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One of the best ways to find potential birth moms is through friends and family.  It's nice that adoption agencies can match birth mom preferences and adoptive family preferences.  But a lot of birth moms prefer to place their babies with people that they know or who are at least friends of friends.  Those birth moms will place babies with adoptive families that they hear about from other people.  We have found several birth moms this way, though none of them ended up being "our" birth mom.  Of course, we also have pass along cards with our contact information that our family and friends give out whenever they hear about a potential adoption situation. 

It  helps that most families have more open adoptions than they did in the past.  It would be difficult to have a closed adoption if the birth mom was acquainted with the adoptive family beforehand.  When we adopt, we will send letters, email, pictures, texts, etc. to our baby's birth mom.  We will also invite her to occasionally visit.  The difficult part about all of this is that many potential birth moms aren't comfortable telling all of their family and friends that they are considering placing their baby for adoption.  That's why we need people who support adoption to be so proactive.

So, get the code snippet from the right-side column of our blog, and help us spread the good word about adoption!

Merry Christmas To One And All

We had a very merry Christmas yesterday, and we hope everyone else did, too!  We try really hard at our house to center our Christmas around Christ.  We read stories and scriptures that keep our thinking along those lines.  We have several Nativity scenes as decorations.  Another thing that I think helps is doing most of the Christmas shopping in November.  My kids know if they ask for more presents in December, they aren't  going to get them. 

We started off the week before Christmas with our Bethlehem dinner.  I love exotic food, and I've collected several recipes for food that people might eat near Bethlehem, most of which I probably couldn't spell or pronounce correctly.  Of course, we also had traditional stuff like pita, olives, figs, and dates.  

On Christmas Eve, we especially like to take time to remember the "Reason for the Season."  This year, we spent Christmas Eve with Wayne's family.  We read Luke 2 and told some Christmas stories.  We were also excited to have Wayne's brother Devyn there because he just returned home from his two-year mission to Chile. 

On Christmas day, we opened presents and went to visit family.  We visited Wayne's grandma, and we went to see my parents.  There were a variety of other relatives at both houses.  It was great to visit with so many people that we love!  

Happy 60th Birthday to My Mom!

On Monday night, we went with my brother Brian and his family up to Salt Lake City.  That's because my dad planned a surprise birthday party for my mom!  We met at the Lion House for dinner, and I'm pretty sure my mom was surprised.  My brother Mike and his family were also there.  We had a really yummy dinner and walked around Temple Square to see the Christmas lights.  My mom isn't really into presents (she likes people calling or coming to see her more), but she received several thoughtful gifts.  My sister-in-law Krystal had a cool idea to have all of the moms interview their kids about Grandma.  She sent us a list of questions like "What is Grandma's favorite animal?"  The kids loved participating in it, and the answers were really cute.  Then Krystal typed it all up and emailed it to me so that I could put it in a notebook and bring it to the party.  Krystal wasn't at the party, though, because they live in Seattle and had just been down for Thanksgiving.  And her kids were two of the kids who got really sick from that family togetherness.  Speaking of sick, Benjamin was sick again on Sunday (this time vomiting repeatedly), so he missed the party on Monday.  Poor kid.  My fabulous mother-in-law babysat again.  On Tuesday, he was finally all better.

Daniel at the Lion House with his Grandpa and Grandma

Christmas fun. . .and not so fun

We had our church Christmas party last Thursday.  Wayne, who helps me out with that kind of stuff, was out of town.  Good thing I was only in charge of the food.  For the entertainment, there was a Christmas play called "The Empty Room" with several very talented people from our neighborhood.  

The bad part was that Benjamin was sick.  He missed school last Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  He was coughing a ton each night, and he hardly got any sleep.  Which meant that I got hardly any sleep.  Benjamin was also very concerned because he lost his voice entirely, which was just a tragedy for him.

This is what my poor Benjamin looked like for 3 days straight, until I made him come to the Christmas party.

