this is us

[camiandbrian]

Look who got a beautiful baby girl! Miracles do happen. More details to come when I get a chance.

[camiandbrian]

We're getting old.  We both had birthdays in the last week so we've been having fun celebrating.  Last weekend I threw myself a ladies only party.  Let me explain.  Before our adoption fell through I was really looking forward to having a baby shower.  I hope I don't sound selfish, but I've gone to so many baby showers in the last 5 years while we've been working on starting a family that I was so excited it was finally my turn to have a shower.  (I'm a Mormon and I have lots of Mormon friends who have lots of Mormon babies.  I've been to A LOT of baby showers.)  When the adoption fell through, so did the shower.  I still wanted a party and all that bonding time with friends and family so I decided to throw myself a birthday party and only ladies would be invited.

It was lovely.  My mom treated us to take out from Lemonade, one of my favorite restaurants in Venice, we watched Clueless, one of my favorite movies, chatted, and decorated cupcakes.  I love to bake so I was perfectly happy spending my Friday night baking 4 dozen vanilla butter cupcakes and 2 dozen chocolate cupcakes in preparation for the party.  My mom came over Saturday afternoon before the party started and we made an awesome assortment of buttercream frostings to choose from:  vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, peanut butter, lemon, orange, raspberry, almond, and mint.  I think this party will definitely hold me over until I finally get that baby shower I've been dreaming of.

By the way, these are my favorite vanilla and chocolate cupcake recipes:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/magnolias-vanilla-cupcake-recipe.html

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/beattys-chocolate-cake-recipe.html

On my actual birthday, which was a Tuesday, Brian and I went to our church's temple in the evening, then had tasty pizza from this new-ish restaurant called 800 Degrees, and then used the Cold Stone gift card my mom gave me (which she re-gifted, which is hilarious) and got delicious ice creams.

We had a difficult, beautiful hike planned for Saturday to celebrate both our birthdays with our close friends, but the weather forecast was crazy and we had to change plans.  It was so not Southern California weather, but I guess it's always a different story in the mountains.  Temperatures in the upper 30s, 60 mph winds, and light snow.  Crazy.

Brian and I regrouped and came up with another plan.  Our passes to the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park were expiring the end of the month so we decided to go the Safari Park and do the Cheetah Safari.  The Cheetah Safari is awesome.  You have great seats during the Cheetah Run event, then you meet the Cheetah up close and learn all about him/her.

Lion cubs!

The caracal we got to meet before the Cheetah Run.

Our sweet cheetah friend.  She is beautiful.

So this was kind of cool.  Who knew a lion could shoot pee out like that?

Brian's birthday was on Sunday so we had one more celebration to finish off our birthday week.  I invited Brian's family over for a pajama/eat Brian's favorite frozen junk foods/watch whatever he wants to watch on TV party.

[camiandbrian]

Sometimes I forget my blog is called "Cami AND Brian". Not this time! Brian's brother posted this photo on Facebook for National Siblings Day. Brian is the sweet faced boy with the tie. He says he wasn't smiling because he didn't like wearing his church clothes. This is not surprising.

[camiandbrian]

Apparently it was National Siblings Day a week or so ago. I usually don’t get behind all these so-called holidays like National Donut Day or whatever people are posting about on Facebook, (dearest donuts, I love you and I don't mean to disparage you) BUT I have six awesome siblings and they deserve a holler. They fed me, entertained me, raised me, and most of all, loved me.

[camiandbrian]

Ladies night out with Danielle. We know how to do it high class. I'm talking about the Acro-cats!

[camiandbrian]

Birthday plans

Brian and I have birthdays coming up in April and I'm trying to think of a fun, inexpensive way to celebrate.

I've been wanting to complete a difficult hike for a while now, and when our adoption fell through I was thinking of hiking Half Dome in Yosemite.  We've been to Yosemite, but never hiked Half Dome.

These photos of us posing in front of Half Dome are from our last visit when we hiked Yosemite Falls.

There are a few obstacles blocking us from Half Dome:

1.  You need a permit for the cables.

2.  You need a place to stay.  (The hotel doesn't have vacancies and Brian doesn't want to camp.)

3.  You need to want to DO the hike.  (Brian has bad knees and sadly, doesn't really want to do the hike.)

So, since Half Dome won't be happening I'm aiming to celebrate our birthdays by tackling a less tedious hike that's still challenging and rewarding.  I have my eyes set on San Jacinto Peak in Palm Springs.

http://modernhiker.com/2010/10/15/hiking-mount-san-jacinto-via-mountain-station/

The views look great and the hike looks like it will be challenging without completely killing us.  Plus, I love that you take the Palm Springs Aerial Tram to get to the trailhead.  Hopefully I'll have some sweet photos to share next month after we go!

