Homemade Ornaments

Over the past semester Viddy took a glass blowing class. The name of the class is Chemical Glass Blowing, but more important than being able to make distillation apparatuses and fix any broken glassware in the lab, was all of the sweet Christmas ornaments that he made.

An icicle

There was a little hole in the ornament so we filled it with colored water.

This on is my favorite.

Havasupai (Again summer updates)

This summer we hiked Havasupai. It is located on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. We hiked eight miles from the rim to Havasupai and then 2 more miles to the falls.

This was before we started hiking. We hiked the switchbacks (about 1 1/2 miles) the night we arrived.

A scorpion illuminated in black light.

We slept at the bottom of the switchbacks. Everyone thought that it was going to be really warm so most people didn't bring a lot of blankets. I on the other hand brought a sleeping bag and when I was really warm in the morning, Liz came and sucked the body heat out of me.

This is us on the way to Havasupai.

After the 8 mile hike.

Viddy with our two nieces.

Fun on the rope swing at the falls.

This was the sign before the hike down to Mooney Falls.

Us in front of Mooney Falls. It took all of my strength to stand that close to the fall because the water so strong.

The whole group in front of Mooney Falls.

The girls found a lizard in the falls and thought it was pretty awesome.

There is a new fall that was created by the flooding last year and there is a ledge where you can stand behind the falls and jump through them.

The group at the new falls.

The new falls were short enough, and the pool at the bottom was deep enough that we jumped off them. Viddy was the first to jump, but it took a little more coercing to get me off the falls.

I had to have some one walk with me to the ledge of the falls and Viddy was at the bottom just in case I suddenly forgot how to swim when I hit the water. The fall was a lot longer than I thought it would be, so while I was mid-air I had time to think "I think that I should have hit the water by now." Also going through my mind: "Let me guess, we're about to go over a huge waterfall. -Yup. Sharp rocks at the bottom? -Most likely. Bring it on!"

You can barely see her in the picture, but right under John (the person with his head cut off at the top of the picture) is Emma. She's eight years old and she really wanted to jump off. We were afraid that she wouldn't clear the rocks so John "tossed" her off the side. She had so much fun and couldn't wait to tell her class at school that she had jumped off a waterfall.

One night at the lodge we had a BBQ.

This is us on the way back. The weather for the hike out was perfect. It had rained earlier that day which cooled things off and there was a breeze. Although with the sweat on our backs you might think otherwise. We actually took less time hiking out (up-hill) compared to the hike in.

The whole experience was amazing. We hiked over 30 miles in three days and although we were sore from the experience, we would gladly do it again. So let us know if you are interested. :)

More Summer Adventures

While we were in Nauvoo we took 2 days and traveled through the night to Cedar Point - the coolest amusement park ever! We didn't get a lot of sleep those couple days, but it was sure a lot of fun. Here are just a few pictures.

In the car on the way to Cedar Point, as you can tell, not a lot of sleep.

Just a few rides they had there. This park is so massive, we were riding rides and standing in line all day. It was a lot of fun and definitely worth the little sleep.

After a long day at the park we went to a hotel where we got a good night's sleep before the drive back to Nauvoo.

Summer fun... I know it's really late

This summer we went to Nauvoo and visited Grandma May. It was a ton of fun and here are some of the pictures from the trip.

Again, I know that it's been a while, but better late than never right?

The Nauvoo Temple at night.

The Nauvoo temple during the day.

The group at Adam-ondi-ahman.

Michelle bought some awesome candy and shared, and as a result we all had pink tongues.

There were a lot of fun games that we played (they were games that we played during Joseph Smith's time) I'm pretty sure that Michelle won.

The game was to stay on the stilts and try to knock other people off. This was the result. Way to go Liz!

This is the upper floor of the Assembly Hall where dances were held. This is us dancing on the same floor that Joseph and Emma danced on.

The door at Carthage.

While we were there the BYU Dancers came and performed. That was a treat.

We went to the shows while we were there. My favorite was Sunset on the Mississippi. We had front row seats and I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. After the show cast members came up to us and asked if we would come every night and just laugh. They said it made it so fun to perform.

There are three of us laying on one couch and Courtney is feeding us Sweedish Fish. My favorite is Liz's face :)

Grandma May: She was so fun to visit and everyone we talked to had something nice to say about her. She made the whole experience a blast!

Fruit Picking

The other week... I know I haven't updated the blog for quite a while... we went fruit picking at an orchard about an hour a way. We had a lot of fun picking the fruit, but you don't realize how much fruit you are picking until you get to the cashier and she tells you that you have 20 pounds of apple and 20 pounds of Asian pears. We dehydrated all of the Asian pears and took them hiking with us and the apples we are still working on.

This is the group that we went with. From left to right: Jessica, Viddy, Dave, Michelle, Kristen.
Some of the good fruit was a little too high for one person to reach, so this is what Michelle and Kristen had to do :)
The fruit picker.

Michelle sampling an Asian pear.

We got an icee that was green and blue and this was the result.

Adoption

About 2 weeks ago we went to LDS Family Services for our initial interview about adoption. The interview took about 15 minutes. We then had an explanation of the process of adoption for about an hour and a half. So let me tell you a little about the process so you can see what we are doing. We are currently in the initial application phase. We are fingerprinted, have a physical, provide proof of employment and attend an adoptive parenting course. When all of that is finished we turn in all of our paperwork and the Arizona Court System approves us as a couple that may adopt. We then have 18 months.

Then (and only then) we put our profile on the webpage and start hoping for a child. At that point we want to be looking for someone who may be willing and in a situation to place a child for adoption. So if any of you hear of anyone (Anywhere in the US or Canada) please let us know.

Once we have found someone (or they have found us) we discuss with them the type of adoption we want (open or closed) and the family services office takes care of all the paperwork.

The child is born and we become it's foster parents until all paperwork is finalized, a court date set and we are again approved by the court system and are granted full custody of the child.

Then we can have him/her sealed to us and give them a baby blessing.

Hopefully this gives you all an idea of what adoption is like and how many places little things can go wrong...Therefore, we would appreciate your prayers as we go through this process. Also, we'd appreciate keeping your ears open to any opportunities for a child.

We love you all and hope you have a wonderful day.

P.S. From now on we won't use the term "give up a child for adoption", but replace that with "placing a child with adoptive parents." We like many others want adoption to be looked upon in a better light and although a mother may be giving many things up the hope is that she is giving the child more.

Softball

Viddy and I played on our ward's softball team for the past couple of months and I thought that I should document our last game. Please don't think that we played on the team because we were any good at all (especially me... Viddy can pitch at least, well every other pitch :) ) I think the only reason they asked us to be on the team was because they would had to forfeit if there weren't enough players. Also we brought treats of some sort every week.

Me playing catcher. I think it was the only place where I couldn't mess things up too much.

Viddy, after he made a run.

The battle wounds from the night. It wasn't really a slide, but it looked something like that and this was the result.