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: