Post 2: It's About Me

I decided to do one of those quiz things just to add some fun facts about myself on here, since it is my blog and all...

WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? My middle name is also the middle name of both of my grandmothers

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Wednesday night I had a full out cry but ended up getting a lot out of it.

 WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Roasted Turkey or Honey Ham. Also, I hate bologna with a passion.

DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Yes, I have 3. (Caleb is almost 6, Ty is almost 4 and Brett is about 19 months)

IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Yes and no. I come with a lot of baggage that can be frustrating, but I'm an extremely loyal friend and I love to listen.

DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? I tend to be an extremely sarcastic person. Witty sarcasm is my favourite kind of humour.

DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? I don't. They came out right before I turned 10 and should have been out YEARS before that.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? I don't eat a lot of cereal, but I love things like Quaker Harvest Crunch and Honey Bunches of Oats.

DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Only if I need to in order to get them off of my foot.

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Physically, no. Emotionally this is a frustrating thing for me because I've had to do things that make people think that I'm strong (and I hate people telling me that I am), but I personally don't feel that I am.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? I love Haggen Daaz Cookie Dough Dynamo, the PC brand of Cotton Candy and Marble Slab's Cheesecake.

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? I notice shoes a lot, actually. And hair.

WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? Physically, my underdeveloped chin (which is a VERY sore spot with me after years and years of teasing). As a whole, I'd have to say my bipolar.

WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My father-in-law, who passed away in March and was one of the most amazing people I've ever met.

WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Eggs

WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Dora the Explorer that Ty is watching.

IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Pink

FAVORITE SMELLS? Lilacs, vanilla and cinnamon.

FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Hockey, Soccer and Curling

HAIR COLOR? My hair is, medium brown? I think...

EYE COLOR? Fun cause I recently learned a term for this. It's Glasz. My eye color changes all the time between blue, green, grey and even a bit of yellow on occasion. Today they are a bluish grey.

DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No, but I am trying to wear my glasses more.

FAVORITE FOOD? I like a good lasagna or chicken parmesan. 

LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? The Hunger Games

FAVORITE SEASON? I think it's a tie between spring and fall.

FAVORITE DESSERT? Either cheesecake or sticky toffee pudding.

COMPUTER OR TELEVISION? I use my phone or computer for most things, including Netflix.

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? I just finished The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer. Today I'm starting Fishers of Men by Gerald N Lund.

 FAVORITE SOUND? Running water (river, rain...) or just a good song

WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Nova Scotia for distance, Utah for out of country.

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I'm really good at planning things out in detail. Execution is another story.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Nova Scotia, Canada

WHERE ARE YOU LIVING NOW? Alberta, Canada
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK? So everyone's expecting a Harry Potter book, right? I'd have to say, though that Behold The Man by Gerald N Lund is my favorite.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE? Again, it's not HP. My favorite movie is Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (the extended version).

A New Calling (Again)

Today was probably the most emotional day I've ever seen at church. Our entire Young Women leadership was redone and many of our old leadership will be going on to callings in other auxiliaries. I am very happy, humbled and grateful to have been called as the 2nd counselor in the new YW presidency. I will be the only leader going to all of camp. Our outgoing and incoming presidents are switching off as the other leader. I'm so excited to be going to camp and to get to know the girls better. I've only ever been to 1 night of YW camp, when I was visiting with friends in Utah, so I was overjoyed when I found out that I get to go to camp this year. (As a fun note just for 1 reader in particular, this is my 5th calling I've held in the past 15 months.)

As her parting act, our outgoing president got to be there as I received my Young Womanhood Recognition and she put my medallion on my neck for me. I am sad to see these incredible woman move on to new adventures that I don't get to share with them, but am looking forward to working with the new leaders (and rearranged leaders).

Probably the most emotional part of my day was when John told me that he was being switched from Financial Clerk to Membership Clerk. I hadn't realized just how emotionally hard his calling really had been for me until he told me that. I just broke down crying in tears of joy and relief. It's funny how I'm moving to a higher demand calling and am just over the moon about it and feel no stress from it whatsoever, but felt that much stress with John's higher demand calling. I think it's because of how much passion I have for the Young Women program and how much impact it can have on these wonderful girls.

Life is good. Life is so very good.

