Hello!

I thought that our lives were pretty plain but looking back on the last 2 weeks, we have so much fun! He are a few pictures of how things are going.

For a prank my team at work decided to wrap everything in my office in tinfoil! They also put 500 balloons in my office! As much of a pain in the butt it was, it made me feel loved. I know kind of weird but still. If you look closely, you can see they wrapped everything individually...my phone, my pencil holder, my files! Well done team!

The weather has been phenomenal so we pulled out the bikes and got started. We are so excited. We love the Murdock Canal trail but soon we will start biking up the canyon.

We have been playing cards with the Tiptons lately. Chelsey always has our water ready and nice spread of delicious treats. If we aren't doing that, Chelsey and I have a minor (major) addiction to Art City Donuts. It is a new-ish food truck that is in Utah County. They are mini donuts smothered in different toppings. YUM!

It has been a tradition to go to the Brent Brown Eater Basket Auction for the past 4 years. This year I was on the committee. We raised over $200,000 for the Provo School District. The funds go to the district to help supplement what they don't receive from the state. This year won something from the live auction. This basket was HUGE!! It had over $500 worth of gift certificates, not to mention 16 boxes of Girl Scout cookies!

Jim's mom and sister came down from Jackson Hole for the week. This is a picture of us playing cards one night. We love playing 5 Crowns. They were also able to go to a Families Supporting Adoption meeting with us. It was a good one. The panel consisted of birth mothers, adoptive mothers and grandmothers. It gives us such great support and understanding of the adoption world! We love it! My brother Ryan and his 2 boys also came to learn more about adoption.

This is Quinten. He is my brother Josh's son. He is freaking adorable! I mean all of our nieces and nephews are but he just cracks us up. This is a picture of him in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mask. He was so excited!

This dinner was amazing. Roasted chicken, "Charone's Black Beans", cilantro lime rice, sweet white corn and avocado. My goodness it was delicious!

For work we do something called Neighbors Make the Difference Day. Half of all of the branches at the company close at noon so that all of the employees can go and volunteer around our communities. This happens all across the country. I am very proud of this day. For the past 2 years we have went to the Orem City Cemetery. The cemetery has a war veteran's memorial and we go and clean it all up. It is such a great experience polishing the statue, picking weeds and planting red, white and blue flowers. Having 2 brother's who have been in the military makes it even more personal. God Bless the USA!!!

Here are a few things that we have been doing with the adoption. We had our home visit in mid April. Our caseworker said that we passed with flying colors. I think the big huge toy bin next to the tv maybe helped our caseworker to know that our house and ourselves are ready for kids! This diaper thing looks amazing! On April 16th we were officially put on the itsaboutlove.org website so that potential birth parents can check us out to see how amazing we are! :) That day went out and bought a car seat for the baby. It was one of the most exciting things! This whole process is just exciting. Don't get me wrong, I know that there are going to be bad days but for now it feels wonderful.

This is Jim and his dad working on the nursery. We have for sure been told to be careful about how many things we do to get ready for the a baby to come one day, but right now this really helps us feel like we are moving forward and not at a stand still. As of now the nursery is white, grey and navy blue. If we have a boy we will probably add some green or yellow. If we have a girl we will of course add some pink. :)

I absolutely love this quote. The best is yet to come. Always look forward, don't look back. Our next post will hopefully be about our adoption fundraiser that we are doing.....Think lots of pieces! :)