D and I watched a fantastic movie last night. I happen to be a little behind on my "great movie" watching so I am sure you have seen it. We watched "The Notebook". I do believe this film was nominated for an academy award. If not, it should have been.
This is the story of two people who fall in love during a summer fling and really never forget each other. It is told by the man reading the story to his wife who suffers from dimentia. Mainly it is a flashback type of thing but with shots of their present life stuck in. The way the story is told is just marvelous. You realize how much these two people really love each other and that it will always be that way. In the end he finishes the story and she is trying to figure out why the story sounds so familiar. She finally realizes that it is them that he has been reading about. She asks her husband, "how much time to we have?" To which he replies, "Last time is was only about 5 minutes." You see, he reads her the same story everyday to try to help her remember. They embrace and dance until her memory yet again fades and she loses her grip with reality.
This man chooses to live in the nursing home with his wife because he can't stand to live without her. After a heart attack he sneaks into her isolation ward just so he can see her beautiful face. I won't totally spoil the ending just in case you haven't seen it.
As we watched the movie I thought about Derek's grandparents. I remember one year they travelled to the Northwest from Kansas and Bunny (Derek's grandmother) got sick. She had some heart troubles in the past so illness was not to be taken lightly. Derek's Grandfather faithfully sat at her bedside everyday. He would come out of the bedroom to briefly have lunch with us and then state, "well I have to go back to sit with Bunny." I thought it was odd at the time but now I realize how special it was.
Similarily, my grandmother suffers from mulitple strokes. Everytime she has a significant one my Grandfather races to the phone to call my mom. He is so worried and my mom is the one who helps him through.
These men love these women with every ounce of their being. They couldn't imagine a day without them. I admire that so much.
Life has delt D and I some bad stuff. But through all of it we have been there for each other. This past year I felt like things would be so much better if we could just get the boy home. I realized that despite the setbacks we have had that I still have D. He is there, watching over me. There is this man who love me with all his heart and all his soul. And I love him.
No matter what he will always be there. Holding my hand. Cheering me on. Telling me our life story.
I couldn't ask for anything better.

Do me a favor. Get up right now. Go find your spouse. Tell them just how much you love them and how grateful you are for the love they give you. Be sincere, anything else would be just cheap.

Happy New Year to you all!!! May this be the year.

Today is Thursday. So you all know what that means right... Bet you thought I was going to say "official news day". WRONG!! I'll get to the lack of news in a moment. Thursdays also happen to be my full day at the church. Seeing as I like to get paid I went to work despite my obvious lack of stuff to do. The morning was quite nice. Very quiet. All the pastors and the majority of the staff was out of the office so I got most of the place to myself. I checked my email, worked on some bulletin stuff, threw away a whole bunch of crap that we really didn't need anymore. At about 9:15 the ladies started to show up. You see, today was newsletter assembly day. A whole group of women come once a month and assemble our church newsletter and sort if for mailing. They also happen to bring their own lunch. Near lunch time one of the ladies come in to ask if I would like to have some lunch with them. I didn't have anything else to do and no food to eat so I said sure.
What a bunch of sweet little old ladies. One wanders around making sure everyone has everything they need (coffee, forks, napkins, etc) while the others say "Doris, just sit down and eat your lunch." They make sure the men that happen to be at the church are also fed. The funniest thing is watching them dish up their plates. They take little amounts of the "hot dish," remember we are Lutheran, and a small triangle of eggsalad sandwich. Then they go back for dessert. These women literally mound their plates with stuff like angel food cake, jello dish, and various other sweets. It was a riot.
So I spent my noon hour listening about whose husband had a hip replacement and who forgot their hearing aids. What a hoot. If I am in town next month I get to do it again!

So onto the news. Let's see. Who is this week's news report brought to you by? hmm, I got nothing.

