APPROVAL OF ADOPTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO WE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After about two years of investigating in-vetro fertlization, going through the adoption process with LDS Social Services, and working with Lilliput Services and a private adoption attorney. We got word that we were officially approved with LDS social services on Wednesday, March 24th. We actually were approved the day before- Tuesday, March 23rd, but it I found out through a routine phone call. I called the LDS social services to inquire about bringing them a document we had submitted sometime back, and the wonderful adoption secretary, Margaret informed me that David and I were approved, however our Social Worker Wayne, had straight meetings the rest of the day and didn't get to calling us.

I immediatly called David and our parents, and sent a mass text to friends. What a joyful thing to get to this point. We celebrated that evening at Mels that evening! So now we are joined with all the rest of the couples that are hoping to adopt also. hhhhmmmm- are David and I too short, too dark, too weird, too??????????? to the birthparents??? I wonder what will attract the birthparent/parents to David and I???? Both of us have had strong feelings of a boy first, but will we get a princess first?? What will our little munskin look like? So many exciting questions.

New Government Run Health Care Bill

What would our founding fathers say and do at this time in the history of the United States??? How would they feel? these questions keep racing my mind since Sunday, March 21st, 2010. CSPAN captivated me as I watched the Congressional House of Reps cast their votes on a massive Health Care bill that provides health insurance supposedly to "95 %" of Americans.
Innatly, this bill looks like a charitable, humane thing to guarentee everyone health care. When we first learned the provisions of this bill and studied it, David immediatly asked me "so, why not 100% of Americans?" I didn't have an answer for him even after I read about it.
There are many things still to learn about this legislation, however what I do know, is that NOBODY, not even the author of this bill, has been able to answer, is WHO IS GOING TO COUGH UP the green dough for this???????????????
I immediatly tried to record these house vote proceedings onto a DVD, I wanted to record them, save it somewhere in our memorabilia, so in 10-15 years I can show our future child how our government ran, and that I witnessed our government flex it's muscles, and was ademately against this bill that they are going to have to pay for. My hair rose a little from my head when I saw the projected trillions to fund this program. The projection estimates that in less than 30 years, the United States will not be able to fund public education, the tax increase to fund this - is projected to increase into the 40 percents????????????
Recently, I found a news article that the Canadian Prime Minister came for a medical surgery to the United States. Other National leaders come here too. That is something wrong if leaders of other nations are leaving their own country for a surgery- not to imply there aren't renoun physicians in many other countries- I am just illustrating the point that I truly believe ours is one of the best quality health care systems in the world. Our Health Care System has some of the best, drs, updated research, and equipment!
Michael Moore's film "Sicko" that discussess health care in England and France brought insight to me also. Both countries have a national health care system. In the film, he was talking to the British citizens about their health care, and they seemed reluctant to respond to their thoughts about their own health care system-hmmmmm- why????????. I have a good friend, her name is Paula. she is an esthnician here in Auburn, CA, and has done alot of facials for me. She is from England, but French by decent. I had a long discussion with her about the health care issues, She told me when she goes back home to England, she tries not to go to the dr. She said "one thing is forsure, the drs and equipment are way better here in the United States."
" I also heard an interview on NPR. A lady was being interviewed who interviewed a bunch of medical specialists that want to quit their profession under this new system. Under the provisions of this bill, the government will decide what treatments are needed/necessary for each infirmity/disease. Since when does the goverment have credentials in health care, and know what is best for patients- no two people with the same disease/illness will respond the same to the same treatment. A dr/patient relationship is the beauty of our current health care system. Currently, states provide health care already to patients that have an "acute" health care issue, and cannot pay for the services or don't have insurance. It makes sense to pay a small portion, even if you are on poverty, to contribute to their insurance premiums, than for Uncle Sam to take over.
So even a bigger principal behind all of this than that, what if I don't want any health care at all????????
The new health care bill provisions include a fine for those that don't purchase health care. I watched outside the capital, over 40,000 people were protesting, and that brought hope, and tears to my eyes. That is the hope for the future of my country. What is left of our constitution, I still love!

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves, and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Mitt Romney's visit to Sacramento..

Former Massachusetts Gov Mitt Romney, who happens to have been a former boss of mine at the SLOC (Salt Lake Olympic Committe) recently wrote a fantastic book entitled "No apology." I receive emails off and on about his events. I had received an email mid February that Sacramento was on his tour, and blocked out a little time to be able to attend.