So, I was very concerned about being in charge of anything at the Christmas party.  I dragged Benjamin and Daniel over to the church in the afternoon to help a little with the set up and to drop off a bunch of stuff we needed for the dinner like paper plates and cups.  

We ordered ham and rolls from BYU Food To Go.  It's a great place to get precooked food for large gatherings.  At least, it usually is.  They warned us to plan on a half hour wait to get our food when I called to order it.  The traffic was bad, so it took about 40 minutes just to get to BYU.  We walked in to where we were supposed to pick up the food and saw two groups ahead of us.  And then we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  It was about 45 minutes before they were even able to start putting our order together.  I'm still not sure why it takes so long, but I think it's because they don't start packing orders until you are actually there.  And the other people there had huge orders.  By the time we left, there were 6 or 8 groups waiting in line behind us.  Daniel had, of course, made friends with several of them, and everyone said they were glad my boys were there to provide entertainment while they waited.

We got back just in time to get the dinner set up as people were arriving for the party.  The dinner went great.  It did take a while to get everyone served because there were about 300 people there.  And we had a ton of extra ham, which I can't figure out because we had about the same number of people in attendance last year.  We had the same amount of ham both years, but last year it was pretty much gone at the end of the night.  My only thought is that we got it from Macey's last year (and I cooked all of it myself), and I think Macey's cuts the slices thicker.  Either way, I ordered as much ham as BYU told me I should for 300 people, but we didn't use it all.  I have no idea what the bishop did with all the leftovers, but I'm sure it was something good.

The best part of the evening was how much everyone helped with everything.  I tried to get Benjamin a babysitter for the party, but I couldn't find one because all of my neighbors would want to be at the party.   Also, I didn't want Benjamin at someone else's house where he would get all of their kids sick.  My mother-in-law met us at the dinner and took my kids off my hands for me.  Several of my friends helped with the setup, dinner, cleanup, etc.  There's no way it could have gone smoothly without so many great people.  Thanks to everyone who helped out!

Happy 35th Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my Fabulous Husband!

We celebrated Wayne's birthday over the course of the past several days.  First, we had his parents (and Wendy!) over for ice cream cake on Sunday.  Then on Monday (his actual birthday), he took the day off from work.  We went to lunch at Tepanyaki Japanese Steakhouse.  In the evening, we drove through the Festival of Lights with our kids.  And yesterday, I made king crab legs for a special birthday dinner, even though it was the day after.  For his birthday, I also made Wayne a book with our Hawaii pictures.  It was my first attempt at digital scrapbooking, and I think it went pretty well.  We're not entirely done with the birthday celebrating, though.  This weekend, we are going out to dinner and a play while his mom babysits.  Thanks, Wayne, for having a birthday so that we could party so much!  And thank you to my wonderful mother-in-law for giving birth 35 years ago and for raising a great son to be my husband!

Happy Thanksgiving. . . I think

I started off Thanksgiving with a fun Girls' Night on Wednesday with my brothers' wives.  I have five brothers, and some of them drove me crazy while we were growing up.  But, amazingly, they all married talented, beautiful, fabulous wives.  So, it was fun to spend the evening with them.  I do have one sister--she couldn't come, and we missed her.  

We went to the Cheesecake Factory.  I'd never been there before.  It was yummy.  It was also very crowded and dark.  And they don't take reservations after 5:00.  Isn't that weird, what other time would you need a reservation?  The evening was a nice chance to chat with everyone without kids climbing all over us, although I also had fun seeing my nieces and nephews the next day.  

On Thursday morning, we went to my parents' house.  We were greeted at the door with the fresh scent of Lysol and the bad news that my five-year old nephew was in the hospital.  He had been sick for a couple of days, but he had gotten a lot worse and had a high fever.  He was in the hospital for a few days with RSV and pneumonia.  His immediate family all got sick, too.  And my dad got sick.  And at least one of the other little cousins got very sick.  So, that wasn't the best Thanksgiving weekend for all those people.  We also had made plans for a big family picture with everyone on Saturday, but that obviously didn't work out.

We saw Wayne's family later in the day, and as far as I know, everyone there was more or less healthy.  

