I think I'm nesting...

I actually think I've been nesting for a year!

This week we have cleaned walls, vents, cupboards, and windows! We finally put together the nursery, washed all of the clothing and bedding we bought or have been given, and sterilized all of the toys and bottles that we have. It feels pretty great to know that we are ready!

I'm not normally a purple or butterfly fan, but for some reason, I love this nursery set.

It just seems so sweet.

Shawn has turned into a Tigger fan ever since we went to Disneyland and bought a stuffed Tigger for little miss.

I hope she likes it and comes to enjoy it soon!

As we've had the opportunity to put this all together, I can't help but be so thankful to my Heavenly Father for this opportunity. I just walk around thinking, Thank you! Thank you so much! I daydream about hearing her and smell the lotion and the clean clothes and imagine her here. We pray for her and K and D every day. They are amazing and strong. We are so blessed!

"Celebrate Today!"

We decided to go to Disneyland to CELEBRATE!

We have many things to celebrate so we decided to give each day a different focus. No matter how much we tried to celebrate our 4 year marriage, the end of school, and adoption. Each day we came back to celebrating our baby girl and the gift of adoption-we couldn't help it. We bought her a prize nearly every day of our 5 day stay and we made a family plan to return in a couple of years with her. Is it possible to love her already?

We found $49 plane tickets and a discounted rental car. We got a smoking deal on a room right across the street from the entrance to the park with a 5 day pass for the price of a three day pass and a military discount. Stars aligned!

Of course, we traveled the six minutes to an Angels game where, while in line to buy our tickets, some lady gave us her tickets because she wasn't going to use them. That is right...FREE!

The free tickets made it easier to leave and go back to Disneyland because the game was lame!

We learned how to draw Piglet. For a man who always freaks out whenever I ask him to cut or draw anything-he did a pretty great job! (Right pic)

We cheered with the Disney cast as they yelled out things to celebrate!

We played our (perhaps it is just mine) FAVORITE game-wherein I walloped Shawn every time! (It's called Midway Mania and I challenge anyone to compete with me...he he he!)

We rode a whole bunch of the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad...

...and as much Indiana Jones as was possible!

We also perfected our self-picture taking abilities. Our students do them all of the time, but I never tried until this trip. It took us a while to get it right.

We had an amazing trip together. We didn't have any responsibilities or pressure and we just unabashedly laughed, joked, snuggled and teased. It was magical!!!

Crazy May Daze Part 3: Pencils, Books, Teachers' Dirty Looks

We had a family date as a birthday gift from my sister and brother-in-law. It was my first time at Tuacanos and it was pretty darn delish.


Our Spring isn't complete without track season. This year our school received a new track from the base and it has been a spectacular improvement. Our students competed well at the state track tournament- in fact, one of our students took first place in 1A state for 300 meter hurdles. Go Mustangs!

Our May wouldn't be complete without the spectacular theatrical event of the year- William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The students did an incredible job and our costumes truly made the play. We worked with our biggest cast ever and tried Shakespeare for the first time. I don't think we'll do Shakespeare for a while.

As I caught these boys in said position in the hallway-I immediately asked what they were doing. Without hesitation, the one in jeans (a Senior next year) proclaimed, "We are contemplating philosophy!" I think this is why teenagers aren't so bad to work with-they are weird and silly one minute, but in the next, we can truly discuss philosophy. Love them.

Lady Capulet and Juliet

The Prince announcing Romeo's banishment. What you can't see is the fact that Tybalt and Mercutio are both bleeding. (We did Shakespeare, scene changes, and special effects...holla!) (Perhaps "holla" isn't the approprate interjection in the same sentence with Shakespeare!)

The End of the Crazy May Daze parts.

Crazy May Daze Part 2: Las Vegas

Shawn and Brett had a coaching conference the second weekend in May. The wives (Alexis and I) decided to join! We spent some quality time at the wax museum-which was a little trippy. It was kind of hard to tell between the real people and the wax figures.

All of us with Mr. President.

Shawn and I with some past Mr. Presidents.

Did you know Shawn was a member of the Rat Pack? I'm actually glad he wasn't...he would be old enough to be my grandfather.

Brett and Shawn playing defensively with Shaq. I wonder if they learned their skills at the conference during the day? Is there a way to be a defensive player against Shaq?

Go Andre!

For some reason, my friends and I have always had a little/big crush on Harrison Ford. Love him...even though he seems a little weird outside of acting.

I think we were at Harrahs. I have been through Vegas quite a few times, but this was officially my first time walking down The Strip.

Crazy May Daze Part 1: Philly

Happy Birthday Mom-Mom Beach!

The first weekend in May, we had the opportunity to go to Philadelphia and celebrate Shawn's great-grandmother's 100th birthday. We had a great time visiting with Shawn's family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.). We spent time with some family that Shawn hasn't seen for years. We love them! It is amazing to get to know our family, and as I get to know them better, I seem to get to know Shawn better.
I have enjoyed Mom-Mom Beach (as Shawn calls her) since I met her the year Shawn and I got married. Two years ago we spent some time with her in her home and we were able to hear enlightening stories about her and her family. As she talked about struggle and hardship, she would always end with a shoulder shrug and a statement, "That's the way it goes." I am grateful for her example and for the opportunity to have celebrated her birthday with her.

Surprise!!!!

