Adoption Fundraiser Garage Sale

We are having an adoption fundraiser garage sale on Saturday, September 20th from 9 AM - 4 PM. For those of you that live nearby this is a golden opportunity for you to get rid of some of the "stuff" you have been saving! We will gladly accept any donations you have of saleable items.

We wouldn't normally ask for assistance in our attempts to have a family however, our two failed adoption attempts have drained a chunk of our savings and we decided to try some creative fundraising techniques in the hopes of reducing the amount of time we have to wait before trying again. We need to have at least $10,000 set aside for legal costs and travel (in addition to the $12,000 we have already paid our adoption agency for their fees). Also, neither of us get paid leave for adoption so that adds to the savings needed if we want to have time off with any new additions. I know it seems like a lot of money but really, this is comparable to the costs for a hospital birth - it just isn't covered by health insurance!

We are also researching any possible adoption grants that we might be eligible for - the first one we tried turned us down unfortunately! Our goal is to be ready by the middle of October to give our adoption agency the green light to look for another placement.

We have appreciated so much all of the support and encouragement we have received from our friends and family on our adoption journey and will certainly keep posting updates as they come along.

20 year class reunion

Darin and I attended my 20 year High school (Marysville Pilchuck) reunion this weekend. Friday night there was a dinner at the Embassy Suites in Lynnwood and Saturday a (very small) picnic at a park in Everett.

I really enjoyed getting to see some of my classmates and find out about their lives in the last 20 years. The best part though was on Saturday when I got to see my best friends from high school - Jill & Kari. Here is a "then" and "now" photo of the three of us.

THEN: This one is from our Baccalaureate with Jill on the left and Kari on the right.


NOW: From the picnic on Saturday with the twins swapped (Kari on the left and Jill on the right).



Here are a couple more photos from the weekend.

This is the group photo from Friday night - lots of scary red eye but sort of impossible to correct with a group that big. This is less than 1/4 of my graduating class. I was really surprised at how many people still live in the local area (we got a class directory and close to 90% of people still live locally - disappointing that more of them didn't come but nice to see the ones that were there).



This is the very small group of classmates that showed up for the picnic - still was fun to visit with people.

Say Cheese!!

3 years, 5 months, 6 days and $6500 later....my braces are a thing of the past. Now I just have to wear a retainer for the rest of my life! Would I do it again? ABSOLUTELY....the change in my bite has actually added nearly 1/2 inch of space between my nose and chin....that's not a bad price for a face lift!! HA! Seriously though, I do recommend it - I am so happy with the results. And - if you live in the Seattle area, I would definitely recommend my orthodontists Dr's Lyons & Gunsolus at North Seattle Orthodontics. They have been wonderful to work with and have a very friendly, professional staff.

Happy 75th Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to YOU!
Happy Birthday to YOU!
Happy Birthday DEAR Rosie Mom
Happy Birthday to YOU!

We hope you had a wonderful day yesterday and look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you. We also hope your sense of adventure stays as strong as ever!

We LOVE YOU!

Darin & Jean

10 Years

That's right, we celebrated our 10 year anniversary on Friday, August 1st. We actually left home on Thursday, July 31st and headed to La Conner to the Heron Inn and Watergrass Day Spa - a favorite place of ours.

We had planned to head from there to Whistler for 3 nights at the Pan Pacific Mountainside where we stayed on our honeymoon. Unfortunately, there was a large rock slide on the Sea to Sky Hwy between Vancouver and Whistler. SO....we had to cancel our reservations (or take a day long detour to get there which didn't seem very feasible for a weekend trip).

Any of you that have tried to get last minute reservations in the NW in July or August know that we were in a bit of a pickle. So, we ended up finding a camping spot at the Thousand Trails Resort in La Conner - even got to stay all 3 nights for free in exchange for listening to their 90 minute presentation about TT membership. They make a compelling case but we said "no thanks".

Since we were saving a small fortune on gas and hotel costs we scheduled massages and facials for both of us at the Watergrass Day Spa and went on a Whale Watching cruise from Friday Harbor. In spite of the last minute plan change and the fact that we were camping instead of staying in a 5 star resort...we had a LOVELY time and really enjoyed the break.

A special thanks goes to our wonderful neighbors Keith & Jessie that took fabulously good care of our baby Watson while we were away. He seems perfectly healthy at the moment - it's hard to believe that he has a ticking time bomb inside that could go off at any time. Oh well, we are enjoying the time we have left with him.

Here are some photos from our weekend.

Our Campsite at Thousand Trails:



Our cozy (new) tent:



Darin making breakfast:



Scenery from the Ferry between Anacortes and Friday Harbor:



Darin on the Odyssey (Whale watching boat):



Jean on the Odyssey (in my new hat!):



Whales - we saw LOTS of them - it was super amazing. We even saw one of them breach several times. The last photo gives you an idea of how close we got a couple of times...the heads in the foreground were fellow passengers standing just in front of us at the bow of the boat.





And, just for fun - here's a couple of photos we purchased from the tour operator of two of the whales we actually saw. The first one is of L-pod 57 "Faith", a large male that we saw several times. The second is a family portrait of a couple of J-pod whales: J-1 "Ruffles" is the adult male, his dorsal fin is nearly 6 feet tall and we saw him also. Males average life span is 30 years, however, Ruffles is over 50 years old. The other whale in this photo is J-2 "Granny" who is 97 and the matriarch of the J-pod family. Average female life span is 50 years so she is quite the old lady. We may have seen her also but not close enough to identify.





And - here's one of our dream boats spied in the Friday Harbor Marina (yes, we have several!):