We are all very thankful for modern medicine, doctors, and hospitals.

I'm obsolete.

After being in charge of church activities for my ward for nearly two years, I was released from my responsibilities today.  I have mixed feelings about this. 

The LDS church will no longer have ward activity committees.  Instead, the ward council will be in charge of any activities that the ward chooses to host.  In our ward, it means that things like the Christmas dinner would be assigned to the Relief Society and the summer barbecue might be the responsibility of the Elder's Quorum.  Something like that.  

We had our final official ward activity last night.  We had a game night for the grownups, and we had four couples show up.  Admittedly, it was kind of a bad night scheduling-wise because there were so many other things going on this weekend.  And we aren't supposed to use the amount of people at any activity to gauge its effectiveness.  But I was just as glad nobody really cared what came out of the activity because I was being released regardless.  Those of us that came had a lot of fun, anyway.

In spite of being officially released, I haven't been able to completely get out of helping with the upcoming ward Christmas party, in spite of trying my best to not take any assignments for that night.  It sounds like I'm still going to be in charge of the dinner.  Argh.  That will be a bad night for me, especially since Wayne will not be there to help me and my kids will probably be crazy.  And I can't really expect anyone from my committee to help out, unless they are just being especially nice, since they have all been released as well.

It's also unusual to have my church calling swept out from under me because people usually get a new calling at church first, and that necessitates being released from the previous one.  It's weird to know that I'm done with my current one, and I'm just waiting for my next assignment from the bishopric.  I'm sure I won't be waiting long, though. 

Happy Birthday, Dear Daniel!

Daniel turned 9 years old!  And we had a pirate party for him!

Bark Chip (that's the dog) had a pirate hat for the party.

The treasure chest of pirate loot.

No, I didn't attempt to make a pirate cake.  We just bought one.

Daniel had a great party with some of his friends.  We went to Pirate Island!  We had never been there before, and it was an interesting place.  The decor was fabulous.  The arcade was about the same as Chuck E Cheese or any other arcade of that sort, except I think almost all of the games actually worked.  Also, the kids there were a little older than the crowd you find at Chuck E Cheese.  There were even some teenagers there on a group date.  

We did not order one of their party packages with the pizza and everything.  First, Daniel is generally wary of pizza because he doesn't like melted cheese.  Second, some of the kids at school told him the pizza there was gross.  So, we didn't even try that.  We did order ice cream and drinks, only to be told a few minutes later that they were out of ice cream.  We brought our own cake, so we had that covered.  I would say that the restaurant portion of the venue really seems to be more of an afterthought than anything else. Although, the restaurant was intended to be more important than the arcade.  Maybe we'll have to go back and try the food another time because they do have stuff besides pizza there.

We gave each of the kids about 30 tokens.  Some of them burned through those in less than a half hour, and others, including Benjamin, were so cautious in their spending that the other boys insisted on "helping' them use up their tokens so we could go have cake.

This was almost certainly Daniel's best birthday ever.  Usually, birthdays are kind of hard for him.  He doesn't love having a crowd of people around.  But this year, everything went great.  Oh, and his final birthday wish was to stay awake until his "birth minute."  Bedtime is generally about 8, but considering it was the weekend, and it was daylight savings, meaning they could get a little extra sleep in the morning, we let the boys stay up.  Happy birthday, my sweet, wonderful oldest son!  And thank you to everyone who helped him celebrate his birthday!

Happy Halloween

I can't believe that Halloween has come and gone!  Here's some of the stuff we did to celebrate.  We carved pumpkins:
 

 We ate "mummy dogs" and caramel apple slices for dinner.  Benjamin looked a little scared of his, but maybe that's appropriate.

And we took the kids trick-or-treating at Wayne's office and in the neighborhood:

And now it's November!  My dad always says that by the time Halloween comes, the year is over.  Like, if you blink, you will miss Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We love November at our house.  We get to celebrate Daniel and Wayne's birthdays.  And it's National Adoption Month.  So watch for more posts on adoption!

