Holiday Weekend Wrap-up

So we were off for another adventure for the 4th of July weekend... We were headed to California to enjoy Disneyland, the Queen Mary and Hollywood, and who else would be going except the 5 of us... Brian, Cindy, Dan, Daniel and myself!

Our first stop was Disneyland on Friday. We opened the park and had a great day. We expected a ton of people but didn't fair too bad with the crowds. We were able to go to both Disneyland and California Adventure. We did all of the rides and stayed until about 11:00 so it was a full day for sure.





Our next destination was down in Long Beach to hang out for the day and do some shopping, have some dinner, enjoy the great weather and hold down the fort and people watch while we waited for the fireworks show.

The show was good... not the best I've ever seen, especially since we had just been at Disneyland the day before and they have amazing fireworks, but they were good and the atmosphere was fun too.


Our final stopping point was a quite look through Hollywood. We had to take a short walk down the walk of stars, check out the Kodak Theatre, put our hands in the hands of the stars and just look at the crazies on Hollywood Blvd. We were lucky enough to find John Travolta and anyone that knows me knows that I was in heaven!




It was another great weekend and great time away! Now we are back to reality and back to work..... Can't wait for our next adventure... Wonder where it will be, and most importantly WHEN?!

Take a hike

This is a post that really should be written by Dan but that is not going to happen... so, I will do my best and just give you a re-cap on the main event.

Dan and Brian have been talking about and planning this trip to hike the Grand Canyon for months and the day had finally arrived. They were both like little kids. They both had gotten new backpacks for the trip. Dan got a new Ipod (father's day). They were set.

They left Vegas at midnight on Wednesday night and drove all the way to the Grand Canyon and then started down the trail as the sun was rising. They spent the next few days exploring the village and doing a few smaller day hikes up to the falls and the nearby area. Overall they said they accomplished about 30+ miles in the four days they were gone....

They had a great time and besides Brian coming home with terrible blisters (Dan didn't fair too bad).. they loved the adventure and are planning their next trip!

Weekend Wrap-up: Family, FSA and Fireworks

We had another great visit from Dan's sister Amy, her husband Steve and their little boy Preston. It was a busy weekend but filled with laughs and great memories as always.... We took a trip out to the lake, enjoyed some down time at home playing games, went swimming and had a BBQ at my parents house, took in a baseball game with our FSA group, watched an awesome firework show, went to church and just had a great time with each other.

The girls on the jet ski... It was a "little" windy but that just made for fun waves!

Uncle Dan having fun with Preston and him loving every minute of it. Notice the glasses had to be removed first!!!
Great family photo at the baseball game. Preston actually liked the fireworks once he could see what was going on.

Great firework show to top off the night and a wonderful weekend.

Make it a FROSTY weekend

I am going to be having a busy weekend with family in town and an event for FSA (families supporting adoption) but we are going to find time for a FROSTY that is for sure! Hope you can too.

Grab your family and friends and head out to Wendy's for a Frosty this weekend... In honor of adoption Wendy's is donating 50 cents for every Frosty they sell this weekend. Celebrate the start of summer, Father's Day and this HOT weather we are having by enjoying a FROSTY!

Trusting in the Lord

Corn and Carrots and Peas, Oh My....

I have been eating a lot of these types of food lately... Since around Easter I have changed my diet and gone strictly vegetarian! This is a big deal for those that have known me a long time and know that my standby has always been chicken strips. Now I was not a big red meat eater so that has not been a big change but the chicken has taken a little getting use to.. but a few months later I am still going strong. The biggest thing I am struggling with is trying to find ways to make sure I am getting enough protein and also not getting bored with what I am eating.

Dan has been supportive (not on board with the idea, just supportive and eating more vegetables too) and everyone else just seems to keep saying "are you STILL doing that?"... so in answer to everyone else - YES... I am still doing that!

A little update

Wow... what is going on in our life??? I feel like I don't even have time to get on here any more and update.

* Last Thursday (5/28/09) was my last day of work at the doctor's office (for the second time!)

* Friday we left for AZ to visit Dan's dad who had been in the hospital for going on two weeks because of a kidney stone (which ended up going wrong)... luckily all is well now.

