DeSoren Family

Right now we are in the final stages of Jayme’s adoption. With the State adoption assistance done promptly (note the heavy use of sarcasm), we are hoping to cross the finish line by March… But we are not holding our breath.

The big hold up was thanks to Oregon State adoption assistance taking forever to get back to us. Our caseworker described it as sending paperwork into a blackhole, one that no one knows what is inside. We happen to firmly agree with that idea.

The junior Mr Popplewick is not permitted to expect ANYONE!

Anthony called about once or twice a week for 3 months leaving polite messages and asking for a call back. But as we got closer and closer to the end of the year, he called daily, leaving some not so nice messages before giving up and calling around looking for someone to complain to. He found  junior assistant undersecretary, who promised a call back the next day, which really came 2 days later. The whole phone conversation (which covered negotiating continued support for Jayme) took 7 minutes. Four months of waiting, 7 minutes on the phone, part of the conversation also covered the fact they had parts of Jayme’s info wrong. The whole process reminded Anthony of an old Doctor Who episode where the Doctor is lost in repeating loop of very important and very pointless bureaucracy.

But we now have a signed contract with the State that covers the money side of the adoption. So we are just waiting on Salem to send our attorney all of the boring paperwork. A process that our attorney as told us could take months, but most likely should be back by Mid-March.

We also have started the process to legally change our names to DeSoren. Since that is the last name that Jayme will have once we finalize. We feel a common last name will help us over come a lot of potential future issues as Jayme grows up and as we work our way through the school and medical systems. We have already had to explain several times why we all have different names: The funny thing is no one has even commented on the 2 dad issue. But the different last names always raises eyebrows.

We also have completed mediation with Jayme’s birth family. We chose not to meet directly with them but rather to have a mediator do the face to face interactions. Neither of us felt we could handle meeting the birth family.

So much like it was as when we started this process, it is all about the hurry up and wait.

Our first Christmas with Jayme was great! It was also our first time hosting family at our house for Christmas as Joshua’s Mom and Dad came up for Christmas.

Jayme and Anthony decorated every inch of our house. It all started with a huge Christmas tree that Joshua put up, then came the hand made snow flakes to adorn our walls. Then pine boughs and xmas lights twinkled all around the house. Jayme and Joshua setup all of the outdoor lights and even picked up gel snowflakes for Jayme’s bedroom window. By December 25th it looked like Christmas had thrown up all over our house. The only thing missing was mistletoe by the front door.

Anthony again, cooked up a HUGE batch of his yummy fruit cake, along with 4 batches of cookies and fudge. Jayme had a great time helping and licking all of the fudge covered spoons and bowls.

Christmas Eve came and Jayme put out milk and cookies for Santa and with much difficulty was able to fall asleep. Around 10:00pm Santa’s elves came out and started their work. First they carried down all of the Christmas gifts hidden for weeks in their closet. Then they built out a huge railroad layout that ran in and around the Christmas tree and presents. On it, they placed Jayme’s new remote control train.

Christmas morning was spent with Jayme playing with his new train and waiting for Grandma, Grandpa and Julian (exchange student) to arrive. While they waited, Anthony cooked a huge breakfast/brunch spread. German Pancakes, hash-brown casserole, bacon, turkey sausages and several types of pastries. Joshua broke out the Kona coffee from our Hawaii trip and we soon had a very festive brunch ready for our guests.

Once everyone had settled, the feasting began followed with the opening of the presents. Christmas should have just been renamed “National Spoil Jayme Day”, because for every 1 gift opened by an adult, Jayme opened about 3. It was pretty crazy. But Jayme loved getting presents and relished the whole day. Coming from having nothing, things are pretty important to him. The best gift of the day was his own sonic screwdriver! (its a Dr. Who thing)

After a small nap, Anthony started work on a huge Christmas dinner, which was a huge success. Turkey, Sweet Potatoes, Rolls, Green beans… the works. It was so nice to have a full house for Christmas day.

Julian became our new housemate and bunked up with Jayme for 4 nights while Grandma and Grandpa got some alone time in a nearby hotel. Julian mostly stayed up all night raiding our fridge and playing PS3; but for Jayme, it was like having an older brother, he positively ate it up.

Boxing Day saw Kristian, Anthony’s nephew, move in for a week as well. Our little condo was getting pretty full as the total now reached 8 people. But again, we loved it!

Next year we are hoping to REALLY fill the house.

With the Thanksgiving season upon us we began our annual trek to Arizona. But this time we took a slight detour.

