It was snowing like crazy. Once they finally found a pilot, we had to wait in line for de-icing. It really wouldn’t have been a big deal but we only had a 30 minute lay-over in Chicago so being over an hour late wasn’t good news.

Everything worked out though, I think the pilot shaved off at least 45 minutes of flying time and they held the plane for us in Chicago (and 2 or three other people that were flying to C-bus as well).

Eva did great. She is such a trooper when it comes to travel. Especially since her mouth is a mess, she has so many teeth that are trying to break through. It is making sleeping hard for her. And she yells a lot.

Our time in Park City was fun. Thursday we got to meet with Jane and Denise from our agency, it was great to see them and let them see how much Eva has changed. By the way, if anyone out there is thinking about adoption, give them a call- they need families!! Here is their website. If you look at their photo gallery the baby in the bottom right corner looks like Eva but it isn’t her. Hmmmm, I am thinking she needs her mug on there, don’t you??

Friday night we got to meet up with a friend that I met online- although I can’t remember how. We started chatting a long time ago, we both have 3 bio boys and one adopted baby girl. She lives in Utah but her birthmom was from Ohio, so it was a cool coincidence. Rarely do I get to meet up with people that I meet online- I always have good intentions but I never seem to get it done. Well this time I did, and I am so happy. Getting to meet Tawni, John, and Avery was one of the highlights of the trip. Our dinner was short but sweet, so cool to connect with fun people. John has a business designing fireplaces, well not exactly designing, it’s more than that- check out his website. They did all of the fireplaces at the Dakota, the fancy smancy place we stayed. Andy was jealous. He said, “why can’t I have my own cool business?” I had to remind him that someone needs to sell woman’s underwear and stare at half naked supermodels all day. May as well be him. Besides, one biz in the family is ENOUGH.

Tawni gave me TWO pairs of these super cute shoes for Eva. I love these shoes so much, I can’t wait until her feet fit into them. I think I am going to be going back for more, and those boots? Must have them. I love love love polka dots and I think Eva needs them in every color. She said that her friend owns the company. Lots of entrepreneurs out there in Utah!

I am kicking myself for not getting my camera out to take pictures of Tawni and family and for not getting one of Eva with Denise and Jane. What was I thinking??

I do have a few of Park City though, here ya go

And the lodge where we are staying. The Dakota. It’s cool.

Our room is a lot pricier when people really want to come here (this is the last week of the off season). In fact so pricey we can’t help but laugh at how little we are paying for it. Andy always seems to get us good deals on upscale hotels. And then we laugh at how we don’t fit in.

Just yesterday we were talking about designing t-shirts. See, Eva farts a lot. A LOT. And really really loud. Like adult loud. So when we were out with her, and she farts, well everyone assumes it’s one of us. We thought it would be cool (and very funny) to have shirts that said, “I’m not the one that farted.”
The more we thought about it, the better this idea this came. We could embarrass our boys by wearing the shirt when we are with them… well you get the idea. Very mature, aren’t we? Our shirts would not fit in here. But now you can buy one here.

So the great thing about having met Andy when I was young, well we have been through it all. Waitress, small jobs on campus at the University of Texas, then after college a year of working for insurance companies… When he decided to go to grad school and get his MBA we already had one kid. Then we had the second while he was in school and we were living on student loans because I was stay-home mom. I will never forget one of the girls in his class saying, “are you sure that’s a good idea?” I wasn’t about to put my life on hold because Andy was in school. And having Blake while Andy was at OSU turned out to be the best thing as they ended up covering all of his heart issues with Andy’s student insurance. So while I never attended OSU, I love that school for saving my baby. Anyway…..

The thing is, I have been with Andy when we were dirt poor. And now we aren’t, but it really doesn’t seem much different. Ya know? As we have steadily reached our goals from a long time ago, nothing changed. We are still two crazy fun loving immature kids. Only with a little more money.

So with that I will show you our cool room

our kitchen, viking fridge and stove- seriously better than my kitchen at home

The living room. The fireplace is a bonus. It’s nice to turn it on and watch the snow come down outside.