That is fine because there isn't any news. We actually are at D's parent's house and tonight was my night to cook. I picked Indian food because, well... I like Indian food. So I have been working my butt off in the kitchen since about 2:30 this afternoon. Dinner was ready at about 6:00 so we missed the news. Stay tuned because if there is any I am sure I will let you know.

Onto Furnace Day. Today was also supposed to be the infamous Furnace Day. Appointment all scheduled until the guy called last night. Furnace man says he won't be to our house first thing in the morning because he has to take his son to the doctor. But the duct cleaning guy will be there.
I toddle off to my heart attack lunch and leave D at home to deal with home improvements. Well, Duct man showed up at 10 am after which D, FIL and BIL leave to have breakfast at the Southern Kitchen. I come home at about 1 pm and still no furnace guy. He shows at about 1:30!!! Evidently he and the guy that called us need to get their lies straight! Furnace guy tells D that he was late because he had to take is son to the airport. Sick my ass! So now Furnace guy is coming back tomorrow to finish the ALL DAY installation. This means we are going to miss going to the mountain to build snowmen with the niece!

There is a bright side to the day though. We did get a new toilet for the back bathroom and we got 2 door jams fixed. BIL and FIL were quite handy to have around today! Thanks guys!

All in all it was a full day. Tomorrow will be house cleaning while tripping over furnace man.

I know, I know... I have been a little hit and miss with the posting lately. We have family and town and have been spending some quality time with them. I must say it is nice to see everyone.
So what else did we get for Christmas? We had a good Christmas, in fact.
I received a new sewing machine, of course everyone is now expecting quilts for Christmas next year. D bought me 2 CDs (Cake and U2... my favorites!) and an html book. So expect some blog changes once I figure out how to program some serious html code!
Derek was graced with some new xbox games (of which I am currently listening to, oh fun!). He is also going to continue the trend of one of the best dressed hotties ever! New shirts for that new 30 something Dad look.
We also received new patio furniture from my mom and mike. Don't know what it looks like since it is still in the box and wouldn't fit in the Jetta. But my mom has good taste and I am sure it is awesome! We also received a vintage looking record player/ CD player/ radio from my grandparents. I am now inspired to start collecting Beetles albums! (future note, when I learn the afore mentioned html code I will exchange blog redesign services for Beetles albums or any other cool vinyl)
Alexander got some of the best gifts ever. Now I will tell you that I did come to a conclusion about grandparents this gift giving season. Somehow, there is a dormant gene in people that magically kicks in at the onset of grandparenthood. This gene compels people of a grandparent nature to purchase noise making gifts for the said grandchildren.
With me being a little bit granola this gene can seem excessive. I am the Duplo blocks and the fancy German trike kinda mom. Ya know the person that has the nice organic garden and shops at Trader Joe's because there are no preservatives in the frozen foods.
However, Alexander's grandparents now posses the "grandparent gene". For Christmas he received a Fisher Price magic block thing (complete with sound) and a Leap Frog Learning Table. Both gifts certainly have the granola mom stamp of approval.
The learning table is bilingual. This will come in handy for Sasha to keep up with Alex G. since he will, I'm sure, speak Spanish and English. And the Fisher Price deal... well lets just say it is cool.
I am tell you people it is everything I can do from unpacking these toys and playing with them myself!!!
So you can say it was a good Christmas. All the gift giving hoopla kept our minds off of the whole adoption thing for a little while. Although, I did come close to a melt down the other day when an off comment was made. I held it together though.
I do have to say that the best part of Christmas was having the opportunity to spend time with our families. I am trying to stay focused on what I do have right now instead of what I don't. Family is what I do have. They are there to support us and for that I am grateful.
I hope all of your Christmas' were Merry and bright!
Blessings, Super Mom

