Weeks are flying by

Remember when back in the days of youth and you were 10 and one week was an eternity? I can hardly believe how fast time is flying by these days. It seems like just a month or two back that we were getting ready for Christmas.

Anyways, we don't really have any more progress on the yard. I put in some pavers as stepping stones around the garden boxes. Now I just need to figure out the best way to build the fountain for the front of the house. Hopefully I can get it all together before Adrienne's family comes out to visit.

My neighbor (Seth) is going to build a fort in his backyard for his girls to play on. I think I'm going to try to help. It sounds like a fun project and I could probably learn a thing or two from putting it together.

Garden boxes and our friends adopt

We haven't heard much on the adoption front the last couple of weeks, but there are still some birth moms interested as far as we know. Some friends of ours down the street adopted a little boy last Wednesday. We are very excited for them. Ben and Britney are great parents and this child will have a wonderful home and family to grow up in. This is their third adoption (all boys). The birth parents decided it was important to them to have the boy raised in a family with other kids.

We've been working outside in our yard quite a bit. Between weeding, moving dirt, roto-tilling, hiring someone to put in curbing, planting, building garden boxes and everything else...we've been a little busy. We are getting close.

I thought everyone might like to take a peek at our 2 garden boxes. We built them out of 2" x 6" x 10' lengths of common redwood. Then we treated them with boiled linseed oil to add a little additional weather protection. This picture shows 1 box finished and 1 box before the boiled linseed oil. They are sitting on weed fabric so that the dirt and soil above the ground won't get anything creeping up from below.

We are in the process of filling them with some dirt and garden soil. Dirt we have in abundance. Our neighbor is helping us obtain some garden soil. He has a friend that mixes all the good stuff together and sells it by the yard (cubic yard that is). We should get it all put in by this weekend and plant all the little vegetable and herb plants on Saturday.

Volleyball and Babysitting

Last week was very busy. As you know, we got back to town late on Monday. The rest of the week was spent scrambling to catch up on unpacking, cleaning, and other activities.

Our volleyball teams went 1-3 this week. It was disappointing because we should have won 2 more of those. We just ended up giving the games away through mistakes in the end. We still had a lot of fun though. It is always fun to play with all our friends.

Danielle (Dan and Kim's daughter) invited us to come to her basketball game on Saturday. We ran into some of our other friends from the old neighborhood while we were there. Then, in the evening we took care of Tyson (with Danielle's help). Dan took Bryce to the Jazz game, and Kim went to a Young Women's meeting in Salt Lake. He's 6 months old now and surprisingly strong. The key is to make sure your fingers are protected by his...or he'll crunch yours with his two tiny teeth.

What else can I fill everyone in on? Oh, my parents sold their house in Philadelphia a couple weeks ago. It will be nice for them to not have an extra house payment.

Sarah's wedding is just 3 1/2 weeks away. I can't believe how fast time flies.

MWC Tournament and Hike

Last week our friend Henry invited us down to the Mountain West Basketball tournament with him. We decided to head down and watch the BYU game on Friday and stayed the night at one of his other friend's homes. BYU lost that game, so we didn't really want to go to the Final on Saturday. Instead, we decided to go for a hike. This first photo is at the far end of the trail.

Adrienne was so excited to go that she climbed all over the place. You can see her better if you click on the photo and blow it up. I climbed around some too. This is on the way back.
Windows Live has a really neat feature with their photo gallery. You can take a large group of photos and it will make it into a panorama for you. It does a really good job as you can see below. The area to the left of the rock outcropping is Las Vegas. In the full size photo you can really zoom in. After the hike we headed back to Utah. Saturday night we watched a movie with Brent and Andrea and stayed up late talking. I wish we could hang out with them more often.

Sunday, we made it back for Church and had dinner with Sarah and Austin. They are just about finished with all the plans for their wedding next month. In fact, Tuesday they head down to get their bridal photos taken.

This week is going to be crazy. We are leaving Thursday to go to Arizona for Heather and Nic's wedding. I hope we get some good photos and get the chance to catch up with friends and relatives down there. We just don't seem to make it down more than once every couple of years. Flights have gone up in price, and it's a pretty long drive.