Hawaii Trip: Part 2

It's so weird to be sitting here blogging about Hawaii when the mountains and rooftops outside my window are all dusted with snow.  If you didn't read my other post about Hawaii, you may want to scroll down to that one first.  Because now I'm going to write about the second part of our trip--the four days we spent on the Big Island.  This post will probably be long, too.  Hope you are in the mood for a virtual trip to Hawaii!

We flew into the Hilo airport because we were staying at Hale Kai bed and breakfast in Hilo.  It was very different from our warm, sunny days on Oahu.  Hilo is considered the rainiest city in the U.S.  

After checking in at the B&B, we headed up to Volcanoes National Park.  Basically, you drive around Kilauea and look down into various craters from past eruptions.  The main road encircles Kilauea, but a large portion was closed because of the vog from the current eruption at the summit of Kilauea.  We also took Chain of Craters Road as far down as we could.  It used to go closer to the ocean, but lava has been flowing down there since April 2010.  There are plenty of "tour guides" who walk people down to the lava, but the park rangers don't recommend it.  You have to hike across a lot of private property, and the "guides" are mostly just unemployed locals.  There are also boat rides to see the lava hit the ocean, but these are just locals who happen to own boats.  I suppose there might be reputable companies who do tours to the lava, but as far as the park rangers are concerned, this area is closed.

Here's what we saw:

This is the Kilauea Iki Crater.

The Thurston Lava Tube.  It's barely underground, and you walk through it.

This arch is at the end of Chain of Craters Road.

This is as close as we could get to the lava hitting the ocean. The lava is flowing at the point you see in the distance, where the land meets the ocean.

This is just one of the lava fields.  A huge portion of the Big Island looks more or less like this.

Pu'u Loa Petroglyphs

Halema`uma` Crater was my favorite part.  This crater formed in 2008.

Same crater, from a different trail.

It's worth staying up there after dark to see the lava glow red.

We saw that all on Saturday.  Sunday was a lot more low key.  We went to church in the morning.  We had a picnic on our lanai.  

There wasn't a beach, more like a small cliff, but there was nothing between us and the ocean.

This gecko wanted to join us for our picnic.

 We also drove to Akaka Falls and to one of the black sand beaches.

This is the same steam from the lava meeting the ocean that we saw from the other side.  This black sand beach is near where people hike down to see the lava.

On Monday, we went to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Factory tour.  There are big glass windows on the side of the factory so people can watch the workers.  There are videos playing nearby to explain all of the processes.  We ate some macadamia nut ice cream.  Also, in the gift shop, there is a sample counter where you can try one of every flavor of macadamia nuts.  Yummy!

The Big Island is big!  We spent most of the afternoon driving from one side of the island around to the other.  We stayed our last night at the Waikoloa Marriott.  It sits right on the beach, with the entire Anaehoomalu Bay pretty much for the exclusive use of its hotel guests.  Technically other people could go there, too, but the only access is from Marriott property.  It's a pretty bay with black and gold sand, coral reefs, and no waves to speak of.  There were also three large hotel pools that were fun after it was too dark to be at the beach.

I took this picture of the Marriott from the beach.

One of the three swimming pools.

We went on the Ocean Sports Glass Bottom Boat.

It was easy to see the fish through the glass, but it was nearly impossible to take a picture.

The bay is full of green sea turtles.

Wayne also went out on a stand up paddle board with a beach boy guide.  They paddled off so far into the ocean that I couldn't see them from the beach.

 And then we had to come home.  Sigh.  We flew out of the Kona Airport on Tuesday night, arrived in Los Angeles around 4:30 in the morning.  Yes, I asked Wayne if we could please stop at Disneyland, but we had to go home.  I couldn't sleep at all on the airplane rides.  We finally got to our house around lunchtime, and my schedule was thoroughly messed up.  We had a great time, and someday we may even go there again!