I just have to say we have successfully navigated Christmas! Although the boy is not home he still received a Christmas gift from Mommy and Daddy. Unlike his birthday we decided to do it a little different. For his birthday we bought him a set of Duplo blocks. Of course we bought the gift so who was going to unwrap it? So it sat on the table during his party for everyone to look at.
Well... Christmas is a little different. In anticipation of the arrival of a child we started our own family tradition. We, like many others, now open our gifts to each other Christmas morning. (Gifts were previously opened on Christmas Eve with Derek's family). Anyway, I had this grand idea that we would each purchase a gift for the boy and wrap it so the other could unwrap it. My grand ideas always have a way of being modified. Last week I went into Teaching Toys and Books and saw the mother of all Christmas gifts. The gift that would dub me as the coolest mom ever! The most beautiful wooden Radio Flyer Trike! Packaged in it's little red retro box it called to me. Of course the trike was over the set spending limit so I changed the plan a little. I consulted with the better half and we decided that we would spend the money for the trike and then we could assemble it Christmas morning. This is sounding fun, huh? I thought so.

At this point in the story I am going to remind you that I have never before been a parent.

The trike was a little expensive at the toy store so we decided to try to find it cheaper at "Mega Toy Store". In the unwritten parenting instructions it NEVER states "avoid Mega Toy Store during Christmas at all costs." I nearly had a panic attack somewhere around Tonka Trucks. Of course the did not have the coveted trike (as the internet informed me). The next stop was Mega everything store. Also no trike. Did I mention this was on Wednesday?

The next plan was to return to the original toy store to buy said trike on Thursday. Evidently that whole job thing got in the way. (see earlier post about D's gift) So that left Friday. Yes we went into a toy store the day before Christmas Eve.

Can you guess what happens next? Yep! Out of the Radio Flyer Trike! They had the wagon and the rocking horse, but no trike. I was damned determined to get my son a gift that we could assemble Christmas morning. So we asked the nice lady if they had any in the back and of course she said no. Instead she told us they had lots of Kettler Trikes. Kettler! I had never heard of Kettler. I don't want that, I want a Radio Flyer. She takes us to the catalog and shows us photos and tells us about the features of the Kettler trike. Ok, this woman is good. She is selling me on a different trike! We mull this over for a moment and decide that maybe this one is better than the RF. SOLD!!!

We leave the toy store with our new little gift for the boy. Proud parents we are! We then realized this is first in the many bikes to come. The last minute shopping for the perfect gift that everyone is out of. We are so proud!

So here it is Christmas morning. Like planned we had our breakfast, opened our gifts from each other and started in on the trike. I am here to tell you this is the coolest bike ever. It is fully adjustable, has a little dump bucket on the back and has an optional attachable handle so parents can push it if little legs don't know how to pedal. Wanna see it?Doesn't my kid have the coolest bike on the block? Jealous aren't you.

Merry Christmas to all! We'll let you know what we got later. For now I want you all to bask in the glow of my marvelous gift!

Lisa, the best mom ever

On to today's lesson. We are going to review "Comment Posting 101".
I know there are a ton of you guys who read this blog and never post comments. How do I know. Let's just say I have my ways. So let's review shall we.
Step #1: click the comment link at the bottom of the particular post you would like to comment on. This link will either say "no comments", "2 comments", etc.
Step #2: Have fun reading the fun comments Rhonda or Lauri happen to make on our blog.
Step #3: Scroll to the bottom of the comments and click the "post a comment" link.
Step #4: Write your particular comment in the "leave a comment" box.
Step #5: If you happen to be a blogger member you really shouldn't have read this far, but if that is the case you shouldn't be reading anymore. If you are you have issues. For the rest of you... click the anonymous button and fill in the funky "word" then click the "Login/ Publish" button.

This should complete the Posting a Comment lesson. I know this is a little different since Derek changed the blog template. For that I apologize. I am very aware that some of my Lutheran friends are opposed to change.

Now... if you people don't start leaving comments to make me feel good I might have to institute a politically charged weekly discussion. You have been warned!

Hello... My name is Lisa... I am a compulsive email checker.

