a bag of chips

Faces.

Brought to you by Aidan and Makena via my Canon 20D and 28-105 lens at f4.0, 800 ISO, natural light.  (I made a new copyright watermark, too.  Kinda cool, eh?)

Life.

I heard the baby's heartbeat today.  The doctor actually asked me to find the heartbeat using the doppler thingy.  So cool.  So freakin' cool.

My kiddos.

See that "My Kids" link over here on your left?  Well, click on it.  I just uploaded some photos to it from the last month.  I love the one of Aidan on our front lawn, checking out a huge spider web.  And that one of Makena splashing in the water?  What a joyful girl.

Thanks for looking!

SFO

Check out "The Scenic Route" section of my portfolio over there on the left.  I added some photos from our recent San Francisco excursion.  Enjoy!

One more thing.

It's 88 degrees INSIDE my house right now.  It was 94 degrees outside at 10:00 am.  I'd give my left pinky finger for central air conditioning.  I'm sweating in places I shouldn't be.  I live in San Diego less than a mile from the beach, for heavens sake.  It's not supposed to be this hot.  I don't remember a time when it was this hot here for this long.  It's hot.  Did I say that already?  I think the heat is making me crazy.

God bless those of you who live in places like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Houston.  I don't know how you do it.

Whanna join in and complain about the heat in your area?  How hot is it now where you live and how are you beating the heat?

Krazy for Kyra.

Meet sweet Kyra.  She got sassy red hair and a very serious side.  Love her rolls and squeezable cheeks.

Layouts!

Here are my latest Keeping Memories Alive design team submissions.  I love the one with the self portraits because - gulp - I used three photos on a layout and because - gulp - there are no children in the photos.  These photos were all taken before we became parents.  I rarely scrap about myself or my man or the two of us, so it was nice to get this done.  I have about a million of these cheesy pictures where our heads are chopped off and there's a nice shot of my nostrils.  I grabbed a random sample of the photos and went for it.

I love the other two also.  The darling photo of my mother and my daughter and a terrifically simple design, and the fun one of how I'm such a sucker for my boy's pouty face.  Love those KI chipboard arrows. FUN!

Enjoy!

Matched again!

Wow!  Wham bam!

We had a match meeting yesterday with B. and today it's official.  I can't believe how fast this happened.  We are thrilled to be matched again and we are moving forward with joy in our hearts.  We refuse to let what happened with C. dampen our spirits or overshadow our happiness nor will we hold back anything from B. because of what happened.  She does not deserve anxious and emotional C. leftovers.

B. is carrying a girl (did ya catch the new color around here???) and is due on my step-dad's birthday in late September.  (No, Tim, we will not be calling her Timothea.  Sorry.)  If you, dear readers, would answer another call from me for prayer and lift up this strong and courageous young woman and the baby she carries, I'll be forever grateful.

Thank you, God, and thank you, dear friends, for all of your support and encouragement over the past few weeks.  It's meant the world to us.

The Bush Man.

For months, Chris and I have had a trip to San Francisco planned for this past weekend - just us, grandma watching the kids at our house.  We left Thursday evening after spending damn near all day Thursday moving stuff out of and cleaning the abandoned apartment.  Altogether, Wednesday and Thursday of last week are on record as two of my worst days ever.  It was a Murphy's Law 48-hour special.  If it wasn't for bad luck those two days, I'd have had no luck at all.  This trip was never more needed than at the precise moment we left. 

San Francisco has always been a magical place for me.  When I was little, my mother would pack my brother and me and tons of stuff into the back of our red Vega hatchback and we'd head up to see my paternal grandmother in Willits, California.  On our way we'd always stop for an afternoon in the city - buy some Chinese dragon kites, take a cable car ride, have an ice cream, drive over the Golden Gate Bridge.  And when my mother's sister moved to the Bay Area, the open invitation to crash at their place whenever I was in town was taken full advantage of, even well into my adulthood.

So when my darling husband had earned another few freebies on Southwest Airlines, well, we just knew where we had to go.  The City by the Bay was calling us. 

We arrived at about 10:00 Thursday night and checked into our room at The Maxwell Hotel, then headed over the the Pinecrest Diner across the street for some good ol' greasy diner food.  My BLT was heaven.  Then on Friday morning we headed out, on foot (the only way to tour San Francisco, really) to our favorite spots - China Town, Ghiradelli Square, The Embarcadero, Fisherman's Wharf.  Enter The Bush Man.

I stumbled across The Bush Man a few years ago, almost quite literally.  He scared the shit out of me, almost quite literally.  And once my body stopped convulsing, my eyeballs had returned to their respective sockets, and my heart relocated itself from between my tonsils and back into its proper location, I stood by and watched him repeat his technique on other clueless passersby.  I have not laughed so much in my life.  Tarantino's restaurant is right next to and above where The Bush Man sits doing his thing and you can eat and drink (although I don't recommend it - cioppino through your nose does NOT feel good) while watching the show. 

And even though we only watched him this time for a few minutes, I felt the heartache of the previous few days dwindle a bit more with every laugh.  I don't know what it is about watching people get startled by him that is so damn funny, but it is - the faces those poor people make, the little side-step dance they do, the way they almost pee their pants, turn bright red and fight the urge to slug The Bush Man.  Then they hang back, watch him scare some more people, and then they put money in his jar and all is right with their world again.

But the best thing about our recent visit with The Bush Man is that I had my camera:

Thank you, Mr. Bush Man, for helping me when I needed it most.  You rock.

Unmatched.

After almost a day of not being able to reach C. by phone, my instincts told me to go by the apartment we had rented for her and her three children.  When I drove up and noticed her car was gone, I knew in an instant that she - and Little Baby - were gone.

Initially, I was certain she was for real and that this adoption was a sure thing.  Then little by little, and certainly in retrospect now, signs and signals were there that this was, if anything, a volatile situation at best, and surely a very complicated and expensive one as well.  But we loved this baby, had named this baby, and, yes, we had told our children and our families about his pending arrival into our lives.  And I loved her and her three children for the sacrifices they seemed to be making to do what was right for this unborn child.

Right now my emotions are raging from sadness to anger, disbelief to relief, and all points in between.  I feel cheated, lied to and used.  My heart feels blindsided while my mind is feeling a bit smug.

My greatest sadness is for Little Baby and his siblings who have been moved and shuffled about by their mother for who knows how long, going from place to place and from adoption situation to adoption situation.  I pray that these kids and Little Baby will someday know stability and morality, safety and security.  All we can do for them now is pray, and that's what I like to ask you, dear readers, to do for them.  We'll be okay, we'll make it, we'll carry on and hopefully be matched again, but the outlook for these kids doesn't look too good.  So please pray.  Hard.

Thank you, and good night.