Our Adoption Book

  One of the nice things about using an adoption agency is that they help you promote yourself to potential birth-mothers.  So we created a family scrapbook about our lives, what we enjoy doing, where we live, our friends, our family and our hopes and aspirations.
  There were two different sites they recommended, ended up choosing Shutterfly because they looked the most user friendly.  Even though I am considered to be the King of Scrapbooking, I prefer to play that close to the vest.  Of course if you asked Chris she would deny this, which actually works well into my plan.
  After reviewing hundreds of photos, and working on layout, fonts and what to say, we created our family book.  Six copies were printed, four of them are in the Portland office to be checked out and two were sent to the Seattle office.  Please look it over and a funny story about the book came up last night which I will talk about below.

  Last night I was at a meeting with other parents who are in the adoption pool from our agency.  We were talking before the meeting started and someone said that they really liked our family book.  I was taken by surprise, mainly since I forgot that it is on our adoption page.  But was very appreciative that they liked it and used some of my design.  But what she like the most was the fonts.
  Here's what is so funny about that statement.  When I was doing the layout, and getting regular sign off from the boss, I decided to use as many of the fonts that they provided.  How could I resist, there were over 40 of them!  All of them like a shinny red button, calling out "Use Me, Use Me!"  What was I supposed to do?
  Well pretty much everyone who looked over the book said two things, the layout is amazing and you really need to fix those fonts.  I gave in and set them all to the same font, something normal like Arial, and finished the book.
  Getting back to last night, being so honest I admitted that the fonts looked great since everybody told me to change them.  It takes a big man to admit when he is wrong, thankfully I'm not that big.

Our Adoption Video

  One of the benefits of registering with an adoption agency is that they take care of everything.  This includes promoting us to potential birth mothers why we would be a good family to have adopt their baby.  Our agency, Open Adoption & Family Services, filmed us last year just before one of our homestudy interviews.
  So they give you a heads up about what they want to you talk about.  While the temptation to make fun of each other was very strong, we both decided to take it seriously.  The answers are not scripted, no teleprompter, and all done in one take.  Not saying I'm deserving of an Oscar, but a Golden Globe nomination would be in order.
  Please watch the video and then read below for a great story about the hidden joke at the end.

  When Chris says that we can buy a bigger turkey for Thanksgiving, this is a reference to our first Thanksgiving in 1994.  We were just newlyweds and for the first time we were going to have Thanksgiving dinner at our apartment.  Only two other guests were coming and one didn't eat turkey.  As many of you know, I pretty much do all of the cooking.  But at the time I was going to have to work on Thanksgiving during the day, meaning my wonderful wife would have to cook the turkey.
  A week earlier I went to the local supermarket to get a turkey.  I was given very strict instructions that I could not come back into the apartment with a turkey bigger than eight pounds.  All they had were frozen turkeys and the smallest one was a fraction under twelve pounds.  I came home, put it the freezer with the weight tag clearly showing if you opened up the refrigerator.  When asked if it was an eight pound turkey, I responded with it's a heavy eight pound turkey.
  Fast forward to Thanksgiving morning, the bird is almost defrosted.  I help Chris get everything prepped and then go to work.  A few hours later I get a phone call from my wonderful wife.

Chris: Honey, how big was that turkey?
Me: (not noticing the annoyance in her voice) It was a heavy eight pound turkey.
Chris: How heavy?
Me: (realizing that my jig was up) About four pounds heavy.

  Turns out that one of the guests showed up and immediately melted a few sticks of butter to baste the bird and asked Chris how big the turkey was.  When she responded that it was eight pounds our friend said that is not an eight pound turkey.  And when I got home I had to pay the piper, but explained that I tried to find an eight pound turkey, nearly getting frostbite on my fingers going through the turkeys.  Maybe it was the spirit of Thanksgiving, or that we were in our second month of marriage the reason that she forgave me.  But the reality was there was a lot of wine during that meal, a whole lot of wine.
  It has become a running joke about me getting a heavy eight pound turkey over the years.  But seriously I do love cooking Thanksgiving and always look for a reason to get a bigger bird.  So if you have nowhere to go on Thanksgiving this year please come over to our house.  I can get another heavy eight pound turkey by at least another ten pounds.

SPLASH!!! (We're now in the adoption pool)

That's right, the splash you heard was us entering the adoption pool and not your roof leaking (a joke for our fellow Oregonians).  It has taken sometime to get everything sorted out and completed, which is why there hasn't been a post for a while.  But we are now one step closer and here is a summary of what has happened so far.

This past year we were working on our home study.  A home study is part of the screening process for an adoption.  It involves a number of interviews, an inspection of your home, and tons of paperwork.  Once it has been completed and approved you are eligible to adopt a child.  This was finally completed for us a few months ago.

After the home study the next step is to enter into the adoption pool with our agency.  Now we could have gone out on our own, but we don't have the experience, knowledge or time to do this.  The nice thing about our adoption agency is that they cover everything from soup to nuts.  Of course this does cost more.

As well it was during the election season and with Chris working full time on a political campaign.  If we got the call which could come at any time, it would have been very difficult to drop everything.  Add to that we needed to raise the money to enter the adoption pool with our agency.  Again, thank you to everyone who has been very generous in helping with our finances.  You can make an online donation here and every penny will go towards the final costs of our adoption.

Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.  And if you know of someone who is looking for a family to adopt, please keep us in mind.  You can refer them to our page.