The latest news...My little brother Jedd had just graduate from Weber State University. I tried to go up to see, But got into a accident on the way up. Everything is fine....well just me....no injuries, just a little scratch below on my right knee. On the other hand the car is in the shop. I was going eastbound on I-80 towards Utah. I was about 50 to Winnemucca, and it had been raining. I hit a patch of black ice and I saw the car sliding towards the right. I did my best to correct the problem and tried to slow down. Next thing I knew, the car had spun around and I was going backwards, went of the road and hit a exit sign that dented my rear back panel of my car and bent my rear suspension. There was nothing anyone can do when they hit black ice, besides to slow down and hope that they don't get hurt. That was my case, I hoped for the best of not getting hurt, and I was really lucky that the car didn't roll. I called the important people like 911 and Cathi and my Family. All in all everything is alright. Got to hear my brother and talked with him and told him, how proud I was for him to graduate.

Big Step

So here we are with some big things happening in our lives. We are celebrating 10 years of marriage this year, Cathi turns 35, we are set and ready for adoption, so what do we do? We spruce our lives up just a bit more. We got a new puppy, whom we just love. Smokey has been such a fun and sweet addition to our little family. He and Buddy actually get along and we love to watch them be rambunctious and play all over. On the couch, on the bed, all through the house, and yes, even on us. lol

Then as if a new puppy and the finding process of adoption, wasn't exciting enough we go and buy a house. We have been going through several months of landlord dislike. He would show up whenever he felt to work on trees hanging over the house or the tree leaning in the front yard, without notice. In the beginning of our tenancy, he would show up and put the water on in either the front or back yard. The random accessing of the back yard in particular really concerned us as we have a doggie door in the sliding glass door and the concern for our sweet Buddy escaping. We just couldn't have that. The final straw, that accelerated our desire to own, was the landlord, in our home, speculating Jake's honesty in reporting when the furnace filter had been changed. I mean, really?? THAT was it.

Now, we have moved out about 99% and just have the random tidbits and cleaning and we can FINALLY wash our hands of the whole place.

We have painted, planned, continue to plan, prep for gardening (in the ground, he he), and just can relax knowing this is ours (and the bank's) and that's all we have to answer to. It was so reassuring, when a dear sweet friend of ours came to us, asked if we would provide for her boxer, in the event something should happen to her current situation, and knowing we could help give her peace of mind being able to say very clearly, and without reservation, YES!! I checked with my landlord (Jake). Jake checked with his landlord (naturally, me) and without other hesitation, a profound, resounding YES was able to be said.

Though we are new and young in our home ownership, we can honestly sit back and say, "Ahhhhhh.......we love home ownership."

I Love My Job....I Love My Job......I Love My Job

The end of yet another month and no time to breathe.......no rest for the weary. I work in the Accounts Receivable department of an international uniform company. Luckily, times being what they are, there is no shortage of people to call and ask for payment. Unfortunately, times being what they are, it seems fewer and fewer of those people have the funds to shut me up. Not only do I already have plenty of people to call, but now I have a whole new group of customers to call. Nothing like job security......in a time like this, right?

Mind you, while I love the partners with whom I work and I enjoy the company for whom I work, this would not be my "career" of choice. Numbers hold my attention just long enough to get the bills paid. :-) How many of you feel the same way??

No...crunching numbers and hounding people for money is NOT in any way my career choice. Mom.....now there is THE job title I have ALWAYS wanted. There is no sweeter sound than a child calling out for mommy. Now that we are truly in the "waiting/finding" phase of adoption, we greatly anticipate the day when we will be called mommy and daddy. Not only is that the best job ever, but you never get to retire and you always have job security. In adition to that, the benefits do not compare to any other benefits I know of. Plus the pay and bonuses are mile above the rest.

Maybe then I really will love my job. LOL :-)

Family ~ Blessing or Bitter?

On almost a daily basis I am amazed at what a blessing family can be. Jake and I have been blessed with "goodly parents", as Nephi put it. We have great parents in Utah who always have their door and arms open to us. They have come to the understanding that our means of having children, is not the most conventional, however, they support us completely and continue to see how the process is going and offer encouragement. We are also blessed to have great parents in California (unbelievably close to us), who open their doors and pull out dining table chairs for us on almost a daily basis. We share many meals, multiple inside jokes, and get together many times a week, and we (all of us) love every minute of it. They too have been extremely supportive of out pursuit for adoption. For both our parents' support, we are so very grateful.