These aren’t real, but a nice touch I thought.

This is the bedroom, yep it has it’s own fireplace. I turned it on for a little bit before I passed out at 8pm. The time change and my nagging cold has made me a dud on this trip.

There are two bathrooms, this one is the master bath and it has a whirlpool tub and a tv in it.

Ok so want to know what this room costs during prime ski season? $1700 per night. !!!!!!!! We are paying no where near that. NO WHERE NEAR. Seriously, who pays that???

We were hungry last night but had a late lunch so we decided to order something small from room service. I told Andy to get a cheese plate and a salad.

A little later room service arrived. I was on the phone with the boys so Andy took care of it and put it on the dining room table. I gave him the phone and went over to look at the food. Behind me I hear, “Hey Blake, can you hold on a minute, I need to see mom’s face when she see’s our food.”

I lift up the lid to take a peak at our $22 cheese plate.

So stinkin’ funny. Not only was it $22 but it had a $4 delivery charge and a 22% service charge. Then you had to tip on top of that. I thought I was going to pee my pants.

And now the best pics- loving on our sweet sweet daughter

Real quick wanted to pull these images straight off my camera- we all look a little tired, between Eva getting up at 4am (two hour time difference here) and our rush to get her out the door, then she did a big poop when we got there and of course there was no place to change her… it was crazy, exciting, exhausting, but perfect in every way.

Getting ready to head out and find some food, and maybe a place to watch the Jackets play the (boo) Red Wings.

Court time is 8:30am Utah time. I will keep updating…

To honor that, and to raise awareness of the need to help, I am posting a video that I love. This video was put out by a large adoption agency in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. It is not the one we used but the message is the same.

143 million orphans

There are things that I think I should keep private because this is after all, Eva’s story. But there is also a lot of information and misinformation out there about adoption that I would love to clear up. Or at least set the record state for our particular case.

Sometimes it is hard to draw the line- this is my journal of sorts, but I also need to maintain some sort of level of privacy. That said… here is more of our story.

I told the story about how I always knew that I would adopt, and how I knew she would be Hispanic here.

Sometimes when I look back on when we put a halt to our Guatemala adoption process, I can’t believe that we did that. But a voice in my head just kept telling me that this wasn’t the way to go. I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrating that was. I knew we had a daughter out there, but for the life of me I could not figure out where she was. I know that sounds crazy. It is crazy. I remember being alone in my car many many times, sending little prayers up- “please tell me where she is!!”

Anyway, when we started looking into domestic I was very apprehensive. I talked to so many agencies and most of them told me the same thing. We will have trouble getting a “placement” for you because you have three kids already. Birthmoms want to give their babies to couples who cannot have kids. I get that. The other issue was we wanted to specify gender. Most agencies do not allow that.

So when I found our agency is was like a breath of fresh air. I was in Vegas with Andy and I spent most of the time emailing the woman that owns the agency, asking sooooo many questions. She told me that she read my blog- she thought she could get us placed pretty quick. She assured me that many birthmoms actually want parents with other kids. It’s just a personally preference.

We signed on and were matched in a month.

The couple that we matched with were young. Very young. And they had a 9 month old baby already. It was early in the pregnancy but we decided to go ahead with it.
It never felt right.
They were young, poor, but they were together. They had a baby boy.
We talked to them weekly on the phone. I wanted to adopt them instead of their baby.
5 months later we get the call- she was in labor.
We pack up the car, take the kids out of school, and head south.
By the time we got there she changed her mind, she wanted to parent.
My kids were devastated. I was numb.
I knew this wasn’t our baby. And I wasn’t surprised. But it was still hard.
That night I texted Jane. Heart and Soul was not the agency that we were using with the first one that failed.
But I had been in contact with her throughout our “match”. I always told her to keep our file on her desk, in case our adoption didn’t work out. Just in case.
I am not sure why I knew to contact her.
She texted back that she was in a movie, but she had a mom that was 35 weeks and could go anytime, Hispanic, having a girl, adoptive parents just backed out, she would call me in the morning.

