skiing vs. snowboarding/backpacking vs. car camping

my poor in-laws. i rope them into all kinds of trouble with me. i feel bad. i don't mean to but somehow i get them to say yes and then half way into it i see the look on my father-in-laws face. it's somewhere between "why did he marry her?" and "how am i gonna live to the end of this?" my mother-in-law, i think, secretly loves it. because i'm roping them into things that she loves to do anyway but never had an accomplice to carry through with.

skiers always ask "skier or snowboarder?" and when you admit that you truly love to snowboard and not ski they usually say "well, it was fun being friends for a while." skiers hate snowboarders because apparently we ruin the ski runs with our boards. especially moguls (those bumps that skiers love to maneuver around). i've found this summer that much like skiing vs. snowboarding it's the same thing with backpacking vs. car camping.

and i discovered i'm not a good car camper. in fact, i gave paul permission to divorce me if he felt the need because i completely understand. i just don't have the energy to car camp. i like it to be condensed, just what you need, on your back.

this last week i called my in-laws and said "hey-wanna go camping with me and the kids next weekend while paul's gone?" of course they said yes. today in talking we discovered my father-in-law was under the impression he had signed up for car camping. (pulling up near a camp spot, pulling everything out of your trunk, and camping right where you are.) i was under the impression we would backpack. (putting everything on your back and hiking in somewhere and setting up camp in the woods.) my mother-in-law says in the background "we can give it a try" which i think means "ya! let's do that!" (she loves to backpack) with a hint of "if you want to" implied for my father-in-laws benefit. i'll update you next weekend after the escapade to let you know how it went. i'm sure they'll have something to tell their co-workers about by monday morning.

here's a picture from the last time i schnookered him into camping and really we hiked from breckenridge to copper. this picture was taken shortly before i started questioning if he'd ever say yes to me again.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Did I mention we had SO much fun camping this last weekend? LOVE camping. All 4 of us. The kids just smile the WHOLE time they are camping. It was Peanut's first expedition so I was relieved to see he loves it as much as his big sister. It was gorgeous and SO much fun to go with our extended family to have people to share in the joy. It looked like the Sahara landed at the end of the Rockies. AMAZING place.

on a more serious note....

sorry to all my bloggie friends for not updating more. i'll just be painfully honest in this post and those that get offended can get over it because it's my blog and it was meant to be my therapy.

i've gotten more pregnancy announcements than i can handle lately. i know. you're thinking "you've got two kids. get over it." shut up. you've clearly never dealt with infertility to the point of adoption so you can just shove it or open your mind to what i might be going through. even though "i've got two kids" doesn't mean i won't mourn the loss of the kids that have paul's genes. or never fearing the dreaded 18th birthday when birth families can come back into the picture. i don't know what to expect with our birth family so it's hard not to think as soon as the kids turn 18 they are moving back in with their birth families never to be heard from again. it's totally their choice. and it's a hard fact to face day after day knowing that if they chose that we're left, once again, childless. not that i know anyone who was adopted that did that...it's just my imagination going wild.

that being said, we are beyond humbled that we get to adopt these children and raise them as our own. they are more like us than their birth families sometimes. we got to meet with our birth dad last week. he told us he's not such a fan of camping. which made me giggle a little bit inside because normally people that like to camp have kids that hate to camp and then their grandkids love to camp. it seems the love of camping skips a generation. so i'm thrilled to know our birth dad doesn't like it. because let me tell you, his kids do. when i pull out the camping gear sweet pea SQUEALS with delight. this last weekend we went camping with our extended family and both kids smiled the whole time.

so...i kinda glossed over that little part where we met with our birth dad. *sigh* it was the most intense hour of my life. i cried. he cried. i cried some more. he cried again. paul just sat real quiet. (that's his version of crying.) but we explained a little bit more about ourselves. i explained that we can't have kids of our own so his kids are it for us. and he said shockingly "why?!" and i just explained "they don't really know. a little of this...a little of that. not real sure." it was interesting to me that he can't imagine why anyone CAN'T get pregnant since it seems to happen when he breathes in the general direction of our birth mom. let's hope he stops breathing on her because we have a little house.

there are days where i have a REALLY good attitude about infertility. but there's days where it still kicks me when i'm down and i can barely pretend to be nice. i'm sure pregnant friends expect a huge congratulations, and i'm terribly sorry i don't have it in me. but i don't. so please don't expect it. also don't expect that i don't want to be friends anymore. that's not the case. but for the next 9 months i won't be looking at your stomach. for some reason i'm still really excited when the babies come and they are out. but i just can't rejoice at the pregnant part. maybe i know too many people with emotionally painful pregnancies that it's hard to rejoice when it's just a pregnancy and not a real live baby. i've known women to lose pregnancies in the 40th week. so to be excited before it's a real live baby is hard for me. i don't know.

