Merry Christmas!

Mark and I celebrated Christmas in our home today. Mark and I exchanged gifts this morning and then his family joined us for lunch and to exchange gifts, too. We are headed out to Pennsylvania for the week to visit with my family.

I need to brag on Mark a little bit (and he doesn't know I'm doing this!) because I truly have the most THOUGHTFUL and CARING husband ever! Hands down. Don't try to argue with me. : )

I once mentioned, oh, probably 3-4 months ago, that I would like to look at getting a Peace Pole for our yard some day. I know that they can be kind of expensive so I just tucked the idea away for a few years from now. Well wouldn't you know that Mark picked up on that idea and MADE A PEACE POLE for me! I knew that he was doing a project in his shop but I didn't know what he was up to. It is beautiful -- gorgeous!!! It has four languages: English, German, Sanskrit, and Amharic. Of course, leaky me started to cry when I pulled the giant bag from the Peace Pole this morning. We've already got a place in the yard for it and have begun talking about what we'll plant around it. It's nice to think about spring when it's -1 degree with a windchill of -25! Isn't Mark awesome?!?!

But wait -- it gets better. I think that I've mentioned before that we're using giraffe's in the nursery. He found the cutest giraffe from a women's artisan group in Ethiopia and ordered it for me for Christmas. Yep, my leaky eyes started to cry again! It is made of twine and really, really neat. Mark is incredible. His thoughtfulness never ceases to amaze me and I love him so much.

We had a really nice day with Mark's family. It was fun to celebrate Christmas with them in our home, especially since this is the first Christmas in our new house. Here are a few photos of two of our favorite little girls, our great nieces Lily and Braylee.

Merry Christmas to all of our blog readers! We wish you much peace and happiness.

And then ... the lights went out!

We had a little excitement at our house on Friday morning! Around 7:15 a.m., I was eating my breakfast and watching the morning news as usual. All of a sudden, the lights flickered -- there was a loud 'pop!' and the lights went out. In fact, everything shut off! The little bit of ice that we had on Thursday night was too much for the leaning tree in our backyard. It tipped over just enough to take down the power lines on our house and one of our neighbors to the west on Mulberry Street.



So there we were ... in the dark.



We lit a few candles, got ready for the day as much as we could, and prepared to head out to Mark's studio so that I could finish getting ready for work. We could see two power lines dangling in the wind from the pole. They weren't touching the ground but it sure didn't look safe! And Duke Energy couldn't give us any kind of estimate on how long it would take them to come out and fix it.



As we were backing out of the driveway, we discovered that someone had smashed into our mailbox, took out part of our bush, drove through our front yard -- and didn't stop to tell us! We found the actual mailbox in our front yard and the post and random pieces of it scattered across the driveway. I was more upset than Mark but glad that it wasn't worse.



We made it through the icy slush to Main Street. I finished getting ready and Mark started his day early. Mark kept on tope of Duke Energy throughout the day and by 5 p.m. we had power again -- yay! But here's what the Duke tree trimmers left behind:

We are thankful that the power was out for just one day! We know that there are many people in Indiana and across the midwest and northeast that have been without power for days. You never realize all of the things you can't do without electricity until something like this happens. We're also grateful that the tree didn't damage the shed or the house or anyone else's house.

Anyone need some firewood? : )

Adoption Update

On Wednesday of this week, Mark and I spent the day in Indianapolis to take care of some of our adoption paperwork. Our first stop was the Secretary of State's office to have our dossier sealed. We were so excited that this took just 30 minutes. After that, we explored Indy's downtown for a little bit. We found some wonderful shops on Mass. Ave. -- a global gifts store, a fabulous, old-school toy store, and a great little chocolate shop.

