Rec Basketball!

Austin and Devree are playing Murray City Recreational Basketball this year. So each Saturday we have two games and each week we have four practices! Whew!

Austin #13 Team: Hornets (buzz-buzz!)

Devree #44 Team: Comets

Today's the day...

..that our papers are submitted!
What does that mean exactly? Well, that the Ukraine government now has our adoption dossier in hand and will be reviewing it and with any luck approving it and confirming that Alex is eligible to be adopted. We're told it's roughly 20 working days until we'll have an answer from the SDA (State Department of Adoption) and then extended an invitation to travel to the Ukraine to meet with them and begin the legal adoption process. So not counting today (and if there aren't any Ukrainian holidays that I'm unaware of) 20 working days should give us a response by, March 4th? Oh, my goodness, I get butterflies just thinking about it!! Estimated time of travel is usually 6 week to 10 weeks after SDA response.
This morning on the way to school, Rylee (who's been home sick for two days with the stomach flu) was complaining how she will only have two days to study her spelling and how she knows she won't do well on her test Friday. I gave her the "is the glass half full or half empty" lecture/pep talk. So often we only look at the negative and then of course negative things usually happen. If you can just change your thinking, and look at the positive, like "Wow! I'm so glad I'm going back to school today, I'll have two whole days to study for my spelling test!" and then of course think positive thoughts that you'll do well on you spelling test....you're more likely to have a positive outcome! She laughed when I told her to have a "half full" day!
So, with that mentality in mind! Here are my positive "half full" thoughts:
I am so glad our papers are being submitted today!! Who knows, maybe they'll sail through the SDA and we'll have our travel date even early than March 4th but even so, March 4th is just one turn on the calendar and will be here before I know it! I'm sure whoever reviews our papers will work quickly and efficiently! I know that He has a hand in this, and knows more than me so I'm going to leave it up to Him to get us the best date to travel, and to watch over Lex until we're there.

Happy Birthday James!

Today is James Birthday! He's hard at work, out of town and 42 ! I'm dedicating this post to him so just stop reading now if you don't like sappy posts 'cause I guarantee that this one is going to be sticky....

THE 42 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT JAMES:

1. He has one blue eye and one hazel so I never get tired of looking in them!
2. He has very large biceps.
3. He's clean and tidy.
4. He takes really good care of our cars. (In fact one of the first things that impressed me about James was that when we first met, he wanted to put some kind of gasoline treatment in my car to help it run better.)
5. He has cute, tiny ears.
6. He will eat just about anything I make with little or no complaint.
7. He's physically fit.
8. He's adventurous.
9. He helps stranded people on the side of the road with broken down cars.
10. He LOVES his children.
11. He's kind to animals.
12. He does not watch sports or TV regularly.
13. He's always working on projects around the house.
14. He's creative and artistic.
15. He's an entrepreneur and someday will patten something that will make us ton's of money. (Despite my pessimism.)
16. He has very nice hand writing.
17. When I ask him, he'll yell at companies/people for me.
18. He's a very good kisser.
19. He's a good son.
20. He likes my parents.
21. He gives me wings to do and be what I want. From being into community theater to running my own business.
22. He can dig with a shovel 5 times faster than I can.
23. He is a "jack of all trades" and can fix just about anything.
24. He made me a beautiful kitchen
25. He doesn't mind that I'm sort of bossy.
26. He's very protective of his daughters.
27. He doesn't care if I wear heels and I'm taller than him.
28. He works very hard to provide for us.
29. He lets me be in charge of the money.
30. He's very honest.
31. He's spiritual.
32. He has a quirky sense of humor that catches me off guard all the time.
33. He's a boy at heart and loves to play and have fun.
34. He can clean up gross things without barfing.
35. He's tough as nails but cries at chick flicks or horse shows.
36. He always blesses "the hands that prepared this meal".
37. He's a good example to our children.
38. He's easy to talk to.
39. He's my best friend.
40. He's always learning and striving to improve.
41. He smells good.
42. He loves me!

How...

