Archive | April, 2011

The Wedding!

29 Apr

I am sure all of you know but today was “The Wedding!” Whose wedding (just in case you live under a rock) Price William married Kate! It was a bitter sweet day for me. You see I did not have many crushes growing up but I certainly did on Prince William. I dreamed of growing up and wanted to be just like Princess Diana. I loved the fact that her job was working to help others and having a full time job of doing philanthropic work while getting to live a glamorous life too. So of course that meant I was destined to marry Price William. I had all the posters, books, and recorded on my VHS any Dateline or 20/20 special and watched it over and over. But life for me had different plans…Kate got William and I got my own Prince. You know I am not sure how The Royal Family feels about adopting from South Korea but if I had to image I don’t think they would look to fondly on it so I am VERY lucky I got My Prince Eric and Princess Zoey! :)

In order to celebrate the wedding. I had planned on having a big tea party with decorations, crumpets, tea and all but to be honest with the all the recent disasters surrounding us it kind of felt weird to be so extravagant with so much suffering around. Plus had had to work in Mississippi that day so I knew it would be a long day of work and 3:00 am seemed very early. But when I got home from work at 8:30 that night Dana did come over and we put on our super cute party hats, drank tea, at cookies and watched all the Royal Festivities. It was cool getting to see all the celebrations around England and how happy everyone was. But when we finally got to the ceremony it was nearing midnight and all those songs were just putting me to sleep. But I managed to stay awake to see the not one but two kisses on the balcony before Dana headed back home and I headed to bed. I do love the tradition of everything there and The British sense of style. I sure wish my wardrobe had a more British flare…

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The Past 24 Hours

29 Apr

Words can not describe how blessed I feel to be writing this blog post right now. I am safe, my house is fine, all my family members are ok, and even my blogging laptop is just a ok…but for many many others across Alabama it is a much different story.

It all started about 5:00 am yesterday when I woke up to sirens and eventually our power going out due to straight line winds. This storm was bad enough to completely destroy my childhood neighborhood of Cahaba Heights (about 15 minutes away from us) we have several friends that live there now and they say it looks like a war zone. The elementary school is so bad that the rumor is it will not even reopen this year. Due to the bad morning weather I was forced to work from the 1 PACKED Starbucks in town because it was the only one open.

I did get back home later that afternoon to wait for round 2 of the storms. Schools dismissed early and people hurried home because we all knew this could get back and boy did it! Our power came back on before the second round of storms which allowed us to watch the news. There we witnessed something live on tv that was just horrible. We saw this massive tornado come down live on tv and rip though peoples homes. It was something I will never forget. It felt like a disaster movie but I started crying while watching it because you knew that just 30 minutes away it wasn’t just a movie for these people. Their homes were really being destroyed, real injuries were happening, and real lives were being taken that can never come back. And it was SO incredibly hard to watch. Viewing the live feeds of the tornado was much more real that seeing the tornado’s on the radar like normal. We were watching peoples lives get destroyed right before our eyes so it was very saddening on one hand but completely freaked me out on the other because it was heading towards us! We took the mattress off the bed upstairs and dragged it downstairs to the bathroom with us. We then both got on the phones to call all of our loved ones to make sure they were in their safe spot and to tell them we loved them. Praise the Lord nothing happened but with family all over the central part of the state something could of easily happened.

It was a long night…many tornados, no power, and just making sure everyone we loved was safe. But praise the Lord we are all ok! But please continue to pray for all the families who were not as fortunate. The death toll is up to 162 in Alabama alone and many families are homeless now. Oh how my heart just breaks for them…

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USCIS Notices

27 Apr

Ok so this post is for all of you adopting parents out there that check blogs for adoption timelines. For those of you who are not or have not adopted you don’t understand this secret world where the adopting mommy’s stalk other adopting moms blogs for timelines, updates, etc. so they can try and plan and see where they fit in the equation and predict when they will be at the next step. Well I guess I can’t speak for everyone else but I sure know I am a crazy stalker of timelines! Well anyways…

Our I-600 was sent on 3/30/11. On 04/05/11 we we received the I-797C Notice of Action just stating that they received our I-600 application on 04/01/11. The only thing on here was checking our address and all three of our birthdays and to contact them if it was incorrect. It was correct so we did not do anything.

