splendid and we felt so at home at the Johnsons'. Sisar Johnson sent us home laden with Finnish candy (Fazer...yummm...), mehu (juice) and sinappi (mustard) and spoiled us all weekend with homecooked meals. We spent a lot of time reminiscing of our days in Finland together and they were kind enough to look at all of my scrapbooks that we lugged along. (Literally, we had to basically drag them out of the car as they weight at least 50 lbs. all together.) We attended a session in the St. George temple and played a couple mean games of Rook during the two short days we spent with them.

Overall, the weekend was the best weekend I can remember having as of late. I felt so loved and cherished in their prescence. The Johnsons are upstanding, righteous examples of charity and service. They are also extrememly accepting of others. They are and will always be special to both Lance and I. We look forward to our next visit. Maybe this August? They reassured us that Sofi was welcome to come the next time.

Lance's Birthday

So I am only a week late in reporting how Lance's 27th went. He really didn't want to do much this year nor did he ask for anything. Sure makes it hard to plan a huge bash for the birthday boy! I did want to make his day special (as he always does for me) so I did the following:

• I almost got up in time to make him breakfast. But, alas, getting up early will NEVER, EVER be my strong point. So instead, I bought him a pastry at the grocery store the day before and made sure we had orange juice.

The Wonderland Bakery put together a huge castle box full of cookies, cupcakes and bookmarks and delivered it to his work. Luckily, I dropped the camera off at his workplace during my lunch break so we will have pictures to post of this. He sent me an email to say:

I received a huge, house looking box today. I am sure you had something to do with this. Thank you, honey. Now, if I could just figure out how to open it.

• For dinner we went to the Melting Pot again. We had a coupon that we couldn't let go to waste :-) I made sure to have balloons, a card and roses waiting there for him.
• I purchased a gourmet german chocolate cake from a fancy local bakery. (Let's face it - working full time, taking care of a hubby and puppy AND volunteering takes up most of my free time and leaves little time for baking. ) I only had one small piece but thought the toasted coconut on the sides of the cake added a special touch. Lance agreed and proceeded to eat the cake over the next few days.
• I decided to buy him an iPod Nano. He loves music and loves Apple products. (We are definately a MAC family...now if we could just purchase a MAC computer one of these days :-) ) He has been using this gift constantly ever since. More than once I have heard him belting John Elton's "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues" on his walks with Sofi.

The only disappointment of the whole day was that he forgot the camera at work so I don't have any pictures of the festivities. Once the camera resurfaces at home, I will post pictures of the tasty surprise.

Buon Giorno Principessa

Our Early Morning Routine
5:45 a.m. - Sofi wakes up, stretches, scratches her ears, cleans her unmentionable parts like a cat, yawns really loud. Her way of saying - Get up and take me for a walk.
5:50 a.m. - Realizing we aren't moving yet, she jumps off our bed (don't get me started on why we have a dog in our bed) and makes her way to the front door.
5:51 a.m. - Sofi scratches the front door, whines a little, and then sits patiently in front of it. This is Lance's cue to get dressed and take her out.
6:00 a.m. - Sofi and Lance leave for a quick walk. I go back to sleep.

Are you picturing this yet? Well, this morning, Sofi decided to mix it up a bit. She woke up at her usual time but both Lance and I were NOT getting up that early. Lance worked until 2 a.m. and I never sleep well when he is gone. Needless to say, we were beat.

She did her usual scratch, lick, yawn, stretch bit and then scratched relentlessly at the front door, whining quite loudly. We both pretended we were completely deaf and in comas. Realizing we weren't going to budge, Sofi trotted back into our room.

Silence. Silence always means trouble when you have a snoopy beagle. I dared to peek out of one of my eyes, only to see her sitting right next to my side of the bed, her head cocked slightly to one side, looking for signs of life. I should have been an actress because I was doing a great job of pretending I was asleep. Sofi knew better.

Next thing I know, she is up on our bed, burrowing herself underneath the covers next to me.

"Good." I thought. "She is going back to sleep. Good girl."

Boy, was I wrong. Definitely wrong. No more monkey business for this dog. She thrashed around under the covers for about 2 minutes. When I say thrash, I mean THRASH. As though she was bitten by fleas. Hoping to win my Oscar for this great sleep scene, I laid as still as a stump.

Sofi peeked out of the covers every 30 seconds or so to see if I was awake. Then, seeing I wasn't going to give in, she went back to her undercover burrowing. After her doing this twice, I couldn't feign it any longer. My laugher gave me away.

She proceeded to bound out from underneath the comforter, shower me with puppy kisses, then sit at the edge of the bed looking longingly at the door. (I am not exaggerating. She has these looks about her. Guilty looks, sad looks, mad looks, begging looks. Her eyes are quite expressive.) Against every fiber in my being, I got up, put on a coat and shoes and took that silly dog for her morning trot around the block.

Mission accomplished, Princess Sofi.

Congrats Vicki!

My sister-in-law Vicki just told me she got the job of her dreams, working as a faculty member at a branch of West Virginia University. Three cheers for Vicki! I am really excited for her...so much, I had to post it to our blog.