Baby wanted

I wanted to update everyone on the quest Bob and I have been on to start a family. We spent the summer getting approved to adopt through LDS family services and just got approved in August. I know this is a little late but school has been busy. We started in June and had to jump through some pretty crazy hoops to just get approved. Background checks, medical exams, fire inspection, reading on adoption, very intrusive interviews, ect. We now have covers on our outlets, medicine and cleaning supplies stored up high, and fire extinguishers stored every 40 feet throughout the house. I understand why we had to do the tings we did but I don't understand why every women doesn't have to go through the same process before they are allowed to become an expecting mother! For those of you who are unfamiliar with how adoption works let me break it down for you:

1.) Submit an application for a home study and put a "down payment" on the adoption.

2.) Go through the home study, interviews and other preparations as described above.

3.) Sign the paperwork saying that you are "approved" do adopt/foster a child. At this point our profile gets published on-line for people to look at.

4.)Wait..............................The birth mothers get to choose who they place their baby with.

5.) When one has choosen us they send us a letter introducing themselves and stating that they have picked us to adopt their baby. No rights can be signed over yet.

6.) Then we wait again if they have not given birth yet until the baby is born.

7.) If all goes right we should be able to take the baby home with us from the hospital if the birth mom hasn't changed her mind.

8.) When the mother/father is ready she/he goes to the court house to sign over their rights to the child. Up until this point she can change her mind and decide to keep the baby.

9.) Then we go through another extensive home study to make sure that we and the baby are adjusting well. We also have to make sure that both the mother and father have given up rights. Sometimes the father can be tricky if he is MIA.

10.) If all that goes well then we can sign the paper work and get sealed to our beautiful baby.

Sounds crazy huh? There is also no guarantee when we will get one or if we will get one at all. It's all up to the birth mothers. Bob and I have decided we are open to any race male or female. All I want is a healthy infant. I think down the road we will be open to older children but for our first I need a baby. Here are some examples of babies I am willing to accept in no particular order:

One of the funniest things we have learned was that we are able to but both or down payment and final payment on our credit cards. Can you imagine the rewards points we would rack up with that!? Even if we have the money saved up in time I think I am going to do it on our CC so we can use the rewards points to buy diapers :-). We also found out that there are cards we can give out to friends, families and strangers that can direct them to our profile. Bob and I are planning on hanging outside Wal-mart one Saturday and pass them out to pregnant girls without wedding rings on. I'm only partially kidding about this.

So go check out or profile and spread the word to anyone thats looking to give up an extra kid or two. But more importantly, keep us in your prayers. I am not the most patient person and all this waiting might drive me crazy!!!

Our Lawn

We've been through a lot this Spring and Summer with our back lawn. I'll give you the short version of the story...

Once upon a time Bobily bought their first house and they loved it! If you don't believe me, just look at this post. Pay particular attention to the last 3 pictures on the post. Well, from the time we moved into the house until Spring of this year we tried to maintain and improve our green lawn.

Enter an unnamed utility company that was given the job of doing underground work in our neighborhood. Here's what they helped us do:

1. They dug a trench down the center of our lawn (we didn't know this was going to happen) which contributed to the our new grass seeds' stunted growth--at least in the area where the trench was.

2. They broke a sprinkler line.

3. They didn't tell us about the line break.

4. They buried the line break so we couldn't see the problem.

After a while we noticed that our grass was dying. By the time we discovered the problem it was already too late. When the sprinkler line broke it caused the whole sprinkler line on one side of our lawn to loose pressure so that most of the lawn didn't get any water.

Here's what it looked like

We spoke to the unnamed utility company numerous times and here's what they did (or didn't do):

5. They came out and fixed the sprinkler line.

6. They refused to compensate us for the dead grass even though them not telling us our line was broken was pretty much the cause of the dead grass.

Anyway, I spent a good chunk of my Labor Day reseeding. I tilled, added soil & compost, seeded, covered the seed with peat moss. Here's what it looks like so far (less than 3 weeks later):

The Post Compost Post

I thought I'd write a quick post to update our readers on how the composting went over the Summer. It actually went pretty well. We have been trying to revive our lawn after a very rough Spring (long story) and we used our "home-grown" compost the help us out. We didn't use any manure in our compost or gardening over the Summer, but maybe next time. On second thought, maybe not. Here are a few pictures of our composted compost--remember while looking at the pics that if composting is done correctly it shouldn't be stinky. In fact, if you compost pile stinks it's an indication that something is a little out of whack and needs to be fixed.

August 2nd and 3rd

Sunday we took it slow. We went to church and then did some service cleaning up at one of Mutti's friend's house that is out of town. We watched "P.S. I Love You" that night and if you haven't seen it you need to.

Monday was full of fun. It was Mutti's birthday and we packed it full. First we drove up to the Knotty Shop which is a great little store just outside of Fairbanks. I got a cute sign made out of wood that said "My goal in life is to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am" and a couple birthday/Christmas presents.
Next, we went to Santa house in North Pole, Alaska. Unfortunately, Santa was off for the day and left a little note telling us when he would be back.
I got to sit in Santa's sled and there were even a few reindeer that were hanging outside. I think the one in the picture was Prancer.The whole town was decorated with candy canes and Christmas decorations even though it was only August. Even the Wendys was getting in on the North Pole bit. Then we left and went to have tea at Phillis'. She is a friend of Muttis and it was a really nice visit with yummy treats.

August 1st

Today we got up and went to the local farmers market. There was a ton of pretty jewelry, good food and fun booths. I bought some yummy soaps made out of goats milk and really had fun looking around at everything. We also went to check out an artwork display that one of Mutti's friends was doing. In the evening we went to the Great Alaska Salmon Bake. Yes, it was as wonderful as it sounds. It was all you can eat salmon, halibut, cod and prime rib as well as an amazing salad bar, dessert bar and drinks. YUMMY! I was in heaven.