The evening before the birthday bash, all of the aunts, uncles, and cousins met together for a Ferriola Game Night. As Shawn and I walked in the door, we noticed that everyone was in a central location in his aunt's house. As we turned the corner, we noticed balloons, crepe paper, and a cake-but I didn't read it- and everyone yelled, "Surprise!" I then started noticing the colors of the balloons and crepe paper to be pink and purple. I also noticed some gifts wrapped in baby paper sitting on the floor. I whispered to his aunt, "What is the surprise for?" She laughed and told me to go read the cake again. It all made sense after a minute. I felt really stupid for my original reaction that is caught on film, but at least the real reaction isn't caught in many pictures. After a second, I started to cry. It seemed our waiting to be parents was going to take forever and I often bristled at baby showers. Now it was for our baby-for us. I couldn't help but smile really big and be a little overcome.
We received wonderful gifts and came home with an entire suitcase of gifts!

Ferriola Game Night

I believe that we played the biggest game of Nertz that I have ever seen! We had two long tables and a card table lined up through a dining room and living room. It was extremely intense-and a lot of fun...like only the Ferriolas can do!


Mustache May...for some reason, it is tradition!

The Ladies



The Gents
Shawn really does have a 'stache but it just doesn't grow like his dad's!

Breakfast

Although the weekend was extremely speedy (we arrived Friday night and came home Sunday afternoon) we were able to get a little family time with Grandma and Grandpa and Sam and Gina. We sure miss not being able to see them more often.

Adoption

Today I was reading Mrs. R's blog about those of us in the adoption community opening our mouths about adoption.

Miracles happen when people open their mouths-it was as true as a missionary as it is now.

To be honest, it felt awkward to tell everyone that we were adopting because that almost always led to the question of why. We got over it though and really tried to tell everyone! We sent out "Christmas" letters that weren't sent around Christmas at all. We sent emails to everyone in our email accounts. We made pass-along cards and posted them on restaurant boards, gave a few to our families, friends, colleagues, and students. We even started a blog! Whenever we could/can bring it up, we talked about it. It felt socially awkward but we knew that we needed to do everything we possibly could.

Last July we had the opportunity to put our profile on an additional listing service in exchange for doing outreach in our communities. We spent quite a few hours talking to agencies and organizations in hopes of educating the community about adoption. We even asked Mrs. R to come to our high school to present to our adult roles class. (It was truly a great experience for our students!)

As a result of someone else doing their outreach hours, we were called by a writer for the Tooele Transcript and interviewed for an article on adoption. For more about that, check out this post. After the photographer left our home, I shut the door and broke down. I was tired. I was tired of nothing progressing and nothing happening. I was tired of trying to live hopefully and testify of adoption when our reality was simply a blackhole-continuously enveloping our already struggling hope. Our caseworker never had any information that our profile had been looked at or considered. It was devastating.

Fast forward a couple of months. We came home in the middle of the week and did our ritual email checking. We opened an email through the contact page on our LDSFS profile that simply asked, "Are you still looking for a baby?" What do you say to that? We responded, "Yes!"
In the meantime, a colleague from our first year at this high school called us on Saturday morning and started off with "This is kind of a strange phone call." He then told us that he was grocery shopping when the neighbor of his mother approached him with her granddaughter-in-law who was considering adoption. They actually asked him about us because his mother mentioned that he knew us. We were excited to hear that someone was interested enough to ask him about us, but we were trying not to get our hopes up and we hadn't received a reply from the previous email. (If they were even from the same place.)
The following Sunday, we came home from church and found a beautiful email suggesting that this woman and her husband would like us to adopt their baby. The following day she learned the gender of the baby, and the day after that we were able to begin getting to know this amazing family.
Tonight we had the opportunity to meet together with our caseworkers. K and D both relayed their experience in finding information about us. It was beautiful. My eyes teared up as they talked about seeing our article (the one that I was so upset about) and about the pictures that stood out to them on our profile. All of these decisions that were so emotional and stressful turned out to make all of the difference.
The reason that I am relaying this story is because our adoption is what is considered a designated adoption-where a third party knows both the birth parents and the adoptive parents. I didn't even know that we had specifically told our colleague that we were adopting-but somehow he knew and so did his mom-who shared the article about us with her neighbor, D's grandmother. The journalist, who was inspired to write her article, opened her mouth about adoption and we were lucky to have been interviewed and photographed for it.
Adoption is truly more successful when we talk about it and share information about those who are seeking to adopt. I will be forever grateful for my colleague and the journalist who "talked" about us! Thank you to those of you who talked about us!

If you have a chance, please click on The R House button on the right.

Just Thinking

I went to college secretly hoping that I would meet my husband and get married. I didn’t-and THANK HEAVENS because I had the opportunity to serve a mission. It was the best experience for me. It was hard but wonderful and I learned invaluable lessons. It wasn’t what I expected-it was better.
For a long time I have felt hollow. Infertility made me feel like I needed to continue on while consciously pushing aside the feeling that “this” was not how I envisioned life to be. It has been so emotionally draining. Shawn and I had long talks about what we were going to do to keep out of a constant grieving and hurt. We prepared our adoption paperwork and decided to make an intense focus on our marriage. We have played hard. We have taken dream vacations and bought season tickets to the theater. We have the latest technology and a nice car. We sleep in when we can, take naps whenever we want, and go anywhere whenever we feel like it. On my list of things I wanted before we became parents I had a bosch mixer, a piano/keyboard, and a sewing machine. I have all of those things.
Tonight I spent a couple of hours sewing receiving blankets. As I put together the cute pink and purple fabric, I had an epiphany. “This” isn’t what I expected life to be like. I never thought that building a family would be something I struggled with. I also never anticipated that it would be as hard as it really has been. Then, within a matter of a week, our life changed. Here I am-MAKING RECEIVING BLANKETS. The way life has turned out so far isn’t what I imagined or dreamed about. IT IS BETTER. I am ever grateful for a loving God who KNOWS what will make us happy. Perhaps we don’t trust that enough because we have no concept of it until we actually experience it. AMAZING!