Halloween Extravaganza

The first thing I thought of when we bought our house last February was how excited I was to host a Halloween party. So, a couple months ago, Sharon, Lauren and I began planning the festivities. The result was far more excellent than I could've hoped for. Delicious food, wicked awesome costumes, a kickin dance party complete with strobe and laser lights, fog machine and most importantly, good friends. For someone like me who has a tendency to get homesick for my fam on a regular basis, I feel very lucky to have met such fantastic people here in Renton. Props to you May Creek ward. You rock.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing Tra La La.

I wish there was something exciting to report but unfortunately there is absolutely nothing. Unless you think filling out questionnaires that are 14 pages long, printing them, scanning them all back in to the computer and then emailing them is interesting. Cause that's my life these days. Oh there's also ordering a bazillion copies of my marriage certificate. That's been fun. Basically, until this mundane paperwork is finished nothing terribly exciting is going to happen. Connor keeps telling me in order to have a good blog I need to post something twice a week. And I keep telling him that he doesn't know what he's talking about because that would be one seriously boring blog. So, it's my hope that we can cruise through all the boring crap and get to the good stuff before everyone gives up on reading this thing.

On a more exciting note, but not at all adoption related, we road tripped it down to Corvallis, Oregon this last weekend to see BYU take on Oregon St. We went with some friends of ours from church. Also die hard cougar fans. It was a blast. Connor got to meet football legend LaVell Edwards which was pretty amazing. Not to mention also getting to meet half the football team. We even made it on tv. Not a bad way to spend a weekend.

Paperwork, Fingerprints and Crab!

So, thanks to some friends from church, I'm sitting in a beautiful house/cabin/mansion in the San Juan islands taking in a spectacular view. I thought I'd take this moment to share some photos and update y'all on our progress with our adoption.

At the beginning of this week we met with our social worker who will be working on our home study. He came to our home and discussed with us what we'll be expected to do during this process. I'd love to fill you in on what that is but it's sort of turned to mush in my brain. But I'll do my best. So, in order to adopt, whether it's domestic or international, you have to complete what's called a home study. A home study consists of two in home visits from a social worker, fingerprints sent to the FBI (which takes forever!), all sorts of paperwork, financial reviews, references and blah blah blah... This process will most likely take 8-12 weeks. So, I'm just taking it one form at a time so my head doesn't explode.

On a more fun note. We're having one of those great weekends you can only have in the pacific northwest. We're in this absolutely beautiful home on an island in the San Juans only accessible by boat or plane. And once you've arrived at the island you have to take a four wheeler/mule thingy to the house. Totally amazing. Its one of those rare moments when I'm so grateful I live in this part of the world and not southern california. So here's to great friends, great food, a BYU victory, adoption moving forward and wireless Internet!