Jayme was SO pumped to go to Grandma’s house. Weeks before the trip he packed his bags will all the toys he wanted to take with him. Everyday we would ask “how many more days?” So when the big day came he was super ready to go. Funny to think that when he first moved in everyone was worried about him on airplanes, now he is a seasoned world traveler!

While planning the trip we found the flights into Phoenix were through the roof. Anthony quickly started looking for ways to make the trip cheaper. He found a flight into LAX and a one way car rental that turned out to be cheaper then flying directly into PHX by several hundred bucks!

So Monday evening of Thanksgiving week we flew out to LAX, collected our rental car a HUGE Ford Crown Victoria (think giant old persons car) and then drove over to our hotel. We told jayme that we would be spending the night and then driving onto Grandmothers house. The truth…. well we would be going to Disneyland.

Once we go to the hotel (which we drove to via the back way to avoid any big DISNEY signs) we quickly got Jayme to our room. The next morning we ate in the room, to avoid any families heading out to the parks. We then told Jayme that we should go for a walk before we headed to Grandmom’s, since it would be a long car ride. So we started walking down harbor blvd.

As we walked Joshua played a game with Jayme, to see who could avoid stepping on the most cracks. this worked great, it wasn’t until we turned and stepped on to Disney property that Jayme noticed something was not right. His first clue was a huge Monorail that zoomed by. He got very quiet and looked a bit perplexed and said in a timid voice “I think this is Disneyland.” We then told him that he was right and we would be spending the whole day at the park. He remained very quiet and didn’t get very excited.

We took him in and got fast passes for Star tours, road the Jungle boat ride, and even did the Haunted mansion. Still he was very calm and quiet. Then came Splash Mountain (the ride Anthony will not get on). As Joshua and Jayme exited the ride all wet, there was a smile that ran from ear to ear. For the rest of the day he was super excited and all smiles. Jayme had finally arrived at Disneyland!

That evening in the park we had one last surprise for jayme, we splurged for the dessert party Fantasmic package. The package comes with reserved seats and a HUGE box of cakes and munchies. We ended up with front row seats and it even gave Jayme enough room to be able to stand up and dance to the music during the show. That proved to be worth the cost in itself.

The next day we loaded up our land yacht and headed out for Arizona. The drive itself took us a little over 6 hours. We stopped along the way for breakfast and munched on the leftovers from our 3 huge fantasmic dessert trays.

We had a wonderful time at Grandmas for Thanksgiving, apart from Anthony getting sick. Grandpa made BBQ ribs and Jayme was in heaven. It was a full house full of relatives and returning exchange students.

The flight home was quick and easy but getting from the airport to home was a bit harder. Sam, who had dropped us off in our old car got into a car accident after dropping us all off. So Joshua found us a shuttle which drove us out to Gresham and then home to Happy Valley.

Halloween time was a blast for our family. For months now Jayme has been asking to be Darth Vader for Halloween. So the dad’s looked online and found the Deluxe Darth vader costume. It came with cap, belt, jumpsuit, gloves and half mask. We also sprung for a light up Darth Vader lightsaber.

A few days before the big day Anthony and Jayme headed out for  the traditional pumpkin shopping. We headed to Freddies and Jayme picked out a HUGE one for himself and 4 other medium sized pumpkins. We came home with our haul and placed them outside , to await their horrific debowling the next day.

That night while Jayme was in bed and Anthony was in his room… a jail break took place.  A group of teenagers drove down into our condo and started stealing all of the uncarved pumpkins from everyones doorways. If it wasn’t for Joshua’s stomach all would have been lost. Joshua got up and headed to the front door, where the halloween candy was stored and he heard some noises from our front porch. He opened the door only to see a group of teenagers STEALING OUR PUMPKINS!!!!

Several crazy man screams and many many expletives later, the teenagers were in full flight. But the largest of our pumpkins was gone, Jayme’s pumpkin. So to make up for it the next day Anthony and Jayme headed out again and picked up a few more pumpkins and all the fixings for carmel apples.

When Halloween day arrived, our family treated Jayme’s class to a mini Halloween party. Right before school got out we delivered cupcakes and apple juice. The whole class got a mini sugar feast and even had a mini dance party.

For the big night Jayme donned his black Sith Lord robes and we headed out to trick or treat around our neighborhood. It proved to be a bit of a bust. Our house again was the best stop, as we had full size candy bars from Costco. Everywhere else was pretty meager. So we jumped in the car and headed over to the richer side of Happy Valley, where the plundering was greatly improved.

Jayme had a wonderful holiday and was way more into the dressing up then the candy. No greater proof of this was the knock on our bedroom door the next morning. Jayme in his Darth Vader mask…. and nothing else.