[camiandbrian]

Our Failed Adoption

Well it happened to us.  We're one of those couples.  We found out today that we're victims of an adoption scam.  I can't believe this happened to us.  I thought this was just what you read about on sad blogs and tell-alls in Newsweek.

We found out today that our birth mother was working with another adoption agency and family.  We found out that family was also paying some of her living expenses, just like us.

It wasn't a complete surprise.  Things haven't felt right for a month now, although things only really started falling apart in the last week.  It was last Friday that we learned that the adoption probably wouldn't go through.  No one had heard from our birth mother in over a week and she wasn't responding to our phone calls and text messages.

We had tickets to fly to her on Sunday because she told us she was scheduled to be induced on Monday.  That was a lie.  She was never scheduled to be induced and in fact the doctor says she's not due for another few weeks.  Luckily we figured things out before we flew out there.

This past weekend was very difficult.  We didn't have the news of the scam, but we knew the adoption probably wouldn't work out and it was devastating.  I've had a few failed IVF cycles and this felt much worse.  My husband equated it to the pain of having a late term miscarriage.  It's like the baby we were expecting died.

All we wanted was to be alone, be sad, and I guess mourn the baby we were so excited to bring home, but lost.  In fact, I probably would be holding our baby right now if all the lies our birth mother was telling us were true.  This past weekend I didn't talk to anyone but my mother, mostly because she just listens and doesn't ask too many questions and doesn't get too emotional.  I barely had the energy to respond to simple text messages and emails people sent me, although I was very grateful for all the kind words.

After getting through the weekend I started to feel a little better.  Even though it was difficult learning we had been scammed, we worked through much of our grief this past weekend and in a way the bad news brought some closure to the situation.  We're definitely on the road to recovery, and we already have our adoption profile back up on our church's adoption website.  I'm so proud of our profile.  We put a lot of hard work into it.

https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/30644804/ourMessage.jsf

Although I hope we'll have to take our profile down again soon, because that will mean we're matched with another birth mother and hopefully on our way to meeting the baby we've been waiting for.  I think that's one of the first things I will say to our baby when we meet him, "We've been waiting for you."

[swissdutchess]

Space Pheobe.

[camiandbrian]

This is my cat's mommy.

[swissdutchess]

Space Lola.

[camiandbrian]

This is my cat!

[camiandbrian]

The wall mural is done! Now all I need is a crib and a baby and I'll be set.

[camiandbrian]

[camiandbrian]

So this mural is taking a long time to complete. It’s not that the painting is taking a long time, it’s just that it’s probably not a good idea to start a mural right before the most time consuming holiday. I painted the first coat of the branches tonight and I’m liking how it looks. The next steps are to do another 1-2 coats on the branches, paint bark lines, and touch up the goofs.

[camiandbrian]

A highlight from our day at San Diego Zoo. I think hippos may be in my top five.

[camiandbrian]

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Here it is!  Our adoption profile!

[camiandbrian]

We’re approved to adopt! Let the waiting begin. In the meantime I’m making progress in the nursery. I don’t have a crib yet, but I do have a glider and it’s lovely. Also, my friend Danielle is helping me paint a birch tree mural. We had a rough start, but now we have a good plan. I’ll post more photos later.

[camiandbrian]

We spent the weekend in San Francisco and had a great time! We played vintage arcade games at Musee Mecanique on Fisherman’s Wharf and enjoyed the views from Coit Tower before eating the best pizza ever from Tony’s in North Beach. Tim met us Saturday morning to eat delicious mini donuts from Donut Savant and then we went to the USC vs Cal game. After that we met up with Tim and Emily and ate at Homeroom in Oakland. Mmmm mac n cheese. On Sunday we dined on dim sum and then explored Marin Headlands. The views of the Golden Gate Bridge and tall buildings in the city were beautiful. But wait, I learned a lesson this past weekend. It’s always colder in San Francisco than you think it will be. Don’t be like me and talk your husband out of packing his warm coat.

[camiandbrian]

Yep, we're pretty lucky to own the dog that produces the world's cutest shadow.