The Real Me, 2011 and Goals For 2012

Last night we went out to friends/family's house to ring in the new year after a nice supper at home. It was a great day all around and we really enjoyed getting out of the house without kids. On the way home John made a comment that really stuck with me. He said that other than briefly during our engagement and maybe the first month of our marriage, these past couple of months have been the first time he's really seen the real me. It made sense. As soon as I got pregnant with Caleb I got sick and since then we've been shuffling between sick and in severe pain during pregnancy, postpartum depression and bipolar. It wasn't an easy thing to go through, so I'm sure it wasn't easy for John to live with, but he stuck by my side through it all. So many people have told me how much of a difference my losing weight has made for me. I'm really enjoying how much better I feel.

I have mixed feelings about 2011. It didn't get off to the best start. I was having a very tough time with my pregnancy and bipolar and ended up having Brettley 7 weeks early. I had to leave a hospital without a baby for a second time and wasn't allowed to be left without another adult for over a week after that because it was so hard on me. My heart was torn for weeks between home and the NICU.

Most of the year was just kind of there. I'm pretty indifferent to a lot of it. However, the past few months have been wonderful. Losing weight and having that be such a huge load off of my disorder has been amazing. Finding out that there's still a baby girl waiting to come to us in a few years meant more to me than I'll ever be able to express.

So there have been some really hard things that I went through in 2011, but some really wonderful things have happened as well. I guess the main thing is that I'm looking forward to getting even healthier in 2012 and trying to become an even better person. I'm also looking forward to my only sibling getting married.

I accomplished 6 of my 11 goals for 2011 that I set early in the year, which is technically a pass. I also came close to accomplishing another. So here are my 12 goals for 2012:

1) Reach my goal weight and maintain it.

2) Take the kids to the park at least once every other week during the summer.

3) Go to Wainmo for a visit (I haven't been there in over 18 months).

4) Teach Brettley to sit on his own.

5) Go to the temple every month.

6) Hold FHE every week.

7) Buy all of Caleb's school supplies before the end of July.

8) Read the New Testament and the Book of Mormon all the way through.

9) Make it through the year without having a relapse.

10) Take more care with my appearance.

11) Start saving to go to Utah again.

12) Put more effort into exercising.

Day 20 & The Weekend

Day 20 - A Song That You Listen To When You're Angry
Falling Away From Me by Korn AND Counterfeit by Limp Bizkit

I had the links set up for these and then decided against it. It's angry heavy 90s music and the Korn video is speaking out about a difficult issue (child abuse), so I figured that I'm probably one the very few on here who would like either of these songs anyway.

***

We had a really good weekend. I went out with some friends for a movie night on Friday. Finally watched Tangled and it was really cute. On Saturday John and I went out for a date while one of the young women from our ward babysat the boys. She's the only person who is neither family nor an adult that I'd trust to babysit Brettley. John and I saw Pirates 4 in 3D. The 3D was a lot better than The Last Airbender, but we have agreed that we haven't really liked any Pirates movies other than the first one. This one was still better than the 2nd and 3rd, though, but Jack Sparrow wasn't as out to lunch in this one, which we sorely missed. It was SO nice to have a date night out of the house, though.

Yesterday we substituted in Sunbeams, which was interesting. There were 3 kids in there and they all had very fun and energetic personalities. John got cards and pictures and a Star Wars drawing book for Father's Day. I made garlic bread and homemade lasagna for supper, which we invited my dad over for. We had coconut creme pie and ice cream for dessert. It was all really good. We gave my dad a card and a gift bag of snacks he likes. I really enjoyed visiting with my dad after supper. Our relationship has changed a lot and I'm very happy about that.

Some fun news is that I plan on going on a trip down to Kalispell with a friend of mine in November. We're planning on going for a week, for Black Friday (eek). I would love to go back to Utah again, but I'm not sure when we'll get there. John couldn't do the drive again (we had to resort to energy drinks last year), so we need to save up the money to fly down and I don't think flying 5 people down to SLC is going to be the cheapest thing we've ever done. Plus, we're planning to replace our van next year. Anyway, back to the Kalispell thing, I'm very excited about it. It will be so much fun to do a trip with a friend, I've never done anything like this before (not for more than a night or two).

