Parent Profile

Yesterday I mailed to the adoption agency the disk with our parent profile materials on it.  Getting all the information together was harder than I had initially thought.  It was a lot of listing of favorites, and Nathan never claims to have a "favorite" anything.  Then we had to write short essays about our lives, our home and our families while attempting to make everything sound great and keep a certain humiliy.  But I think the hardest part was getting pictures.  I mentioned in a earlier post that we needed at least 15 pictures of just the two of us.  We have never had that many pictures of us.  Finally, we just took the camera and went first to my parents and then my in-laws and asked them to take our pictures a bunch of times.  It worked out okay.  These are a couple of the pictures.

We actually had this one in the house, it's from a recent Thanksgiving.  I don't know which year exactly.  I was surprised at how many pictures we were able to come up with in the house and through friends' and families' cameras.

So, Nathan got a rake for his last birthday.  I don't know whose idea it was for us to take an "American Gothic" picture, pretty sure it was Nathan's.  I don't imagine they'll use this one, but we sent everything we could find.

This is one my mom took, I think it's great.

My father-in-law took this picture on the old merry-go-round next to their house.  I wasn't dressed up the best, but it's such a nice picture.

So, initially we were going to send seperate pictures of the cats, because we didn't a have a picture of them together that was nice.  Then a few weeks ago the cats and I were all hanging out in the bedroom and I looked over and they were sitting like this.  It's perfect!  I took a couple, but this is definitely the best one.

The Belle Departs

Look past the whole me-losing-my-job thing and this summer has actually not been bad. It's been nice to be near family and I even took a little vacation.

But I think probably the best part about the summer is that Elizabeth was home for the first time since she started college. She visited often and we played board games, I went over to my parents' house and she helped me make a cornflake pig face for my family's annual "Rib Fest."

But now she's gone. On Saturday, Mom, Dad, Elizabeth and her boyfriend Eric packed up a budget rental truck and drove down to Alton, where she will be spending the next four years learning the art of dentistry.

And I have to say, I'm sad. Nathan will miss having a gin and tonics buddy for evenings, the kitties will miss Elizabeth coming to visit and bringing them toys. She gave them foam rubber golf balls that Hecate just goes nuts over.

But I think I'll just miss my sister. It was nice to have her so close by all summer. But she's been preparing herself for dental school since she was like 10, so I'm sure she'll do great.