Pizza, Broncos, and Masters!

This was a fun week. Steve is very excited that Bronco season is right around the corner. In fact he was so excited talking and thinking about the Broncos that he forgot that he was grilling pizza on the grill. (If you have never had pizza on the grill you have to try it. Just spread olive oil on the crust and grill!). Anyway, Steve was helping me out with cooking dinner by grilling the pizza and trying to talk to me about the newest Bronco updates. But, as with many men who try to do two things at once...it usually ends in a disaster. As he was talking about Broncos to me he forgot about the pizza and then the phone rang. It was the adoption agency trying to set up a date to come and do our home study!!! Obviously the last thing on our mind was PIZZA!! I was so excited and absorbed in the phone conversation, and Steve was trying to listen in, that the pizza was literally left on the back burner. The phone call ended and that is when we started to smell a strange smell. Steve immediately ran to get the pizza. The top looked absolutely perfect, but the bottom was nothing but ash. After a few laughs and listening to our grumbling stomachs we decided not to waste the pizza and eat it. The bottom was so bad that all we could do was scrape the top off and eat it.


I have to admit it was the most fun I have had eating pizza. Just look at it this way, we only ate half as many calories.

Steve and I had a fun date this week. We were invited by some friends to go to a preseason, Saturday night, Broncos game against the Lions. It was fun to actually watch a game live. It was my first time ever going to watch a game. Even though it was a preseason game and we lost it was still fun. Steve must have been the loudest fan in the stadium, and the one with the cleanest mouth. If you were listening to just him you would have thought that it was the Superbowl and not a preseason game!


It was fun and it was nice to spend time with Steve and watch him enjoy something that he loves so much!

I started my masters program yesterday in Special Education and Early Childhood Development! It is all on-line and I am enjoying learning new things that I am interested in. I am a bit nervous with taking everything on-line. I am afraid that I might miss something. Right now I am just overwhelmed with everything that is required. The first day of class is always like that. When they give me the syllabus and tell me EVERYTHING that is required of me for the ENTIRE semester, I think of everything I have to do and it feels I have to do it all now. I am just thankful for the opportunity to go to school and better my education. I have been blessed in so many ways. Education is just one of the blessings that I count everyday.

Another Week with the Calley Couple!

We had another fun week. We celebrated Eli's (my nephew) 1st Birthday! It was fun to gather around with family and smother Eli with love and gifts. Eli is now walking all over the place. I think he wanted to wait until he was one before he walked. He knows the rule, "you walk at one and talk at two". Although we did get him to say his first word "uh-oh". He is just too cute for words. I think that he really enjoyed the party. He would start clapping his hands and then everyone would copy him. The he would stop and just laugh and laugh, and then he would do it over and over again. He loved being the center of attention. I apologize that I don't have any pictures. I brought my camera but was having too much fun and forgot to take some pictures.

This was a hard week for me emotionally. My yearning for a child was stronger than usual this week. We were so busy with so many different things, that I felt like I didn't get any time with Steve. I don't realize how much I depend on him or need him on a daily basis. Steve worked 'til midnight three days this week and then had to get up early the next morning to go to work. So I was asleep when he got home and still sleeping when he left. Then on his days off he had his really good friend Pierre over. So we didn't get to have too much "us" time, which I have really grown to love.


Pierre is from Arizona, but was just signed on to the NFL to play for Houston! We are so excited and proud of him. Then about a week ago he was released. He was pretty heart-broken, so we had him up here for two days to hang out and take his mind off things. Pierre is a great man and we both look up to him in so many ways. He is the most gentle and humble person I know. He is near and dear to both of our hearts. We hope that he gets drafted this year or the next so he can follow his dream to be in the NFL.

Actually, Pierre has inspired us and has given us the desire to adopt African-American children. We think all people are beautiful and have a wonderful cultures.

We are still working on our adoption papers! We are making progress, but as usual we have a long ways to go! Our children better never say that they were not wanted.

Our North Carolina Trip!

We just got back from our North Carolina Trip! Wow! I really want to live in North Carolina. What a beautiful place; it made Colorado look very brown when we came back. My grandmother had a cabin right above Maggie Valley. Her property is backed up next to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.
The cabin is now owned by my aunt and Mom. It will then be passed down to my siblings, my cousins and me. This was Steve's first time to the cabin and to North Carolina. Here is a view from the back deck of the cabin.
We started our trip picking wild blueberries and blackberries. They were everywhere! We picked 4 containers full in about 10 minutes. We had peach, blueberry, or blackberry cobbler almost every night!



During our trip we took several small hikes and swam in the hot tub almost every day. It was fun to have all of my family there... Meghan (my sister), Kyle (my sister's husband), Eli (my cute 12 month old nephew), Micah (my brother), Mom, Larry (my wonderful step-dad), Steve, me, and of course Lebaron (yellow lab), and Eagle (black lab). On the first full day that we were there we went "indoor sky diving" to celebrate Micah's 20th birthday. I don't know why they called it indoor sky diving since it was outside but we had a blast. It was a lot harder than we thought. My mom, of all people did the best. We were all surprised that she did it! She is scared of heights, but she did well. We were about 50 feet off the ground and the wind speed was about a little less than 100 miles per hour.






We had a lot of fun. The net that you see in the picture is about 20-25 feet off the ground. They say that just three minutes in the air is like a 30 minute workout. We all believed it afterward. We were a little sore in our hips and shoulders. In the afternoon we went to Sliding Rock. It was a huge rock that you slide down on your bottom and land in about 8 feet of water. The water was about 45-50 degree F. It was a cold shock at the bottom, but, as always, we had a blast.






The next day we did a few waterfall hikes. We got to see about 5 different waterfalls. It was fun. This whole trip we felt like we lived in our bathing suits, which was okay because with the humidity we were always wet anyways. The waterfalls were spectacular. The last one we didn't get pictures of but it was the most fun. It had a swinging rope that we could swing and jump into the middle of the river right before the waterfall, then we could slide on our bottoms all the way down the waterfall. It was so much fun. When we go back, this will definitely be on our list of things to do. Here are the first two waterfalls that we saw. The pictures do not give them justice.






This was an awesome trip. I was able to go for a week, Steve was only able to go for four days because he had to work, so we tried to fit all the really fun stuff into the first few days. This trip will have to be blogged and documented as one of my favorite. North Carolina has a piece of my heart. I am honored and excited to some day own a piece of this cabin that has great family memories and that reminds me of my dear grandmother "Mommie Dot"! She was one of the neatest ladies I have ever met. I am honored to be her granddaughter.

Here is a picture of my cute nephew Eli. I can't believe he will turn one this month. Being an aunt is awesome!

GOOD BYE NORTH CAROLINA!!! UNTIL NEXT TIME!!!!

Adoption Papers

We just got a call from LDS Family Services and they told us that they received our application for adoption! We are super excited to start this process. We know that we have many more steps to go to be approved but we are one more step closer to fulfilling our dream!