Back in Business

Hello everyone!

Yes, it's true, I have been a bad, bad blogger. I got a little side-tracked for about a month, but now I'm back!! A couple of my friends have been trying to get me to join Facebook and I finally broke down and did it. That's part of the reason I've been neglecting the blog....Facebook is seriously addicting! I had no idea so many old friends were on it. It has been really fun getting back in contact with people I haven't spoken to in years. Honestly, there hasn't been a whole lot going on here lately so I really haven't had a lot to blog about anyway.

On the adoption front, we finally turned in our application and have attended some classes that are required by the agency. We also turned in our first stack of forms and documents that are needed before we can begin the homestudy. We have officially decided to adopt from Nepal. The adoption timeline for that country is shorter than most and we will likely be matched with a child under the age of 2, which is what we were really hoping for. Those were the two main reasons for choosing Nepal. We'll keep you updated as things progress.

My parents came to visit over the weekend and we had a great time. We took them to the Omaha zoo on Saturday. Omaha has a surprisingly good zoo. It consistently ranks in the top 5 in the country. Here are some pics from our weekend:

Above: Greg, Me, and Dad posing in front of the indoor "rain forest".

This sun bear was soooo funny. He had climbed to the tippy top of a very high tree in his cage and was literally posing for all the people with cameras. He was just fascinated by everyone and was totally hamming it up. So cute!!!!! I was so nervous he was going to fall though.

Me in front of the waterfall in the rain forest display.

Monkeys napping in a tree.

The penguin display. The penguins were a riot. These three in the front were clearly the "guards". They kept their position the entire time while the rest of the penguins played.

Dad, me and mom in front of the penguin display.

That's pretty much it for now. I promise not to go another month before my next post. I think I'll be doing my hair-u-mentary sometime in the near future. Prepare yourselves.....

Love,

Brooke

Labor Day Weekend

Hey there!
Hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend! Ours was a lot of fun!! We started off the weekend with dinner and a movie on Friday night. We saw "The House Bunny" and it was really funny, but you'd be better off waiting for it to come out on DVD if you're considering going to see it. On Saturday, we went to our first Husker football game......
Above: Greg and I excited for the game! We were expecting extreme craziness from what everyone here says, but honestly it was just like any other college football game. The only weird part was that there weren't any good places to tailgate. Unlike most college stadiums, there aren't any big parking lots outside the stadium because it's located in the middle of the downtown area. So they block off some of the streets downtown and there are tons of food and drink vendors amidst a sea of red. You would NOT want to be separated from the rest of your group there. Everyone is dressed the same and it's soooo crowded!

Here I am sporting my Nebraska gear for the game. I had a good time at the game but I must admit it seemed to go on forever. I've never really been much of a "sports" girl. Nebraska won pretty easily against Western Michigan. The game was completely sold out for the 290th consecutive time.....crazy!!!

And here is Greg sporting his gear. Out of approximately 85,000 people in the stadium, Greg was chosen to go on the field and play this game where there were three helmets and one had a pizza under it and Greg had to watch as they switched the helmets all around and then guess which one the pizza was under. All of this was on the jumbo screen for all to see! He didn't get it right, but he got a $50 gift card for a local pizza place and our whole row got a free slice of pizza. It was pretty funny!

Greg and I finally decided to break down and buy some bikes this weekend. I was soooo excited because I've been trying to convince Greg that we need bikes for years now. Above is Greg showing off his new bike. Doesn't he look enthused?

Here I am showing off mine. It's a very girly bike which wasn't what I originally had in mind when we went to the bike shop, but when I saw it and gave it a spin...I loved it. It's robin egg blue with brown leather handle bars and seat.

We went biking for about a half hour yesterday and quickly discovered how out of shape we are. One of the bike trails is fairly close to our house, but we have to go through a couple of neighborhoods to get there and there are some nasty hills. That was rough. Today, we went on a short ride together and then I continued on by myself for awhile. Before we actually rode the bikes, I was strongly considering riding mine to work. However, after I realized how disgustingly sweaty I am after riding, I no longer think that's such a good idea.

Well, that was pretty much our weekend. For the most part it was nice and relaxing. A great way to end the summer. I'm so ready for fall now. It's my favorite season. I love the crisp smell in the air, the changing leaves, bonfires, the clothes, etc. Welcome back fall, I've missed you!

That's all for now! Hope you all had a great weekend!

Love,

Brooke

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