Day 13

GOALS

-Exaltation
-To raise my boys to have strong testimonies, to have them serve missions, to know the value of hard work and perseverance
-To own our own house someday
-To go back to Utah for another visit
-To be a better housekeeper (I'm really working hard on this one at the moment, actually)
-To finish the Book of Mormon before Christmas (Doing great with this one)
-To weight 150 lbs or less by the end of 2011
-To serve in Young Women (I only have so much control over this one, though)
-To see at least 1 more girl earn her Faith in God award before I get released from my calling (Whenever that may be, I'm hoping it's at least a year away)
-To take a trip somewhere in the next 5 years with just John and I, no kids, that lasts for about a week (or more, if possible)
-To become better about saying my prayers in the morning and at night
-To finish Project 52 with a perfect record (We're good so far)
-To go to the temple more often
-To read to my boys more
-To make it through all 3 meetings in Church as much as possible over the rest of the pregnancy (This is really hard to do because of my hip/back pain, but I really want to try my hardest to stick it through)

So there you have some of my goals. Enjoy your Sabbath day:)

Day 8

A PLACE YOU'VE TRAVELLED TO

The first place that we've been to as a married couple I actually don't have any pictures of on the computer and it was only for one night, but we stayed in Jasper for a night about 2 weeks after our wedding. This was our honeymoon and is one of the few things I would do differently if I could go back in time. I would definately have stayed there longer and maybe gone somewhere a little bit further from home (it was only a few hours from Grande Prairie, which is where we were living at the time).

Our other trip was to Utah this past summer (like 2 days after we found out we were expecting). I'd been trying to make the trip for 5 years at this point, so I was overjoyed that I finally got to make it. It was fun and I loved getting to see friends and to visit Temple Square. I also was on the birth parent panel at the FSA National Conference which was a good experience. I definately want to go back to Utah again in a couple of years, but maybe not with the kids next time. That part of the trip ended up being pretty stressful at night when we were staying in hotels. (Our van giving up the ghost just outside of Great Falls, MT on John's birthday may not have been the best experience ever either.)

I Want Your Thoughts

Just because I'm curious as to what other people like, I want to know. What things did you most appreciate having during your pregnancy and/or your baby's first year? Also, what haven't you had during pregnancy and/or baby's first year that you wish you did? Please share.

During pregnancy I appreciate...Hmm...Diclectin, ha ha. Okay, I appreciate having lots of maternity t-shirts and nice fitting maternity jeans. I don't have a housekeeper during pregnancy or friends that come over and visit, and I would really love to have both of those (although I'm living without the housekeeper).

During the first year I appreciate a side to side baby swing. I wish I had a Bumbo (I still wish I'd bought one of the ones I saw in Utah for $30) and a bassinette of my own for in the living room for the first couple of months. I borrowed my SIL's bassinnette for both of the boys and it just didn't feel right because it wasn't mine. I know it sounds weird, but I'm a weird kind of gal.

Braver, Stronger, Smarter

I have a necklace that says Braver Stronger Smarter on it. I got it from my first ever Young Women camp this summer (the whole day and a half that I was there for). That was the theme for the camp this year, and it has really stuck with me. It's from Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin said it. He said "You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." I love it. I'm thinking about having it put in vinyl on the baby's wall. Or maybe for the boys. I'm not sure yet. But I love it.

PS
Caleb was practicing his songs for the primary presentation and said "I know who I am, I know dog's plan". I laughed so hard.

Rest of the Vacation

Young Women's camp was lots of fun, even though my arms and face got a bit crispy. It rained a lot that night, but I find rain relaxing and I love it, so it was all good.

On Thursday morning, we were very sad to leave Nate, Heidi and Addie's place. Caleb was especially sad, I think he really enjoyed having Addie to play with. We met up with my friend, Erin, who I'd never actually met in person before. We went to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy, UT. Caleb really enjoyed it. I think his favourite things were the jelleyfish, even though they had penguins. Ty seemed to really like the penguins, though. We bought them each a stuffed animal from there. Caleb wanted a shark, which we named Bruce, and Ty fell in love with a penguin, which John named Pengu. Then we went for lunch in Bountiful and I got to see the beautiful temple there. We also played at Erin's house for a bit.