How do you write a letter to a little boy in a country half a world a way in a language you cannot speak let alone write? How do you send hope and promise and love through the mail?
Every Monday (except the weeks I've called) I send my Alex a letter. I started sending letters before he left so he would have a letter soon after he got back.
So, this week is about my 14th weekly letter (This total is not the total amount of letters, as many weeks I have written two or three letters but how many Monday's I've sent them off.)
Tonight, I have writers block. I just don't have any news or exciting things to tell him. Our papers are being submitted on Wednesday but he knows this and by the time my letter gets there (takes about two weeks) it will be old news anyway. So nothing to write about in the way of how the adoptions going.
He knows about the girls plays, basketball season, Rylee's birthday, and I guess it's just that bleak boring time of year when not a whole lot is going on. Or more so that bleak, boring time of the adoption process when all we're doing is waiting.
I do translate my letters back into English to make sure I haven't said something so awful or bizarre that he'll question his decision to join our family. I find that most my heart warming letters translate into weird sentences that make even I question my sanity. So what to write...
During our phone call last week James asked him how things were in the Ukraine. His response was "Normal". So despite my many, many questions I've asked through letters about him, life there, his thoughts, his dreams and ideas, what answers I do get back are vague and at the most like his answer to James, "Normal".
Don't get me wrong, I don't blame Lex. I mean our conversations on the phone cannot be easy. I can hear people in the background, phones ringing and I picture him standing with his back to the bustle of people trying to listen to me, then the translator, then answer and wait for his words to be translated back to me. Our conversations are awkward at best.
Last week, when I'm sure he was crying on the phone, had to be hard for him with all those people around and I'm sure part of his emotion was due to the fact he probably thought we'd forgotten him, as it took six days to get through from the date I told him I'd call. So it's not like I expect him to go on and on and have a stimulating two way conversation.
His letters (the two I've had in almost three months) are somewhat the same, sweet and short and leave little left to build a continuing conversation on. I've asked him all sorts of questions in my letters that go unanswered. (Literally unanswered as I haven't had a letter since the first of December?)
And so I sit before my computer on Sunday night, trying to dig deep for words of encouragement that will lift his spirits, give him hope and courage and convey how much we love and miss him.
I asked the kids if they'd like to write a letter and Kambree said it best, "I just keep saying the same things. I don't know what else to say."
I've resorted to sending a page of pictures of what we've been doing that week, but then I wonder if that's worse as it shows the fun things we're doing and the life we have here. Something I know he so desperately wants to be a part of.
Saying "We miss you." in letters translates into "We lack". Oh, that's sweet. We lack. "We really miss you." translates into "We want you." Which is true but not exactly what I'm trying to say. See my dilemma?
Someday when he's been here for awhile, settled in and speaking English, I think it will be interesting to get his take on this. I'm going to ask him about my letters. Did they confuse him? Did he wonder what kind of crazy mother I might be? Did they make him smile? Did he share them with his friends and laugh at my crazy sentences?
I do hope that somehow he can feel the spirit and love that I write these letters with and despite the crude translation, he feels loved, missed and knows that "we wanted" him.

Seusical

Devree was in Riverview's production of "Seusical The Musical" February, 5th, 6th & 7th.
Devree was an animal and on stage for the entire show. She did a great job and had a lot of fun!
Pictures and video's were not allowed so afterwards we went on set and snapped a few:

I've been tagged!

Instructions: Go to your picture file, go to your 6th folder and post the 6th picture and explain!

Johnson Christmas Party 2005
This is Austin who was eleven at the time with Mr. & Mrs. Clause.
(Oh....look how little he is! Now he's five foot nine!)
I'm tagging: Michelle, Amy, Corbie, Stacy, Shannon, Wendy & Lindsay & LindsEy!