As lunch time approached, we made our way to Abyssinia (see my post below about our trip to this great Ethiopian restaurant for lunch.) From here, we traveled to our agency on the northeast side of Indy. One of the staff for intercountry adoption reviewed our dossier. The good news is that our paperwork all looks good. We only had two small things that needed to be corrected. The bad news was that our primary notary incorrectly dated all of the paperwork she helped us with. The good news is that this won't hold us up at all ... we are still waiting to receive our copy of the home study to submit with our I600. We will see Jennifer on Sunday and she will re-notarize all of our paperwork, no problem.

We are hoping to receive our home study copy before we leave for Pennsylvania. We'd like to get it in the mail to the government and get the I600 process started while we're visiting my family. This could take anywhere from one to two months to complete. We're still hopeful that our dossier will be on its way to Ethiopia early next year! Our friends Chris and Sarah are currently in Ethiopia with their son. Their embassy date is in early January. And this week, two more of the Lafayette families received their referrals, both for boys! AND, to top that off, another of the Lafayette families passed their court date will be soon be traveling to pick up their daughter. It's been an exciting week around here!

Read on below for more fun updates from me and Mark ....

A Christmas Story: The Exhibit

Many of you know that I absolutely love -- LOVE!!! -- the movie, A Christmas Story. This year is the 25th anniversary of the release of this classic movie. The movie is based on the fictional town of Hohman, Indiana. The author actually grew-up in Hammond, Indiana, which is about an hour north of here. To celebrate this anniversary, the Hammond visitor's center has set-up an exhibit in tribute to the movie. On our way home from Chicago on Tuesday, we stopped at the visitor's center for a few minutes so that I could see the exhibit and relish in the silly-ness.

Here I am sliding down the slide after a visit to Santa. (Ok, not really. I jumped the rope and sat down at the bottom of the slide -- Santa was on a break.)

Here I am pretending to be Flick with my tongue stuck to the school's flag pole. This was Christina's idea -- a very good idea in my opinion. You can see the scene displayed in the background.

Here is the scene showing the Bumpus' dogs eating the Christmas day turkey.

"It's a major award!" The classic leg lamp displayed in the front window. I love the look on Ralphie's face -- they really captured the look he had in the movie.

And finally, who can forget these great pajamas? I still wish that someone made feety pj's for adults!

Finally! Lunch at Abyssinia

If you've been reading this blog since its beginning, you may remember this sad photo:

This was Mark on his birthday back in September. We tried to go to dinner at Abyssinia, the Ethiopian restaurant in Indianapolis but they were closed on Mondays.

Now, take a look at this photo:

Cha-ching! Abyssinia was open yesterday! We finally got to try Ethiopian food. We were so excited and we weren't disappointed. The food is very rich and flavorful. Mark chose the sampler platter so that he could try lots of things. I chose a lamb dish. Our food came with lots of injera, a spongy bread that's flat like a pancake. You tear off a piece of the injera and use it to eat the other foods instead of using utensils. It can be kind-of messy but it was very delicious! Here are a few more photos from lunch:

Let us know if you'd like to try Abyssinia sometime ... we'd be glad to meet you there!

Happy 40th Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

These are my parents, Paul and Bonnie Hutchinson. They celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary on Sunday, December 14! Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! You won't find two nicer people ... they take such good care of each other and of their families, especially their own parents and their kids. They set a high standard for us in what it means to care for others. Mark and I are both grateful to have parents who have had long, strong marriages. (We celebrated Mark's parent's 45th anniversary over the summer.) Thank you for all that you do for us! Mark and I are looking forward to seeing you next week. Love you!

Chicago -- My Kind of Town

This past weekend, I attended the CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education) District V Conference in Chicago. The highlight of the conference for me was hearing the keynote speaker, Ron Clark. He was so inspiring! He is a teacher who doesn't take no for an answer, dreams big and doesn't give up on his students. There's a movies about him called "The Ron Clark Story" in which Matthew Perry played Ron. I haven't seen the movie but I'd like to. I'd like to read his book, too. (Can you tell he made an impression on me?) The rest of the conference was good, too, but this was certainly the highlight.