The Big Trip

It's been a week since we got back, but let me see how much of our trip to paradise I can remember.  Sorry, this is going to be a long post.  Wayne and I went to Hawaii for our 10th anniversary! Technically, our anniversary was back in August, but it wasn't a convenient time to leave the boys for a week.  So, we decided to wait until UEA (a fall break from school in Utah).  My mom was so nice to watch Daniel and Benjamin for us.  And it was so nice to come home to a clean house with no laundry (other than what was in our suitcases).  The boys had a great time, and I think they missed Grandma more when she went home than they missed us while we were gone.

Grandma took them to the school carnival.

Looks like Benjamin had fun, too.

This is how our trip began:  We had to leave early on Wedneday morning, so my mom stayed at our house Tuesday night.  We actually flew from Salt Lake to Denver because we were using United frequent flier miles.  All of Wayne's business trips finally paid off.  He actually doesn't leave town too often, but it adds up (especially with trips to Australia).  Our flights were pretty uneventful, and we arrived in Honolulu on Wednesday afternoon.  We checked into our hotel, The Best Western Coconut Waikiki.  Here's the view from our room:

That's the Ala Wai Canal that runs through Waikiki.

We were pretty far from the beach, but that was ok.  We took TheBus (yep, that's what it's called) to the Ala Moana shopping center, one of the biggest outdoor malls in the world.  We picked up a few souvenirs and ate at Alan Wong's Pineapple Room (it was highly recommended by Fodor's).  The next morning, we ate an early breakfast at our hotel (including waffles with coconut syrup!).  Then we went to Hanauma Bay for some early morning snorkeling.  Morning is always the best time for snorkeling in Hawaii because there are fewer people and the wind and waves haven't kicked up much sand.  Wayne snorkeled for an hour or so, but let's face it, I like to look at the ocean a lot more than I like to be out in it.

Our next destination was Laie, on the north side of Oahu.  We drove there and stopped at the LDS Temple before going to the Polynesian Cultural Center (the PCC).

This is at the temple's visitor center.  The famous weatherman Mark Eubank is serving a mission there with his wife.

Outside the Laie Temple.
It was closed in preparation for the big Open House that is going on now.

If you go to Oahu, I highly recommend going to the PCC.  It's divided into 7 different villages.  First, we saw the Canoe Pageant.  There were dancers from each of the villages on different canoes.

Then we went to half of the villages for cultural demonstrations.  There really isn't a way to see all of them in one day, but a pass is good for three days, so we came back for a couple of hours the next day to see the others.  If you only have one day, don't miss Samoa and Tonga.  In the Samoa village, they climb palm trees, husk coconuts, and make fire from sticks.  The Tonga show is drumming.

Wayne learned to make fire with sticks (wild hibiscus branches).  I have hibiscus growing in my backyard.  Do you think I could try it at home?

In the evening, there was a luau and a night show that we went to.  The luau was a buffet with all of the delicious food you would expect.  Even the poi was pretty good.  And the night show is fabulous, complete with fireknife dancers.

We stayed at Keiki Bungalows for two nights.  The location was fantastic (right on the beach).  But there was some seriously loud and annoying construction work on the street out front.  And I think the people on the floor above us never slept because they were never quiet.  The beach was beautiful, if somewhat treacherous.  I only saw Wayne and one local swimming here.  Oh, there were a few other people who tried to, but they were all back on the beach in less than 15 minutes.  There's a reason the North Shore is famous for its waves.

In fact, just a few minutes down the road was the famous Bonzai Pipeline, where we stopped to watch the surfers and the sunset.

So, that's the gist of what Oahu was all about.  The best parts were beautiful beaches, fabulous food, and the PCC.  On Saturday morning, we took an early flight from Honolulu to Hilo for part 2 of our adventure.

BYU Homecoming Parade

Yep, we were in the parade again.  Daniel and Benjamin LOVE being in parades.  The weather was nice.  The kids enjoyed walking around to see all of the other floats before the parade started.

Daniel thought it was pretty cool to see the motorized couches that were in the parade.  A couple of BYU students made them, and they were all over the news a few months ago when BYU banned them from driving the couches on campus.  Nicholas Homer, one of the inventors, was nice enough to let Daniel take a spin with him.