DeSoren Family

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.

So after a few attempts over the past few weekends, we finally made it to the zoo with Shawn.

We picked up Shawn around 9:30ish and after getting the “we had a good week” ok from his mom, we headed over to the Oregon Zoo.

The zoo has changed quite a bit since Anthony was a kid. Joshua grew up in Salt Lake and has fond memories of the Hogle Zoo, but Anthony is a web-toed native and grew up visiting the Oregon zoo.

Shawn told us that he had been here before, so he was our cartographer and lead the way with map… sort of.

We started over in the NW habitat area. Joshua had us stop at each display and asked Shawn to read it to us (always turning fun things into an educational experience). Joshua and Shawn spent a bit of time looking in the bobcat exhibit before they found it hiding at the back of the enclosure. We could smell it but had a hard time finding it.

We wandered down the trail finding some blue bill ducks and several large bottom dwelling fish and some yummy looking salmon. However, no matter how much we tried to convince Shawn, he would not jump in the tank and grab us some fish for dinner.

The trail led us to the new and much improved petting zoo and then we walked over to the elk meadow just in time for the wolf keeper talk. Shawn loved the elk antlers hanging from the walls and thought they were definitely a cool thing.

We wandered down for lunch at the African counter service area. Hands down, the San Diego zoo was a much better dining adventure. There we had cloth tablecloths and silverware and waiters, and all for about the same price we paid for two adult meals and one kid sack meal here locally. Joshua is very much looking forward to do San Diego zoo again!

After lunch, we walked over to the grass amphitheater area and watched the birds of prey show. The best part of the show was the Bald Eagle that flew right over our heads by about 2 feet. We could feel the air blow by as it zoomed overhead.

After the show, we walked through the elephant area. Shawn got really excited telling us all about the baby elephant. We then wandered over to the train area and took the Zoo train to the Rose Garden.

We jumped off the train at the Rose Garden and spent some time wandering around looking at the roses. Much of the time was spent hunting for Blue Roses (they don’t exist unfortunately).Then we walked down the hill to the huge playground area.

We took the train back to the zoo and where just in time to watch the penguins get fed, which was great fun. Shawn got to stand right at the big window as the keeper threw fish in the water in front of him and all the penguins dived towards Shawn.

After the penguins where feed we all shared a huge elephant ear and Shawn snacked on some goldfish and an apple juice drink box that Anthony packed for him.

We then started working our way towards the exit, taking in the Africa exhibit and the fruit bats, which Shawn was really excited to see.

Shawn really liked our camera and took a ton of photos. Most of the one that were not to blurry are online now.

We are planning a special trip next weekend. It’s Sara’s birthday so we are heading to Newport Beach. Should be a blast!

First change happened Thursday when I emailed Sara to arrange a pick up time for Shawn on Saturday for a day at the Zoo. The email I got back was…. “Did I mention I have both boys this weekend?”.  So we got  the extra treat of both boys, Shawn and Don on Saturday.

The next change came as we drove over to Tigard to pick the boys up.We noticed that Sara had called but had not left a message the night before. So we called her in route. Seems both the boys had a bad night and were both having some defiance issues. By the time we had arrived they had both lost their TV rights and Video game rights and she didn’t want us to reward them with a nice day at the Zoo. So we quickly scrambled and came up with a “Chore day” at our house and picnic up on Mt. Tabor for lunch.

Once we got back to our house with the Boys. We all headed to the back yard and they helped pull weeds and eat raspberries. And clean up dead flowers and eat raspberries. They both got really into helping out. Don loved the potato plants and wanted us to pull them all up. Shawn was really excited as we let him use the clippers (while being supervised) to trim back the roses.

After our chores where done. Anthony made sandwiches and packed up the cooler while Sam and Joshua read stories to the boys. Then all five of us drove up to Mt. Tabor park. Both of the boys loved the fact that it was volcano and really wanted to see the Lava. So our first stop was to the lower level to see the lava rock walls. We then took a short nature walk in a big circle back to the car.

We then drove to the upper parking lot. Grabbed the food and started the long walk to the top. We got to the top and found a grassy area for lunch. Just as we served out the food. Don needed to go #2. So Joshua and Don walked over to the restrooms on the upper level. Which where closed. So then they walked down to the middle level only to find no restrooms. The only restrooms open where all the way down at the Lava face wall. So down the two of them went. While Don desperately held it all in.

