Camping Trip

We just got back from our first camping trip of the season last night (hopefully the first of several, but we'll see)! Weleft Sunday afternoon and headed down to Lake Ouachita--stayed at the Joplin campground between Hot Springs and Mt. Ida, Arkansas. It was a beautiful area: beautiful clear lake, nice scenic ozark style mountains, good weather for the most part. Sunday night we got rained on around 1 am but it didn't last too long--then Monday night was awesome with a little cooler temps and wonderful breeze. Tuesday was hot and sunny, but we packed up and headed into Hot Springs for part of the day. Now we know exactly what we were missing in Hot Springs: nothing. Sorry, if you've been there and loved it I'm sure you found something worth being excited about--but we didn't. Maybe if you stayed in one of the resorts or something it would be enjoyable, I don't know. We toured Hot Springs State Park's refurbished bath house--it's been restored to original 1915 condition. That was a little bit interesting. We walked around the downtown shops area, but didn't find any that really intrigued us...except Vicki's Coffee Corner where Ryan enjoyed an iced caramel latte. Before getting back on the road, we ate at the Cracker Barrel, which always seems to be a good bet for good country cookin'. :)

These pictures are a few from our trip. If you'd like to see more, visit our Flickr page. Go to the "Our Trips" collection, then the "Lake Ouachita June 08" folder. :) http://www.flickr.com/photos/rdmagsam/

Have a Wonderful week, everyone! :)

Around the Yard

Some pictures from around our yard today...I'm loving it! Geraniums and Marigolds are summer classics in my mind. :)

I love the contrast of the blue and gold around the mailbox...

Does anyone know what this third plant is? It's beautiful, green, and gets bigger every year but I have no idea what it is and I don't remember planting it...

This is a case of "Where's the Elephant Ear?" I forgot that I had moved the elephant ear until I noticed it hidden between my HUGE hostas. The Elephant fit well between them last year, but I think it needs a new home now! Or maybe not--I want to thin the hostas out this fall and make a hosta bed on the east side of the house in the shade where nothing grows.

Babble

I guess it's time to post something new. SCHOOL IS OUT!!! That's the best news I have. I'm enjoying my summer vacation. So far I haven't accomplished anything huge, but I have been doing lots of cleaning and de-cluttering around the house. For those of you who know how much I hate to clean, that may be surprising but it feels great to get rid of things I haven't used or that are just taking up too much room. Freecycle.com and Craigslist have become our friends, as well as the local thrift store's drop-off bay. :)

No news on the adoption process--it's a process and we're just waiting right now for the homestudy report and profile to be completed. In the meantime, I'm having fun picking out furniture (or trying to--IKEA disappointed me today with their outrageous shipping costs so I am back to researching other options). Used furniture stores might be on the agenda for tomorrow, I think it might be fun to refinish an older dresser for a changing table/storage piece. I've also started thinking about what I want to do with our guest room to convert it to a nursery-and I think I've come up with some good ideas so far, with some help of course. :) I'm thinking brown and teal (or maybe lime green instead of the blue) for our "theme" but I'll probably wait until I have time to check out fabric before I decide for sure. My friend Jennifer is going to sew some things, just to clear that up. I haven't got even the slightest hint of craftiness in me. I figure we might as well use this waiting time for something good and what better time to think about exactly what we want as far as baby gear than before we're stressed out with the details of the adoption process?!

By the way, the book Baby Bargains is awesome--I needed a starting point for which brands are okay, what is useful and what is just a waste of $, etc. and it's been very helpful in narrowing down some choices. Thanks for the recommendation, Natalie!

Saturday will be a milestone day for us--our 5 year Anniversary! It's wierd to think that it's been that long; our wedding day seems like yesterday in some ways, but then again a lot has happened in 5 years also. We're hoping to head down south to Lake Ouachita on Sunday after meeting for a couple nights of camping. It's near Hot Springs, which we've never been to either, but we'll probably stay away from civilization as much as possible. :)

Ummmm...I think I'm out of things to say...

Quick Update

Although this picture looks nothing like me, it is a great depiction of the expression/feelings that I've been facing the past couple weeks--and will face on Monday; the kids' last day of the year!