The conference sessions ended around 5:00 on both Sunday and Monday so my friend and co-worker Christina and I hit the town to do a little shopping. I was good and only bought some treats at Fannie May (to share, of course!) What I love about Chicago at this time of year is the gorgeous decorations and the millions of lights strung everywhere for Christmas. Even our hotel had the most beautiful decorations. It was a treat -- even with the negative wind chills -- to be in Chicago for a short time. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the trip.

This is the view from my hotel room window-- I could see both Lake Michigan and the Chicago River! If I looked to the right, I could see the towers on top of the Sears Tower -- awesome!

On Monday night, Christina and I ate dessert first at the Hershey's store on Michigan Ave. We both had the most delicious hot chocolate and brownies. After a little bit of shopping, we had dinner at Buca di Bepo's -- or Bucka de Pepo's as my friend Kelly likes to call it!

We stopped by Chicago's NBC station, channel 5, to watch a little bit of the evening news broadcast.







And here is Christina at the new Trump building. I love her hat! Seriously, it was soooo cold it made my cheeks burn within a few minutes of being outside. Hanging out with Christina made this trip all the more fun!

Mmmmm .... Cookies!

I am a Faculty Fellow for Harrison Residence Hall at Purdue. The Faculty Fellow program pairs Purdue faculty and staff with a floor of students in the residence hall. The goal is to serve as another person who can be a mentor/friend/community resource for the students. This is the second year that I have been a Fac Fellow. It's a lot of fun! I usually meet with the women once a week for dinner ... Mark comes along, too. I also do some other fun activities with the floor. There are 52 women on the floor but there are only about 10-12 who regularly attend our gatherings.

Last year, Mark and I baked cookies during finals week and then I took them over to the Hall to decorate with the students. This year, we had six of the women come over to our house. We had a blast! We laughed alot and just had a really good time. I think that it was a good stress-reliever for them. Here are a few photos from the night. Laura, who is holding the bikini-clad cookie, is the RA and fearless leader of Harrison 3-South. The group photo includes, Sarah, Bekka, Lauren, Laura, LeeAnn, Angelie and me.

Happy Birthday, Lily!

Our great-niece Lily turned one on Dec. 11. Her family gathered to celebrate her birthday on my birthday, Dec. 7. We had a lot of fun! She is adorable ... see? A few photos to prove it!

Ethiopian Nativity

Check out what my wonderful husband got me for my birthday: a nativity from Ethiopia! I started crying. I have a small collection of nativities. Both Mark and I looked online for one from Ethiopia but didn't find one. At least, I didn't find one. But Mark did! He bid for it on eBay. He lost it the first time but the winning bidder backed-out so Mark got it -- yay! It took about 20 days to get here via the mail. It came directly from Addis Ababa and the man had wrapped each individual piece in cardboard to ship it here. I love it! I have the most thoughtful husband EVER! Here are a few photos of it:

Adoption Update

Well, we appear to be in a holding pattern at the moment. We are waiting to receive our home study approval from our agency. When that happens, we will sign and return the agreement to them along with our fee. They will then send us a copy of our home study that we will then send to Indianapolis with our I600 form. That will then be returned to us along with an appointment to be fingerprinted to complete our I171. Once we receive the I171 back from the government, we can submit that with our dossier and off it will go to our agency and then to Ethiopia.

In the meantime, we have an appointment with the Indiana Secretary of State's office next Friday, Dec. 12 to have our dossier 'sealed.' In simple terms, the Sec. of State's office will notarize the paperwork that has already been notarized. A notary of the notary, at least this is my understanding of it. Later that same day, we'll meet with our agency and they will review our dossier with us to make sure that everything is correct. It is likely that we will have some paperwork to re-do ... there is so much about this process that is very precise ... so this will give us time to re-do anything that needs to be redone without holding us up too much.

And since we're going to be in Indy, we're hoping to finally make it to Abyssinia for an Ethiopian lunch! Mark and I are both trying to be patient with the process and the time that it takes but are feeling anxious to officially be on the waiting list. We're looking forward to learning more about Ethiopia, trying to cook Ethiopian foods, and preparing for our baby to come home by looking at child care, pediatricians, etc. while we're waiting for our referral. We'll post another update when there's more to report.

