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Friday Updates

I am thinking of doing a regular update post at the end of every week.  I seem to be doing a lot of random update posts lately, so I think I will just start doing a Friday Updates post.

 

Adoption update:  No news.  There haven’t been any referrals this week from our agency.  The courts in Ethiopia are now officially closed until sometime in October.  There can be referrals during this time period, but no court dates will be heard.  (Court is what legally makes the child(ren) yours, a referral is a child(ren) matched to you from the agency)

Running update:  Last week I got my three runs in, even getting one in while in Colorado.  This week no runs.  🙁  I might try to get one in tomorrow morning.  I was making good progress until this week, so hopefully I can get back on track next week.

Push-ups update:  We are total slackers!  Vacation definitely put a hold on our push-up regime!  Hopefully we can get back on track next week and get week 2.5 done!

Other random stuff:

 

Last night we had a nice big storm that brought us .5″ of rain, lightening, and wind.  The wind broke one of the nicest branches in the above tree and it is currently hanging down into my tomatoes.  Luckily my tomato plants will be just fine and the tree should survive.

 

While we were in Colorado we were able to score lots of great stuff for Tom & Jerry at thrift stores.  We bought lots of books, wood puzzles, blocks and legos, and a shopping cart seat cover.  We love to go thrift store shopping in Colorado, we always seem to score better stuff there.  We also received books from Matt’s grandparents and his parents.


We found out that Jason and Michelle were having a girl and I snagged some adorable shoes and a hat from the thrift stores.  

I will do my monthly update of the Carbon Challenge tomorrow.  I am running a little behind right now.  I should have taken the file with me to Colorado!

I hope Matt will have pictures added to his last post by tomorrow.  FYI I do not love road trips as much as he does!  I like them for a couple of hours but that is it.  I do not like being in the car for that long, but we do manage to have fun together and the time goes by relatively quick.

 

Okay I think I am done rambling!  

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vacation & road trippin.

I love road trips. For some reason 13+ hours in a car doesn’t really bother me, as long as Stephanie is with me. Sure sitting that long wears on me. But I LOVE the time we spend together, We enjoy loading up the ipod with great music of past and present, great fun reminiscing of yesteryear, the deep god conversations we have, the odd conversations we have- were we some how created a non-profit (more on that later, maybe), overall I think I just enjoy the fun with great company, no matter what the destination. 

Colorado Rocked. They had record heat, but its 20 – 30 degrees cooler still. So mornings and evenings outside were perfect. 

 

***Photos Coming Soon. I have been up since 3am AZ time, and am too tired to finish editing all of my 500+ photos I took (the new camera rocks!).

 

We enjoyed time with my parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. 

 

Thursday & Friday were spent with my parents, decompressing from the ride up, and general around town fun.

Saturday We headed up to Castlewood Canyon Park. The site of the second largest dam burst / flooding in colorado history. It was a great hike. and we had fun playing in the rocks and water.  

 

Sunday we drove home from Elizabeth, CO (near Castle Rock) the back way, which yielded some fun pics. 

 

Monday morning Stephanie and I were able to break away and hike some trails around Garden of the gods. I have been there hundreds of times as a kid, and I still love going. This was the best year so far. Usually we are plagued by clouds, but this year was a bight, warm sunny day. 

 

Tuesday we hung out with my grandparents, and toured around old town pueblo. I really dig old buildings and houses for some reason. 

 

By The Way, I think Stephanie was getting tired of all the photo shoots.

 

We had fun, but also glad to have routines, our bed, and our furry kids back. Even if it is 200° out in the valley.

 

 

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A picture, some updates, and random links

The table is already being put to good use!

 

For those of you (Nicole you can do it) considering the 100 push-up challenge I encourage you to give it a try and don’t worry about getting it done in six weeks.  Matt and I have decided instead of moving on to week 3 we are going to do the third column in week 2 instead (we were doing the middle column).  We did our test at the end of week 2 and didn’t think we were quite ready for the challenge of week 3.

Matt and I have both been consistent with getting in three runs a week.  I am excited to see myself slowly improve. 

 

Now onto some links that I am just too lazy to do whole posts about.

Facts on cloth diapering.  

Wind energy is taking off. 

Changing lives with used bikes.

 

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Slowly Preparing

Matt and I have slowly been preparing our house for the arrival of Tom and Jerry. We do little things around the house each and every month. Some things are for them, some things for us (the kind of things we know we won’t have time for after they arrive). This weekend we sold a lateral file cabinet that was in my office/den/future playroom and finally had a place to put the table we had bought Tom and Jerry from Ikea. Carter loves the new addition to the room and thinks it is a great place to catch the morning sun.

I like going at a slow pace preparing for their arrival. We don’t know how long the wait will be, and if everything was already finished I believe the wait would be harder to go through. This nice slow pace gives me hope for the future, while keeping me here in the present.

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Random Stuff

My Aunt Kim sent me this cute video on being a mother and I just had to share:

extraordinarymothers

This story is inspiring.  The woman featured in the story was told she was too disabled to benefit from a service dog.  Well not only did she get her service dog, she started her very own organization matching service dogs with people who aren’t normally eligible for service dogs.

