SUPRISE!

Last Thursday night I got the surprise of my life. Our adoption case worker called me during the day and told me that the supervisor of their office wanted us to come in and have a quick meeting so he could just get to know us a little better. I figured we had just put in our papers, so it was probably something they did with all newly-approved couples. But when we got to the agency, Thursday night, Kevin (the supervisor) handed us a basket full of baby boy clothes, a little bear dressed in blue, and a picture from with an ultrasound picture! It was a gift from a birth mom who had chosen us to be the parents of her little baby boy, who is due June 7th!

It has taken some time to wrap my mind around the fact that in about a month, we will have a new baby boy at our house! I thought it would take months and months to get chosen. We have about a million things to do, starting with coming up with a name for the little guy. If anyone has any brilliant suggestions, please feel free to let me know, I am kind of stumped on this one so far.

We met our birth mom in person yesterday, and she is the sweetest thing. She is tall (5'11") and blond, and the birth father is tall too. She is making a really brave choice to place her baby for adoption since she is only 18 and isn't ready to be a mom yet. We really enjoyed getting to know her a little better, and we are starting to get really excited for our new baby to get here! Of course, with adoption, anything can happen, so it is going to be a stressful few weeks for me! So, try to bear with me if I am a little edgy or out of it, I have a lot on my mind! Thanks to everyone for all of the support and well wishes. I will keep you posted!

Back from Paradise

We are back from our vacation to Grand Cayman! We had sooo much fun, and I am more than a little sad to be back, especially since it snowed here this morning! Yuck! Anyway, here is a quick rundown of our trip. First of all, here is the view from our hotel room:
Fabulous. We stayed on the non-crowded side of the island (the East side) at the Reef Resort. It was pretty windy the first couple of days we were there, but after that it calmed down nicely. Arden was so funny. We got to the island late in the afternoon, and on the first night we decided to walk down the beach to the little restaurant at our hotel. Arden was in her regular clothes, but she just couldn't stop her little self from splashing around in the water. She ran in and out of the waves, threw sand into the water, and pretty much had a great time. She was having so much fun, we didn't have the heart to stop her, so we let her get good and wet, then went back to our room and ate peanut butter sandwiches in our kitchenette. That little girl LOVES the beach:

We pretty much spent most of our days laying around on the beach, building sand castles, splashing in the water, chasing birds, eating lots of seafood, snorkeling, trying to read books, and pretty much just being lazy and playing. Here is Arden and me taking a walk along the beach by our hotel:


Our hotel had a great beach. It was nice and sandy, but once you got into the water, there was a lot of coral, and there was really good snorkeling. Preston and I took turns snorkeling while the other one played with Arden. I saw tarpon (HUGE silver fish), a lot of tangs, some parrot fish, a flounder, some barracudas, and even some squid! I love snorkeling!

We spent a couple of days at Rum Point, which was another beach down the road a little from our hotel. It was seriously one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! I couldn't believe how beautiful the water was! Here is Preston snorkeling at Rum Point:

We saw some sting rays while snorkeling at Rum Point. We also took a tour out to Stingray City from there! We took a boat ride on a beautiful catamaran out to the sandbar where the stingrays live. Here is Preston and Arden on the boat (soooooo beautiful!!!)


Arden had a good time on the boat, and she loved to pet the stingrays. She wasn't afraid at all. Preston was pretty good at picking them up for us! Here is a picture of the stingray wrangler in action:

We also went snorkeling out at the "Cayman Wall" on that trip, and Preston saw a huge moray eel! Since we weren't brave enough to leave Arden with a sitter and go scuba diving, we decided to take a ride on a "semi-sub" one day. It didn't go very deep, but we were able to see a couple of shallow shipwrecks, and didn't even have to get wet to do it! Here is Arden enjoying the view:

Overall, we all had a great time. I loved it! I would highly recommend visiting Grand Cayman to anyone who is wondering where to go on vacation! Here is one last shot of Preston's and Arden's footprints on the beach. Hopefully we will get to go back again someday!

One last funny thing: Cayman is in the British West Indies, so they drive on the left side of the road, and the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car too! It was really weird! Preston did the driving (thank goodness) and we only almost died once. The funniest thing was that the turn signal and the windshield wipers were also switched around in the cars, so ever time Preston wanted to turn, the windshield wipers would go on! It was hilarious!

