A visit from Matt....and the Owl

Hola everyone!

Things at the Reynolds' house have been busy. Fun, but busy. It took awhile to get caught up with work after being on vacation but things are looking better now.
Greg's brother, Matt, came to visit for a few days. It was really fun having him here. Greg had been looking forward to it for a while. He got in Thursday around dinner time, so we took him to dinner at Lazlo's (a local restaurant) and then watched some T.V. at home and called it a night. Greg and Matt played golf on Friday (Greg uncharacteristically got KILLED by a whopping 8 strokes!!) and then later in the afternoon they went to Omaha to play a little poker, or Pai Gow or something like that. On Saturday, we all went to see the movie "Tropic Thunder" which was hilarious and then we went to a cookout at a friend's house where everyone was THRILLED to hear that Greg got beat by someone in golf!! Thanks for coming to visit, Matt. We had a good time!

I forgot to take a picture while Matt was here, so above is a repeat picture from an earlier post. For those of you who don't know...Matt and Greg are identical twins. Can you tell which one is Greg??

Ok, I know the above picture is really dark, but if you click on the picture to enlarge it, you'll notice two glowing eyes and a faint outline of what looks like a small child. That is our neighborhood owl!! When we first moved here, we were warned by a neighbor that a very large owl lives in the area and has actually carried off a couple of pets!!! It wasn't long after that when we started hearing him hooting in the middle of the night. Then, all of a sudden, he disappeared and we didn't see/hear him for months. We thought he died. Not so...he showed up again a little over a week ago. This is the first time we have been able to capture him on film. He kept switching houses before we could snap his picture, but we finally got him!! He's HUGE!!!

And, here is the requisite picture of Jackson. I just took it a little while ago. When I walked in the door from work...this is what I saw on the couch. Quite an interesting little pose, huh? Yep, he's got a rough life...can't you tell??

No updates on the adoption process. We're still working on getting our application submitted. After that, the ball should start rolling and we'll have more info for you.

Love,

Brooke

Adoption!

Hey everyone!

Greg and I have some exciting news. We've made the decision to start the adoption process. We were going to wait and post this until after we decided on an agency and a country, but who knows how long that will be, so we decided to go ahead and post it! Some of you were already aware that we had started fertility treatments a couple of months ago. We quickly found out that it wasn't going to work out for us because after the first round of treatment, the condition I have that makes it very difficult for me to have children was made worse by the treatment. We knew that could happen, but it wasn't supposed to happen after just one round of treatment. It's ok though. God has a different plan for our lives and His plan is ALWAYS better!!

We've always had adoption in the back of our minds and we're so excited about it! We know we are going to adopt internationally. We've looked into domestic adoption and there are just too many things about it that make it more of a risk than we're willing to accept. We think we've narrowed our country choice down to two: Russia or the Philippines. We keep going back and forth between the two. Either way, it's going to be a VERY long process. Depending on the country, it will likely be a minimum of 2 years to a maximum of 4 years. YIKES!! We would like to adopt a child as young as possible, which means the child would likely be around the age of 2 by the time he/she would come home. We don't have a gender preference. We're also considering being open to adopting a young sibling group of two (under the age of 5), but that is only if we decide to go with the Philippines (we can't afford it in Russia).

Whew, so there it is. That's our big news. We'll keep you updated as things develop. If you would, please keep us in your prayers.

Ok, in other news, Matt Reynolds has specifically requested an updated picture of our yard since we have been experiencing a shortage of rain recently. So, here you go, Matt. Still lush and beautiful!! You'll get to see the proof in person when you're out here in a couple of weeks!

And finally, here is another picture of Jackson. Nothing says pure bliss like being fat and lazy and getting a belly rub.

My next post will have our pictures from Vegas!! We leave on Thursday and get back next Monday!

Love,

Brooke