Lights at Temple Square and The Nutcracker

We decided this year to go see The Nutcracker at Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake City. We also had a gift certificate to stay at The Anniversary Inn and we still hadn't seen the lights at Temple Square so we made a nice weekend trip out it. It was a wonderful weekend and reminded us again why we are encouraged to continue dating your spouse after you get married.

We got to Temple Square just in time to see the Nativity.

I love this Nativity scene on the reflecting pool by the temple. I only wish there would have been snow- there is just something so magical about snow and light with all of the Nativity scenes around Temple Square

These are just spectacular to look at. I love the sparkly lights and the magical feeling of Christmas. It is wonderful to see how each country depicts the same story in their nativity sculptures.

I didn't take any pictures of them this year (except for the two that are in the picture above) because our camera battery died but I love the luminaries that are around the plaza near the Church office building. I took a closer look this year and noticed that each luminary has a word associated with the holidays (Peace, Joy, Merry Christmas, etc) in a different language and at the bottom it has the language and what it means in English. I think I've missed it in the past because there has been snow and I can't wait to go back next year.

Our last stop at Temple Square was "Our Spot". We have come back to this spot every year in December. It is is the exact spot where we got engaged. We were there on the exact date this year, December 18. I can't wait to see how this picture changes over the years. This year definitely wins hands down as the coldest, so far.


After our stop at Temple Square, we drove to The Anniversary Inn and checked into the Presidential suite. We forgot to take pictures of the room but loved that it has its own deck that we could see the city lights from. It was a beautiful view. The inversion was terrible but I loved that we could still see the city lights. I think we will book that room again sometime. I loved reading through that comment book they have in the room. Everyone raves about the service, beauty of the room, etc but my favorite comment was from a couple that was there celebrating their 50th anniversary. They wrote "we loved the room but the shower was a little hard to get out of for us old folks." Hilarious!! I have to admit that I LOVE the waterfall shower- we decided we would love to have one in our home at some point.

The next day we spent the good portion of the day looking at houses in Layton and Kaysville. Yes, we are in the market for a home. We didn't find anything during our day but did have fun looking at homes and learning more of what we are looking for in a home and the things that we both like. We will mostly likely end up purchasing a home in Salt Lake county but we haven't found anything yet.


We enjoyed dinner at Biaggi's at the Gateway in Salt Lake City (our favorite) before going to The Nutcracker. Neither of us had ever seen it and we both loved it. We had fantastic seats but it was a little bit cramped for my 6' 4" husband so we scoped out where we would be more comfortable next time we go to a show there. While the show was fantastic and I loved being there with J.D. my favorite part of the night was watching all of the little girls in their beautiful dresses and seeing the smiles on their faces as they watched the magic on stage.

Witnessing an Adoption Placement

As we are nearing completion of our adoption paperwork and the reality of what is ahead starts to come more into focus I have become more emotional about the reality of adoption.  My heart is full and my mind is still trying to wrap around what I witnessed last night at work. I had the privilege of taking care of a birth mother and her baby and witness the placement of this tiny beautiful baby. Last night it became so crystal clear to me the bittersweet emotions that take place during a placement. I watched this young woman place this new baby in its parents arms and give it one last kiss before I wheeled her outside to go home. It was a tender moment and I am not ashamed to say that I shed a few tears as I watched it happen.

Ah Ha Moments

Last night at work there was a baby that started showing signs of drug withdraw. This little one was not one of my patients but she was just so sweet and tiny I couldn't help but want to hold her and give her a little bit of extra love. I don't know the entire circumstance of her family but the small portion I do know was so disappointing. It is heartbreaking the suffering this little infant has had to endure already because of choices she did not make. It is repulsive the lack of care that this mother appeared to have for this child that she helped create. With these things though I had an ah-ha moment that shook me to my very core and brought me to tears...this little infant so sweet, pure and spirit fresh from heaven taught me a valuable lesson. This is not about her mother (or father) or any other person-- it is about this small little person and her enormous spirit. This is her story and only Heavenly Father knows why this spirit and the body to carry it have to endure these earthly trials.

We have been told in meetings with LDSFS that the journey with adoption isn't about the birth parents or the adoptive parents and what they want/need but about the child and what they need and/or is best for them. I heard it, I thought I understood it before but this tiny infant taught me what that really meant last night. I promised this baby as a rocked her last night that I would pray for her...and I will.