The next morning we packed up and headed to Dallas for a little r&r and some time with Andy’s parents. We needed to regroup- to be taken care of for a few days. To think. Remember that?

I talked to Jane- it was so hard to jump into the unknown. We knew so much about the first parents, had their picture, spoke with them often…
This time we didn’t know much. Birthmom was in her 40’s- this worried us a bit, but also made me think that she really knew what she was doing. This was her 8th baby. She had given up #7 for adoption (a boy, who is probably about 3 years old now). First 6 kids had a different dad than #7 and #8. She had a rough life, made some not so great choices, and here she was- pregnant. They had a family that had been matched up with them but got cold feet because of the bad economy.

We said we would think about it. We thought about it. A lot. We talked it over with Andy’s parents. A lot.

Andy surprised me, he kept saying, “I think the other one fell through because this was meant to be our child”. I didn’t know. I was scared. And looking back I was probably scared because he was right. I wanted a baby that needed us. And it really felt like she needed us. That scared me.

We went home. I kept telling Andy, “I wish we could wait until after she is born to decide.” I wanted to see her, to know she was ok, to look at her face and figure out if she was the one that had been in my head for so long.

And a couple days after we got home, we got a call. She came early. There were pictures in my email waiting for me, she was perfect. Small, but perfect.

That is when I hopped on a plane.

As most of you know, Eva came 4 weeks early and so when I got a call that she had been born I was so not ready. On top of that, our agency said that Eva’s birthmom wanted to meet me before she headed back home, and she had already bought her bus ticket for the next evening.

Yikes.

So basically I had to hop a flight out of town right away.

When I landed in Utah I called our agency and they said, “want to go have lunch first?”

To which I replied

“I don’t know- I really feel like I could puke.”

But I did go eat, because in the end I really can’t turn away food. Jane and Denise took me to biker bar for lunch which was a total crack-up because they are both mormon.

And as I ate lunch, I calmed down a little bit. Jane and Denise were a blast. And extremely busy. I don’t know how they do all of the work they do. We talked a lot about adoption. Both women had 7-8 kids, a mix of bio and adopted. They knew what it was all about. We talked about the emotionally draining part of working in adoption. On both sides of the picture.

And then it was time to go meet Eva.

My first view of her was a little shocking. I knew she would be small, but she was so small I was afraid of her.

My smallest baby was Cole and he was 7lbs. 14oz. Eva was 5lbs. and some change. I had my camera with my small 50mm lens on it. I put that lens cap by her head and took a picture. It’s a SMALL lens cap!!

I wasn’t sure if I could pick her up. I asked. They said yes, of course.

Here is a picture a week or so later, look at those skinny thighs!

Those early days in Utah were a blur. I was still on Ohio time, weary from travel- running on pure adrenaline. I met Eva’s birth parents that first day I was in Utah. It was an experience I will never forget. I had no idea what to say, how to act. But since I didn’t have much time to think about it, I just relaxed and was myself. And in the end it was easy. They seemed so happy to meet me, thrilled that Eva was going to have three brothers. I was just humbled that they trusted me to give her a good life. It was so obvious that they loved her, and wanted more for her.

We feel so lucky to be the ones that get to parent this little girl.

Lucky lucky us.

Ok, where to start

It was much better than the last time we went. Lynne and I are not much into Americana so if you can sort through that….our eyes are always looking for color!

We decided that for every 10 “dark” booths we would find one that “popped”.

We both loved this pillow but figured in our houses with kids and dog(s) it wouldn’t look good for long.

Lots of creativity going on

I was in love with this bug- it would be perfect for you Meg!

I love it when I get inspired to be more creative!

We both fell in love with homegirls shop- and after coming home and reading her blog, she is living my dream. A historic farm- a big barn where she has her shop. LOVE!

I had to buy a fish

Greetings…

Loved these bird house clocks

and wouldn’t this be cute in Eva’s room?

so much coolness!

Ok, I leave you with this. Perfect.

Today our little town is having it’s “Market Day” so look for more fun things tomorrow!