Beach Fun!!

We just got back from our first family vacation, 5 days at the Oregon Coast! We all had a wonderful time, and Kai loved playing on the beach and in the ocean. He learned very quickly where the ocean was, and could point it out by our first morning there! We lucked out with beautiful weather about half the time we were there...not bad for Oregon. We mostly hung out around our rental house and played on the beach, with few excursions for sight-seeing such as the Oregon Coast Aquarium and Yaquina Bay Lighthouse. Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Dave joined us for one night, and babysat so Joe and I could have an excursion of our own! And since no vacation is complete without a little drama, I decided to run my foot into a corner molding on the wall last night. (Should have listened to my Mom when she told me not to rough house inside the house!) After seeing all the pretty colors on my foot today, and the amazing feat of having a swollen  pinky toe (I always wondered if you could tell when it swells), the official word is that it could be broken, but no x-rays were done since there's not really any treatment anyway. We had so much fun, tonight we're exhausted and not really looking forward to jumping back into reality tomorrow. I'll share a teaser photo, and I promise I'll share more after we get settled back in.

In my opinion, a classic Oregon Coast shot...

Hair blowing in the wind, beautiful skies, winter coat in July, and a grin from ear to ear!

Apparently, I didn't understand...

Just wanted to communicate a misunderstanding I had. When we arrived at our lawyer's office last week, we were informed that we were not finalizing, but signing the required papers to submit to DHS for finalizing. I guess I didn't completely understand the finalization process, and when our lawyer called to have us come sign, I got so excited, I just assumed it was "it"! So now, we're back to waiting on the state to process our paperwork. After THAT, our lawyer will get a court date, and we'll be able to finalize. We also requested a court hearing (not required in our state), so we'll all go to court to finalize with the judge. Our lawyer said this should happen in a month or so, so stay tuned!

a week to remember

As most people who know, this week every year is a big week for us. July 24th is Joe's birthday, and July 25th is our wedding anniversary. This year we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary! What a momentous occasion. 

As if that wasn't enough, we found out yesterday that tomorrow, July 23rd, we will be signing the papers to finalize Kai's adoption! That means, as of tomorrow morning, we will be finished with our adoption process, and Kai will be 100% legally our son! WOO-HOO!!

We were so thrilled when we found out the papers were ready to sign, and we could add another wonderful event to our exciting week! (And, thought it made a pretty good excuse to have a treat 3 days in a row!)

And don't worry, we are doing something fun to celebrate all the blessings in our lives this week. More about that later...

memories...

Stealing this from Kim's blog, seemed like fun so please join in!!

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

our week in pictures

Tons of fun in the froggy pool

"Out", we now hear this almost constantly when we're indoors

Hangin' in the big pool

First Ems game, lovin' the watermelon

Discovered the toy box is full of...you guessed it... TOYS!!

Trying sparkling cider at Cousin Ashley's wedding with Grandpa Tom

More from the 4th

7/4/08:

Our 4th of July started nice and early as I prepared to run my first race in over a year. It's called "Butte to Butte", it's a 10K (6.2 miles), it's as bad as it sounds, and it's a community tradition.  If you're a runner in Eugene, you do it. Last year was so hard for me as I watched from the sidelines due to my injury. This year, I was in the thick of it, and loved every second (even those last few seconds when I really thought I was going to die)! I did better than I would have ever thought given half my training runs were done pushing a jogging stroller, and at the end I was very happy with my finish time! (Sorry, no pictures from that, it wasn't a pretty sight anyway)

After the race, I rushed home where J and K were ready and waiting to drive to Harrisburg for some good old fashioned 4th of July festivities. After a lightning quick shower, we were back in the car and headed to Kai's first parade! As you will see in the pictures, he was not too sure about the whole thing. He didn't crack a smile the whole parade and looked very concerned. He wasn't in distress or upset, he was just very serious and took everything in. Joe ended up taking him away from the parade for a while during the never ending line of fire trucks, all sounding their sirens, of course. After the parade, we checked out the street fair going on and played in the park for a while with some friends. We were on our way home by 2pm, all thoroughly exhausted and pretty much done for the day. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out at home, and Kai went to bed pretty early since he didn't manage to get a nap. We were shocked and amazed that K slept through almost 4 hours of LOUD fireworks in our neighborhood that night. Guess we wore him out enough!

7/5/08:

Grandma Sue and Grandpa Tom came to visit!! And they brought an ultra-fun froggy pool for Kai to play in. He just loves this thing. They agreed to let us keep it until we go to P-town next, since he'll be too big for it next year, they wanted it to get all the use it could. And it has so far. We also ventured to dinner at a restaurant (which we don't do very often anymore), and Kai did so great! We went to Mucho Gusto (thought of you, Kim) and it was yum yummy as always.  

7/6/08:

By the time Sunday rolled around, we were pretty much spent. We tried to lay low, but when you've played all weekend, there must be a time to get some work done. 

Here is one of Joe's famous picture slideshows of our Holiday weekend fun!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Happy Independence Day!!

To all our friends and family, we hope you had a safe and fun 4th of July! We had a very fun day celebrating our first Independence Day together. So much fun, in fact, that it's now 7:30 pm, the baby is in bed, and we are exhausted. I promise I will write more later this weekend (with photos, of course)!