Summer Fun in Minnesota

Erik and I on vacation on a Minnesota lake with my brother and his family

Ahh....summer vacation!  Vacation always brings some of the sweetest moments of summer.  This year,  we were lucky enough to go to a lake cabin up north with my (Suzy's) brother and his family.  While my parents, my four siblings and myself are scattered across the country, we still find time to visit each other.  Those visits happen on holidays and on shared family vacations.  Since growing up, my siblings, parents and I have toured the Great Lakes many times over, visited Niagra Falls, Chesapeake Bay Area, Yellowstone, Washington D.C., the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the beaches of Florida and, of course, the many wonders of Minnesota and the Twin Cities.

Some of my favorite trips are those where my family comes through the Twin Cities and I get to share everything I love about these amazing cities.  So this year, that is just what we did.  Seeing our nieces and nephews is always exciting as well as I watch them grow and mature.  Here is our summer vacation...

                         


















We began our trip with a St. Paul day.  My favorite picture?  Reading with the Snoopy characters in Rice Park!  In all, we took in Grand Avenue, Harriet Island, Rice Park, the Excel Center, and Como Park's Conservatory and Zoo.  What a day!

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And then came the lake.  The drive itself was blissful--passing by Lake Mille Lacs and feeling the breeze off the lake.  A short drive down a dirt road in the woods and we were there and ready for mornings reading by the lake, days jumping off the dock and nights eating s'mores around the campfire.  Before we arrived, the kids even took in some horseback riding!

Time spent with our nieces and nephews is so nice. No matter how old they are, I am always amazed at how they have grown.  With a great spread of ages among me and my brothers and sister, my first nephew was born when I was still in grade school.  Still, with each new niece and nephew, I have been a huge part of their lives.  From babysitting to helping out when they came home from the hospital, to discussing ideas for future colleges and currently helping to plan a wedding, I am always thankful for our relationships.


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The trip ended with my favorite tour of Minneapolis.  We took in all of the must-sees: St. Anthony Main, a walk across the Stone Arch Bridge, Mill City Ruins, Downtown, Target Field Plaza, a walk around Loring Park and the Walker Sculpture Garden, Uptown, the Chain of Lakes and wading in the water downstream from Minnehaha Falls.  As any good vacation, we ended with ice cream cones in the park.  It was perfect!

Of course, no child's trip would be complete without a visit to the Mall of America's Lego Land and amusement park!

All in all, it was one packed trip!  Busy in the city as we strived to see all we could see and relaxing at the lake as we lounged in the water for days.  These are the types of trips we can't wait to give our own children.  Living in the cities, so many of these very places will fill our Saturdays while trips to lakes up north will undoubtedly fill our summers.  Family vacations of our dreams will include trips as an immediate family, but also trips enjoyed with extended family full of quality time and lasting memories.

What's up for next year?  Well, depending on our family situation at the time, we plan to explore Wisconsin's Apostle Islands with my little brother.  Can't wait to share the wonders of our city and our state all over again with him and his wife!

Remembering the Beginning...(by Suzy)

                                       

I suppose the beginning I'm referring to here is really not the beginning at all. Here, the beginning is our wedding. Our relationship began far before we ever walked down the aisle and every year brings it's own unique memories as we reflect on our time together.  But it is this week every year that we take time to remember our wedding and all of the good times that surrounded that magical day.  Yes, I did say week.  First of all, you should know that nearly all of our holidays are celebrated for a minimum of one week!  There is just too much fun to be had to cram festivities into a single day.  When we celebrate, we celebrate!  Our anniversary is generally celebrated for a week because we were married on the Fourth of July, primarily for the long weekend that made for easy travel and for the free fireworks show it would provide us at our reception.  These days, the Fourth of July is a friends and family affair with backyard barbeques, boat rides on the lake and sparklers, but we always make time to celebrate just the two of us as well.






Our wedding was undoubtedly light-hearted and filled with fun.  Erik and I decided to have our wedding on the shores of Lake Michigan--a Midwest destination wedding, if you will.  Luckily, the weather was perfect and everything went off without a hitch.

While building our website, I've been leafing through all of our pictures; memories from childhood, high school, college and our wedding come rushing in.  The unfortunate thing--we can't share everything!  At times, I wish I could just sprawl out on the floor and go through our photo boxes with those that are trying to get to know us.  We could laugh, talk and begin to make a real connection and maybe even find ourselves making that special connection. At this point, we can't, but someday we might.

Still, today I can't help but share more photos from our wedding than I know I will be able to include on our website!  Pictures of the setting with the gentle waves and the towering lighthouse, of my adorable nieces and nephews, and the pictures that simply capture the pure joy of that day and the smiles and laughs that were shared are all too precious not to share!