The book signing took place in Borders in Sacramento. It was well attended. He gave a brief introduction about the book, and due to his time constraint, went right into autographing. My turn was a brief greeting, and conversation and said he appreciated I came. One thing I can forsure say is his love for the country is tangible, and he has no reservations, or hesitations to confront issues and answer questions from people. His love for our country is tangible.

February, 2010- Oldest Niece turns 16!

Our niece Rachael- eldest of all of our nieces and nephews has hit 16! I vividly remember the day I got the call she was coming into the world. I raced to the hospital, while her mother was in labor. The funny thing is we didn't know, as this was 16 years ago, her gender- a decision her parents made to be surprised. I do remember all speculating she was going to be a boy, but I am SO glad she was born a Female. She leads the pack of cousins on my side of the family so well. Watching her grow into a beautiful young women has been inspiring. She just gets smarter and cuter all the time. We love her very much!

OREGON TRIP, Nov 5-9, 2009

In our adoption process, David and I were instructed and "highly encouraged" to attend a western United States including California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii FSA (families supporting adoption) conference in Portland, Oregon. We had a few hours left for foster care training in our required training left, and we had been talking for about 2 years taking a drive up the Pacific Northwest, so we seized the opportunity to accomplish both. Here is a rough journal of our trip.

DAY 1-

arrgg- always takes longer to take off on trips, we left 2 hours latter than planned because we remembered a few more things to bring, and I missed the alarm.

Our journey begins up highway 5, with a quick stop at Denny's for breakfast- happy to admit that my moons over my hammy, and David's pancakes didn't make either of us sick as I always try to stay away from that place. We only resulted to it to make the stop fast.

After we hit Williams, Ca, where highway 20 that takes you to fort bragg meets highway 5- we were in territory neither of us had been, so we kept our eyes peeled for new scenery, and tried to get good glances and views of towns we always hear about, but have never been to, Redding, Red Bluff, and Yreka. They are all what they sound like and look like on the news, mountain towns, lots of northern, CA pine, a few redwood trees. As we passed Yreka, it was open land for awhile, and we figured we must be soon hitting the Oregon border, sure enough we saw the "Welcome to Oregon" sign. We already had seen the mile markers to Medford, OR. It was actually right near the border we got our first random rainfall, and were initiated to the eratic rainfall and then sunny weather patterns typical of the Northwest. I tried a new thing this trip, David insisted on driving most of the way, so I became the photographer for cool scenes/views from our car, and I can brag, some of the pictures turned out great for taking them from the road.

When we hit Medford, OR at around 4 pm, David and I wanted to go see the Medford, Oregon Temple, so we went straight there so we could see the Temple in daylight. It is so pretty,the smallest Temple plan, with only 1 sealing room, and is also located on the same property as a stake center. We took some pictures, and walked around the grounds. We were leaving to go back into town and when David shut the back door of our car after putting the camera in the back seat, he hit his head pretty hard on the door, enough that he got a terrible migraine. We relaxed a few minutes, and then went to eat dinner, we ended up choosing Applebees. The migraine wasn't getting any better with Advil during dinner, so David had an idea to go back to the stake center right next to the Temple, and get a blessing. We went back and there were two brothers that were in the Stake Offices that were willing and able to administer a blessing to David. We decided with a little drama to stay in Medford for the night, instead of proceding to Portland. We decided to let David chill, and get up really early the next morning and make it to Portland early before having to be there for the conference by 3 pm. We layed low and watched a movie in the Ramada Inn so David could get over the Migraine.

Day 2-

Yeah! we woke up early as planned, David's head felt somewhat better, and it wasn't raining, cloudy, but not rainy. After a contiental breakfast at the Ramada inn, we got on the road to proceed to Portland. We pulled over to gas up our car at a cheveron outside of Medford, and when we drove up to the gas pump and stopped, David got out to pump the gas, and I got out to go into the gas station to get some bottles of water for the road. We were approached by a woman, in a raincoat asking us how much gas we wanted. David and I looked at each other a little bit surprised, and a little confused why she was asking us, and who she was. It was then we learned, and were told by this Cheveron employee the state of Oregon has a law that consumers/public are not allowed to pump their own gas. In fact, you will be fined $500 dollars if you do. David and I looked at each other in shock, and thought she was kidding at first. She pumped our gas, and I got our waters, and then we continued to Portland.

The journey up to Portland from Medford was the most picturesque, and amazing with mixtures of fall colors, moss, and amazing landscape of hills and trees. There was low setting clouds, amdist alot of groves of trees. We enjoyed gauking at the scenery, and had of course some beattles music going on that David had loaded on our GPS.

