Home Inspection/Yardwork

Our caseworker came by to inspect our house for the adoption approval. It was good to see her again and get some more ideas of what to do for our house. I get a kick out of learning about baby safety. It's a whole new world for us in some sense, but most of it is just common sense. We have the carbon monoxide detector to install, baby gate, outlet covers, door handle covers, fire extinguisher, and even some cabinet locks to install. We still need to get the window well covers, but we know where we'll buy them. It will just take about a month to save up.

Saturday we ended up working on the yard and other outside projects. I moved about 6 wheel barrow loads of dirt to different areas of the lawn and garden, sprayed some weeds, and even fixed the drain from our roof. Adrienne sprayed even more weeds and did a bunch of laundry. It's always fun to work outside, but it was sure a hot day. Oh, we also installed some brackets in the garage to hang our bikes on (it was like an oven in there).

I forgot to mention a fun night a couple weeks ago. We went with our friends Nate and Liz to "Steel Days" in American Fork. There was an outdoor concert that went on for 3-4 hours and finished with 45 minutes of fireworks. The concert was neat. We got there part way through and A Capella group. There were six guys and it was amazing the full sound that they created. It sounded like they had bass guitars and a drum set with them, but it was all done by voice. The last band was the best though. It was a Beatles tribute band called "The Return". Each member of the band sang EXACTLY like their Beatles counterpart. Paul sounded like Paul, John like John, etc. It sounded just like it was the Beatles 40 years ago. If anyone is interested, you can find them on YouTube. We couldn't stay for the whole fireworks because Nate and Liz had to pick up their kids...but it's probably the best show in the state. You are so close to the fireworks that they take up the whole sky. They've got great patriotic music in the background and the show seemingly goes on forever getting bigger and grander throughout.

Fun Times

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Right after work Adrienne and I both went running to train for the Triathlon. I'm glad we are starting with this shorter one to get into the whole swing of things. I was really excited because I was able to finish a 5K without walking or stopping for the first time...in fact it took less than 31 minutes.

After we ran it was time to go to my company's summer party. It's always fun to get together with everyone's families. We kicked around a soccer ball for a while and later played volleyball. Of course there was a potluck. The food was great.

Adrienne is coming to my office after lunch to start our picture collage. We have a bunch of photos picked out and one of the graphics designers at my office is going to help us put it together. Also, we get to do our home inspection with our Case Worker at 4:30 this afternoon. I'm excited to find out what we need to do to get our home ready. We've already bought door handle covers, outlet covers, a safety gate and a fire extinguisher.

Updates

We finally began our birth parent letter for the adoption papers. It's a strange thing to write a letter to tons of people you've never met before. We're about halfway through the first draft. Hopefully we can finish that draft tonight and get it emailed over to our case worker so she can give some insight on how to edit it further.

Tuesday night I went to the Orem Rec Center to start training for the Triathlon. My plan was to run at least a mile and swim some. I ended up doing the distances for all three stages of the triathlon in opposite order. It took 1 hour and 17 minutes total to do all three parts. That makes me excited for the actual race. I'll be going down to the Rec center again tonight to do some more...wish me luck.

Last night was Heidi's 21st birthday (Adrienne's youngest sister). We met for dinner at California Pizza Kitchen and had a great time catching up with Heidi and her boyfriend.

We are Iron People...

Or at least we will be. Adrienne and I have decided to compete in the Share a Smile triathlon on August 23rd. There are two adult divisions (Sprint and Novice). Neither of us has done anything like this before, but this particular Triathlon is supposed to be laid back. My work is sponsoring me in the race and Adrienne might have hers do the same. The goal is to complete the Iron Man and not die.

I bought new shoes for the race, and both of us need bike helmets. I am headed to the Orem Rec Center tonight to see how far I can run in one shot and get some swimming in.

We are having our home inspection as part of the adoption process in the next week or so. Just an opportunity for LDS Family Services to check out our home and give us ideas of how to make it safer for small children. We still need to buy the kiddie gate for our stairs and various other safety devices to make our home more secure.

Getting back in the Groove

Adrienne's family left on Sunday. It's fun while they're here, but sometimes after they go it almost feels like I need another vacation just to recover from their stay. Between the hikes, bike rides, special events and the 4th of July...it was quite the packed week. We're just getting back into the groove of normal life.

On the adoption front, we went back in last night and adjusted our preferences as the case worker suggested. We are going to set up our home inspection this week and after that we just need to be patient with my background check to come back.

The Broadbents are Coming!

Ok, so technically they are already here. They came up for their summer vacation and to bless Liberty (our new niece). We had quite the crowd in Midway for the blessing and potluck after. There were probably 50 people there for the potluck. The food was great and Liberty is absolutely adorable.

We had a piano delivered this last week, and surprised Adrienne's parents when they made it to our house since they didn't know it was here. It's beautiful both in sound and in looks. It was tough to keep it a secret from them since they were asking about it almost every single day. There's a picture of it in the slide show.

Sunday night, my father-in-law did a fireside on BYU campus for Heidi's ward. He's a triple major PhD Psychologist (crazy, right?). It was fascinating. He went over the normal fireside length, but no one complained. There was even a question/answer session at the end.

Well that's enough for now. I'll add that picture later and talk about more of the fun we're having this week.