Oh, and I bought the best diaper pail EVER that day. It's called a Diaper Champ. My add-ons are disabled and we can't figure out how to enable them again, or I would have added the link directly, but here is the address: http://www.babytrend.com/diaper_champ/DC50500.html

I went to a few classes on the first day of the FSA conference, and they were really good. We also went to the awards banquet (which had super yummy food including brie and herb stuffed filet mignon) and I went the the birth families mingle, which was cool because I got to meet other birth parents. I'm kind of sheltered up here in Edmonton without a group up here. I also got to meet Jill from The Happiest Sad and let her know that I read and enjoy her blog. So if you're reading this, "Hi Jill!" The next day I just showed up for the panel, since I was so nervous about it. I told a VERY brief overview of my story and then we answered some questions. Once it got started, I lost my nerves and the only hard part for me was suppressing a coughing fit while I was so close to microphones. We left right after the panel was done, because that was when my tears really hit me. I'm sure pregnancy hormones weren't helping very much, either.

That night we drove up to Pocatello and stayed in the grossest Ramada ever. We definately would have gone somewhere else if the hotel room hadn't been prepaid. It was not fun. We were up again early and went and met John's dad in Great Falls, returned the rental van and headed the rest of the way up to Magrath. Yesterday, we made the rest of the trip back home (in John's parents' van and without Caleb as he's staying down there for the week).

Anyways, I'd better publish this before my computer dies on me again. Hope you have a wonderful week:)

My Van Makes Me Scream In Frustration

Wow, what an eventful trip down here. Our van started grinding and stalling out while we were idling in line at the border. We spent several hours in Great Falls, Montana until a guy hooked it up to his scanner and couldn't find anything. It wasn't making the noise any more by that point, so he said that it would probably take all day to figure out what the problem was. So we figured we'd head further south and if the van started acting up again that we'd stop in at the next place and have it looked at. About 10 minutes out of Great Falls, the van stopped working. We couldn't drive at all. So we spent about 45 minutes to an hour waiting on the side of the road for a tow truck. He brought us back in and left our van at a Ford shop. A guy from the shop gave us a ride out to the airport where we got a rental vehicle. John's dad is going to deal with our van for us and then meet us in Great Falls on our way back home to give us a ride back after we return the rental. It's really nice, though. It's a 2010 Dodge Caravan with Stow N Go. We love it. So anyway, because of the van issue, we got into West Jordan a day later than we'd planned to.

We've been to a few family BBQs, church, Temple Square and lit some fireworks. It's been a lot of fun, even though it's a LOT hotter down here than it is back at home. Tomorrow I'm going to Young Women's camp with Heidi. I'm really excited, since this will be the first time I've ever gone to one. I joined the church as an adult and I haven't had a chance yet to serve in Young Womens, so I'm really looking forward to the camp.

Pregnancy wise we are doing good so far. I messed up on my calculations. We're due on March 30th, not the 28th. Heidi is about 6 weeks ahead of me, so she's nearing the end of morning sickness and I'm just beginning.

Anyway, we're having lots of fun, despite a few or several raging hissy fits from Caleb. I will be sad to leave (especially sad to leave milk that only costs $2 per gallon), but I'll definately be glad to leave the heat and dry air behind. It's a lot more beautiful here than I thought it would be, but home is home and I miss Canada (at least a bit).

Hope you're all doing well. Take care!

John's Early Present

2 more sleeps until Utah and only 1 more sleep until we head down to Magrath for our super quick stop over.

I can't believe that it's finally here, I am so excited.

So while I'm gone, I'll leave you to ponder this. I gave John an early birthday present this morning (his birthday is on Friday and he'll spend it driving to Utah). I gave him 2 pink lines...

So Close

I can't believe that a week from today I'll be making sure all of our last minute stuff is packed and ready to go. John will work half of the day, and then we'll head down to Magrath for our super quick stopover.

John ended up home for most of the day on Monday due to a whack of eggs cracked all over my kitchen floor and a mess covering pretty much the entire main floor. I didn't handle the stress of that very well. On Tuesday we went and saw The Last Airbender. It was actually really good, in my opinion, but I've never really watched the cartoon, so I don't have griping rights with it like I do with Harry Potter.

Last night was the My Body is a Temple night at Activity Days. I found it was easier than I thought it would be, but still kind of hard because I didn't want to feel like I was undermining anyone's parental authority. Because there are areas there that aren't cut in stone (like temporarily dying your hair pink for cancer awareness or caffeine in pop). It was interesting, but the girls had a lot to say about it and were really involved and into it, so that made me really happy.