A visit to the Indy Zoo with Kelly

Unlike this snowy Saturday, last Saturday was beautiful for late November. I met my dear friend Kelly in Indianapolis at the zoo. I think I can speak for Kelly when I say that it's one of our favorite places to meet and visit. Kelly lives in Richmond so it's only an hour drive for each of us to meet in Indy.

The animals were out and active last Saturday. We enjoyed the dolphin show, watching the seals sun themselves, saw the two new bears that the zoo just recently acquired, and Kelly even touched a dog shark in the zoo's new shark exhibit. But probably the funniest thing about the day was how 'frisky' many of the animals seemed. I always thought that spring was the time for new love to bloom but it appears that it can happen in late fall, too. This is a family blog but it was rather comical! I'm serious -- the walruses, giraffes, lions and yes, even the turtles (TURTLES!) -- all feeling rather amorous last Saturday. We just had to chuckle along with the other zoo guests that day because I don't think that any of us had been to the zoo on a day quite like this one before.

As I said, this is a family blog so I'd like to share a few of my favorite photos from the day:

Thanksgiving and Xmas decorating!

Well, just like everyone else, we managed to survive Thanksgiving without exploding. We may have went up a few pants sizes however. Wendi and I had thanksgiving dinner with my family in Peru since her family is half way across the country in Pennsylvania. We will be visiting them for Christmas. Here is a nice photo of my three youngest nieces from Thanksgiving day. I'm not exactly sure what they were doing, but it made a nice photo.

The day after Thanksgiving....known to most as "black Friday" we decided to avoid shopping at all costs and just spend the day relaxing and decorating for Christmas. To completely understand what Christmas means to Wendi, you would have to visit her mother's house and see the "christmas room" that stays decorated for Christmas all year....ALL YEAR!!! Wendi has boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of decorations that we had to find (remember we moved since last Christmas) and bring in.

We have a really great, artificial tree that we got from my brother. It is huge and this year we have a lot more room for it. Last year, it pretty much, filled our living room. Anyway, I put together the tree while Wendi decorated the rest of the house. We stopped for long enough to see the Purdue Men's Basketball team get beat by Oklahoma. After that, we finished decorating the tree. It looks great! Now all it needs are some presents under it. I guess we will have to go to the stores after all.

Here is the tree (and Wendi) in their full, festive glory!

A Common Bond

On Saturday evening, we hosted the Lafayette Yahoo Group of families who are adopting from Ethiopia. There are approximately 10 families in the area who are at various stages in the adoption process. It was so much fun to meet everyone! I can't tell you how good it feels to know others who are walking a similar path. We shared a good laugh when we thought about the future and what our gathering will look like a year from now with so many children running around! I think it's safe to say that we're all looking forward to the days when we'll introduce our children to each other. What a peaceful feeling to know that there's a supportive community of loving, kind people journeying with us.



Three of the families already have their referrals and two of them have upcoming court dates. Chris and Sarah's court date is this Tuesday ... please keep them in your thoughts and prayers that they will make it through court the first time so that they can travel in December to be united with their son.



We're looking forward to more good times with this new community of friends!

Living Room Makeover? Done!

Bah-bye, fuzzy blue carpet! So long, institutional gray walls! See ya later, 1982 fireplace! Hello, 'new' living room! The new carpet was installed on Friday and we are so excited to check this project off the list. With this project now complete, the house truly feels like our home. Now we're looking forward to decorating for Christmas!

Mmmmmm .... Chocolate!

On Monday night, the college that I work for at Purdue, Consumer and Family Sciences, held an event at the Indiana State Museum. The Museum is currently hosting, Chocolate: The Exhibition. Our staff had the brilliant idea to host one of our 'Boiler Mixers' (an event for alumni from our college -- we are the Boilermakers at Purdue, thus 'Boiler' Mixer) in conjunction with this exhibit. We hosted a reception in the Museum and invited a professor from the Dept. of Foods and Nutrition to speak about the truths/myths of chocolate as a health food.

