Celebrating Our Anniversaries

WARNING: Picture overload!

Last night we decided to celebrate both our 11 month waiting anniversary and our 10 year wedding anniversary. Because there were two different celebrations we went out to eat at two different restaurants. We couldn't decide whether to go bowling, visit a museum... but our love for food is too strong to pass a nice dinner. (Remember this?)

To celebrate our 11 month waiting anniversary, I chose the restaurant where we had a nice appetizer. I LOVE cheese, love it!! Therefore, we went to the Melting Pot and had a traditional swiss cheese fondue with a nice glass of red wine.

To celebrate our wedding anniversary, Rob chose the restaurant where we ate dinner. It was our first time to Tre Trattoria. It is a beautiful contemporary, tuscan-inspired restaurant. Rob had the slow roasted pork belly and I had the goat cheese pizza with pistachios...delicious!!!!

Ten things we love about us:

1. We have a good laugh at least once a day.

2. We are each other's best friends, by choice.

3. After all of this time, we still kiss with our eyes closed.

4. We tell each other "I love you" multiple times a day.

5. We have fun together. We will make a Saturday night watching a corny lifetime movie into an adventure.

6. We eat lunch and dinner together, email and text throughout the day, and we still miss each other when we are apart.

7. We are madly in love.

8. We can read each other's minds and emotions.

9. We respect each other.

10. We love our son, truly love him.

Here are ten pictures of us throughout the first ten years:

Our first dance as husband and wife

Celebrating our six year anniversary

First visit to Las Vegas

Celebrating New Years

Silver mine tour

First time hosting Thanksgiving dinner in our new home

Guanajuato, MX

Visit to Lake Tahoe

Haunted house

Sea World

All of the challenges that we have had to conquer together have brought us closer to each other. I love the life that we live. I thank God everyday for letting me be your wife and I cannot imagine my existence without you. You truly are the love of my life and I am so in love with you, ALL of you. I adore you and can’t wait to have our son be a part of our little world.

Eleven Months and Ten Years

Months on the wait list:

Current longest waiting family has been waiting for (months):

25

I feel awful, awful, AWFUL that I have not posted anything about our 11 month waiting anniversary. I feel like a bad mom, but trust me, we have been talking nonstop about our son. This last month flew by. On Thursday, I had a project due and an exam for my final class. Also, my family from Mexico arrived to our house that night. Therefore, on our 11 month waiting anniversary (last Wednesday), both Rob and I worked and I spent the evening studying like crazy and Rob spent it cleaning like a maniac. We did not even have time to take a picture of the madness. Plus, I don’t think anyone would like to see Rob sweating trying to finish up and me pale, freaking out in front of the computer. We did however, have lunch together on that day but of course, I left my phone in the office.

On Friday, we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. Ten years!!!! Holy moly macaroni, when did this happen? Rob and I typed up a list of ten things we love about our relationship to post on the blog that Friday but I underestimated the ease of being a good host to 20 people. Good times :).

On Friday, we just hung out and played catch up with my family. Some of them had not visited us since our wedding day so it was neat to spend our anniversary with everyone 10 years later in our home. On Saturday, we all went to Schlitterbahn Water Park. I have not laughed/giggled so much in a very long time. Sunday and Monday were spent at the mall and they all left Tuesday morning :(. Then at 1 am today, our niece was born!

As everyone can see, this last week has been very exciting. We are planning to celebrate both our 11 month waiting anniversary and our 10 year wedding anniversary this Friday coming up. I will post pictures of the celebrations with our list then to keep this post relatively short. Meanwhile, here are some pictures of the fun past few days.

My beautiful aunts and cousins

My silly family (I miss them)

Eating pizza at the water park

Photobomb (my nephew)

Everyone in the water is part of my family

Eating breakfast on Sunday

Our cute niece, Annalise


Happy eleven months waiting!!!!

Ten Months

Months on the wait list:

Current longest waiting family has been waiting for (months):

24

To help our family and friends better understand the process, I will talk about how our agency handles referrals. The wait list consists of all the families in chronologic order by the date each was placed on the list. Every family submits a child preference profile form stating their gender and age range preference. For example, a family could be requesting a girl between 2-3 years old or like us, a boy 0-6 months old. Once the agency has a referral ready, they basically go down the list (by date) and find the perfect match. That family then receives the call we are all dreaming of. This means that when we get closer, if there are many little girls ready for homes, we will probably get skipped. If there are many boys and the families ahead of us are requesting girls, they get skipped. Got it? Get it? Good.

As of May 2012, the current longest waiting family has waited 24 months for a referral. There are approximately 87 families ahead of us, 15 of which are waiting specifically for siblings.

As everyone can see, we still have quite a while to go. Only God knows when we are next. So for now, we celebrate.

On our 10 month waiting anniversary, we went to work and decided to have Mexican food for dinner. We had chicken and beef fajitas with rice, beans, guacamole, and pico de gallo.

