House update

I thought we would have good news to share but it appears we are back to square one. Last Thursday as we were heading out the door for camping, I got a call from the realtor that the bank approved the short sale. Yeah! Dave and I talked about the details on the drive up. We figured it would all work out quite nicely as we are closing on our current house on August 20th. Woo hoo! We wouldn't be homeless!

However, getting home late Sunday we had a message waiting for us from the realtor explaining that the bank approved it for $30k MORE than we offered. She was contacting the bank first thing in the morning to clarify but ultimately that is too high and we rejected the counter. Ugg!

Guess we are looking at houses this weekend. Wish us luck!

Summers Here!

In true Oregon fashion it's July and summer has arrived. Better late than never, right? We've been playing outside in the sprinklers and pool a lot.

I love watching Claire run

This photo cracks me up!

Fundraisers?

I am sure you noticed I added two new columns to the right giving a timeline and our fundraising goal for our adoption. Yes, that's right we are adopting. We would like Claire to have siblings, but getting and staying pregnant has been such a challenge for us. We are moving forward with an open domestic adoption. We have the paperwork all done and are waiting for our move to do the home study visit; the last piece of the approval process. Hopefully that will done by the end of the summer.

The other hurdle we have to overcome is the money. It is expensive to adopt and we only have half saved. I have items listed on Craigslist (know anyone who is looking for a generator?), cut expenses and am looking at other ways to raise the funds. Car washes? Soda cans? Garage sales? Happy hour? I am open to any and all ideas.

The adoption attorney we have chosen feels its a great time to get on the list as he was saying, as of last month, they only have three heterosexual christian families waiting and didn't see any reason why we wouldn't have a baby by the end of the year. Eeek! I am so excited!

Ideas, questions, thoughts?

Hummingbirds

I love, love, love my hummingbird feeder. At any given time we have two or three, even up to four hummingbirds feeding at it. Dusk is the best time of day to watch. The feeder isn't anything fancy. I purchased it at Wal-Mart for $12. The actual food is a simple water sugar mixture with a 4 to 1 ratio boiled for 5 minutes. They will eat about two cups of food a week.

It is actually quite difficult to take pictures of the hummingbirds. Well, maybe if you don't have a two year old and two large dogs following you around refusing to sit still it might be easy. I popped out the screen of our living room window and sat patiently at dusk with my camera ready. 

Playing with my camera settings

Changing the settings, this was using a different filter

First one

Second one

Third one

It is neat to see the different sizes and the colors are AMAZING. There is one bird that is quite aggressive and doesn't allow the other birds to eat. It is fun to watch as he gets distracted chasing one away another will sneak in for quick bite. 

Hummingbirds are surprisingly loud. One afternoon I was outside getting the feeder to bring it inside to clean and refill and hummingbird buzzed me. It was incredibly loud, I thought for sure it had to be a huge creature but no it was just a tiny hummingbird.  

Dentist take 2

It is amazing what a difference six months can make. Claire had a dentist appointment yesterday and did AMAZING! Sooo much better than last time.

Memorial Day Weekend

We spent the long weekend in Bend at Grammy and Papa Dean's. Claire and I left Friday morning and Dave came over on his bike Saturday afternoon. Initially, Dave was going to take Friday off but since he waited till the last minute too many other techs were already scheduled to be off and it would have left them short handed. As it turns out, he was quite busy and got in some overtime for the day. Plus, he enjoyed the long bike ride. Win-win.

In the past Claire has just slept with us on the bed but to be perfectly honest it wasn't working for anyone. I was grumpy, Claire was grumpy, Dave was grumpy, all from the lack of sleep. This time I brought with us a twin size air mattress. It worked awesome! Everyone had their own space and got a good nights sleep. I am hoping it works just as well when we go camping this summer.

As usual, Claire was very excited to ride the horses, feed the horses, pet the horses, brush the horses.... you get the idea. Its all she's talks about. In fact, she had it all planned out. She was going to ride Buster (by herself) and Dave was going to ride Rowdy. When asked which horse Papa Dean was going to ride she simply replied "he can share with Daddy". However, when it came down to going on a trail ride she didn't want to go. All she wanted was to trot along in the yard area and she only wanted to go for a few minutes and only once. Strange.

Tucker and Ruby came with us this time. Our normal dog sitter was busy. Ruby looks really fat in this picture. Maybe its a bad angle :). I thought she (we) was (were) doing really good keeping her weight down. Guess I'll have to get her weighed and see about cutting back her food.

I think the highlight for Claire was the 'pool'. Grammy's hot tub was a big hit. Just the perfect size too. Well sort of, perfect size that I didn't have to get in with her but she couldn't actually swim but Claire still had fun.

Once again Claire got a runny nose while we were there. Its not George the cat like I thought last time. I tested my theory with the Anderson's cat Maggie. Maybe the Juniper pollen? She's allergic to something over there, just have to figure out what it is.

The best part of the weekend was Dave and I went to a movie. Yes, a movie! We haven't been to a movie together since before Claire was born. Mom and Dean were nice enough to watch Claire for us. SHAWARMA!

Funny

Claire and I have the funniest conversations. For example this morning, I get out of the shower and find Claire sitting outside on the porch swing with a bunch of coins from our coin basket.

Claire: Hi mama
Me: Whatcha doing?
Claire: Counting my monies
Me: Okay
Claire: Yeah! I need to get more monies. I need big piles of monies.
Me: Okay

I need to start writing more of these down as they happen as I forget by the time I sit down to blog. Here are two random pictures from my phone.... enjoy! :)

Thinks she's old enough yet?

On the train at the zoo