Family Update

Kambree last night was frantically looking for a square head shovel. Why, you may ask would a sixteen year old girl be in need of such an item? For one of her dances. Get this. They're doing a "grave digger" dance with SQUARE HEAD shovels? Can you think of anything more dangerous to dance with? Is it just me or can you see someone getting hit in the face and consequently needing stitches (as in a plastic surgeon putting her face back together)? What the heck? Why in the world would the instructor allow them to dance with shovels? Kambree assures me there is only 5 girls and they are spaced far apart when they SWING the shovels around but this brings me no comfort. I must be getting old. I'm all for artistic but first and foremost I'm for stitches prevention!
Austin received his letter for remediation for his World Geography class. It will cost $35 (Which he has to earn-anyone need to hire an able bodied 14 year old?) When he learned that it takes 15 hours to re-mediate a class he said, "I should just fail all my classes. 15 hours is a lot less than going through the whole class." Welcome to my world and living with the mentality of a 14 going on 15 year old boy. Good grief!
Devree has been at rehearsals every night until after 8pm. Seusical opens tonight. She's excited. I'm excited for her. (Note to self: Don't forget flowers!) She informed me last night that I cannot video tape it for James as it's forbidden. (Something to do with copyright? Royalties? I don't know.)
Rylee is working on six times tables. We've almost got them down. She loves her DS so much and with it being American Idol season and being in rehearsals for her play (Opening next weekend 12th & 13th at the Main Street Theater "All You Need Is Love" Tickets $10 adult $8 children $35 family includes drink and dessert!) it's hard for her to focus on get her spelling & reading done each night. I need to be more diligent in helping her set her priorities. It would help if we could get into a routine but every night seems to be crazy busy with different rehearsal schedules, practices, church activity's etc.
Alex has not sent me a letter (unless someone stole it out of my mailbox!) and so consequently I cannot write anything about him except that I miss him and worry about how sad he was during our last phone call.
James is at work. He and I are having a biggest loser two week contest. (He'll probably win as I ate half the cookies I made for the Murray City guys yesterday!) I went to a spin class this morning. I think I'm going to add this into my work out schedule. I don't love this class-time seems to stand still while I'm in it-but I love how I feel afterwards!
I had my 2008 blog published into a book. It's pretty cool. I went to this website Blog2print and they pulled all my info off my blog and printed it into a book. This year I'm trying to do two books. One like a scrapbook and the other like a journal. Each of my post are labeled so for those of you following our adoption story, I'm sorry. You'll probably see boring updates like this from time to time and know way more about our family than you'd like! But this way I can rationalize blogging as keeping a journal.
Peace, love and re-mediation to all!

Ugh!!

Okay, this post is to vent about the crime that was committed today in broad daylight in my front yard! It was about 1:30, I had just gone out to pick up my mail and send a bill. I went back in my house, sat in my office located in the front of my house with the shutters OPEN (not open like the slats open but wide open!) and I had managed to open one or maybe two pieces of mail before I see a dark car pull up to my mailbox. I'm staring straight at it and I'm thinking "Hum, who is this? I wonder what they're putting in my mailbox?" Thinking it's an invitation or solicitation or something. But then they make a U-turn and drive quickly away. I decide to go see what they left and my mailbox is EMPTY! They stole my mail!! Can you believe it?? I run inside and call my credit union and put a stop payment on my check. Then I call my neighbor, Aleyce (because her husband is a police officer) to see if she has the non-emergency number for Murray Police. She offers to let me call her husband but I don't want to be "that crazy neighbor" that calls him at work so she says call 911. (Keep in mind it's now been 10 minutes or so since this has happened with the call to the credit union and honestly, calling the police didn't occur to me right off, until I really thought about it. Mostly I felt really dumb that this happened but then I thought, "Hey, this is a Federal offense...tampering with mail!") I called 911 they sent TWO officers over within 10-15 minutes.
Meanwhile I asked the neighbor across the street if she had seen the car and perhaps remembered the make and model. (Because I, unlike my husband and son never pay attention to makes and models...only color!) She mentions she's had her mail stolen TWICE! Then I go so far as to ask the Murray City tree trimmers down the street. (They like me because I made them cookies this morning because they're going to take my tree stump out!) They didn't see the car either.
Of course the police are very nice but make me feel stupid for putting a check in my outgoing mail. (Hello, it's only 1:30 in the afternoon!) They're turning my case over to the postmaster. And they tell me, "Do more than stop payment, go cancel your account, these people have your routing number and account number and can print up checks and reek all kinds of havoc!"
So I call and have a freeze put on my account. Reconcile it, call Jen and tell her to let me replace the check for our FedEx package as this one will not cash now and realize I have three outstanding checks that must clear! The IRS, State of Utah and Workers Comp. (4th quarter taxes just came due!) So, I'm off to my credit union after an hour, they figure out a way to open a new account and re-route these checks through my new account but they can't do it until there's been no activity on my account and the stop payment shows up as activity. Good grief!
Then I have to order new debit cards, new checks and now I get to contact ALL the companies that I have direct deposit and with drawls with. Keep in mind this is my BUSINESS account so all my real estate stuff (signs, fax line, Internet, domain name, etc) go through this account. BUT now I have to wait until I have new debit cards!!! Next week!!
I keep trying to console myself with "At least I saw them and got everything canceled quickly!" but good gravy....what a pain!!
Thanks for letting me vent!!!

Three months!