Until next time...

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Ghouls and goblins are put away for another year- thank goodness- I am not a big fan of Halloween! However, November and December are two of my favorite months. Two months in a row that give me an opportunity to really think about the blessings in my life, reflect on the year that has gone by and be grateful...I love it!
This is also the time of year when J.D. and I were dating. We have traditions that we have tried to do every year that started when we were dating. One is driving the Alpine Loop (I think it was our second or third date) to look at the leaves after they have changed. Last year it snowed before we were able to go on the drive so when J.D. noticed the leaves were changing this year we made a point to go on a Monday night for our drive. It did not disappoint- absolutely beautiful!


I love the fall colors and the crispness of the air. Hot chocolate and soup weather and best of all snuggling up with the Mister. I wish there was more time for that last one because I sure love that man! I so love making memories with him and creating traditions that we can share with our children. I can't believe it has been three years since we met and started making memories together. If I really think about it I remember life before I met J.D. but really it seems like we have always been together. As we are filling out our adoption paperwork there are quite a few questions about our relationship and it's strengths and weaknesses. I don't know if other people sit around and think about these questions but it has really given me (and I think J.D.) time to think about our relationship and marriage. I am just so grateful for the good man that asked me to marry him and I'm glad I was smart enough to say yes!

About the adoption...we keep getting questions about how it's going. Honestly it is a slower process than we expected. The average time to fill out paperwork and have a home study and get approval is 6 months. We are done filling out hard copy paperwork and now it is just questions that we have to answer- about us, our marriage, families, our thoughts on adoption, parenting philosophy- mine is perfect by the way because I don't have children yet ;) Some, well many really of the questions are things that I hadn't put words to before. I know how I feel in my heart but putting words to those feelings is more difficult that I thought it would be. We are in Phase Two of the application and once we are done with the questions we will have individual interviews with our caseworker. We set a goal to have all the questions done by the end of November so we can hopefully have our interviews done by the end of the year.
While it wasn't a smooth beginning with LDSFS because of some miscommunication to us from the office we are so glad that we are able to work with them. We just love our caseworker, Hayley. We also like the support that is offered to both birth families and adoptive couples. They have a monthly chat night with different topics each month. We were able to attend our first chat night on Thursday. The topic was open adoptions. There were a couple of birth parents and an adoptive couple that have adopted two little girls are waiting to adopt for the third time. It was really informative and we had questions answered that we didn't even necessarily know that we had. Neither of us have had a concern about an open adoption- I had other concerns but they have since been resolved and even put more to rest during the chat night on Thursday.

Until next time...

Our Caseworker and Paperwork

I was at the Pleasant Grove Police Department this morning and was fingerprinted- they no longer use the black ink that you find on your hands hours later even though you are certain you washed your hands sufficiently.  It is now a scanner type contraption that is pretty slick.  JD got to miss out on the fun because he has lived in Utah for the past 5 years consecutively.  In case you are wondering why I know so much about fingerprinting I have had it done before... when I had to be fingerprinted for my massage therapy license.  I am not a criminal.  In fact, it is a really weird feeling going back to be fingerprinted because it is where they fingerprint people they are putting in jail- granted the Pleasant Grove Police Department isn't like Salt Lake City or anything but it is still just strange to be in that place.

We met with our caseworker, Hayley last Friday.  We both really like her and are looking forward to working with her.  She has an intern, Kaylee, working with her as well so we will get to interact with both of them but mostly Hayley.   We went over the qualifications for working with LDSFS again with her and of course meet the qualifications.  We had hoped to go to the adoption training on October 14 and 15 and were excited and anxious to have this meeting with her so we could go to the required training.  We found out during our meeting that they don't feel like we are far enough in the process to go and needless to say we were sad and disappointed.  I didn't realize how emotional I would be about the news but the flood gates opened and I couldn't stop crying.  I asked for an explanation since we had been told by several people that this meeting was the key to our attending the training.  Hayley was very good to explain why and while I still don't like that we can't go, I have to be ok with it.  I do like that we will be communicating almost exclusively with Hayley now so there won't be so much confusion.  So now we are trying to get through the different phases of paperwork and online documents so we will be ready for the February training.