I started my running program this week and managed to get out of bed early enough to run three days, which was my goal.  🙂

Matt and I have also started our journey to 100 push-ups.  We have done two of the three recommended workouts and are feeling pretty good.  (We are doing the third tonight.)  Just don’t ask me to raise my arms above my head!

 

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Figs!

My little fig tree has been producing figs faster than I can eat them (Matt is still not sure about them).  So I decided to learn how to make jam.  I found this recipe and the batch size looked just right for me and Matt (he loves jam so I figured this would be the way to get him to eat the figs).  I decided to skip the sesame seeds it called for (I didn’t have any) and follow some of the reviewers suggestions of adding cinnamon.  I also cut the sugar to one cup but did add two tablespoons of honey.  I forgot to add the lemon zest, but I think that is okay.

 

Here are the figs when they just started to simmer:

Here they are about an hour into the process:

…and the finished product:

I did give it a try this afternoon and it was pretty good.  I think it might be better chilled, it was still warm when I ate it.  It wasn’t as sweet as I was expecting based on the reviews, which is good, because I don’t like my jam too sweet.  Overall it was a really easy recipe to make and didn’t take a lot of effort on my part!  Anyone want to share some of their jam recipes?

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Bread

I have kept to my word and started baking our bread.  No more store bought stuff in this house.  Monday I realized Matt was just about out of his sandwich bread and that I had to make bread.  This was the first time I have made bread without the help of a bread machine.  It was an interesting process to watch, plus I got to make a big mess that Matt later had to help clean up.  

 

Here is the bread in its beginning stage, the dough was super sticky at this stage.  It would have been great to have a pic of my hands covered in it, but I was home alone and I don’t think dough all over the camera would have been appreciated.

 

 

Here is a pic of Ms. Kitchenaid doing all the hard work.  Yeah, it had to be kneaded for 20 minutes, and I wasn’t about to do that by hand.

 

The dough rising.  Not very exciting.

Here is the finished product.  It isn’t the prettiest, but it will do.

 

The good news is it is edible and it tastes fine to me.  It’s not the best bread ever but it will do for making sandwiches and toast.  I will try a few more recipes before I settle on one as our sandwich bread recipe.  Here is the recipe I tried if you are interested.  

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Keeping Busy

Matt and I are finding new ways to keep ourselves busy during the waiting period. The Ethiopian courts close for two months starting August 6, so even if we got a referral right now our case couldn’t be finalized until October/November. Plus I am pretty sure that there are still a few couples ahead of us waiting for a sibling set. We are hopeful for the end of the year, but early 2009 is looking more realistic. So, we are just trying to stay busy and keep ourselves occupied. Continue reading “Keeping Busy”

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One Car

We have owned just one car for about a year and a half now.  We are lucky that we have the ability to do this, Matt’s office is close to home and we have great biking weather for about nine months of the year, we also live close to the grocery store, post office, and bank, plus I don’t have to work a full-time job outside the house.   Continue reading “One Car”

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Six Years…

ago today I married the most wonderful man.  He is so caring, thoughtful, and amazing.  I am thankful to God each and every day for bringing us together (even on the rough days).  We have grown up a lot together over the last six years and I truly love the man he is and the one he is becoming.  I believe he is becoming a more amazing man and husband every year and I cannot wait to see him become a father, because I believe he will be a super amazing father.  I cannot imagine a better man to be by my side during life’s struggles and celebrations.  He is my rock.  Have I said amazing enough yet?  He really is amazing and awesome and wonderful.

 

I love you Matthew P.

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weekend fun

I am sure stephanie will expand on some of these later, but this was the weekend:

  • Pulled neighbors weeds (foreclosed house, and we made the biggest pile of weeks ever)
  • Ran errands in gilbert
  • Came home to find DHL dropped of matt’s anniversary present
  • Played mario kart wii for hours on saturday
  • Pool party / BBQ at neighbors
  • More mario kart
  • skipped church, cleaned house
  • more mario kart. 
So as you can see. There was a lot of mario kart going on.
I’ll post my friend number so we can race those of you who have mario kart as well (Kendal? Kamal? you guys have it yet? Julie? I know you have it.). Also expect a full review of the game later. 
Edited to add:
Here is a pic of our giant pile of weeds (it looked more impressive in person):
Luckily the HOA had H&N Landscaping come and clean-up after us.  It only took three of us just over an hour to clean up the yard.
We also did some more de-cluttering on Sunday and made our plans as to what we want done around the house before Tom and Jerry arrive and prioritized what needs to be done before summer hits (you know so we can avoid heat stroke).  Plus we played a ton of Mario Cart, which is a ton of fun.

 

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its a dark day here at the adams house

So while driving in to Mesa today, Stephanie wanted to play the quiet game (I really dont know why). After about 8 minutes, it was over. 

 

Stephanie lost the quiet game

TO MATT!!!!!

Yes, its a sad day when anyone looses the quiet game to me. Steph claims she was concerned about a car pulling in front of us. Rules are rules.