And the Winners Are............

O.K. I put all of your names into Random.Org and they chose the winners of my giveaway.
(For those of you who got 2 entries I put your names in twice).

And the Winners Are..........

First Prize-----Kayce

Woo Hoo!! Congrats Kayce I've already texted you to let you know that you won and I know your address so I'll try and get it in the mail on Monday.

The second prize winner is...............

Laura

Congrats Laura! I'll be e-mailing you to get your information so I can get your prize in the mail.

I love doing these. They are so fun! Maybe I should just post giveaways on the blog from now on :)

Thanks for playing along!

Last Chance to Enter my Giveaway

Today is your last chance to enter the giveaway below. I'll be drawing the winners tomorrow!

Giveaway!!

In honor of our 3 year LID I'm giving away some cool stuff. It's my way of saying thank you to the people who have been following along on our journey this far.

Here's the goods:

This acrylic scrapbook that I made last year at the Scrapbook Expo.

It's an acrylic album.



Half the pages are covered in regular scrapbook paper.


And the other half are acrylic:

It has 12 pages(counting the fronts and backs of each page) to hold pictures.


I think it's really cute! :)

This time around I'll even draw a second place winner and up for grabs is this weekly planner:


I just love the design on the front. Joe bought it for me but it's too large. I need a small one that I can carry in my purse so he said I could take it back if I wanted.

Of course I am far too lazy to do that :) Don't worry, I found another one online that will work better for me. It starts in June 2009 and goes through December 2010, so you can start using it right away.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post! (I will count comments left on FB too).

If you want one extra entry, become a follower of my blog. Or if you already are a follower, leave me a second comment letting me know. So 2 entries per person if you do both of those things.

I'll leave this up until Friday and choose the winners on Saturday.

Good Luck!

And thanks for following along :)

36 Months

*****We don't actually hit 36 months until tomorrow but this post has been in the queue for awhile and I'm ready for it to be gone. Plus I wanted to post a giveaway on the actual date. So stay tuned tomorrow for that!*********


94, 608,000 seconds.

1,576,800 minutes.

26,280 hours.

1,095 days.

36 months.

3 Years.

That's how long we have been waiting for our daughter. Add another 6 years that we tried to get pregnant and that puts us at 9 years trying to become parents.

That's a long damn time.

I don't know how much longer we have to wait. At this point I feel very far removed from this adoption and I'm trying to hang onto the adage "It will happen when it happens."


It did somehow seem appropriate to honor this month in some way. It is a milestone of sorts that have we made it this far. I have wanted to give up many many times along the way.

There are people before us who have waited longer and there will be people after us who will wait even longer than we will.

I am going to try and make an effort not to dwell on the negative aspects of this waiting process anymore. I really am. It is what it is. For reasons I will never understand, we are not meant to be parents yet.

I'm not sure how much longer I will keep this blog going. What started out as a journal and a place for me to vent and get my feelings out has turned into a place that I find myself editing what I write and constantly second guessing myself. I have started an online journal elsewhere.

I may keep the blog open just to post pictures. That's all I have been doing lately anyway.

I have made some wonderful friends in real life through this blog and and "met" some great people online too through blogging. I don't know where I would be without this online community and your support. I will be forever grateful for it.


Hopefully one day I will post a picture of us holding our daughter in our arms.

Until then, we have to live our lives.

Thanks for following along on the ride. What a ride it has been.

36 Months from Michelle on Vimeo.

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time
Any fool can do it
There ain't nothing to it
Nobody knows how we got to
The top of the hill
But since we're on our way down
We might as well enjoy the ride

The secret of love is in opening up your heart
Its okay to feel afraid
But don't let that stand in your way
'Cause anyone knows that love is the only road
And since we're only here for a while
Might as well show some style
Give us a smile

Isn't it a lovely ride
Sliding down
Gliding down
Try not to try too hard
Its just a lovely ride

Now the thing about time is that time
Isn't really real
It's just your point of view
How does it feel for you
Einstein said he could never understand it all
Planets spinning through space
The smile upon your face
Welcome to the human race

Some kind of lovely ride
I'll be sliding down
I'll be gliding down
Try not to try too hard
Its just a lovely ride

Isn't it a lovely ride
Sliding down
Gliding down
Try not to try too hard
Its just a lovely ride

Now the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time

James Taylor

Joe's Birthday and Kooza

Joe at the entrance to Disneyland with his birthday button(that I made him wear :)


His free birthday ticket, which we traded up for a pass



We went to lunch with Lisa and Family before they headed to the airport to go home
The other picture with the four of us Gracie had her eyes closed:







That night we went to go see Kooza at the Santa Monica Pier. It was amazing.