About an hour and a half before Portland, our rear ends were traveling soar from sitting, we were so ready to just be there already. David finally let me take a driving shift, and sure enough, right after I started, I was in the middle of a dark, heavy down pour, but then it subsided, and the rest of the leg to Portland was nice until we hit the city.

Portland is kindof hilly, green and lots and lots of trees, and very updated and modern. They have every store and thing to do possible. It is much bigger than I thought. We made our way to Hillsboro, a suburb only about 10 minutes west of Portland, to check into the Marriott near the chapel where the conference was. We checked into the motel, and I have to say Marriott rocks for being the cheapest motel near the conference we could find! The lady said when we checked in that the hotel was brining complimentary cookies to our room, where do you find that service? After checking in, we freshened up and then went to the chapel for the conference.

Conference Friday afternoon and evening:

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Camping Trip to Donnor, 2009

We took a 2 day camping trip, just the two of us this time to Donnor state park August 27th to Aug 28th. We enjoyed beautiful weather, no crowds, and the hike and museum was fantastic. It was all the reason more why we love California!

CPR, FIRST AID CERTIFIED

We finished our LAST step of the adoption process of the California state requirements for foster/adopting by taking a CPR and First Aid class to become CPR/ FIRST AID certified. We had a really nice instructor from the red cross come and present the classes to us for 6 hours; yes, you read it correctly, 6 hours. We took 12 lessons, as well as our hands on practices of chest compressions and mouth to mouth. We also learned to do splints and bandages for first aid. We took a test at the end, and both passed! Yee Haw

ADOPTION STUDY COMPLETED

Most of you viewing our blog and that are close to us know David and I have decided (we decided 2 years ago) and are going forth with the adoption process. We applied and did some paperwork over a year ago, and then by the time we were going to have our adoption study we had decided to relocate, so we had to be patient and hold off until we made our recent move.
If you don't know what a home study is, you are not out of it. Neither of us knew until we got into the adoption process. A home study basically is where a social worker checks your house to make sure the house is "suiteable" for a child. Suiteable is basically safe and clean. They come and check to make sure the house has a place for the child. They check to make sure there are not sharp items, chemicals, and other dangerous items ground level or lower cupboards or drawers. They check to make sure you have a place to put the child, and that you have a fire extinguisher and a fist aid kit. Lastely, they want to make sure you are "sanitary" for the health of the child.
We had the appointment, Monday, July 20th. The appointment was an hour, and very smooth. After the inspection, we had another good discussion with our social worker.
This experience has been emotional and tedious, but has been amazing and such an eye opener.
We will update this blog when we find out our profile is viewable and if anything else happens.

4th of July!

This year- 4th of July was interesting. We finished our last activity as members of the activities committee in our ward, planning the anual 4th of July breakfast. We had a great committee, who were diligent and joined us preparing the breakfast at 6 in the morning. A few even came at 5:30 AM. The heartly breakfast turned out delicious, with strawberry and whipped cream pancakes, scrambled eggs, all kinds of fruit, juice, and sausage and ham. We had a committee member that organized a group of elderly ladies that tap dance and perform to come perform patriotic numbers. We had a good turn-and had alot of compliments afterward. We are going to really miss the wonderful committee and our wonderful ward.

David had to work through the day after the breakfast, while I unpacked boxes, and then fireworks, we broke our routine. For the last 3 years we have gone to the well -known, fun Folsom Rodeo on the 4th of July.
I had spoken earlier in the week to our dear friends, Tiffany and Kevin Wadell, and they kindly invited us to join a group they were going to watch fireworks with again. We joined them and had fun visiting and the firework show kept going and going like the energizer bunny. Thanks to Tiff and Kev for having us.

MOVED!!

After many months of analyzing and weighing out issues and looking into relocating out of state. We have decided to stay here and camp (figuratively) in Rancho Cordova, CA- the Sacramento area. If you want our new address, please email me. This is an open blog, and I never know who is going to view it. We weren't ready for all the issues involved in making the big move out of state yet, however unless things dramatically change with the local sacramento economy in the near future ( like the next 3-4 months), that day will arrive sooner than we anticipate.

We got 200 feet extra room in this new abode than we had in our last place, and our rent is $200 dollars cheaper- so we have no complaints on our end. We also love, love that David could litterally bike or walk (even though it would be a long walk) to his work.

I have decided that besides painful medical and dental work, moving has to be the most tedious, lame, drawn out event in life. Spending so much time buying boxes, transporting furniture, and taping up boxes is grueling.