So 20 mins later, Joshua and Don returned (with no accidents) to eat their lunch. After lunch we all walked down to the restrooms and then to playground and played for a while. Both of the kidos where getting tired at this point and the adults where too. So as we arrived at home Anthony took them both into the kids room for quiet time (nap time for us, quiet time for them as they quote “ do not take naps”) So we had 30 minutes quiet time. Anthony read them stories and they both struggled so hard not to sleep. In the end no one did, but we got close. After quiet time we headed out to the backyard again for a bit to run around and play in the sun. We played tag and hide and go seek. At 4:00pm we loaded up the car with kidos and headed back to Sara’s house. Along the way Don fell asleep.

Sunday, all three of us headed out to meet up with the Lovely Suzanne for the 12:10 showing of Harry Potter 6. Afterwards Joshua had planned to head over to her house to work on the Roxy website. But plans changed again and Suzanne rescheduled the work party. So we ended up being “forced” to make homemade enchiladas and then “forced” spend the evening together playing Resident Evil 5, where we learned that Joshua cannot open doors.

Saturday morning, bright and early, the new bunk bed mattress arrived for the kiddo’s room. After we unwrapped them and placed them in the bunk bed, we both got “nesting fever” and headed over to IKEA in search of a rug for the kiddos room.

We had “pre-shopped” on our last trip to IKEA, and knew which rug we wanted, a big green swirly one. But once we got their we laid out several rugs on the floor and ultimately switched to a nice brown rug as it seemed calmer then the green. This did work out better, as the green would have not matched the great bedding we found…

After IKEA we headed to the source of all evil, Wal-Mart. We needed to find 2 bedding sets; one for the top twin bunk and one for the bottom full. We were planning to just buy two bed-in-a-bags but found a great pick and match set in fun blues, which seemed more appropriate for a boy’s room then the bag options they had. We also “pre-shopped” a Wall-e set and Disney Airplane set that might have to be purchased down the road as well.

Soon as we got home, and did some accounting, and we decided that we should have just purchased the kiddos dresser when we were at IKEA. So Joshua volunteered to drive back and get it and convinced Anthony that we should get two new ones for our room as well. Both of us have been using the same bedroom dresser for years. Replacing them removes the last vestiges of that “college dorm room” look our house has been sporting for the past year. So Joshua headed to IKEA and Anthony washed the new bedding.

Sunday we woke up early, drove out to Tigard, and picked up two little boys, Shawn (8) and his little brother Donny (4). After a short drive back to our side of town we stopped Fred Meyers for some food shopping, and shopping with a 8 and 4 year old is super fun.

We got home after the shopping adventure and both boys headed over to the TV and tried to figure out which video game to play while Anthony made lunch. We had green apple slices, fresh Donny picked raspberries, apple juice boxes and homemade Cheeseburgers.

So Anthony cooked but Joshua sewed. Ever the little homemaker Joshua spent about an hour whip stitching up Shawn’s backpack, which came to us with a big rip along the top.

After lunch, we decided to walk over to and go play in the Park. We all changed in to long pants, as it was getting a bit cold outside. Donny, got all excited and stripped down to his underwear right in the dining room window, only to the announce he had to go to the bathroom alone to put his long pants on as he needed to go be “indecent”.

After we were all “decent”, we walked over to the park. Now neither of us had ever been to this park before so it was new adventure for all of us. We walked all over and found each play area. The tire swing was huge hit.

Returning from the park, we played the board game Monster Smash and the plopped down in front of the TV and watched The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Which was not a problem for Shawn, but Donny had a real hard time getting his little body to calm down enough to watch the show quietly. It took 2 trips to the kitchen for Graham crackers and some “pudding” (also known as yogurt) before he was ready to settle with the group. We had no issues with getting Donny to eat.

As soon as the show was over it was time to return to mom’s house. So we loaded the car up and Anthony drove everyone home, while Joshua tried to build the IKEA dressers.

A long weekend, but a rewarding one.

We had our individual adoption interviews on Monday. From everything we had read we where expecting an intrusive highly personal interview in a locked dark room, strapped to a rickety wooden chair under a single hot white light.