* I am busy planning Girls Camp which will be here sooner than I thought... (July 13-18) and new girls keep showing up from out of the blue!

* We are still the Co-Chairs for Nevada FSA and busy planning and working with the committee on events for our adoption group here in Vegas.

* I am working from home full-time again for my mom doing medical transcription.

* We are getting really excited about our trip this September to England to see my BFF get married!

* Dan is busy with Scouts and in the Elders Quorum Presidency

* Dan is also working like a mad-man at crazy hours trying to stay out of the heat as much as possible.

* We are trying to fit in some jet ski time (half-day Friday does exist you know!)

And besides all of this we are spending time together, enjoying each other's company and just trying to live life everyday!!!!

Memorial Day in Monterey

It was Memorial Day weekend and our traveling group was at it again!!! We had searched the Internet and found some really good flights and decided this trip would take us to Monterey, CA... why??? Because we could!

The weather was not quite what we expected but we had a great time anyways! We started our adventures with the 17 mile scenic drive from Monterey down through Pebble Beach and ending in Big Sur.

The next day had us (and about a million other people) enjoy the sights of the Monterey Bay Aquarium....
We also checked out the coast and walked along Cannery Row and Fisherman's Wharf.... We had some great food while were were there as well.
By the end of the weekend were were all ready to head home.....

today....

I love my mom. I love my mother-in-law.

i hate mother's day.

Birthmother's Day

Did you know that today is Birthmother's Day??? I can't wait until we are able to know who are birthmother is and honor her, and thank her and send her flowers and treat her on this day! It is hard to know that somewhere out there there is someone that will hopefully one day become our birthmother but neither of us know it yet. Strange right? Until then I pray for her and think of her often even though I don't even know who she is....

FSA Campout

This was going to be our first real test as the Co-Chairs of Nevada FSA! We had planned an overnight camping trip to Warm Springs.... well, of course everything went wrong! We had drama trying to find a lifeguard, our activities committee decided they couldn't make it and I had to run around buying food and getting things totally ready, Dan had to work late that night so my dad actually drove up to Warm Springs with me so we could set up and be there when people arrived, and then to top it off the wind blew ALL NIGHT LONG and in the morning we were greeted with Rain! Rain, in Vegas, in April, only because we were having a campout!

In spite of all these things everyone had a great time and played, enjoyed the river behind our site and the smores in the evening and are even ready for us to make the reservations to come back next year! What a daring group we have.

Our fearless leader - Brad our caseworker!

Everyone setting up camp and enjoying some dinner.

Dan building us a fire in the morning so we didn't freeze to death

The few remaining survivors after a long night. You can't tell but it is freezing and raining in this picture and we are huddled around the stove to keep warm while Dan is cooking pancakes!!! What a weekend!

Asking for help....

We just got home from our monthly FSA meeting and while I feel great about the meeting and great about the activities we are planning, I can't help but feel a little frustrated with our own progress and our own situation. Many of you know we are fast approaching the 2 year mark of our adoption process and that is testing our patience beyond measure some days; other days we are fine and don't even really think about it. On our way home from the meeting tonight we were talking and trying to come up with ways to reach our goal of an eternal family faster and what we might be able to do to help speed the process along. While we don't really have any "good" ideas we were hoping that we might be able to call upon our family and friends yet again.

I gave a class a while ago to new couples and told them all about ways that they could "promote" their own adoption and while we have done many of these ideas ourselves we are still trying to come up with more ways. I am hoping that we might be able to get some of you on board with us on this effort as we hope it might reach someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, etc.

What we are asking is that if you would be willing we would love to have you "STEAL" our picture that I have on the top of this post and place it somewhere on your blog. I would then love for you to have a link attached that leads back to our adoption blog which is www.danielandaranne.blogspot.com. That is the least that we are asking. If you feel like you want to do more and write an actual post telling who we are and why you suddenly have a picture of two strange people on your sidebar that would be awesome! Anything that you could do would be great.

Please let me know if you did any of the above, for one because I want to see it, and for two because I want to thank you. It really does mean a lot to us. We are just trying to get our names and faces out there and figure this might be a good way for a lot of people to see us. No pressure, honestly, but if you think you can... great! If you have any other questions about it, just leave me a comment and I can get back to you.

Thanks again!