We both have siblings whom we love dearly. Some we are closer to than others. Some share our values, more than others. I have one brother and one sister, both older than I. If you take into account the blended families Jake comes from, he has four brothers and one sister. Some are from his mom and father's marriage. One from his dad and his first wife's marriage. One from his mom and dad's marriage. One from his father's second marriage and one from his father's third wife's previous marriage. I know, tough to keep up.....but we do and we love them all. We don't always get along.....as most siblings....but we still love them.

Thanks to those brothers and sisters, we have many nieces and nephews, whom we absolutely love and adore....and who to some extent have been our attempt to begin somewhat parenting techniques, at I'm sure to some misfortune to them. We love them and relish all the time we get to spend with them. Just to note.....thank goodness for cell phone plans with UNLIMITED texting.....very handy w/ teen aged nieces. :)

In addition to the family we are born with or married into, out of, or have parents changing marriages, we have our wonderful "friemily"........those are the friends you choose who become family. We have great friemily who are also incredibly supportive of our adventure in adoption. Basically our very vest friemily simply has too much dirt on us, and we have dirt on her, that it might be detrimental if we ever "split".....imagine if your best friemily becomes your worst enemy.......imagine the amount of blackmail they would have. Lucky for us, it goes both ways. LOL

Unfortunately, not only have we experienced the blessing of family and friemily, but also the bitterness of them as well. Fortunately, the good has out weighed the bitter and we are truly blessed to have the family and friemily we have and the wonderful support system they provide is unmatched.

Thank you all for your love and support. We consider all of you a blessing.

So now I ask you, the reader, which do you have.....a blessing or a bitterness?? Think about it and if you have cause to, say thank you.

In the Beginning....how we met

Ok...this is my first time to blog........ever. So bear with me. Let me tell you about us a bit. Cathi was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and I was born in Ogden, Utah. Cathi and her family have moved from Idaho to Illinois to California, settling in Sacramento. They have lived in Sacramento for more than 20 years. I hardly moved. My family has lived in Layton for 20 years. We both graduated from High School and believe it or not we both had Lancers for our mascots. We both took a little bit of community college after High school. Cathi got into American Sign Language and I took some English and Math.

We both served missions. Cathi served in Pennsylvania Harrisburg Mission from Sept. 1996 to Feb. 1998. I served my mission in Michigan Lansing Mission from Feb. 1997 to Feb. 1999. As Cathi came home from her mission, she went back to work and school. She also traveled that first summer back, visiting her mission with her favorite mission companion, traveling through Oregon, Idaho and Utah. She dabbled in photography and took some pictures of temples, Utah canyons and Oregon fields backed by the mountains. She fell in love of the scenery in Utah and felt prompted to move there. She prayed about it and got her answer. Only two jobs were applied to and she was hired. She moved up to Utah in Aug 1999. I came home from my mission the following Feb and just started working through out the year.

Cathi and I met within six months after Cathi had moved out. We met at a Church Valentine's dance through a mutual friend. Cathi had worked most every evening and this dance happened to be on her first Fri night off in the 6 months she'd been in Utah. She decided she was going to the dance and had decided to talked her friends into go to this dance, too. I was on a date of my own. Just let me tell ya....the date wasn't good at all. As soon as we got to the dance....my date went straight over to her friends, leaving me at the doorway, basically. The dance had already started and I stood there for a good 5 minutes. I went to join my date and tried to fit in to the conversation but was a little bit left out, so I asked if she would mind if I wend and hung out with MY friends. She agreed. I looked around and saw one of the friends I went to school with (the mutual friend) and she introduced Cathi to me. I stayed throughout the majority of the evening and hung out with Cathi. I did many dorky dance moves to impress her. She totally laughed at my moves. My date later wanted to dance and got jealous. I danced with her for a couple of songs, then learned that she wanted to go home. As I was going to leave, Cathi told me that there was a group of friends who were going to her apartment to have ice cream...so i told her I would take my date home and then I will meet them later. So I took my date home and went to her apartment. After talking for a few hours, we decided to go home. As everyone, besides Cathi, was going to their cars, Carrie, our mutual friend, told me to go back and get Cathi's phone number. So I did. As I ran back to her apartment, she was still in her doorway saying goodnight. She asked if I had forgotten something. I told her I did. I forgot her phone number. She smiled and said, "Fair is fair, if you get mine, then I get yours." She asked me to call her when I got home so she would know I got there safely. I promised and I did called.