It turned out to be a funny & quick recap talk about our questionnaires. No hot lights, no rickety wooden chairs… more of a Monty Python – Spanish Inquisition with comfy chairs and pillows. (FETCH THE COMFY CHAIR!) Just goes to show that you should never believe everything you read in adoption books. (or see & hear on Fox news)

After talking with our Adoption Clinician, it looks like we are on track to have our homestudy completed sometime in early August and then at that point we can start looking at waiting children profiles for matching!

The news got even better as it looks like the International Conference that Anthony has been working on got the final green light with it’s contract changes and concessions and is a go for Disney World in May of 2010 (barring any additional inter-political nonsense)!

So today was our big Summer Adoption BBQ Extravaganza! What a blast! We had way too much fun throwing this party, I fear that a second one is going to be not to far off!

Thanks to everyone who came out and showed their love and support, it really meant a lot to us! Extra special thanks to Mr. Smiling Ryan for reminding me how old we both are!

Since we did an all day party, people came in waves throughout the day. Which was fun, but we both need a nap! The weather was great for the BBQ,  not to hot and the evening is looking even better.  Second wave of the party is going to happen later as some folks will be back for movies and outdoor chilling under the new lights that Joshua has strung up in the patio area of the yard.

Wonderful day and can’t wait for the next party…. which might be a Sunday brunch… stay tuned for details!

BERLIN — A German zoo says a pair of gay male penguins are raising a chick from an egg abandoned by its parents.

Bremerhaven zoo veterinarian Joachim Schoene says the egg was placed in the male penguins’ nest after its parents rejected it in late April. The males incubated it for some 30 days before it hatched and have continued to care for it. The chick’s gender is not yet known.

Schoene said the male birds, named Z and Vielpunkt, are one of three same-sex pairs among the zoo’s 20 Humboldt penguins that have attempted to mate.

Homosexual behavior has been documented in many animal species.

The zoo said in a statement on its Web site Thursday that “sex and coupling in our world don’t always have something to do with reproduction.”

(Photo above) Two male Humboldt penguins cautiously guards the entrence to their cave in the “Zoo am Meer” zoological park in Bremerhaven, northern Germany, on Wednesday, June 3, 2009, where they are fostering a six weeks old penguin chick. After a penguin egg had been abandoned by its biological parents, it was placed in the male penguins’ nest, who then adopted and hatched it. The gender of the penguin chick has not yet been determined. Bremerhaven zoo veterinarian Schoene said the male birds, named Z and Vielpunkt, are one of three same-sex pairs among the zoo’s 20 Humboldt penguins that have attempted to mate. (AP Photo/Focke Strangmann)

Thank you to all our friends and family who came out and joined us. It was a great first get together. We hope have many more movie nights in the future. If you missed it we sure hope you can make the next one.

We started off with Disney’s Meet the Robinsons (on blu-ray) then watched a nice movie with a “friendly” donkey called Clerks 2, and ended the night with Death to Smoochy.

 Sam and Joshua worked the grill and served up the best movie hot dogs ever. Anthony was on popcorn duty, all of which Ryan consumed in one sitting. JJ contributed to the party with a big bag of Goldfish crackers, which was a big hit with everyone.

It was a great night of family and friends and we can’t wait for the next one. Thank you to everyone who came!

So Anthony and I had our first interview with Boys & Girls Aid yesterday. Needless to say we were both nervous and were wondering exactly how in depth this was going to be. I learned that I hate driving downtown especially when I have no clue on where I am going. I know the downtown area pretty well but getting to BGAID was especially difficult. I knew I should have had something to eat other than the oatmeal and coffee from the bistro at work. We managed to get there in one piece however. From now on Anthony is going to drive there, as I hate all those little twists and turns it takes to get into that part of Portland.

Our Adoption Clinician, Elizabeth, was wonderful during the interview. She was extremely nice and personable and quickly put us at ease. I have to say out of the two of us, Anthony was definitely the talker while I just absorbed the information and stayed mostly quiet… There was a running joke about the date since we had to sign all sorts of paperwork. Some of it was just everyday stuff such as their policies and what to do if we have a complaint to specific rules on what type of discipline is acceptable. We also have to take Sam in to have his fingerprints taken and have a background check on him as he is living with us and will be a part of our home study. She also gave us a complete checklist (which Anthony loves) of different things we need to get before she can write our home study.

Overall it was ten times easier than I thought it was going to be. There is the small matter of answering in depth a whole list of 127 questions delving deep into each of our private lives but that should be something that we can work on together.