What a Week!

Have no fears . . . I haven't abandoned my blog! I haven't been away due to any disaster, natural or otherwise. Simply, life has been incredibly busy. Good, fantastic even, but really, really, super busy. So, grab yourself a beverage and a snack, because this might be a long one.

First of all, last Monday marked my return to school, again. I know, I know, I just wrote about returning to school after my family leave. And I did. However, only for one week. My district gets a 2 week fall break each year so last Monday was my return after a 2 week vacation. It was just like starting all over again. It wasn't as bad as my first week back, but it was still really busy and I put in many extra hours trying to get caught up.

Midweek marked Andrew's 3 month birthday. See what a big boy he is getting to be?

The week was also busy because we were getting ready for an event filled weekend. We were preparing the house for 7 house guests. Shopping needed to be done for a lunch we were hosting at our home and last minute things needed to be handled for a luncheon we were hosting at a local restaurant. One night we had a meeting at the church about Andrew's upcoming baptism and one night we had a hockey game to attend. Go Coyotes!

Our guests arrived on Friday. We had Eric, Kari, Ashley and Ryan, as well as B's parents and grandma. Luckily B was off of work so that he could do all sorts of last minute things around the house. As you can imagine, things were quite wild around our house that night. Somehow we all managed to get a little sleep.

Saturday morning we had to get up bright and early to head into Phoenix for Andrew's adoption finalization hearing. We had many of our family and friends meet us there. In fact, our group managed to completely fill up the spectator area of the small court room we were in. Even though we knew that this hearing was really just a formality, it was still really emotional for me. I wasn't sure if I was going to cry or throw up at any given moment! When I was asked during the hearing if Andrew was the child I wanted to adopt I almost lost it, but I held on. Afterwards our little family posed for a picture with the judge.

Once outside all of our family and friends gathered with us for a picture. This was just such a special moment for our family and I will treasure it always.

From the courthouse we went to a local Mexican restaurant for a luncheon. The food was great and I think everyone really enjoyed it. I celebrated with a margarita but didn't even make it through half of it before I was having a really good time, if you catch my drift. How sad! Here we are with Andrew's adoption day cake. Yummy!

I'm a bad, bad mom. I let Andrew have a little taste of frosting from his cake. As you can see, he really wasn't too impressed. However, my cake loving friends were, so all is good.

After our party we went back to the house. Pretty much everyone went down for a nap, except me, who cleaned the house. That evening we left Andy with B's parents and went with our friends to the hockey game.

Sunday morning came along with even more family festivities. It was Andrew's baptism day! Doesn't he look handsome?

We built many memories during the service. Our nephew Ryan kept patting Andy on the head as Pastor blessed him. Also, Ryan threw his binky right into the holy water while Pastor was reading. I'm sure everyone in the pews thought we were completely low class morons because we were trying so hard not to laugh. Even our families hadn't seen what happened and they didn't know why we were trying to contain our laughter so much. I should also mention that after Ryan's binky was fished out of the holy water he tried two more times to throw it in! Eventually though Andrew was finally baptised and it was a very special moment.

Afterwards all of our family gathered for a picture. Doesn't my dad look great? It's the first time we've seen him this dressed up since his accident.

From the church everyone came back to our house where we had lunch before all of our California guests hit the road for home.

My words just can't even do justice, and are entirely insufficient, to describe how wonderful this weekend was. It has literally erased all of the pain of the past 2 1/2 years. I feel totally renewed and like a new person.

I'm just so excited about the life we have now. Thanks for hanging in there with me . . .