You know there really has to be a support group for this kind of disorder. I mean, hey! I check my email at least 20 times a day. It is so bad that I check it before I go take a shower and 10 minutes later I am back at the computer, toothbrush in hand and mouth full of toothpaste.
I am waiting for the ever ominous email from Olga. You know the one. The one that says the magic words..."we are reaccredited." but alas nothing.
You guessed it. There is no news to report.

So since there is a lack of adoption news I will report on what we are up to for the Christmas season. Derek's sisters, BIL and niece arrived today. That was fun. Haven't seen them for a while. They will be here until New Years.
Tomorrow is the day I have waited 6 weeks for. The Doc will finally clear me to play hockey again! Yup, 6 weeks since the surgery and I am doing fine.
We will get to see some friends we met while in Khabarovsk next week. Ciarai and Jose invited us over for a Christmas get-together. It will be so much fun since we haven't seen their son Alex since he was sitting in the high chair at the orphanage screaming. From the photo she sends he has grown so much.
We look forward to Christmas and getting to spend time with our family
The 29th will be "furnace day". Otherwise deemed "guy's day". Our BIL, my FIL and Derek are going to have breakfast together at the Southern Kitchen and then work on some home improvement projects at our house. Not only do we get the pleasure of replacing our furnace, we get to put a new toilet in the back bathroom. More money spending fun!

I tell you... it is a Holly Jolly Christmas around our house!

Blessings, Lisa

The news really isn't all that much. Still no reaccreditation. Bummer. But, we did hear from a reliable source that Reaccreds are in the works. We are not waiting for some magic date anymore. Evidently the MOE is working on 1/2 of the remaining 28 agencies. We don't know if they are waiting for ALL the agencies to have their paperwork in or what. We do know that our agency is evidently in the first group. "We don't know where, we don't know when, but something good may be happening." This all sounds very positive.

I did finish the boy's room! I hung his quilt, and the cross from Great Uncle Tom and Great Aunt Jan. I also hung one of my hockey sticks above the window. Of course it is just up there with "fun-tack" at the moment and will probably come crashing down in the middle of the night. The last part of his room will be to get some containers to put his clothes away into his closet. Of course most of the clothes we have are too small for him now. Oh well, just gives me an excuse to go shopping. Here are some photos of his room.

In other news... Derek is getting (what I call) a promotion!!! This is a huge answer to a prayer. For the past 2 years he has been a straight commission sales person. This means no guaranteed salary, no taxes taken from his pay and he has to pay all his own office expenses. I am here to tell you this is a rough life to live. There is the potential to make large sums of money, but we are not one of those fortunate families. The promotion is to a salaried position!! The base salary is low, but he then will get a % of the earnings of the commissioned sales people. He no longer will have to pay office expenses, taxes will be taken out, he gets a 401k match and the best part... 20 days paid vacation!!!!!! Paid vacation... that is like music to my ears. In his current position he can work as much or as little as he wanted, but if he didn't work there was less likely a chance of him getting paid. He is most excited about the structured work hours. No more late nights. His boss also said that if he is able to work from Russia he won't need to use his vacation time while we are away. Of course work depends on the reliability of internet access while in Siberia. Again, all very positive.

So life is fairly good in our house. Derek's sister, BIL and niece come for Christmas on the 20th, I have my last Dr.'s appointment on the 21st (I plan to get cleared to play hockey again) and Derek's other sister will probably arrive near the end of next week. Busy times, but fun!

but oddly not strumming on a banjo.