This adoption paperwork is not for the faint of heart.  There is a lot to do and I know understand why they say it can take up to six months to get through it all.  We have submitted our variety of certificates (birth, marriage, temple sealing) this morning, along with the background check forms and my fingerprints and employment verification for both me and JD.  I dropped off the infertility documentation form to Dr. F's office this morning and will call and check to make sure it was sent off on Friday.  JD and I both have physicals scheduled for next week, as well.   I'm actually kind of glad that is required because we both needed to have our yearly checks anyway.  Once those papers are turned in the rest of what we fill out will be online.

We got our account set up on Monday for itsaboutlove.org to fill out the rest of our online paperwork.  We are in phase 1 right now and that is all about our personal information again and giving them references to contact.  I can't remember what the next phase is but we should be able to work on it this weekend and next week.  Lots of paperwork ahead but anything worth anything takes work and effort!

Until next time...

Choosing My Trials

JD and I have friends that have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of their twin daughters. They went through fertility treatments and on their third IUI they had success and found out they were going to have twins. That is news that I always hoped to hear, in reality I still hope to hear even though it won't be me that carries those twins, most likely.
They went into the hospital on Wednesday to be induced since the girls didn't come on their own. I just found out this morning that C had to have an emergency c-section this morning after laboring all day yesterday and through the night and immediately after delivery had no measurable pulse and had to receive 5 units of blood and be transferred to the ICU at another hospital. Thankfully she is doing better now and is even awake but what a terrifying thing to have happen to you when it should be one of the happiest days of your life and then have it take such a dramatic turn in the other direction. From all indications both girls are doing well. I work at the hospital where they were delivered and I am so glad I will be working tonight and will hopefully get to see J and meet their daughters and before they go home.
As I have been keeping up on what has been going on with J and C this morning via Facebook and the events that have transpired in the last few hours for them I can't help but think again that I am glad I don't get get choose my trials. This is certainly not one that I would choose. I actually mentioned to some of my co-workers last week that I am learning to be grateful that we are adopting rather than continuing to pursue fertility treatments because of the things that I have seen some of these moms go through in the few months that I have worked on the mom/baby unit. This is the second time I have seen a new mom go to the ICU following an emergency c-section, obviously the odds are rare since I have seen many, many new moms without complications. I remember that the Lord works in mysterious ways and obviously I have to be taught in different ways to appreciate the blessings and trials that I have.

Until next time...

Adoption- Step 1

JD and I went to Provo to the LDS Family Services adoption orientation meeting last Wednesday only to find out that we can't work with that office because we live in Pleasant Grove. We then went to the meeting at the American Fork office on Friday. I'm kind of glad we were able to attend both meetings because while the information was basically the same, the way it was presented and what they spent time focusing on was different at each office.
This morning I drove over the orientation paperwork to the office in American Fork- so that means our journey with adoption has "officially" started. They will now send a letter to our bishop for his recommendation, we will then be assigned a caseworker and after they receive the letter back from the bishop we will have what is called an intake interview with the caseworker and get the next batch of paperwork to complete. There are quite a few things that we need to get done or gathered prior to this next batch of paperwork being turned in. Birth certificates, marriage certificate, fingerprints for background checks, family pictures, a new blog set up to be shared with birth families (and really anyone else that would like to take a peek at it).
We also need to start writing our letter to birth families that will introduce us to them- no pressure to want that to be just right. The one thing I keep remembering is that birth mothers/families aren't looking for perfection we just need to be who we are and the Lord will take care of the rest.
Since this entry has taken me almost two weeks to write we have since met with Bishop Lawyer (we have been so blessed to have wonderful bishops since we have been married) to go over questions that he needed some extra information from us to complete. He was going to mail the letter back to LDS Family Services (LDSFS) yesterday, so I can only assume we should be hearing back from LDSFS this week sometime.
We still haven't started the birth family letter but I have some rough drafts running through mind- let's just say my focus isn't always on school but very often on the things we need to do to finish our paperwork in record time and then be prepared to welcome a child or children into our home. We have started cleaning out the third bedroom in our townhouse and cleaning out extra junk, errr I mean treasures, that are collecting dust around the house. It feels good to get rid of some of this stuff.
This morning I ordered the birth certificates and marriage certificate that we will need to turn in with our next set of paperwork. Next, doctor appointments for both us for a checkup and completing the next batch of paperwork we are given at our intake appointment. We are also hoping to be able to attend the Adoption Training in October that is a requirement of LDSFS but it all hinges on our intake interview. This is quite a journey and we are so excited to be adding to our family through adoption