Well, Mom & Dad B come tomorrow to exchange vans with us and bring Lys, our niece, up. She has stayed with us a couple of times before. She is such a huge help and I love having her here, so I asked her if she'd like to come up again. She'll stay with us until we drive down to Magrath. We're exchanging vans just so our's can get checked out before we take it down to Utah. I'm really looking forward to having Mom & Dad as well as Lys here.

That's about it for now. Just lots of ends to tie up in the next week. 8 more sleeps until Utah, YAHOO!!!

Movies and Caleb

2 weeks! 14 more sleeps! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am.

We saw Eclipse on Tuesday. It was definately the best one yet, and the closest I have seen a movie stick to a book in a very long time (Like maybe Chamber of Secrets long). Next Tuesday I think we're going to go and see The Last Airbender, because John really wants to see it and it looks like it'll have some good special effects, so I'm game. Then we probably won't be seeing anything until we go see Harry Potter in IMAX 3D. *Here's me getting super excited again*

Caleb has certainly been trying my patience this week. Yesterday he decided to crack 4 eggs into a pot, put said pot on the stove, turn on the burner and the oven PLUS put some bread into the toaster. Luckily I caught that one before the eggs even started cooking. Then last night he woke up at 4am, got Ty out of his room and they proceeding to make a HUGE mess in Ty's room, plus dump about 4L worth of dry macaroni all over the kitchen floor. So Caleb gets to spend pretty much all of today cleaning. And I have to make cabbage rolls. It was my brother-in-law's birthday yesterday and he doesn't have family that makes him Ukrainian food like I do, so I occasionally make him up a batch of cabbage rolls. Hopefully this head of cabbage won't be as tough as the last one I used.

Anyways, hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

TS3, Tonsils and Narnia

Caleb loved Toy Story 3 on the BIIIIIIIIG TV, ha ha. I also got to see the trailer for the new Chronicles of Narnia movie (Voyage of the Dawn Treader). It looks so good, I'm really looking forward to seeing it. Of course the movie I'm looking forward to the most comes out in November, the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. YAHOO!!!

So we got good news from Caleb's appointment with my doctor in Wainwright. The tonsils are coming out. I originally was going to have it done in Wainwright, but John and I talked about it over the weekend and I called this morning and requested to have someone here in E-town do it instead. That way Caleb will be able to go right home to his own house and his own bed. So now it will just be waiting to hear about when the surgery will be.

Not too much else is new here, just getting excited about going to Utah in only 25 days. And also realizing that I must have loaned my Chronicles of Narnia to someone and never got the book back. I'm pretty upset about it, as it was the first birthday present that John ever bought me, so it means a lot. Guess I'll have to get them out from the library until I can afford a new set.

Well, that's all for now. Have a great week, everyone:)

No More Eggs!

My fingers are killing me. That might have something to do with the 8 dozen hardboiled eggs that I peeled by myself yesterday. Then I had to make those eggs into egg salad and get said egg salad into almost 100 buns, individually wrapped after assembled (John cut the buns and wrapped them up for me). If the men at Activity Days tonight don't appreciate the effort that went into them, I may cry:P

John got found out today that he's getting a raise, PLUS we found out yesterday that I'm able to get my supplement at a discounted price. We are so blessed by our Heavenly Father. It has really strengthened my testimony of tithing. We knew money was going to be super tight now that we'd be paying for my vitamins on our own plus our rent increasing at the end of August, but as always, Heavenly Father has saved the day for us by giving us blessings that we didn't think we'd be able to get. I love having a Heavenly Father who knows me and loves me.

44 Days Until Utah!!!

The Rest of the Secrets

I guess I can spill the other secrets now. I've just started being the secretary for the Canadian Regional Birth Parent Training Committee. I haven't really done anything yet, but I'm excited about it. It's through LDS Family Services, so I've gotten to talk to my case worker from L's adoption a few times in this last week. It should be really good though, and I'm so excited to be able to give back to the world of adoption. I know I've been talking about it a lot lately, and I'm sorry if it's boring the snot out of people, but it's something I'm really passionate about.