The “Grand Chapiteau” (That’s what Cirque du Soliel calls their circus tent)



Inside the “Grand Chapiteau”







They had a bunch of masks and hats for sale



So of course we had to try them on









I think this one is my favorite on Joe


Although this one is nice too. The horns suit him :)



When we came out after the show, the fog had rolled in. It was eerie.






Since his actual birthday was such a busy day we had cake the next day.



I forgot candles so we used what we could find. First we tried wooden skewers but they started smoking too much and we were afraid the smoke detector was going to go off. Heh.


Joe said it was one of the best birthdays he ever had. :)

And we decided to save our fancy dinner until next weekend so we get to celebrate two weekends in a row. Woohoo!

DIsney with The Smith and the Teague Families

The Smith and Teague families planned a short vacay to So. CA to do Disney last week. You know I had to be a part of that!

I didn't take that many pictures, which is a sure sign that I had a great time. Having too much fun to stop for photo taking!




Family picture. Cameron was deliberately trying to ruin the picture. He succeeded. Heh. And Grace is acting silly. Shocker.



Thunder Mountain




Karen and Kailee joined us for a couple of rides and some lunch. SO fun to see them again!


Grace and Kailee on the "Winnie the Pooh" ride.

Treats, Disney style



These were called "Tigger Tails". Which is kind of gross if you really think about it. :)



We all met up at this really cool Mongolian BBQ restaurant in "The Garden Walk" shopping center for dinner on Thursday night. It was yummy.


Grace and Ryleigh in front of the billboard at the shopping center.

Waiting for our food to cook. I don't know why Stacey isn't looking and/or smiling. I guess she didn't hear me say "Hey everyone, look over here!" :)


Our food cooking. It was sooooo good.

They had $11.00 pitchers of margaritas. No, I did not drink the whole thing!


Such a great time was had.

It was crowded and much too hot for my taste and I have to say I'm a little Disneyed-out. I'm not sure if we'll be back before the holidays. We were able to trade in Joe's free birthday ticket for the basic annual pass so you know we'll be back, probably sooner rather than later ;)

Happy Birthday Joe!

Today is my wonderful husband's birthday.

Last night we went to the Cheesecake Factory with Lisa and family and today we're headed to Downtown Disney to have lunch before they head to the airport(sob!).

Tonight we're going to see Kooza and tomorrow we're going to that fancy restaurant in Newport Beach for dinner.

A busy and fun filled weekend!

Happy Birthday Joe.

I love you more than you know :)

13 Years

I can't believe it's been 13 years.

I know I say that every year. But I really can't believe it's been that long.

I don't have much more today except this:



I miss you Mom.


I can't believe you've been gone so long.

I can't believe you will never see your grandchild.

I can't believe I still miss you so much even after all this time.



I'm not dwelling on sadness today. Two of my favorite families are visiting and we are spending the day at Disneyland. I think that's a pretty good way to spend what otherwise might be a sad day. I just feel the need to mark this day somehow, as it was one of the worst days of my entire life 13 years ago and I miss my Mom especially on this day.

Catch Up

I'm playing catch up here and posting some pictures of things in the last couple of weeks. I can't believe it is October 11th already and that Halloween is only 3 weeks away. We just got my Fall decorations out of storage yesterday. Usually I have them up before the first of October.


I have been having fun making these banners lately. Today I’m working on some Thanksgiving and Christmas ones.





A week or so ago I came home to find these clouds outside our balcony. Are they not stunning? I sat out there and watched for a half an hour, and then they were gone. This was taken with my purse camera. I can’t imagine how much better they would look if I had a “nice” camera.



I’m finally getting around to posting some of our Disney pics too. From the pictures it looks like we had a great time but the only thing I remember about that trip is how sick I got. I get to do Disney again this week so hopefully I can replace those memories with some better ones.