this post is sort of a heart-barfing post. there's just so much to update you on and they are so intertwined it's hard to post about adoption without the infertility.

as far as our case goes...it seems like it's all happening so fast i can hardly post fast enough. it feels like all these months of visits and documenting and doctor appointments and court dates and all of a sudden there's no more. no more visits, no more court dates, no more documentation of behaviors. there are still evaluations and therapies but that's a drop in the bucket compared to all the other appointments we've been up against. and then the emotional *whew* of it all being over with. our hearts ache for our birth dad and at this point we will not get to keep contact with him and that's very hard for me and paul. we understand the kids need separation but it doesn't make it any easier for us to know they will have that separation.

i guess there's no good way to wrap up this post. it's so random. but there's what's on my heart. sorry if you're offended. well, honestly, no i'm not.

Yellowstone

Everyone's been telling me that I should save Yellowstone for last because it's so beautiful. Well it is beautiful, but even if I went every year for 10 years I could still not see everything there is to see there. It was really beautiful. The first day we hit old faithful and some geisers because i didn't want to get to the last day and not have seen it. we met a geiser groupie and she told us all about this particular geiser. she went on and on and squealed in delight with every spout of steam then begged it not to leave her when it started to dwindle. passionate, yes. odd, very much yes. she was thrilled when i asked her if she was the groupie for that particular geiser and told me she sneaks into the park every chance she gets since she lives close by and times it so she can see it fill up, go off, and drain. she was full of some very helpful information.
then we saw old faithful, which really had me puzzled since it wasn't near as big as some of the other geisers but it was very reliable thus the name old faithful. not old big and faithful.
the next day we went to manmouth springs. paul had been telling me how gorgeous it was and no matter what we did we HAD to go see manmouth springs before we left. it was quite a drive. it's 30 miles between spots and we were staying about an hour away from manmouth springs. i told him it'd better be some spring for the drive because sweet pea was sick and tired of her car seat and it was only the 2nd day. we got up there to find out that it's different week to week, month to month, and year to year. i thought well, surely it's more beautiful from the bottom. let's go down there and hike up instead of hiking from top to bottom. well. um. it was one of those weeks apparently because it was pretty dry. as in bone dry. except for a couple trickles. we did get some cool shots nonetheless. it was kind of a let down to Paul and i laughed and said "is this your central city?" when my parents came out to colorado my dad kept RAVING to my mom about how wonderful central city was. the last time he was there was in the 60's and it has since become a gambling town. it's great for those who vacation in vegas. it's not for anyone else. it was a major let down to my dad when he went as an adult. paul suddenly felt his pain.

in sweet pea news-she did very good. she's a very good traveler. she did get bored saturday on our way between yellowstone and casper. i caught this shot of her, which i can share, when she got ahold of the paper towel roll.

she loved camping and sleeping in the sleeping bag. i wrapped her up in her quilt, then shoved that down into the sleeping bag so she was a little burrito. here's another shot i can share. tatum got to come along at the last minute and she was very certain to stay close to sweet pea. the first night sweet pea slept in the pack and play and tatum slept right next to her. no blanket or sweater. she froze. but would not leave sweet peas side. after that i kept sweet pea a little closer so i could check on her easier during the night.
she did really good every night but one. one night she had some night terrors and screamed bloody murder. i picked her up-she was sleeping right next to me-and talked to her and paul talked to her and finally i turned on the light and realized her eyes were still closed. as soon as she woke up she did fine.
everywhere we went i would hear women cooing and talking baby talk and wonder "what language is that?" and i would glance over my shoulder to catch them talking to my backpack. sweet pea loved it. soaked up every bit of it. one time i heard "oh there's that cute baby again." it was so cute. no matter what nationality you are or what language you speak this baby melts your heart. she learned to smile for the camera this week-which people thought was adorable. and she learned to wave and have people wave back. that was especially a thrill for her. she has started saying "hi" when she waves now, but it comes out as "eye!" it's super cute. but then, everything she does is super cute. so all in all for our first family vacation i wouldn't change a thing. it was sooo sooo sooo much fun.

Caffe Luna

This morning I went to my favorite little coffee spot, Caffe' Luna, on our way to doggie day care and there was a line out the door! It's so delicious. If you live anywhere near Longmont, you have to go here:

Tonight Paul is going down to his parents to go camping/cutting wood/having "the talk" with Jacob. I am so torn. I want to just pack up my quilt and Tatum and go down and just quilt all weekend but I have SO much to do. I don't think we've done the dishes since Monday. The house is a mess with dog toys strewn about like a tornado came through her toy basket. There is a layer of some kind of dust/gunk on all the bathrooms. I'm still up in the air. And if I don't go, I can go to a ladies movie night for a group at my church, or go see Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat at the high school, and we have a tenative date with Buster tomorrow morning to go to the dog park. *sigh* what to do, what to do?!