I'm going to attempt a brief post; this is difficult for me, as most of you know well. :)

• Beautiful day here; getting a little humid, but otherwise wonderful


• Sitting on the Bentonville square accessing the wireless internet since ours is currently down


• Ryan works until 6:30, then we're meeting friends for supper


• 2nd home visit with Social worker went great--home study will be complete in a week or so


• Sent our family profile this week--that's the last component that will need to be complete before we're "activated"


• 2 days of work left!


• Looking forward to summer projects around the house/yard


• Union mtg/potluck/gospel mtg. tomorrow, so lots to look forward to!


• Signing off, need to make a trip to Sam's Club and the grocery store


• This sounds ridiculous; think I'll go back to my lengthy, wordy, paragraph form next time!

Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day! Hope most of you are able to enjoy a day off work...I am! Ryan always has Sundays, Mondays & Tuesdays off, so not unusual for him. We're planning to go to Nathan & Jordan's for an afternoon/evening of games, food, fun--and hopefully some sun!

I finally was able to get some flowers planted on Saturday. Made my annual trip to Lowe's to buy plants/flowers--and was pleasantly surprised with my bargain finds! They've usually got a clearance rack with 1/2 dead flowers that just need to be put in the ground--and I hit the jackpot with some wave petunias, vincas, and geraniums. I also bought several perennials (don't know the names--something long and complicated--maybe one was delphinium?). I'm hoping to plant more bulbs this fall so I don't have to buy many annuals next year--but we'll see! Anyway, it was fun and I enjoyed working outside and getting my hands dirty.

I guess there's not much else to report--the adoption journey continues but nothing too notable at the moment. We have our second visit with our social worker on Tuesday evening--last visit for the home study. We're about ready to send our profile pictures and narrative off to the digital graphic people who take what we've given them and make it appealing--can't wait to see "us" advertised in brochure- like form (that's what a profile is)--it will be wierd! Once that is completed and the home study report is written (hopefully in about 2 weeks), we can be activated! That is when things could really speed up--or not; the attorney told us last week that sometimes things go along for awhile with not much happening, but then it all happens at once and you have a baby before you know it. So--we'll see! I could use a few months to do several little jobs around the house and get prepared for motherhood, but if we don't get a few months I'm completely okay with that too!

Enough said for now...

School days left with kids: 5
Days of work left: 6

All in Bloom

Everything is in full bloom here; I'm enjoying watching the flowers and plants even though I haven't had a chance to get out there and dig around or plant any this year. I can't wait to do it--but decided I'd better wait until I really do have the time; if that happens. :) The irises and hostas came from Wisconsin a few years ago and look more awesome than ever before! The rose is one I planted from a tiny little rose "bush" that was really more like a stem a few years ago--and I'm pretty happy with the way it's looking right now as well!

Happy Mother's Day!

Here are some pictures of the boys taken over the weekend. We made a quick trip to Missouri; we were almost there 24 hours but we did get to celebrate mother's day with mom, grandma, and my sisters. :)

I took the day off today and our social worker came for the first home visit! It was very exciting and talking to her gave us lots of fantastic information and feedback. In short: She interviewed us each separately (with the other out of the room), talked to us together, toured the house and checked several items off of her checklist, and let us know what to anticipate in the future. She also instilled a lot of hope and excitement throughout the visit. We will be one of very few couples the agency is currently working with who are open to infants of any race; this makes us unique and therefore almost certainly guarantees a quicker match! Of course, that alone is not a good enough reason to be open to a variety of situations--we do understand the seriousness of being honest about what we are open to for the right reasons. She also assured us that everything looks great and we should experience no problems as far as being qualified and getting activated by the agency (at which point we pay part of our fees and they begin advertising for us). In the meantime we still have some supporting documents to collect, background checks awaiting clearance, our adoptive family profile to complete, a toll free number to secure, a meeting with the attorney next Monday, a second visit with the social worker in 2 weeks, and lots of other little things we can be taking care of. The first item on my list: the Honda is to be detailed Thursday, then we will start advertising it for sale. Anyone want a beautiful red 2006 Accord?! We love it--but don't want to have to make the payments with all of the changes coming up in our life.

Oh, I should probably mention that somewhere in that lineup of tasks I will complete the school year--yay! I also start private tutoring with one student tomorrow after school and have at least 2 others interested for the fall and possibly one or two more for the summer. Plus, I found out that I can definitely get enough work as a homebound tutor for the district in the fall (depending on where we're at in the process and what I'm able to do) that I might not miss my paycheck for awhile...so that's pretty cool! It's always nice to have options.