Happy Birthday Preston!

Birthday Boy: It is Preston's Birthday! We are going to be on our vacation (YAY!) for his birthday this year, so I thought I would do this a little early instead of late. Preston is turning twenty-thirteen this year! He is really still a little kid at heart though, no matter how fast the time goes by. It is all I can do to try and keep him from wearing shorts during the winter, and he is also constantly filling up my valuable DVR space with superhero cartoons. :) But Preston is a wonderful husband, and he does his best to keep his girls happy. He is a great dad, and is always very patient with Arden. He works hard for our family, and we love him very much and are lucky to have him. Happy Birthday Preston!!

I thought it would be fun to find an embarrassing picture of Preston to post here, but I couldn't really find any. This is as good as I could do. Here is Preston and my sister Val playing "Dance Dance Revolution" at Disneyland. He doesn't have the most rhythm in the world, but he tried hard! He was so excited that he won!





This week has been pretty quiet around the Zaugg house. Thankfully, we haven't had any huge paint disasters or anything :) Arden is becoming quite a reader. She has always loved to hear stories before naps and bedtime, but lately she "reads" the stories to herself all day long. It is so funny. She knows a lot of her books practically by heart, so she sits and turns the pages and says the words she remembers. Here she is reading "Dumbo" earlier today:


She is saying things like "Dubbo" "Fyying" "Fwap" "Ears" to herself. It is probably just as good as I do when I "read" her that book, because it is actually in Hungarian! Preston brought a bunch of Disney stories back from his mission, so I am just faking my way through "reading" the stories to her and telling her what I am guessing the words are saying based on the pictures.
We had a playdate at our house earlier in the week, and Arden was so excited to show all of her books to her friends. Arden had been up in her room with a bunch of kids for a few minutes while us moms chatted downstairs. I went up to check on her, and she had everyone sitting on the floor with a book. She was running from kid to kid, telling them what their books were about. It was so funny.

Hope you all have a great week!

What's for Dinner?

My friend Becca tagged me. According to the tag, I am supposed to post on my blog what we eat for dinner at our house in an average week.

To tell the truth, what we have for dinner depends a lot on what week it is! As many of you know, my husband Preston has been travelling a lot for work lately. When he is out of town and it is just me and Arden for dinner, I am usually a huge slacker. We end up eating a lot of macaroni and cheese, sandwiches, quesadillas or pizza...something that is really easy and that I know there is a greater than 50/50 chance that Arden will actually eat. When Preston is home, I usually try a little harder, but not much. Preston is a much better cook than I am, and sad to say that when we have a dinner that requires more than 30 minutes of preparation, he is usually the one cooking it :). I am all about the box/bag dinners. Anyway, here is some examples of what we usually eat:

Monday: Veggie burritos with rice and beans (one thing that I actually make without a box).

Tuesday: Whole-wheat tortellini or spaghetti with bread and veggies (whole wheat doesn't taste very much different and has a lot more fiber...try it, you'll like it and it makes me feel a little better about using the spaghetti cop-out so often. Also, I LOVE the "steamfresh" veggies. Pop the bag in the microwave for 5 minutes and voila! Yummy veggies that always turn out just right. Pretty inexpensive too.)

Wednesday: Potstickers (from a bag, of course! Hey, I still have to boil them and then cook them in the frying pan!) with brown rice and veggies.

Thursday: Taco stew with salad.

Friday: Pizza...delivery or Papa Murphys :)

Saturday: Date nite! Something at a restaurant.

Sunday: Coconut chicken and sweet potato curry with Indian flat bread...made by Preston.

In the summer we love to cook things on the grill...especially salmon for me. Too bad it is so expensive, I would love to eat it every day. Preston is much more of a red meat-eater than I am, so sometimes he has a burger or brats and I have chicken or fish at the same meal. I like the website http://www.allrecipes.com/ when I do actually feel like trying something new.

So, there you have it. Becca is right, I do feel a little vulnerable now that you all know what a slacker I am. I want to tag Lori and Holly, and whoever else wants to play. Post an honest list of what you eat in a week, and then anyone who reads your blog can post a comment if they want the recipe for anything. I am going to go out and ask for some recipes right now! Thanks Becca for helping me realize that I need to try a little harder. :)