The rest of the Disney pics are below:

More Disney

He always humors me :)





They dressed Maggie the cow up for Halloween. Oh the indiginity!



Love this picture of me and Goofy



They had some awesome pumpkin carvers there:





This one was my favorite:

“Dug” from the movie “Up”. And he’s wearing the cone of shame. Ha!





Jack and Sally from “Nightmare Before Christmas”



And then we got to “meet” them in person. I didn’t want to stand in line for this. I was feeling rotten at this point and we had already planned to leave but we got into the line anyway. Turns out they closed the line right after us and wouldn’t let anyone else wait. People were all kinds of pissed. This one guy was almost yelling at the cast member standing behind us closing off the line, telling her that they had been trying for 6 days to get a picture with these two and it wasn’t fair and couldn’t she just let them in and they were going home tomorrow, blah, blah, blah. I wanted to turn around and say “You know they aren’t REAL, right? Just two people dressed in a costume”. If he wasn’t such a jerk I would have given them my place in line because at that point I had started sitting on the ground I was feeling so badly.

Lucky Me

There are a few departments in my life where I feel I am extremely unlucky.

I have been unlucky in the trying-to-become-a-Mom department.

I have been unlucky in the health department. Seriously. Do you know anyone who has more health issues(or gets sicks as much) as I do?

I have been very unlucky in the my-husband-needs-to-find-a-job department(It has been 9 long months since my husband lost his job)

But there are other ways in which tend to be lucky. Mostly with giveaways or contests. Especially on the radio, but also with blog giveaways lately.

5 or 6 years ago I won a trip for 2 to Hawaii.

I have won concert tickets at least 5 times.

I won $100 cash once.

Last month I won 4 tickets to see "Cirque du Soliel's" Kooza show. We love Cirque and used to go every year but due to finances haven't been in probably 4 years or so. It starts this month and we cannot wait to go see it.

All of those by simply being the right number caller on the radio. Well the last one I was the 20th texter, not caller. But you get the idea.

I have won quite a few items on blogs over the last couple of months too.


Last year I won this banner:



I won this on a blog giveaway a couple of months ago:

Love it.


And this:

It's a beautiful maple handmade skillet rack. (No, those aren't my skillets. I wish!)
They make them here, but I won mine on this website.


Then just this morning(on the radio again)I won a hundred dollar gift card for a fancy restaurant down by the beach (keep in mind that anything above Wendy's is fancy for us)and qualified for another trip to Hawaii. The gift card comes at a great time because I was just lamenting to my husband that there was no way we were going to be able to go out to dinner for his birthday later this month. But now we can. And to a place we never could have afforded on our own!

All of this free stuff for very little effort. For the blog giveaways all I had to do was leave a comment! Free stuff for something I would have done anyway.

The radio contests take a little more effort. Usually calling in at the right time, when you hear a cue or the song of the day. The key to those is perseverance.

I listen to several radio stations in the car. Last month one of them was doing the trip-a-day to Hawaii giveaway. I called in every single(weekday), 3 times a day trying to qualify-on my way to work, on my lunch break, and on my way home. No dice.


Then the radio station we listen to at work started having the same promotion. Today was the first day of their contest. I heard the audio cue at around 10:00, called in and viola! $100 restaurant gift card. Free money!

Even though I wasn't able to get through last month I kept at it.

It turns out I didn't win the Hawaii trip today. And that's O.K. My name is still in the drawing so I have 15 more chances to win this month. But if I don't that's fine too. At least I tried.

And now my husband and I get to go out and celebrate his birthday at a nice restaurant. And later in the month we get to go to a really cool show.

But the real reasons I am lucky is because I have a husband who loves me and a family that is healthy and a job that is secure. All this other stuff is just the icing on top.



Lucky indeed.

3 Word Sunday

I am still feeling rotten. Yesterday evening I started to feel better and tried to eat some real food.

It was too soon. I've been up since 2:30 a.m. because of it. Thank goodness for the anti-nausea meds the doc gave me.

I so hope to be feeling better by this afternoon.

I have been stuck at home for almost 5 days(with the exception of work on Friday) and I'm becoming restless.

We're supposed to go to a party for my Dragon Boat team later and I really really want to go. I just wish I felt better.

Surely this will run its course and be gone soon. Right?