While both Eric and I were out of town with work I had a sweet neighbor check the mail…Just to make sure we did not get our I-600 Approval while gone. So on 04/16/11 a letter came I was sure it was our approval letter…but it wasn’t. It was another I-797C Notice of Action Letter. This one was a longer letter stating that our homestudy should have been submitted…which it was so no need to do anything. Just a little teaser, scare you letter in my opinion. The official receipt date was 04/01/11 on the form and the Notice Date was 04/13/11.

So I have been calling once a week to check the status and every week they tell me it has not been assigned to a case worker!!! Boo! It really frustrates me that it is there but no one is even supposed to be working on it. On Monday I went to call again for my weekly check in but Eric told me not to and to just leave them alone. I was bummed but did as he said. But then later that day I guess the curiosity got to him too because he called and said he had just gotten off the phone with them and that as of 8:26 that morning our case had been assigned to a case worker. Our case worker is Mrs. White!

So if you are keeping up with the math so far it took 25 days from the receipt date to just be assigned a worker! But woohoo at least someone has it now! So all of you right now say a prayer for Ms. White that she will be very eager to work on our paperwork and will get it approved and out the door and in my mailbox soon!

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Star of Mommy’s Blog

26 Apr

I forgot to mention in the earlier post but on Saturday Eric and I stopped by Target to register. It was fun but a little daunting at what all items a baby requires! While there Eric was so sweet to buy me this SUPER cute bib we found. Take a look…Oh she is my little star already! I just can’t wait to have her here to wear this…come on i-600!

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Easter Weekend

24 Apr

Our Easter weekend started out with us having no real plans but ended up being a pretty packed weekend. On Saturday morning we got up and Eric and I both headed back down to the lake for Easter lunch with my family. Here are a couple of snapshots of our beautiful day with everyone…and yes my birthday celebrations are still going! :)

Once we left the lake we headed on over to see our nephew Taylor play baseball. He is a catcher this year and of course like he is at ever sport he plays…AMAZING. And I am not just saying that because he is my nephew. He really is the best player on over team he plays on!

After the game we headed back home then I ran over to Dana’s dad’s house to visit with Dusty and Paige since they were in town and see my second family. Later that night Eric and I went to see “Water for Elephants” it was a very beautiful and well done movie. I love Reese Witherspoon and animals so it was for sure a must see for me. Thank goodness for our movie coupons two tickets, popcorn and a drink all for $8.50 is a perfect deal for an adopting couple. We are trying to use all of our coupon deals on late night movies while we still can! :)

This morning we woke up and cooked breakfast and then I had all of these great plans for a productive day but you know that just did not happen. We went on a walk to our neighborhood lake I then came home and watched a movie then napped…not clean out closest, get ready for yardsale, organize mudroom like I had planned. Oh well! I guess I will get to it eventually.

Tonight we went to dinner at Surin (Groupons are another great thing for adopting families) then headed on to the evening church service. It was wonderful! We are so lucky to have such an amazing church. You can click the image below to watch our Easter Service or learn more about our church!

Now we are back at home and I am blogging instead of tackling the mounds of laundry lurking upstairs…Oh well it is Easter. Happy Easter to all of you!!!

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Good Friday

22 Apr

Today was Good Friday and what a good day it was! This week leading up to Good Friday has brought up several crazy emotions that I was post about later in a separate post but all I can as is…I get it like never before!

Poor Eric, Tim and my Dad had to work today but all the ladies did not so we had a GIRLS DAY! I woke up early and picked Kendall and my mom up and all of us with the dogs were off to the lake to spend the day with my grandparents. We stopped at a couple of yard sales on the way down and got a couple of goodies for Zoey.