And I just found out yesterday that I'll be on the major birth parent panel during the FSA National Conference in Utah at the end of July. This means I'll be telling my adoption story and answering questions about adoption in front of hundreds of people. I will be honest, I feel like I'm going to need to bring a puke bucket with me. But I'm so honoured to do this. When I wrote the story out on here a couple of months ago, I bawled my eyes out while doing so. It was the first time I'd ever told the WHOLE story all at once. It was really hard. But so much good has come out of me writing that story. A from FSA read about it and things just kind of snowballed from there. I know now that I was prompted to write about it so that I could start serving in the adoption community the way that I'm going to be from now on.

I'm starting to get nervous about how I will handle the stress of these new responsibilities along with the stress of my calling in Activity Days. I was pretty stressed when it was just Activity Days. But I feel so strongly that I'm supposed to do this, so I have faith that I'll be given the strength that I need to serve.

50 Days Until Utah! YAHOO!!!

End of May Already

I just spent a fair amount of time going back and deleting the majority of the comments left on my blog. It's nothing personal, it's just that I'm working towards having my blog made into a book for us to keep, so I'm trying to condense stuff. I did keep some of the comments that were more important to me, though.

I've been busy blogging this week, but none of you would know that, obviously. I've created two private blogs. One for just John and I, and one for just me. I find that it's a LOT easier for me to keep up with stuff on the computer than it is for me to keep up with a paper journal. In the private blogs I can be as open and honest as I want, which is good.

On Friday we had the Diaz family over for supper. It was fun. Then later that night I went to Jen's place and made some cards. It was SO nice to do that again. I have to admit, I'm still a bit gunshy when it comes to friends. It seems like every time I make a good friend, they go inactive or they move out of the ward (except for Amber). But I'm working on getting over that, and Jen is great.

I spent Saturday and Sunday with a super bad headache. It's doing a lot better today, though, so that's really nice.

Anyways, going through my past posts this morning, I realized I still haven't talked about my big adventure. I guess I'm in there enough now, that I can start talking about it. I'm getting into volunteering and helping with FSA. I've been answering questions for a website that's being created, I'm helping with a committee for the conference and there's some other stuff going on that I can't talk about yet, but it's been great. I love adoption!

On the note of adoption, I had to write the Coles Notes version of my adoption story yesterday. I sent it off, and was asked if it would be possible to take out the part where I said that the biggest deciding factor was the sealing covenant. It ended up being reworded, but not taken out. The reason is this, without the sealing covenant, there would have been no adoption story. L wouldn't exist, cause she wouldn't be called L, she would have been Collette (family name). C&D wouldn't have their precious girl, because I would have stuck to my selfishness and attempted to raise her myself. Just another reason why I'm so grateful for the sealing covenant, because it helped to strengthen 2 families instead of the weak one that would have been.

Today marks 53 days until we will arrive in Utah. I have the countdown on my calendar on the desk and I check it every day.

So basically, things are going good here. I'm in a far better place about the baby girl situation. I've been doing so much better with my personal prayers and scriptures lately, and I'm certain that's the reason why. I just love the gospel:)

A Day Late Posting

I didn't post yesterday because I couldn't trust myself to not go completely bonkers. It was looking like we weren't going to be able to go to Utah, and I took it REALLY hard. However, we are still and officially making the trek. I registered John and I for the FSA Conference last night and booked our hotel room in Layton for the conference. I can't believe that Utah is only 59 days away. Less than 2 months. YAHOO!!! The last few months have been great. I have such a renewed passion for adoption. It is an amazing and inspired blessing and anyone who thinks otherwise needs reeducation.

Not a lot of news to report here. I went to 2 baby showers last week, both babies were girls. I came home from the first one and cried. I almost didn't go to the second one because I didn't think I'd be able to handle it. I'm glad that I decided to go, though. It was lots of fun and I got to hold the baby for a while. It was actually a calming thing instead of something that made me feel worse.

Friday night I went to a scrapbooking thing at the church. We made a set of Easter pages. It was fun and it got me back into cardmaking and scrapbooking, so John is really glad that I went. He was disappointed that I haven't been doing cards. I guess it fell apart when I got sick last year. So during the weekend we took down the crib and set up the hobby room.