Jazz Game and Adoption Update

I think Adrienne and I have some of the best friends that you could ever find. One friend has season tickets to the Jazz. He couldn't make it to last nights game so he just gave them to me. Ade had some things at home she wanted to get done, so I took Dan with me and we had a blast. It was a close game until the 4th quarter, then the Jazz just took over. So we got both the thrill of a tight game and the satisfaction of a dominant finish.

I know many of our friends and family want updates on adoption. Right now everything comes down to waiting. The young lady we met with is due any day, but she hasn't decided what she will do once that day comes. I know she is praying for guidance and I know that she will have her prayers answered. I just don't know what that answer will be. She is part of a wonderful family, and has the love and support of her whole congregation. Ade and I are at peace just waiting to see what she decides.

LDS Adoption Profile Going Digital

So last week we started the "new" online adoption profile. It was supposed to have a lot of our old information scanned or transferred over to it. What we found was that very little of our information made it in the system and even the parts that did make it were out of place much of the time. We spent an hour or two cleaning it up last week and we'll continue the process this week.

Chris and Karissa came down Friday with their son Landon. They just needed to get away from the parents house for a night (their staying at Karissa's parents' house while their new home is finished). It was tons of fun having them over. Landon is growing up so fast (just turned 2). We had a great dinner and watched a movie on Friday. Saturday, we had French Toast for breakfast and took Landon to the park for a bit.

We met the Clydes at the temple Saturday afternoon. Then Adrienne ran a few errands in Orem while I sat in the car listening to the BYU game. We beat Air Force by 14 which sets up a very interesting rivalry game this week against Utah (we have just one loss and Utah is undefeated). I hope we can pull it off this year. Our defense has been ravaged by injury all season long and now our big tight end Dennis Pitta (one of the top 2 or 3 tight ends in the country maybe even the best) sprained his MCL at the end of the Air Force game. I hope it's not too bad and that he can play this weekend, but I don't know.

It's late

I came home from basketball tonight and realized that I hadn't posted this week as yet...so I thought I'd put down a few thoughts for everyone.

Last weekend was the last home game of the year for BYU. It was fun, but not much of a game. It was as close to bored that I've ever been at a football game. The outcome was never in doubt, but our offense is always fun to watch.

We were going to head down to our friends' homes for Christmas again this year, but it turns out that they have family coming in from the 4 corners of the United States and don't have enough room. Now we need to decide on a different plan. We might go down to the time share in Las Vegas and hang out with some other friends, or maybe we'll just stay at home and sleep.

Work has been slow, but seems to be picking up a little. It always does towards the end of the year.

Chris (old mission friend), Karissa, and their son Landon are coming down Friday to hang out and stay over. They've been living with Karissa's parents while their new home is being built and just wanted a night away. It's going to be a lot of fun. We haven't really hung out much over the last year it seems, so this will be some good catch up, good food, good games, basically good times.

Well, I think that's enough for now. I've got to take a shower and go to sleep.

Fun Weekend

Another week has gone by. I can't believe how time flies. I helped put on our Stake BSA Court of Honor to recognize the Boy Scouts who earned awards in the last 6 months or so.

Our friend who usually let's us sit in the box with him for the BYU Football games had us sit in the Legacy seating instead this week. It was awesome being so close to the action. Our team beat UNLV in an exciting shootout. Then, later that night, we were able to get together with some friends to play volleyball.

Sunday Steph and Will brought their daughter Liberty over for dinner. Adrienne made Szechuan Steak and it was delicious. Steph made an Apple Crumble Pie that was so good I had two pieces.

We've made plans to visit our friends in St. George for Halloween weekend. It will be nice to take a mini-vacation and see some old friends. Not to mention, the weather is supposed to be GREAT!!! I'm bringing shorts and a swimsuit.

View from the Box

So have I let you guys know how cool my friends are? First, a friend gave us Box Seats to the football game. Then a different friend took a compilation of about 12 photos and squished them together. Now I have this great photo of the view from the Box. What a beautiful sight!!!