Once down there we just hung out and spent time talking, reading, laying out and having a relaxing day! It was so nice getting just spend time with everyone. I couldn’t help but thinking the entire day in the back of my mind…this could possibly be the last time I can relax on the pier reading without having to make sure a little one is not drowning! :) I am soaking up all of this grown up time I can on one hand but on the other hand I sure can’t wait to have a little one running around in her cute new life jacket that her Honey (my mom) got her!

Kendall and Me chilling on the porch… And our boys chilling…

After spending the day at the lake I headed on home to spend time with Eric but first I stopped by to see Dana at her work. Poor digs was too tired to get up to see her at the drive thru and had to be helped in the car as I left the lake too!

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A Long Drive Home!

21 Apr

My job requires me to be out on the road a lot. And today as I was on my way home from Mississippi something crazy happened. It STORMED…big time! I have never seen a storm like this and I guess being out in the country where you can see for miles and miles made it even more scary. Take a look at this video and you will see what I mean…

It got even crazier when I was on the phone with my mom and dad as they were tracking the storm on the computer for me. I REALLY wish I would have video taped it but it was too scary to get off the phone with them to do it. As you could see from the first part of the clip you can see for miles and miles and when I was driving while it was not raining I saw this crazy “wall cloud” or “tornado” or whatever that scary thing was come down out of the cloud in the sky and a block of it only went closer to the ground. It was a dark, nasty, thing with crazy lightning. It was far away but I was like where should I go! What should I do! But as fast as that thing came down it went back up minutes later. Praise the Lord the most dangerous thing that happened to me was the hail and I am not one of the several victims the storms over the last couple of weeks claimed. I am SO grateful for God’s continued protection over my life as well as all of my friends and family!

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T-Shirt Sales

17 Apr

My sweet friend over at Abode Love was kind enough to design a fundraising T-Shirt for us. Isn’t the design so amazing?!?! I am so thrilled with how they turned. They very much exceeded my expectations. It was so sweet of Laurel Dawn to take time out of her busy schedule to help us bring Zoey home.

We will be printing these shirts on super soft T’s (think american apparel) so all of you can enjoy wearing. We will be selling the shirts for a $25.00 minimum donation. For all of you local peeps we can hand deliver them to you and for all of you out-of-towners we will be more than happy to ship.

We are taking pre-orders now so please email us at LaurenKB@gmail.com to let me know what quantity and size you are needing. Also feel free to spread the word so we can bring Zoey home! :)

Thanks a million! We could not do this without the help of our family and friends like you! We are so blessed to have all of you in our lives…

Shirt A:

Shirt B:

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Birthday Dinner Surprise

15 Apr

This morning I worked all day but during a quick lunch break we got Eric and I took a quick walk down the beach. I was able to get some sun but it was a little overcast so not too much. But once things wrapped up for my work around 6:00 Eric and I headed on out the door to go and visit my parents. It was a complete coincidence that they happened to be camping in the local RV park right up the road from us. We took a hike around the state park looking for gators in the lagoon with no luck. Later my parents treated us to my birthday dinner where the most exciting thing happened…I saw a gator in the wild. The restaurant had an outdoor deck that overlooked the marsh and while we were ordering I spotted it across the way. I was SUPER excited for this very special birthday surprise. So it ended up being a great night getting to hang out with my parent and seeing the wild gator. Thanks again for the delicious and eventful dinner!

 

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Happy Birthday Lauren!

14 Apr

This week Lauren was down in Orange Beach for a work conference that she has going on.  To help Lauren celebrate her birthday I had my work fly me in from Park City, UT yesterday from a work trip I had (you won’t find me complaining about southern weather anymore). Going from 20 degrees and 15 feet of snow to 70 degrees and sunny is one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done.

Anyhow Lauren is one year older and this is probably her last birthday without a child so after she wrapped up work for the day we went out to dinner at Sea n’ Suds on the beach and then walking around the outlet malls for a bit (Starbucks was also involved). We are going to visit her parents tomorrow who are down here vacationing and then head home; it’s bittersweet as we both get older but just one of those things you can’t really fight, stupid aging…

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