Three months ago today we said goodbye to our Alex and put him on a plane to go back to the Ukraine. Wow, three months! It seems much longer. The good part is that although we only have three months under our belt, we're approaching our third trimester! (Thank goodness!! When you consider I've know about Alex since early spring, didn't meet him until October, sent him back in November and won't be able to bring him home until May/June....it has been a long time! Although not as long as some stalwart families and for this I am very grateful!)
Today James was talking about our "team" (our family) and what great team members we have (our children) and he commented on how he feels we have recruited another great team mate (Alex) and how much he'll add to our team. I just felt such peace and happiness.
We reminisced about the night before James went in for his "surgery" eight years ago. I told James I was sure I was done having babies but I wasn't sure we were done adding to our family, that maybe we would adopt or something. At the time I had a 8 year old, 6 year old, 4 year old and 6 month old. Although the words came out of my mouth I'm not sure I believed it at the time. But somewhere deep inside me I must have known that there was someone else. I told James, "I feel like Alex was always ours, we just had to find him."
Here is a video I finally got off my camcorder of when we first met our little boy. It's shot by my eight year old daughter so you might get motion sick. Keep in mind she doesn't know who she's looking for and also remember these children have traveled for over 30+ hours and are not only tired but going home with strangers. What brave children!
(I was going to wait and post this on the 18th when it's four months from the date the children came but-despite that I hate seeing myself on video-I was too excited to share it. Many of you will recognize these sweet, tired faces!)

2nd Phone Call!

Finally I got through this morning!! I've been trying since last Tuesday but the phone would just ring and ring.
So, my Alex Benjamin (that's what his name will be, he decided today so in the event I need to book his airline ticket before we leave, I have his official name!) said in perfect English. "How are you?" (Do you think he's using my English books?) He did get my second package but told me he broke his airplane. (I don't remember an airplane unless he's referring to the one in the first package?) I asked if he had been waiting for my call since the 27th and he said he had. (So maybe my vision of him out in a dark hall waiting for his Mom to call wasn't so far off?) I explained what a hard time I had trying to get through. His only question was, "When are you coming?" I told him the good news and explained about our submission date, our hope to have approval in March and that we're expecting a travel date sometime in May. (I didn't want to be to exact, as who knows right now?) Then I'm pretty sure he just cried through the rest of our phone call. I know he was trying to be very brave but I could hear the emotion in his "da" each time he answered my questions. I even had the translator ask if he was sad. He said he had good feelings but was a little sad. Poor little guy. May probably feels like forever. My eyes welled up while talking to him and then I decided it wouldn't do either of us any good for us both to be crying and I tried to be cheerful and positive. I told him I loved him and missed him and he said he feels the same in this little sad voice. I told him to pray that we can get there quickly and to be happy and be a good boy. He actually said very little, just sad "da's" and that was it.
The translator told me he doesn't often hear that kind of emotion with orphans. That he certainly wants to be here, there is no doubt about that.
Oh....I feel so sad and yet so happy....
James talked to him briefly and afterwards he told me he thought it was great he was sad, he wants him to want this as much as we do. I on the other hand just want to go get him right now and forget all this nonsense! Good grief!!
We went to the Draper Temple open house this weekend and it was beautiful. It was so fun and funny to hear what my children asked. Kambree wanted to know "which room they tell you all the secrets in?" I tried to explain, it's not secrets, it's sacred covenants but I don't know if she understood.
Rylee when seeing a picture of the alter in the sealing room asked "Is this where the lay the dead bodies?" I almost burst out laughing until I realized that she was serious. I explained that there are no dead bodies in the temple. We do work for the dead but we don't actually bring dead people into the temple. When you think about it, that's not such a silly assumption.
It was also so neat to think that sometime, hopefully soon, we'll be able to return to a sealing room with all our children and make Alex part of our family forever.
My parents are leaving for Nauvoo this week. I'm excited for them to go. Nauvoo is such a neat place, especially this time of year. I went two years ago at the same time. It's the re-enactment of the exodus and it's freezing!! I hope my parents love it.
Well, I think this will be a long week. Devree has tech rehearsals and performances this weekend, James goes back to work, besides ball practices, dance classes, relief society and work I've got a very sad little boy on my mind. Sometimes, I feel just like he does. May just seems too far away!
(Note to the good karma of the universe, this is not me complaining about my submission date, I am thrilled to be this far along and grateful to even hope for a May travel date. I am just having empathy for my Lex.)