New Adoption Efforts

I must give a big thank you to Grooveshark (like Pandora) and Jenny Oaks Baker. I woke up yesterday morning with lingering thoughts and feelings from the day before but after listening at work to the pure sounds of Jenny Oaks Baker playing the violin I feel better. It has been an emotional couple weeks. A couple weeks ago marked 3 years since we were approved to adopt and still our nursery's door stays closed. It is still all decorated from our previous failed adoption.

We've gave great thought and even looked into adopting older children. Most of these children come with special emotional and developmental needs and I do not have the emotional or time resources to spend (being honest with myself). We have to weigh Owen's best interests too and he is just not mature enough. Most the situations want the adopted child to be the youngest and a substantial age difference to between them and any existing children. So no matter what we do we wait. And my little persistant personality struggles with waiting because it goes against my core belief about being proactive.I didn't just wait to become a valevictorian in high school or graduate Cum Laude from BYU-Idaho. I worked and worked just like Rudy who worked his tail off to play for the Notre Dame football team.

Perhaps the "writing on the wall" is to stop kicking at the barriers on my road of life because it causes me extreme emotional pain. I need to stop focusing on what I can do next and just enjoy life. If I quietly work on our adoption efforts, it will mean it won't be my main priority anymore and I can focus on and enjoy the family I have in the here and now instead. If anything this adoption journey, and even our journey to Owen, has taught me is that the amount of effort you put forth in adoption does not guarantee you will find success.

http://threebearsboutique.blogspot.com

So I've decided just to quietly work on our biggest road block in adopting again. Though an expectant parent's free agency is the biggest roadblock I have no control over that area. I can work on the next biggest road block which has been the lack of financial resources when more expensive adoption opportunities come up. We do have an attorney in Florida who is on the lookout for a situation in a reasonable budget range but even then we need to raise/save more for that. Right now the majority of infant adoptions cost between $25 to $35K. So my pie in the sky goal is $30K but even earning a few thousand would help.

I've started a little boutique called the Three Bears Boutique where I can sell handmade accessories and put the profits into our adoption savings in hopes that if an adoption opportunity comes along we will have the funds to consider it. Right now I have crocheted items but I hope I can get some other ladies to sell their items in my boutique who are talented in other areas like bow making, jewelry, or sewing and who are willing to give a little of their profits to our fund. I needed something that would be fun (so it wouldn't become stressful), not adoption related, and not all time consuming (currently working on that part). So go visit my boutique even if only to see and enjoy my mad skills. LOL.

Park City - Day 2

Even though we have taken several trips to Salt Lake as a family we've never been to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy. I didn't foresee Owen would misbehave as he has in the past visiting zoos/aquariums because he has matured quite a bit (though quite spoiled). In the past Owen has shown interest in the animals for about 10 minutes and then decides it would be more fun to run all over the place until I've had enough chasing him. Oh well. At least this time he was interested for 30 minutes before he started running around. He did like the bugs, huge boa constrictor and other snakes (I'm praying he never wants a snake as a pet). I enjoyed seeing the sea turtle and the penguins. I let Barry look at the remaining exhibits while I watched Owen run, mess with the penny stamping machine, and then whine and cry when he didn't get what he wanted. I wish I could say we didn't cave but we figured that being our summer vacation getting him a little souvenir was OK.

It was almost lunchtime when we finished with the aquarium. Barry's sister told us about a burger joint in Heber that is decorated with trains and has with 100+ flavors of soda. Trains for Owen + countless Diet Dr. Pepper flavors for me. I was sold! 




Most restaurants add the flavoring for you but this place has the new Coca-Cola Freestyle fountains that are touch screen and have every Coke product available. I was the one who initially figured out how to get the flavors and then told Barry how. I clicked on Diet Dr. Pepper and then it gave me the choice of cherry vanilla, cherry, or regular Diet Dr. Pepper. I got cherry vanilla and told Barry. Barry made a Raspberry Lime Diet Coke by mixing Lime Diet Coke with Raspberry Diet Coke. I sure miss the Berries and Cream Diet Dr. Pepper!!! 





After lunch we drove back to the townhouse for a little R&R before Barry's sister and her family came for a little sleepover party. We went swimming again, ate pizza, and played games. I even beat Amanda and Barry at Phase 10! I have to gloat because I NEVER win board games. Barry made us a delicious pancake breakfast that morning and as an added surprise we opened the patio blinds to find a bunch of hot air balloons flying amid the mountains. One of the best things about our vacation was that I didn't have to stress out planning or cooking any meals. Barry is wonderful in this area and good thing too since my repertoire is limited to dishes such as Kraft Mac N' Cheese and spaghetti with bottled marinara sauce. LOL. Hey I can boil right ;) 

Park City - Day 1

The summer season for our family is all work and hardly any play (except for Owen & myself) since it's landscaping season. With Barry exhausted and me dealing with my own issues, life has been stressful to say the least. We were in dire need of some R&R and family fun. Originally we wanted to vacation in Oregon and go to the Farwest nursery convention. Since we have been pinching pennies to save enough to increase our adoption budget we decided it was too expensive. So we canned Oregon and looked for another destination. 


Barry is the king of finding travel deals. Apparently timeshare owners in Park City, UT are having problems with filling their vacancies so we got a killer deal for 4 nights in townhouse. We also saved money by purchasing some groceries instead of eating out. The townhouse was located in the Newpark Resort part of newly developed area of Park City close to Kimball Junction. It was a gorgeous townhouse! It had tons of sleeping room with 1 king bed, 2 pull-outs, and 2 twin beds. as well as 3 complete bathrooms.


Though Owen isn't a Thomas fanatic anymore he still LOVES trains.  Our first stop to Park City was at the Golden Spike National Historical Site "near" Tremonton. I say "near" because it is truly in the middle of no where. LOL. We made it just in time to see the reenactment of the trains meeting. The trains are almost exact reproductions of the Union Pacific's No. 119 and the Central Pacific's Jupiter. Of course we left on the hottest weekend of the year so we didn't spend as much time as we wanted. Owen was in 7th heaven seeing the trains and the rest of the weekend asked daily to go see the Jupiter.


It was so bright that all of us had to wear sunglasses or what we call "cool dudes" in our home.

Eagerly awaiting the Jupiter train

Union Pacific's Jupiter - Wood
burning steam train

Posing by the Jupiter train

Owen and Daddy examining the main train parts.
Owen knows them all.

Central Pacific's No. 119 - Coal burning steam train

Overheated already!

Thankfully Park City was about 10 degrees cooler than the valley and the resort had a swimming pool. We invited Barry's sister and her family to come swim with us. You wouldn't know from the pictures but Owen acted like a cat thrown in the pool. He had a death-grip on Barry the whole time even though he had a life jacket. Aunt Mandy and I were able to pull him off a couple times. You would have thought that after the first or second time going swimming he would have loosened up. Yeah right!

Daddy and Owen

Aunt Mandy trying to get Owen
to chill out and flow on his own

Dipo Family

Noah

Eloise

Hazel and Uncle Nate