DeSoren Family

September is normally when we take our vacation. For the past 2 years, we have gone to Disneyworld on the free dining program. However, with all the adoption expenses we decided back in June when the vacation offer came out, not to go.

Which was a mistake, the stress from the whole adoption process and other issues has really worn us down over the past few months. So perhaps late to starting gate and with permission from our caseworker we started to look for some cheap vacation options.

We had hoped to have a family retreat with the Sorensen clan for a week at the Oregon Coast, but the Sorensen clan had some scheduling issues.

So we started to look for cheap vacation ideas for just the two of us. (We really need the alone time.) Anthony found a cheap cruise out of LA to Mexico for a week in October. It had some pros and cons; we would miss some Portland events but the cheap price and the desperate need to get away from it all won us over. So we booked a 7 day cruise on the Norwegian Star.

A few days later, we got a call from our Landlord. She wanted to come over to talk with us, which she did last night. (insert life changing Boom here)

She is having some financial issues and she wanted to let us know that she has to sell the house.  The house WE live in, the house our home study is based on, the home we have worked to make perfect for our kiddo for 2 years.

Our lease is up in June, if she sells the house, the lease would travel with the sale of the house. So in the short term world we are ok, sort of, but long term we are a bit worried.

She also mentioned that she wanted us to have the first option in buying the house. But we really are not sure who to call or who to help us with buying the house. And we are not even sure we want to buy the house…

We have just finished our home study and had just sent it out to 12 different kiddos’ caseworkers.  We had just booked and paid for a vacation. Our caseworker is on vacation in Disneyland (oh the irony), So of course we are in a dead panic.

Sunday we picked up Shawn, then went home picked up Sam and all 4 of us drove out to Multnomah falls. Multnomah Falls is the second-tallest year-round waterfall in the nation. Along the way we stopped and had breakfast at Shari’s (where Shawn got to eat for free).

In the past, we have taken Joshua’s parents out to the falls and had breakfast in the lodge at the base of the falls. This time however, we decided to attempt the death march to the top. It’s only 1 ½ miles to the top of the falls. Sounds easy, but it is uphill at a 25° incline with no guardrails and thin trails clinging to the side of the mountain.

We had a great time once we got to the top, we walked in along the longer 6 mile trail and rested on some great boulders in the creek bed. Joshua and Shawn walked up the creek while Sam and Anthony tried to recover.

We then walked back to the main trail and followed it to the waterfall edge for an amazing view. Check out the photos online now in our photo gallery.

On our way down (1 mile to go) Shawn announces that he needs to use the restroom. We found a side trail and a good tree for him to use… but he was not ready to be that much of an outdoors man. So Anthony and Shawn raced down hand in hand to the restroom, and made it without any accidents.

After a short visit to the gift shop we climbed back in the car and headed down the winding road of the scenic highway. Sam doesn’t deal well with heights and curves so he was a little carsick. We stopped at Crown Point and Vista house which is an awesome little rest stop.

The views were stunning and beatific, but we are all a little sore today.

We had an uneventful weekend. Saturday Anthony made cookies and Joshua worked on homework.

We had Shawn over on Sunday. Shawn had a very bad day on Monday, he was sent home early from daycare because of his behavior. Because of this,  part of his punishment for Sara having to leave work early was for him to write out apology letters to Sara’s 5 bosses. The extra punishment was that if he did not have the letters done by Friday, he would have to do lines on Sunday at our house with no video games.

We both were a little worried about how this would play out and we did not have very high expectations that he would have finished the letters in time for a nice visit with us on Sunday.

So Friday came and went and the letters were not done. <insert doom music here> Sara said it was up to us if we wanted to enforce the lines. We both agreed that forcing him to do lines would not drive home a teachable moment. So we told Shawn, lines would depend on how well the letters were written.

So while Anthony setup stuff for lunch, Joshua sat at the table with Shawn. First Joshua tried to do his homework on his laptop while Shawn did his letters. Shawn is very easily distracted. So we had to clean off the table of all distractions, close the window shades and in the end Joshua had to close his laptop and put it away. But the two of them got the letters done with no meltdowns. It only took 2 hours. And as we had guessed it was a bigger teachable moment for us then him.

Afterwards, Anthony and Shawn cooked lunch together. They made spaghetti and meatballs. Shawn helped mix up the meatball ingredients, cut the veggies, and help cook the meatballs.  When Shawn asked what type of meat we were using. Anthony told him Frog and Lizard guts. Which caused great laughter and excitement. So much so that Shawn started to tease Joshua that he was going to have to eat Frog and Lizard guts. But the laughter died when lunch was served and two big Frog & Lizard gut meatballs sat on Shawns plate… the fun ended and quick refusals to eat them quickly appeared.

So Anthony retrieved the ground turkey wrapper, which Shawn carefully read. For the rest of the day when describing the meatballs he made he would quote the label verbatim and say that they where made from “Fresh ground turkey and all natural ingredients.” Just so no one would be confused like he was.

Labor Day was pretty dull. Sam was home so all three of us hung out. We did breakfast together at Elmbers. Then all three of us bummed and lounged around the house. Joshua had picked up 2 used games for the PS3, Walle and UP. So we all took turns challenging each other. For the record, Sam is a horrible cheater.

That evening we all headed down to Frys electronics and got to geek out. We made it out of there only spending about $19.00, a first for us!

So yesterday, we both took off from work early. We had a 1:00pm appointment with our caseworker. Our home study is done and we are now at the looking at profiles stage.

2 HUGE books filled with kiddos. Our caseworker left us alone and we started to review them one by one. Just as we got to the end of the last book, we heard a strange high-pitched noise, which we ignored. After a few minutes, we started to get worried that it might be a fire alarm. Sure enough, our caseworker walked in and said we had to exit the building.

The two upsides to the fire alarm was that it was just a drill and we got to see our instructors from our Love and Logic classes, who were awesome. After the alarm ended, we all headed back in with our caseworker and the three of us looked over the 12 profiles we marked. Well, 12 profiles, 13 kids, as one profile was for two twin boys.

She recommended we send in our home study to all of them, even the ones we were on the fence about. We would get more information back once we did that and then we could decided if we want to move forward or not. So, 12 is the magic number… at least for now. Our caseworker told us that we would most likely not even hear back from 70% of the kids caseworkers, even though they are suppose to reply back even if they don’t think our family is not a match for their kiddo.

So excited and worried about how long the waiting could be before we are matched (days, months, years…), we headed for lunch and home. We stopped first at the Old Spaghetti Factory, but they were closed, so we ended up at the Olive Garden by our house.

Just as our lunch was ending, we got a call from Sara. She was leaving work early as Shawn’s daycare called. He was having a bad day, and they needed her to come and take him home. She was calling us in the hope that we could come over the house for backup support. So we ate up quickly and hit the highway again.