Thank you Mr. Waiter for including your index finger in our picture.

We decided to take a slightly better picture than the one above :). 

Since it is currently 98 degrees Fahrenheit, we found it appropriate and necessary to have frozen yogurt for dessert. We went to Orange Leaf and ate our yogurt outside to watch the sunset.

We could not decide on one flavor and ended up mixing them up.

Can you guess which one is Rob's?

Happy ten months waiting!!!

We love you so much baby boy!

Nine Months

Months on the waitlist:

Current Average wait time:

21

When we were placed on the wait list in August, I knew immediately that if we did not receive our referral by April, our 9 month waiting anniversary would fall on Mother's Day weekend...Really?..Really?! My plan was to sit in front of my computer with a glass of wine and write a long post as the tears rolled down my face on the differences between a pregnancy and adoption. BUT for one, I do not have children and therefore, do not get the privilege of comparing one to the other. Two, God would not allow such a pity party in my house ;). 

My commencement ceremony was on the day before our waiting anniversary. My family and I celebrated with a nice dinner. The day of our waiting anniversary, we headed out to a lake house. We spent all weekend celebrating mother's day and my graduation. We ate, laughed, danced, ate, slept, did some fishing, and ate some more. The neat part of the whole weekend was that we were able to spend it with both of our families. I'm talking sisters, nephews, nieces, parents, and grandparents. All 22 of us had a pretty good time. 

It was raining so hard on Thursday, I think this is the only picture we took

My cake with one of my nephew's finger (busted)

9 months closer!

My dad with his grandchildren

Rob fishing...

Rob's fish

Me trying to fish

With Rob's family (our 3 nephews, 2 nieces, and brother in law are missing :( )

Has anyone seen my grandparents?

Me with a cowboy

Mom and sisters

Rob and I with our mothers

Our beautiful mothers

Happy mother's day and happy nine months waiting!!!

Eight Months

Months on the waitlist:

Current average wait time:

20

On our eight month waiting anniversary we went to work plus I had my evening class. Don't be jealous that we live such an adventurous life. Rob worked late and I didn't get out of class until 8:30. We both pulled into our garage at the same time and gave each other an "I am so tired" look. We laid on our new couch but quickly decided, we HAD to do something to celebrate. We ended up going to the nearest restaurant that is open past 9 pm. At Cheddar's we had a good ol' chicken sandwich with fries. We cheered our water glasses to our son and talked about our day :). 

Doesn't Rob look like a fortune teller in this picture?

Happy eight months waiting!!!

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

I love reading other people's blogs. I love to read about what other families are feeling (both good and bad), what they are thinking, seeing pictures; some with their Ethiopian babies and some with their biological babies. Lately, I keep reading of more and more families switching programs, adopting domestically, or even switching agencies. I know everyone is praying for God to lead the way. I know He is changing hearts and finding children good homes in the end. I think that is wonderful.  I think those that are taking different paths are really listening to their prayers being answered and letting Him lead them to their child. Basically, there is no right or wrong decision here, just good people that care for the orphans letting God take over.

It makes me wonder though, am I being stubborn? Am I being dumb for sticking with a program where clearly, the wait keeps increasing nonstop? I feel like we are willingly running into a storm while everyone else is taking cover. But, the minute I start to think of other programs/agencies, I feel stress and anxiety. We still feel at peace with Ethiopia. We agree and understand why the wait is so long. Most importantly, we still feel excitement. We wonder if 2013 will be OUR year and if not, 2014 is a pretty good number. We constantly ask ourselves why God is giving us so much more time to prepare. Well, for one, I need to finish my master's degree (which I will in August) so... boom! there goes our first year on the list. That means I have the second year to find a new job and possibly move to another city... boom! there goes another year on the list. And hello! we need to find a good school, pediatrician, a good park to play at, the whole nine yards in the new town so...boom! there goes another 6 months. Still with me? So for those wondering if switching programs is in our hearts right now, the answer is no. We keep falling more in love with Ethiopia as we learn more about it. We keep dreaming about visiting Ethiopia. Most importantly, we keep praying for an Ethiopian little boy.

On Monday night, we caught ourselves watching the Insanity infomercial as we were eating a piece of chocolate cake :(. Well, they sold it to us and we received the package today so...boom! there goes the next 60 days.

Seven Months

Months on the waitlist:

Current average wait time:

20

On our seventh month waiting anniversary, we visited a winery in Grapevine, TX. My sister and her husband were in town to get a little breather from their two boys. Ah the irony of life, here she was taking a little vacation and here we were celebrating another month that brings us closer to our son :). (I am sure we will be taking those quick weekend getaways in a few years.) After the beautiful tour, delicious wine tasting, and relaxing time sitting outside listening to live music, we ended up at the smallest town I have ever been to in my life. Luckenbach, TX had a population of 3 in 2006. So yes, the town was tiny.

We bought our little boy a camouflage t-shirt with the name of the tiny town on it.

Happy seven months waiting!!!