My mom had this great idea that we should get together and bake cookies for Christmas. She thought we could start a new tradition. Actually it is rather a good idea. So yesterday I drove down to her house for our innagural cookie marathon. I arrived at her house at 10:30 but of course we didn't have everything we needed so we had to run to the store. Of course we didn't go straight to the store. We had to stop at the cable company so my mom could beg the cable people to come hook up her new kitchen television while she was on vacation. I think it was mostly so she would stop watching the only channel she got... snow. Yes, I witnessed a grown woman begging the cable lady to hook up her cable sooner.
Off to the grocery store. My mom happens to work in this particular grocery store so of course we had to stop and talk to everyone. Plus she had to fill out her vacation request so she would actually get paid for said cookie baking. By the time we returned to her house and commenced with the baking it was 1:00.
The baking was so much fun! We didn't get as much done as we thought but what we did do turned out good. We made Russian cookies call Kolachki (yummy, highly recommended!), Peanut Brittle and Pretzles covered with Almond Bark. The best part was that my mom makes Hot Buttered Rum Mix every year. This year I was privy to the mix making. So easy, but of course we had to sample the fruits of our labor. Now I am not much of a rum fan, in fact I think the stuff is rather revolting, but I am here to tell you this mix makes Captain Morgan's taste like a dream!!! If I had not been doped up on allergy medication I think I would have had me a few of those babies. However, 2 allergy pills, rum and a car do not a fun time make.
So what did I learn from my baking experience with mom?
1. Evidently the cable company IS in the Christmas spirit, but only if you grovel on all fours.
2. Do not add gel based food coloring to Almond Bark unless you want glop.
and finally...
3. My mother is still a bit nutty, but that is what makes her fun.

I still have to finish up some cookies, but that might be aided with a little of mom's homemade Hot Buttered Rum mix. Of course this requires something to stand on since I baby proofed the house and put the liquor above the fridge. Dang!

So let's hear it everyone... I know you are out there. Let's hear your favorite holiday traditions. Something you do on Christmas, before Christmas or after. Nothing is too little. Make me feel like you are in the holiday spirit too!

Blessings, Lisa

This morning we set out on yet another tree hunt. Derek searched on the internet for a tree farm near our house, but when you live in the city there just aren't any. We ended up at a tree farm in Olympia, about 30 minutes south. This is the best tree farm I have ever seen! It is fairly new so the trees are in great shape. The only draw back is the tallest trees were only around 6 1/2 - 7 feet tall. The trees were dark green, bushy and sheared to perfection. The ground was covered in perfect green moss. Such a delight. Trees as far as the eye could see. The greatest thing about this particular tree farm is that in the fall they have a pumpkin patch. We figured next year we can take our family trip to the pumpkin patch and then return to the same place for our tree hunt. On Saturdays Santa visits from 12-4 and they decorate the old barn like a winter wonderland complete with a nativity scene.

Can you just picture the serenity? Our first family tree hunt. So picture perfect. Yeah right! It will be me chasing a 2 1/2 year old through a short forest while Derek wanders the rows of trees searching for just the right one.

I thought I would post a photo of our conquest. Here is our beautiful murdered tree. Can you feel its pain? It is gorgeous though!

Merry Christmas! Lisa

You would think that with me being a horticulturalist and all I would be opposed to murdering a poor innocent tree just for the sake of Christmas. After all, not only to you saw its legs off you throw it on the roof of your car, drive it down the road, put burning little lights on it and forget to water it. It truly is cruel and unususal punishment. However, for the past 8 years Derek and I have faithfully hunted our Christmas tree. Yes, we bundle up and saw the legs off of a perfectly innocent tree. We have yet to purchase a pre-cut tree or worse yet... put up a fake one. *gasp*

So today was supposed to be the annual tree hunt. We loaded the bungee cords, donned our hats and away we went. We arrive at the tree farm and the man hands us our saw and promptly states, "We are out of u-cut Nobles and Frasiers. We only have Grands and Doug Fir." What the!!! No Nobles or Frasiers?! You are tree farm for pete's sake. Your job is to sell trees. This is like Starbucks running out of coffee. So what do we do? Take the saw and wander around said tree farm trying to convince ourselves that a Grand Fir would be an acceptable alternative. Who am I kidding. Grand Firs are pretty. Nice dark green and shiny needles, but where the heck do you hang the ornaments? They are way too bushy.