The Museum did an outstanding job of hosting us! The food was beautifully presented and absolutely delicious. I had to take a few photos to share. One of the highlights of the evening was the chocolate fountain. We also enjoyed eating other chocolate desserts. It was a fun and yummy evening!

Here is my friend and co-worker, Christina, enjoying the chocolate fountain. (I'm sure she'll be so happy to be making a guest appearance on our blog!)

To learn more about Consumer and Family Sciences, you can go to www.cfs.purdue.edu. To learn more about the Boilermakers, you can go to www.purdue.edu.

Halloween Revisited

Remember our post earlier this month about going to a hot dog roast at Mark's parent's house and how I left the camera in the backyard and it was out there all night and I had a dream that the backyard flooded? Well, the backyard didn't flood and we got the camera back earlier this week. Here are a few of the photos that I would have posted earlier if I had't forgotten the camera.

This is our great-niece, Braylee. She is 15 months old and is always on the move!

And this is our other great-niece, Lily. She will be 1 in December and is a very easy-going little girl.

And here's a photo of (right-left) Mark, our niece Caitlyn, and Mark's sister Jennifer standing around the fire pit.

Home Study

We had some good news today -- our home study is complete! Hooray! We thought we hit a snag earlier this week because my Illinois background check was stuck in the system but it arrived today to our agency. I was preparing to re-send it as a precaution but now I don't need to. We are excited to have one more step completed. The home study is being reviewed by our adoption specialist's supervisor and then we should receive it by the end of the month. We are planning to go to Indianapolis on Friday to take our dossier to be 'sealed' by the state of Indiana. We're planning to also stop at Abyssinia, the Ethiopian restaurant for lunch. Watch for a report this weekend!

A Christmas Story

Attention all ye fans of the movie, A Christmas Story!

This is the 25th anniversary year of the release of this great movie. The movie is set in a fictional city, Hohman, IN, but is actually based on Hammond, IN, the hometown of the author, Gene Shepherd. Hammond is near Chicago in northwestern Indiana.

Check out this website to see all of the cool things they are doing to celebrate:
www.lakecountycvb.com/christmas

I don't know if I'm more excited about the 'eat like a piggy' contest or the Christmas theme writing contest!

I have to go to Chicago for a conference in mid-December. I am already making plans to stop and see the display ... stay tuned for a report next month.

Adoption update

We had our final home study visit on Monday evening and it went really well! We passed with flying colors. Our adoption specialist should have our completed home study to us by the end of the month -- yay! We're still on track to submit our dossier to Ethiopia by the end of the year. Once that is submitted, we will officially be 'paper pregnant' and the waiting begins.

In the meantime, we'll be reading more about Ethiopia, Mark will be experimenting with Ethiopian recipes, and we'll continue to do a few projects around the house. We're looking forward to picking up furniture for the baby's room from my sister at Christmas time. (Thanks, Heidi and Thinh!) Tonight, Mark framed two photos of giraffes from our trip to the Indy zoo. We'll hang them in the baby's room. Our theme is giraffes/jungle animals. We've discovered that this is a very popular theme for infant rooms! We're looking forward to being able to put it all together after the holidays.

Progress!

Friday night, we made a trip to Lowe's to get a few things to finish up the fireplace project. We decided to buy the paint for the accent wall, too, so that we could paint the area around the fireplace before Mark hung the mantel. Realizing that it wouldn't take too much time or effort, we decided to just paint the whole wall! And here's a picture of the results: We're so excited to see progress in the living room. This morning, I went to the carpet store to pick up some samples. Mark and I cannot wait to say "ba-bye" to the ugly blue carpet. We're making plans to paint the other three walls before we get the new carpet ... it's motivation to get it done!