Of course, I also can't resist sharing these today because it just makes me smile looking at all of these images.  And it makes me smile to know whole-heartedly that the love we had during those years of falling in love, the love we had on that day is still with us today as strong as it once was, if not stronger.

 This year, celebrating our anniversary seems even more significant as we return to one of our favorite restaurants.  The restaurant, in fact, where we first discussed the idea of adoption.  By candlelight, we talked about what it would mean for our family, how it is already something close to our hearts with my (Suzy's) adopted sister.  Yes, candlelight always makes for unforgettable images, but I can honestly say that it is an image, a feeling and a moment that I will always carry in my heart.



                                                         

                                                          

  So here is our wedding in pictures.                                                           The smiles, the laughs, the joy that filled that day.  

                                                           

These images are filled with priceless memories.  Still, as we look at each picture, we remind ourselves that this was the beginning.

  

 



Yes, this was the beginning.  But there's another way to think of it--this was just the beginning.  Tonight while we dine by candlelight, we will undoubtedly be discussing all that is to come for our family.  It is an exciting and nerve-racking time not knowing exactly what the future holds.  It is a promising and even scary time for all involved, to be sure.  For this whole process brings such great hope, yet such great apprehension no matter which side you are on.
                                     

                                                                                     
                                                                                    Tonight we will be thinking of ourselves and what we will do as we wait for our family to begin to grow.  Yet, we will also be thinking about  everyone else involved in adoptions, hoping that all expectant parents and families are finding the help and support they need throughout this process.

Here's to a happy Fourth of July and a week of celebrations; to reflecting on your love, gaining strength together and sharing your laughter with the world; to candlelight dinners and the power of memories.  Here's to love, however it finds you.

         

                                         Bon Appétit!

      

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog and our first official blog post! Many of you reading this have seen our Facebook page and know a little about what we are doing here. Still, it seems it may need some explaining. Here we are, putting our whole story out there for anyone to read on the Internet. If it seems a little odd at first, that's alright; it felt odd to us as well when we first heard about the many avenues of adoption outreach. But when we decided to open up and share our story through outreach, Suzy's eyes immediately lit up. I think they lit up because she is very open about everything we've been through, as sharing with others is highly cathartic for her. They lit up because it was something she could create, and most of all, something she could control.

Dealing with infertility issues is extraordinarily taxing. At times, it feels like you have no control over your own body. As you learn that many things you may have taken for granted do not necessarily come as easily as expected, it is easy to feel like your life has been turned upside-down. It was very difficult for Suzy to go through all of these issues and realize that she wasn't really in full control of her own body. But as we arrived at our decision to pursue adoption, her body began to feel more at ease and the stress seemed to melt away. We were relieved to not have to devote our lives to treatments any longer and felt as though we could gain some sense of control.

Of course, in the long run, we have little control over the adoption process. But what we can do is share our story. It may seem that we are promoting ourselves, even advertising. Hopefully you don't feel that way, and our sharing is not making you uncomfortable. Obviously, that's not our intent; we are doing this to get our story out there. We are doing so because we hope that it will lead us to our future child. The truth is that the majority of adoptions through our agency actually happen in this very way, through personal networking connections made outside of the agency. Thus, we believe that pursuing outreach through Facebook, this blog, our future website, and beyond will help us connect with the birth mother of our future child.

It took us a long time to become comfortable with sharing our story online. We were even nervous about how our Facebook page would be received. Suzy is connected with many people on Facebook that we don't necessarily interact with on a regular basis, many of whom were unaware of our plans to adopt. What would they think? How would they react? Fortunately, we can say that the reaction has been incredible. We launched our Facebook site about a week ago, and in that time, 80 people have liked our site. We watched as friends near and far, new and old liked the site and sent their heart-felt support in thoughtful notes. It was so moving to hear people we haven't seen in years show their support. It was incredible. Thanks to insights provided by Facebook, we know that we have reached 1,371 people ("reached" being the number of individual people who have viewed some sort of content from our site). This has all happened because of the likes and comments that are shared by our those who have liked the page within each user's own network. We can hardly believe that we have reached that many in only one week. And how many could we reach with these 80 likes alone? 23,775. Yes, Facebook tells us that the total number of friends of all those who have liked our site is 23,775. Unbelievable.

So we're here to say thank you. Thank you for your support. Thank you for your understanding. And welcome to our adoption blog. Suzy is working tirelessly on our adoption website, which will give much more insight into our family. But this blog is here to chronicle our journey, to tell our story, to discuss open adoption and to share our dreams for our future family. We hope that you enjoy sharing this journey with us, and most of all, we hope that putting ourselves out there in this way will somehow help a young mother as they discover that they have the power of exploring their options.