What we've been up to...

We've been having some absolutely gorgeous weather here in Indiana. I took a few pictures yesterday to document it. You can click on the pictures to make them larger.

My toes in the new grass. There's nothing softer than the first new grass in the spring. This was also the first official sandal wearing of the season.



Corey built a cold frame to house his plethora of plants.



My favorite spring flower: Hyacinth!



Just for Zack: Here is a photo of Corey's new boat, "The Gambler". I envision many a lonely evening in my future...

Camp out

We camped at the park last night. It was a bit chilly for tent camping (it got down to the upper 20s), but not too bad. We took a nice long hike this afternoon. The creeks are quite full due to all of the rain we've had lately. The dogs enjoy splashing through them while we precariously navigate the rocks to try and keep our shoes dry.

We planned on camping tonight, too. Then we discovered the problem with camping in your own park - you keep thinking of all of the stuff you need to get done at home. We came home and potted 220 veggie plants. Mostly tomatoes. My husband is insane. Did I mention that?


Pure marshmallow-eating bliss.


A tree giving birth to Corey.

I hope this post makes sense. I'm very tired. I'm going to bed now.

I Love "This American Life"

Today I was telling Laura how much I love This American Life, again. Most people know that I have a slight addiction to NPR. If I would ever have to choose my favorite show, it'd be T.A.L. hands down. If you (like my poor, unfortunate friend Laura) have never heard this show, you really need to check it out. The archives can be found here. You can stream them to your computer or download them to iTunes. Check it out!

P.S. - my favorite recent episode is "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar". Good stuff!

Approved!

We received a letter in the mail yesterday stating that our home study has officially been approved. This happened much quicker than we thought! The paperwork consists of an 11 page biography. It talks about each of us, our marriage, our family, our strengths and our weaknesses. The good, the bad and the ugly. It was actually quite difficult for me to read. Reading answers to "What would you change about your partner if you could?" was kind of surreal. It was kind of like watching that game show "The Moment of Truth" - the one with the lie detector. Glad that part is over!

-Brook (and Stinky)

Adoption Update and new Etsy store

We are still working through our adoption stuff. We developed the required webpage and "Dear Birth Mother" letter. The letter is what gets sent to potential birth moms and she looks through them to pick a family for her baby. Once the final draft is approved by the agency, we will print 200 of them. The biggest problem lately, is finding the right paper for the letter. It must be between 90-100lb cardstock and we prefer glossy (since there are pictures on it). Bloomington has a ton of printers since it is a college town, but none of them have the right paper! I called everywhere. One nice fellow I called led me to a place in Indy who can do it, so they are sending us a sample copy. We are crossing our fingers that it looks good so we can bring it to the agency on Saturday for final review. We are also waiting on the official results of our home study, which may take another month or so. That is about it with an adoption update.



Last weekend, I helped TC (my Mother-in-law) open a new shop on Etsy to sell her amazing dog biscuits. He business is going well in her local area with a few large standing weekly orders, but now she is looking to expand. You can visit her site HERE. I had fun taking the photos. My parents were here for the weekend too, so we used Wally as a model. He was not very into it until we let him taste one of the treats - then he was very willing to help out :-)

One sick puppy

This girl gave us quite a scare this morning. She seemed fine at first, gobbling her breakfast and going outside afterward. I knew something was wrong when she didn't bark to come in. I opened the door and found her whimpering and crying. Once she came inside she kept crying, pacing in circles and stretching out her back legs over and over. I did a quick internet search and found that dogs with "bloat" have similar symptoms. It sounded like we needed to get he to the vet right away. I got ready to go, but over time she started acting more normal. We did some investigating in the coon shed and realized that she had probably eaten quite a bit of cracked corn (she is such a weird dog). Within an hour or so, she was completely back to her old self. Thankfully, we never made it to the vet.

Baklava

Corey and I made baklava last night. It turned out great and it was not as much of a pain as I had expected. You can find the recipe here if you are interested. We used mainly walnuts and a handful of pistachios. I also followed others advice and made a little extra sauce. The only change I would make is to add a few more layers without nuts on the bottom and grind up the nuts more next time. Corey says that is crazy talk, 'cause its perfect the way it is ;-)