busy day

On Monday I was waiting for the roofing guys to get here to get started on our brand new roof. Woo! Funny, the things that excite an adult. But while I was waiting I thought I'd bake something. I have been making blueberry scones this summer that are DELICIOUS and I love scones. I fancy myself a scone connoisseur. They have been requested several times by my husband. I decided to make scones, but that wasn't exactly what I had in mind while I was stuck at home waiting for them.

Then I remembered that my sister, Lindsey, sent me a link with a recipe for english muffins that she has used before. I figured that since I had never made english muffins at home that I should definitely give it a try. I am not very experienced with baking with yeast. In fact, I have ruined entire recipes requiring a lot of ingredients and hours of time (we refer to that as the "orange roll fiasco of 2010") because I guess I killed the yeast or something. Who knows. It irritated me and I haven't tried using yeast again in 10 months.

Monday was the day though. I ended up using my Joy of Cooking recipe for the english muffins.

Rising... I don't like waiting for them. 

Cooking on the griddle. 

Cooling on a rack. 

 mmm.... delicious. 

This was definitely my first time doing this and there are things I'll do differently next time. I'm so glad my sister got me thinking about doing this.

While I was waiting for the dough to rise I had time to whip up some simple and tasty blueberry scones. I use this recipe and add blueberries. The possibilities are endless as far as the types you could make.

I love that it uses things you have on hand already, except the blueberries. 

I like to make the scones small so I divide the dough in half and make 2 rounds. That way I can eat two scones and it's really only one. :) Also it's better for sharing them if they are smaller. You can give the love to more people when they are small and you have twice the amount. 

These are dangerously yummy. Just ask my brother in law, Dain. I think he ate four or five in about 10 minutes when he had them with us. 

In case you're wondering, the roof didn't even get started on Monday due to the 40% chance of rain. Go figure that I'd plan a whole morning at home for nothing. Well, I guess it wasn't for nothing. Baked goods are something. Have a lovely day! 

A Day Not About Me

The day started with banana walnut muffins from Luci's. We piled into the car and headed up north. 

We made a pit stop to see the World's Largest Kokopelli. 

Clearly, this was a must. 

Then, about 3 hours later, we found ourselves in Williams, AZ. 

bex, gabby, and me

I think that train would take you to the Grand Canyon if you wanted it to. That is why a lot of people go to Williams. The other reason is the awesome Young Life camp that is there. 

We made our way to the YL camp, Lost Canyon and checked in.  

This week at Lost Canyon, they were hosting YoungLives, which is the teen mom ministry. My good friend, Veronica, is a leader with YoungLives and that's how I knew about this opportunity for me to go up there. The scenery is beautiful and the camp is relatively new, so it's really nice up there.

   

The girls spend the week up there with their child(ren) and with their leader. They participate in all the activities from the ropes course to messy games to zip line and everything in between. They take childcare workers up there so the girls can leave their children to go have time to... be kids, I guess. They also listen to a speaker share a message and then they have "cabin time" to discuss in a small group about things they are learning and going through. All these women heard about Christ's love this week and had an opportunity to accept Him as their Lord and Savior. (I think all the girls that Veronica's group had up there accepted Christ, which is amazing!!!!)

After almost a week of playing hard, getting messy and having tough discussions with mentors, these ladies got to enjoy a spa day experience. They got facials, massages, manicures and pedicures. This is something many of these girls would never get a chance to experience. I got a give manicures to some of these girls and chat with them for a half hour. It was an honor to be up there. It was an honor to spend the day doing that. I hope they felt God's love for them through people serving them in this way.

Was this the best manicure someone could have given them? No, I'm no professional and won't claim to be. I tried to be kind, gentle, and do the best I could. I think I gave 10 manicures yesterday and I was abundantly blessed by the end of it. The day wasn't about me. It wasn't about how I was feeling about our adoption situation. It wasn't about the things on my to-do list at home that I felt like I should be doing. It was a nice reminder that everything is not all about me. 

We ate dinner at a pizza place and met a bear. Then we headed home. 

On the way home we sang 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall and made it through the whole thing. I'm not sure I've ever done that before and maybe you haven't either. So, if you're wondering how long the whole song takes to sing I'll share that with you. It takes 16 minutes from start to finish. I thought that would have taken up more of our 3 hour drive, but I was wrong.

It was a wonderful day full of reminders that God is big and great and He has so much going on in this world. Things are not all about me. Have you had a day like that where you were reminded of how things aren't all about you?? Please share, I'd love to hear about it.

Graveyard Shift

This week Cameron is starting his new shift for the year. He will now be working in a different part of the city and his hours will be from 8pm - 6am. That means my low-man-on-the-totem-pole husband got the lovely graveyard shift. It's really strange to wake up or be awake for my new day when he hasn't yet slept for yesterday. I think it makes him mad when he comes home and I'm up already. What can I say? He's the one that married an early bird. If I recall correctly, when I married him he was an early bird too. I know he'd rather have a daytime shift over graves, but we are going to make the best of our reality.

