Lots

Dylan!
The newest member of our family has arrived. A huge welcome to Dylan! Avery's cousin is the son of my brother and his wife. He was born via c-section yesterday around 9 PM and weighed in at 8 lb 12 oz and is 21" long. I still haven't seen a picture yet, but I understand he has a little bit of dark hair. I just added Dylan's BD to my Google calendar and set it to repeat yearly as I do with all BD's. There's something so satisfying about adding a new birthday.


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Livestrong Challenge
In other news, D will be running in the 2008 LIVESTRONG Challenge this weekend. He is hoping to raise money for a good cause, so if you are able to spare a few bucks, please donate! Here's the message he sent out via Facebook:

Partly as a result of my new found passion for running as a result of the fat loss competition at work, and partly because it’s a great cause, I have signed up at the last minute to run in the Livestrong Challenge 5K at the Nike campus this weekend. Apart from being another great run, this event is designed to raise awareness and funds to help fight cancer and support the people undergoing treatment.

As many of you know, when I was 18 I was diagnosed with cancer and spent 9 months of my life enduring surgery, in-patient chemotherapy, out-patient chemotherapy, incredible nausea, hair loss, weight loss and yet more surgery. Needless to say, it was not a fun time, especially at a point in my life when I was supposed to be partying hard…don’t worry, I made up for it later. The good news is that I survived and have been cancer free for over 20 years. As the doctors kept telling me at the time, if I’d been diagnosed even 10 years earlier I would have died because the treatments that saved me didn’t exist back then. Since I got sick, treatments have improved even more, but still far too many people die from cancer and endure some fairly horrendous and invasive procedures, including way too many children.

So, if you have a few extra bucks this month and are looking for a good cause, please click on the link below to sponsor me in the run and donate to the Lance Armstrong Livestrong Foundation.

Donate

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Meme
I have been tagged for my first meme! I have done many a meme in my time, but I have never been tagged for it via my blog. I am officially part of the blogosphere! Thanks, Christie! So, without further ado, I present to you 6 random things about me:

1. I am particular about my feet. I absolutely cannot wear socks to bed, but I must wear socks in my house at all other times. I cannot stand to have dirty feet. If I get them dirty, I spend the entire time thinking about how and when I will be able to clean them. I don't like to have long toenails. In fact, I prefer to have very short toenails. This presents a problem during the summer months and/or vacations in hot climates as I try to look a bit more presentable in terms of my feet and paint my toenails, however, stubby toenails are not attractive. So I actually have to work at growing out my toenails. I also cannot walk barefoot or in just socks for any period of time. I need arch supports and they must be good. Even my slippers have arch supports. I have been known to wash my feet several times a day during the summer sandal wearing season.
   
2. When I was in second grade, I decided that my book collection was too disorderly. Not aware yet that the Dewey Decimal system existed, I set about numbering my books. I took pieces of paper and, with my grandmother's help, numbered my 100+ books. I taped the number to the side of each book and then lined them up in my bookcase. A few years later, not yet aware of the Readers' Guide to Periodicals, I set about writing down and cross-referencing each topic listed on the side of each of our National Geographic magazines. We had about 10 feet of these magazines if you lined them, so I'm not sure how many years worth that was. I thought this was a perfectly dandy summer activity, but I do remember my friend asking if we could do something else and me just sitting at my little table writing down each of the topics for each magazine on the proper index cards.
   
3. It was around the time I was in fifth grade when the Lebanon Hostage Crisis was going on. I clearly remember thinking how difficult it must be to be a hostage because I was sure that it was quite dry in the Middle East and I was also quite sure that the hostage takers wouldn't give their hostages lotion. That they could be tortured was of little concern to me, but that they might not be given lotion in such a dry climate was absolutely unbearable for me to think about. Obviously, growing up in dry, dry Colorado took its toll on me.
   
4. I almost never watch the local TV news. My life rocks as a result.
   
5. I have gotten better sleep in the past six months with Avery than I did for the previous 2-4 years before her. I also have more energy since having her, and I'm much neater in the house. It's like being a parent has had the opposite effect on me.
   
6. I'm almost always cold. I need a sweater in 70 degree weather. The thought of going into a movie theater at any time of year in shorts or a short-sleeved shirt is absurd to me. I also get very cold immediately after I start eating (which is likely due to the blood rushing to my stomach). I rarely go into a restaurant without a sweater. The only time I am ever hot is when I am lying in bed and then I'm roasting. There is something that happens to my body temperature when I lay down to go to sleep, but if I'm just laying down, I'm cold. It has to be to sleep.
   

Clearly, I am a very complicated person. As I tell D when he's just about had it with my quirks, "If you think you're annoyed listening to my quirks, just trying BEING me!" That usually shuts him up, though mostly just so he can stew about what a weirdo he married.

Since I don't know that many people who blog, I am not going to tag anyone. That must be #7 - I make up my own rules!

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Passport
So, if you're wondering whether a court order and an official adoption certificate can get a passport for a baby, the answer would be a big fat no. After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, and reading carefully all the instructions, it turns out we cannot get Avery a passport until we have her birth certificate. When you adopt a child, the state reissues a new birth certificate once the adoption is finalized, so we have never had a birth certificate for her. We thought the court order granting us permission to get a passport was sufficient, but apparently judges and lawyers know nothing and the postal clerk knows all. We also thought that since we have a court order granting us permission, and it just says you need a birth certificate OR proof of citizenship, that proving she was born in the US would be enough. Nope. You need a birth certificate.

Anyway, this could very well put a damper on our England trip. So, in summary here's the status:

• We cannot apply for her passport until we have her birth certificate
• We got a letter with her adoption finalization papers that said the birth certificate would be sent in about three months, but I recall them telling me the state was backlogged by five months - if it's five months, we'll have to cancel our trip to England I will be a seething ball of rage at the stupidity of this situation
  
• Then there's the delay in getting the passport, so regardless of when we get the birth certificate, we'll have to pay for the expedited service