Not too much else is really new here. Ty still thinks nursery is the worst thing ever invented. Caleb still loves primary and his teacher. He is actually learning some of the songs now, so that makes me happy. Well, I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Legal To Travel

I totally shouldn't have been worried about Sunday. It was a great day:) It started with Saturday morning. We had decided the night before to go to Wainwright. So I rushed around on Saturday morning and packed while John took the boys to go get breakfast for the road from McDonald's. Cause he's awesome and knows how much I love Sausage and Egg McMuffins. We got on the road and travelled the 2 hours to Wainwright. I know sometimes I complain about being far from family, but I'm really blessed to live as close as I do to my mum where I can make a spur of the moment trip down there for the weekend. We bought Mum some flowers and a card and gave them to her. I think they made her really happy:)

That evening we went out for dinner, courtesy of a friend of our's. He gave us the money to go out on a date. Super nice of him! We went to Boston Pizza. John had Spicy Italian Penne and I had Chicken Parmesan with rice. We ordered our Chocolate Explosions to go cause there was no way that I could eat anymore at that point. We dropped out desserts off at Mum and Bob's and took a drive out to the tressel. It was really nice and peaceful out there. We sat and talked for a while. We even got to see a train cross the tressel shortly after we got there. It was a really nice date.

Sunday we had a wonderful breakfast of French toast, pancakes, dream whip, fruit salad, sausages and bacon. Mmm, bacon:) We didn't go to church because I'd woken up with a headache and Ty had the nastiest cough ever so we didn't want to spread his cold around the branch. John gave me a card and so did the boys. I spent time out in the yard with my mum talking to her while she worked in the garden. Caleb helped Grandpa Bob dig a hole. Then later on Caleb gave me a homemade coaster and a painted block with our family picture on it that my mum helped him to make. It was great:) We had ribs, corn on the cob and Mum's potato salad for supper. (For the record, my mum makes the best potato salad ever) We dug up some plants for me and came back home. It was a really nice day and I really enjoyed myself.

This morning our passports came, which made me super excited. The Utah trip keeps feeling more and more real by the day. I am so grateful that I'm going to be able to go down and visit with friends and to participate in the FSA conference. I am truly being blessed so much right now with this oppourtunity.

Oh, also, I no longer assist a class in the Primary, I'm back to just Activity Days. It was causing me too much stress, so I had to call that one quits. It's working out good for me, though, especially since Ty just started nursery the other week and he positively loathes it. Not too sure what to do about that since Caleb never had an issue with nursery at all.

So yeah, things are going good here. I've been feeling under the weather for the last week, but the boys are both sick, so I probably just have a bit of what they have. Caleb had tonsilitis for the 3rd time in 3 months, so I scheaduled a consult with my doctor in Wainwright for the end of June. Well, that's about all for now. Hope you're doing great:)

Utah Makes Me Smile

I still can't talk about the big adventure, but I'm still really excited about it and hopefully I'll have some news to share next week.

Something great happened yesterday. I actually managed to fast. I haven't done so for about a year now due to medication issues, but I figured that I would give it a try and see how it goes. I did fine all through the fast, but realized I might want to break my fast with a piece of toast about 30 minutes before I eat anything else. Too much at once doesn't make my tummy feel its best.

For Activity Days last week we made cards and crafts for our Mother's Day meeting next time. I ended up super frazzled because the other leader was helping one of our girls outside of the room for quite a long time and so I was trying to man two crafts (one of which was fairly messy and needed close supervision) by myself. However, I survived and the girls sounded like they had lots of fun, so it's all good.

Here is some exciting news that I CAN share. I'm going to be helping with the birthmothers committee for the FSA conference in July. FSA is Families Supporting Adoption. They are an organization sponsored by LDS Family Services which advocates a positive view of adoption and provides support to birth parents, adoptive families and all friends of adoption. The conference is going to be in Layton, UT and is the big push we had to finally make the trip down there. FSA has also put me in contact with a new friend who I think is just awesome:)

We are super excited about our trip to Utah. We got our passport applications in on Friday. I was so worried that something was going to be wrong with our photos or something, but the lady said that they were great and better than most photos. YAY! We are planning on heading down from Magrath to SLC on the 23rd and will head back to Canada on the 1st. We are both excited for it and John can always put a smile on my face now just by saying "Utah".

On Saturday, John and I went on a date for lunch. We were going to get sandwiches from Timmie's, but they were packed, so we ended up going to Red Robin instead. It's so nice to have some time to ourselves once in a while and I'm so grateful that my dad is willing to watch the boys for us when we need that time. The boys really enjoy their time with Grandpa Mattson, so it all works out.

That's about all for now, I guess. Hope you have a great week!