weekend update

sorry i've been a bad blogger this weekend. we went to texas to go camping at caprock canyons state park. it was beautiful. like a mini-grand canyon. while we were there we found out that tatum LOVES swimming in the lake, and loves running on the leash dragging me on the bike behind her. if one of the kids is in front of her, even BETTER. we also found out she is a cockle-bur magnet. i'm not sure how...she didn't walk through them, just past them, but ended up with this tangled in her front paws. she had over 20 when i combed her out.
then we went down to the lake. i didn't think to take the camera, but really i would have needed high speed film for you to get the full impact of her cuteness at the lake. she hopped like a little bunny and hopped and hopped and hopped. then when she couldn't hop anymore due to the depth of the lake she SWAM! we didn't even know she could swim. she swam out to where jacob, my nephew, was looking for shells and then realized she couldn't reach when she got to him. i called her back to me and she was trying her hardest but she was tuckered from all the hopping...soon all you could see were the whites of her eyes and the tip of her nose. so i ran out there and scooped her up and brought her back to where she could hop and she was off again. that night she laid like this all evening:

then that night we ate dinner, and made smore's. so yummy. then we all went to bed. not really went to bed, it started out with just brushing our teeth, then one person went to bed, then the next guy, then the next guy. until we were all in bed, having forgotten about the deer bate we left on the picnic table. at 3am i woke up to something eating tatum's eukanuba out of the tupperware that i had left open under the picnic table. for those of you who don't know, tatum can ONLY eat eukanuba. so when we're camping and she runs out-she's out until we get back to a city with a petsmart. so i jumped out and flashed my flash light and i saw eyes and then a huge body looking at me from the picnic table. it ran off and i sent paul out there to salvage what would be left of her food. he couldn't find it so i went out with my flashlight to find her food, a jar of peanuts, a pile of granola bars and some potato chips sitting on the table. oops. so me and paul cleaned that all up real quick and went back to our tent to find our fearless guard-dog anxiously awaiting our return like this:

this morning we woke up to find her eye swollen shut though. poor pooh bear. she scratched her cornea. she'll spend the next few days with her left eye dialated. it looks so bad. i'd take a picture but the light hurts her eyes so we're sitting around in the dark tonight. i never imagined we'd be such suckers for a dog. but she's so cute. i told my mom it's a good thing she's so cute or we'd take her back. her vet bills are running us so much that we are now going to get puppy insurance. can you believe we are the suckers keeping puppy insurance in business? well we can't afford not to at $150 a paycheck. i know, my sister is reading this thinking, just stop taking her to the vet. except that if we had let this scratched cornea go for another day, they'd be removing her eyeball tomorrow. so i can't help it. she's my baby.
WHEW! long post. sorry. see what happens when i don't post for a weekend?

what did i do?

today i'm having serious doubts about this whole going to work and leaving tatum thing. do you see that ticker? the hoola dancer is all the way down to one day!? i think doggie day care will be good. thankfully she passed her interview saturday morning. whew! i felt like i should have dressed her up in an argyle sweater vest and knee socks. i had no idea it was so ivy league to get into a doggie day care out here. so she'll be spending her tuesday mornings with Mrs. Doolittle and i'm still working on rocky hill ranch for thursday's. oh man i hope i'm doing the right thing going back to work. =(
after her interview we took her camping this weekend with our church group and had a LOT of fun. when i went to pull the camping gear out friday night to get ready tatum started hopping waist high. i told her not to get so excited, we weren't gong until the next day. AFTER the interview with mrs. doolittle. it didn't make much difference. when i pulled out the tent she started running laps around the basement. then i went upstairs to check email and she was whining so bad i thought she had to go outside. so i went down there only to find her staring at the heap of camping gear by the front door and sighing as if to say "i wanna go NOOOOOOWWW!!" again i explained, not until tomorrow. she had SO much fun once we got there. there was another dog there, kanga. tatum and her had to work out some kinks but in the end tatum understood that kanga has a much bigger personal bubble than she does. she was dirty when we got home so paul combed her out.

she hates to be combed out but she does much better when paul does it because it means undivided attention from him so she behaves much better.

then she fell asleep for a couple days like this.

CDT Hike

this weekend we hiked a 13 mile section of the Continental Divide Trail and paul's parents came out with us so it was fun. we brought tatum and she loves hiking especially if she can find snow out there. i posted some pictures to our flickr page. tatum's feet got pretty sore. she's still laying around the house now. we've given her 3 baths so far and i think the mud is finally out of her hair except for a couple spots on the backs of her front legs.

on baby news. thursday and friday were really tough baby wise. i have an appointment with a specialist on july 18th. we'll see what they have to say. i had to take another preg test this morning because STILL no sight of the ole period. but i wore a white skirt to church and sat down and thought "what was a i thinking?" and sure enough, got OP when i got home. thank GOD she waited for me to get home and didn't bust a move on day 37 of my cycle while sitting in church. whew.