We turn in our saw and head off in the direction of tree farm #2. We pull in the parking lot and not a soul around. Not to mention it looks as if they only have Doug Firs. Off to tree farm #3. This place is some run down shack of a house with a sign on the door that reads, "I'm in the house. Knock." A person comes out and says that yes they do still have trees. So again, we take our trusty saw and venture out into the "forest". I use the word forest lightly here. This is more like the total Charlie Brown tree farm. They have about 10 Nobles, all a little yellow in color, about 12 feet tall and with huge gaping holes. This is a disaster.

Now since we live in the Northwest tree hunting can be a difficult matter. Derek works until about 1:00 on tree hunting day and then of course we have to have lunch. So by the time we get on the road to do the actual hunt it is somewhere in the vicinity of 2:00. This leaves 2 hours for quality tree hunting. (it starts to get dark at 4 here). At 3:00 we have exhausted our knowledge of tree farms in the area and need to get home. Yes, we are defeated. We returned home without a tree. We are going to give the hunt another shot tomorrow. Hopefully we will be able to find a farm close to our house. Otherwise we might have to cross the bridge (the dreaded Narrows) to find a tree.

Wish us luck!

So Rhonda inspired me to make some updates to the blog. What do you think of our new digs? Personally I think it's pretty darn cool, but hey I'm biased. LOL

-D

So that ugly rumor mill is rearing its head again. Recent reports from various sources indicate that Friday the 9th might be "the day". The day for reaccreditation that is. If that is the case then we can all let out a huge sigh of relief and get this show on the road!

In our optimism Derek and I have started looking at cold weather gear. Refer to the previous post regarding snow in the northwest. We are not skiers and have virtually no cold weather clothing. I think the last time I stepped foot into an REI was when I was in highschool and that wasn't even to buy anything. Ok, Derek working at Galyan's doesn't count. That was Kansas and the summer. I am quickly realizing that ski jackets are expensive. So are boots. This was definately not figured into the budget! We never anticipated travelling to Siberia in the winter. We thought we would like to see it, but we didn't think it would be while adopting Sasha.

The current temperature in Khabarovsk is 7 degrees. Yes, I said 7 with a whoping high of 10! The 10 outlook is even better. Monday's high will be -3 with a low of -15. Technically it isn't even winter yet! This is going to be fun.

In other news... In preparation for the boy coming home we thought we would take care of a few "home maintenance" chores. Derek found a coupon on the internet for a furnace tune-up. So nice furnace man (NFM) comes out yesterday and does his little inspection, and he says the words I dread the most! "I think I see 2 little cracks on the heat exchanger." Sure enough, there are 2 small cracks in our furnace. Of course Dane the dumbass previous homeowner has never done any maintenance on the furnace and bought the cheapest one on the market. So the heat exchanger can't be replaced, thus requiring a whole new furnace.
I head off to work and NFM informs Derek that a new furnace would run about $3000. Holy crap! That is a plane ticket or 2 to Khabarovsk! Needless to say we are getting a few other estimates. At least he didn't deem our furnace unfit for use. That of course would then require a call to the chimney sweep to clean the flu and install a cap on the chimney for the much needed heat.

It just gets better and better around here I tell you!

Hoping for good news this week.
Lisa

Ok, so it's not as impressive as Rhonda's snow, but hey we live in Washington. Whenever it snows more than a quarter of an inch they just about pre-empt all the regular TV shows for 'breaking news'... so I'm guessing this will be "Winter Blast 2005!"... So it's already starting to melt but it sure looked pretty this morning when we got up. At least we won't have to shovel any snow since it looks like it will be gone by noon, lol. Hope everyone has a great day.

-D

We saw a preview this morning for Primetime Live and they are going to show the segment of the Russian girl who was the victim of child pornography at the hands of her adoptive father. I truly hope that they produce a fair segment and acknowledge that this is the exception not the rule. I can't help but wonder if this story will keep us from our son even longer... This story has been published before in the Russian press but it won't help things in the fragile environment to have another inflammatory story in the press. Here is a link to the Primetime Live website:

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/