Quick Catch-Up

So I got an invite to see the Bliss new blog and remembered I had one as well. And I obviously haven't updated it in about 2 years. So here is the run-down.

We did get the house, despite the hiccup mentioned in the last blog. We've done a lot of little projects to make it our own. We have a garden, and put in a large above ground firepit in the backyard. We also started our own little orchard. Two apple trees, two apricot trees, a pear, and a peach. We put these in the second summer in the house. There were two other trees in the backyard that didn't produce anything the first summer.. so we figured they were just ornamental. Well then this last summer both of them exploded. Maybe they just needed to cross polinate or something. One is an apricot and the other is an apple. We had enough apricots to make a half dozen small jars of apricot jam. The apple tree went nuts though. We made applesauce, applebutter, apple crisp, apple pie, dried apples, and just plain sliced apples. And we made a lot of it. And we still had insane amount of apples on the tree. We have a mini mountain of rotting apples piled next to the fence.

We got a new puppy that first summer. Mija and Rome are the perfect pair. I'll throw the dog toy for Rome who will bring it most the way back, but not quite all the way. In swoops Mija to steal the toy and bring it the rest of the way. Of course she wants to play tug-o-war instead. They wrestled a lot while she was a puppy. There are a couple short videos on my facebook page. I don't know how to create a link so you'll have to look it up yourself.

We also bought a truck and have used it constantly with all the yard projects (ours and our friends Sheila and Donnita's) as well as the large amount of camping we did this last summer. It was great to get up to the mountains every couple of weekends. We found a great place just outside of Denver right by a lake. But you have to have 4 wheel drive and a lot a clearance to make it up the road, so it's not super crowded. Now if we can only get Mija over her car sickness we'd be set. Oh, and we need to train Rome not to chase our echoes up the mountain. That was a scary episode until we realized that that was what was happening. It was the last place that he would hear our voices shouting for him would come from. So naturally he went that direction when he couldn't see us to know where we were.

We had a few sad trips in the last two years as well. Matt's mom died a little over a year ago and we both went out to Maine to be with his family. We went out again for Christmas so Matt, his sister, and their dad could be together for the holiday. And then this last fall we went to Utah for Aunt Connie's funeral. Reminds us all how precious and fleeting life can be.

Me and Matt started looking into adoption last year. While talking about it, a friend of ours had a momentary lapse of sanity and decided she would like to be our surrogate. So we talked about it at length and worked out the details. Well ... things worked out and we are now 17 weeks pregnant with everything looking good. It seems the most obvious questions might be 'who's the daddy?' and 'how'd you do it?' The answers being 'we don't know yet' and 'no, we did not have sex with her'. Any other questions you'll just have to ask.

And last month we went to Hawaii. Matt's sister and husband, and the husband's two brothers went with us. As well as Sheila and Donnita. We had an amazing time. Me and Matt stayed a little longer than the rest.. about 2 1/2 weeks. We did the Poly cultural center with luau and show, Pearl Harbor, the Dole Plantation, the north shore, snorkeling with dolphins, a night manta ray dive, snorkeling a public beach/reef, helicopter tour of the volcanoe natl park, horseback riding in waipio valley, kayak and hike up to a waterfall, deepsea fishing, body boarding, a dinner cruise, another luau, another cultural dance show, and of course lots and lots of shopping. I think we took about 5000 pictures. It was an amazing trip.

And now we're back into the humdrum of regular day to day life. Though I don't think its boring or monotonous as that word would imply. How could it be boring when it's two gay dads pregnant with their first child with their lesbian best friend. They ought to make a movie about this!

And that my friends and family, is the past two years in a nutshell.