Big Adoption News!! Dossier Requested!!

We received word today from our social worker that we had moved to the top of our adoption agency waiting list and that the main office is requesting we submit our dossier!! That means that in a few short months we will be on the official waiting list!! For those of you following along closely with our adoption journey, this event has happened 6 -12 months earlier than expected. Due to some other families switching to different countries, the list moved very quickly. We will spend the next few months preparing our dossier which includes things like physicals, marriage and birth certificates, photo pages, fingerprints, psych evaluations...I hope we pass:), and lots of visits with the notary. After we gather everything we need, it is sent to the main office for review, to Colombia for translation, and then to the orphanage where we wait for the call that we have a child. After submission, the wait is estimated at 8-12 months. All of a sudden, this is all seeming very real. Before we know it, Babies R Us will be our favorite store!

Washington, D.C. Trip

Shawn's mom has been visiting us for the last week and a half (from St. Louis) and one of our outings while she was here was a long weekend trip to Washington, D.C. Originally our plan was to see the cherry blossoms, but due to an early peak this year, the picture to the left was one of the only trees we found that still had blossoms on it! We were all a little disappointed to miss the peak, but we still had a great time. We did all of the tourist-y things...Smithsonian, National Archives, the Mall, taking the Metro, Arlington National Cemetery, walking until our feet about fell off! One of the highlights, though, was our trip to the Newseum. It is a museum all about news that opened the day before we arrived. There is an interactive news area where you can give news reports and try to solve crimes and get the story out in time, a whole section on how 9/11 changed news reporting, and a special exhibit of Pulitzer Prize winning photographs and the story about how they were taken. We didn't get to spend nearly enough time since we had so many other things we wanted to see, so Shawn and I are planning a return trip this summer just for this museum. We also did a "Monuments by Moonlight" tour that was really cool for 2 reasons... First, I think the monuments are the prettiest at night when they are all lit up. And second, this way you didn't have to walk to each one. You were dropped off at the front, given a set amount of time to look around, and then picked up and driven to the next monument! On our way home from D.C., we stopped off and did a tour of Mount Vernon (the home of George Washington). Everything was in bloom and it was a beautiful day to spend on the grounds overlooking the Potomac River. We had a really nice time and then a good lunch including peanut soup (their specialty) at the Mount Vernon Inn. We had a great time on this mini-trip and a really nice time the whole time Jan was here. I don't think there was a day when we didn't do something...or go to the mall to buy something! Jan is a great mother/mother-in-law and we were both very happy to spend the last several days with her.

Race Day

Once again, our city's spring 10k was a hit. Despite the rain, more than 25,000 runners and walkers participated in this year's event (a little more than 31,000 were actually signed up, but the gloomy weather must have scared some of them off). This was my (Shawn's) third time to participate in the run. For runners, this 10k is a must-do event because it's flat, fast and full of loonies and live music (most of which is a little too slow for my taste ... but there were a couple decent songs). As far as the loonies go ... there were the two people dressed up like a chicken and an egg with horns (Get it? A Deviled egg ... yea, I agree. It's not that funny). I heard there was a guy in an ape suit chasing someone else dressed like a banana, but didn't see them. Personally, I think running in a fur suit would be way too hot, but six miles? Yea, that's nuts. Overall, it was a fun outing. I finished a few seconds over 50 minutes. The steady sprinkling of rain actually was a help to my time because it kept me cool when it started to warm up a little. The winner finished in 28 minutes and 32 seconds ... so I have a long way to go before I'm deemed any kind of threat in this race. I still haven't given up hope that I can get Stephanie out there to run it, but she tells me not to hold my breath. She did say, however, that she might walk it next year. We'll see.

A Day in the Yard

Shawn and I have eight very large bushes in the front of our house. And while I appreciate the fact that they cover up the underneath part of our front porch, I really don't like these bushes. They grow like weeds and would take over our whole house if we let them! They also have minimized the landscaping we were able to do in our front yard. Well, this year after seeing all the daffodils and tulips in other people's yards, I decided it was time for a place for me to plant such spring delights. I devised a plan for digging up a substantial plot of grass and then planting some smaller, flowering bushes. Around the edge of the new bed we planted some ornamental grass and then filled the whole area in with mulch, leaving plenty of room to plant flowers and bulbs. After quite a bit of nagging and pleading, Shawn was sold on the plan and we headed to the nearby greenhouse to gather our supplies. Let me tell you...landscaping is hard work! I can't remember the last time I was so dirty! We worked all day (Shawn doing much more heavy work than me!) and were very proud of our work when we finished. This is the first major outdoor project we have worked on together (except for our disastrous deck project) and I think it went very well. Now, we just have to start thinking about fixing up our back yard. And we thought this was a lot of work...:)