Two weeks later, Cathi called me and asked if I wanted to help paint the interior of the house she and Carrie were going to move into. I said sure. I was actually about to call her but she beat me to the punch so we had our first date by painting a house and watched movie that night.

On April 10th, within a month after our first date, I proposed and she said yes. In August we were Married. and now we are living "happily ever after." :)

Dear Birth Parent(s):

We just want to start off by saying how grateful we are that you even looked into the option of adoption. We know you are facing difficult decisions and pray that the Lord will guide you as you proceed through this process. We can only imagine the challenges you face and circumstances that have brought you this far and pray that you will be watched over and uplifted as you continue down this path. You are always in our thoughts and prayers, though we have not yet met you.

Let us tell you just a bit about ourselves. We are Jake and Cathi, have been married just over 9 years and would love nothing more than to be parents. We knew going into our marriage there would be difficulties with getting pregnant and though we started from day one, through many failures and broken hearted moments, we too join you down this path towards adoption.

We are a fun and loving couple who never quite lost the "newly wed" feeling of being married. We are very close to both our families, who are 100% supportive of our decision to increase our family through adoption. They cannot wait to have the pitter-pat of little feet in the house once more. We are blessed to have parents who LOVE being grandmas and papas.

We are pretty much homebodies who enjoy being with family and friends. Whether it's camping, hanging out, getting together for holidays, or daily menial tasks, family is the most important thing for us. We also have a great sense of humor and get that from both sides of the family.

We do travel a bit, mostly to Utah to visit Jake's side of the family and for time away from California and the daily grind of life. We both work for a uniform company locally, though in different departments. We are blessed to have Cathi's side of the family literally around the corner and willing to provide day care for our children. It doesn't get much better than nana and papa babysitting. Just one of the perks of having family in the same neighborhood, I guess.

We have both been very anxious to begin expanding our family and look forward to the day when our children will arrive and be able to be sealed to us in the Temple. We love the Lord and are so blessed to have the things we do have. We look forward to sharing our love and our testimonies with our children. We think we will be a great mommy and daddy to any child with whom we are blessed.

May you be blessed as you search for adoptive parents as we are blessed in our search as well. We feel honored you would consider us. We feel we have so much love to give and are grateful for even the chance to let you into our lives. We hope you have enjoyed what you have learned, in these brief moments and hope to hear from you so we can get to know you and your story as well.

~Jake and Cathi

The Dream Becomes Reality

We have known from the time we were dating/engaged that adoption would be our future way of expanding our family. When my mom decided to share her inheritance with us kids, the dream...the future....became the reality....the now. It started as a normal evening at my parents' house, on a weekend. Jake had run home to get something, when mom came into her living room, handed my brother a small rectangle of paper, told him it was for his moving fund. She came over to me, handed me a similar rectangle of paper and told me this was for our Baby Fund. Our parents have always been incredibly supportive of the idea of adoption, but this was more then I had even hoped for. Who would imagine this small, seemingly insignificant piece of paper would forever change our lives? I saw the number and immediately erupted into tears. Long hugs were exchanged and many thanks were given.

When Jake came back to my parents house, I took him aside, into mom's office and told him I had to ask for a favor. he could tell I had been crying and was rapidly becoming concerned. I held up the paper, writing side toward him and asked him to please deposit this gift into our Baby Account. He looked at it briefly and said, "OK."

I asked him if he looked at the amount, he looked a bit closer and tears came to his eyes. Our eyes locked, tears were shed, hugs and kisses given.....and those wonderful words said, "You're going to be a daddy." Our dream had become reality in a major way.

Thank you mom and dad.
~Cathi