When preparing for this shift change, there was quite a bit of frustration over it on Cameron's part. He was frustrated mostly over the part of town he'll be working in because it's not quite as busy with "fun" stuff. I took that time to think of a list of positives for this graveyard reality. I was really proud of myself when I could come up with one he couldn't refute. Here's what I came up with, in no particular order:

1. We get to eat dinner together. With his last schedule we only ate dinner together 3 days a week. 
2. He gets to come back to Sunday Dinner. He couldn't come for over a year and this is a really special family dinner we do with my mom and that side of our family. Our niece, Taylar, has been asking for a long time when he'd get to come back since she missed him. A few weeks ago she asked her mom when Uncle Cam would be coming back and she told her "just 2 more weeks." Taylar said, "That's not a lot!" We are all pretty excited to have him back at this family tradition. 
3. You don't have to wear sunscreen. My husband shaves his head, which leaves him susceptible to major sunburns on his head in the AZ sun. He liked this one. :) 
4. It won't be as hot. He liked this one a lot too since he wears so much gear. 

I think those were the only ones I could come up with that he couldn't find something wrong with. He's worked 2 nights of it now, and he's had a great time. I'm thinking he'll really like it when he's into the swing of it. The only concern is how his body will deal with the wacky sleeping schedules. We'll just have to figure out the details as we get into it. 

Lots of people look at me really concerned when they know that my husband works at night. They often ask me how I deal with it. To be honest it doesn't bother me. I rarely get spooked by noises in our house. I am a great sleeper, so that's not an issue. I always tell people and remind myself that we'll just make it work. We can't worry too much about how many issues an opposite schedule could bring up. We just have to take a step forward and work with it. I do, however, wonder how it will work when we have a little one. I will be braving four nights a week alone with the little one. That will be interesting but I can't wait for those sleepless nights. 

***Tomorrow is the big match meeting day. Don't forget to pray for us and the birth mom. I think it would be really strange to sit on her side of the table and try to decide on parents for the little life inside of you. I know this meeting can be is always stressful. I know that I will be sweaty and red-faced and shaking. What a lovely sight for the possible mother to your unborn child! Thanks to Christina for buying me deodorant before our last match meeting. Her daughter, Bailey, tells her that "Miss Kim needs deoder." You two are so thoughtful. 

I'll keep everyone posted about how it goes, good or not quite as good. 

figs

Our fig tree has fruit that is ready to be picked, eaten, and enjoyed thoroughly by yours truly. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for them to ripen. If you don't know already: waiting irritates me. But I have been patient and ignoring the tree for a few weeks so she could get ready for me to get the goods.

Here she is in all her glory.

A fig tree is the perfect place for creepy things and birds to live. The whole time I was picking them I was trying to avoid any leaves that I thought might have a spider on it. Picking them is also a battle of territory between me and the birds. They love that tree and specifically like to do this to the figs. While you are picking there will be these skins that drop from the trees as the birds have lunch.

 

I am in love with the fact that I can pick these off the trees and eat them. I am known to kill plants. All plants. It doesn't matter how much I try to love them, they die. This tree was well established before we even moved in, so i feel pretty safe that it won't die because of me. (Cameron is the one that waters it though, so I'm sure she's pretty safe.) 

If you are looking for me, I'll be in the kitchen enjoying the fruit of Cameron's labor and taking credit for it all the while. Any ideas of good fig things I can make? Share ideas if you have them! I know they are amazing with goat cheese. mmmm.... 

Fearless Leader

Yesterday we went hiking up north with my mom and step-dad. The trail was supposed to be about 7 miles long. So we grabbed lunch and waters and set out for a fairly quick hike. Well, the trail was not well marked and we got really turned around since you have to cross back and forth over the creek a bunch of times. We got lost. We got very lost.

I was really nervous the whole time once we were officially lost in my mind (after lunch). I could just see us being the ones that have to be life-flighted out of there or they'd have to send in a team of search and rescue people to find us, but there'd be no way to find us because we were somewhere totally off the path. I hiked on for hours thinking about all the terrible things that would happen. I seemed to be the most nervous of everyone in the group. I think they were nervous too, but didn't want to admit it.

We ended up making it out with sore feet and thirsty mouths. We ran very low on water the last hour or so. We got to the car and drank the water we left in there. It was boiling hot and the best drink I'd had all day.

As we hiked yesterday, I watched Cameron. I watched how he responded to the whole situation. When we were deep into the hike with no idea where we were, I made him look into my eyes and I asked him if he was nervous that we were so lost. He replied with, "no, but we need to get out of here." He was steady all day. He was a protector yesterday. He was also selfless. He went without water for over an hour at the end so that other people could have sips. I just love that he is a wonderful husband and leader of our family. I know that he will be an amazing father to our children.

I realize that this post may seem dramatic about being lost, but we were seriously lost. Our hike ended up being 6 1/2 hours long. We probably went somewhere around 14 miles or more and it was supposed to be a 7 mile trail. So, it was dramatic. We thank God for leading us out.

this blog

This blog is to give me a place to tell about our adoption process and the transformation into becoming parents. It is also a place for me to share pictures and projects that we are working on. Please "follow" me so you'll get updates in your email each time I post. Please feel free to comment as well. Thanks for reading.