Josh’s parents, John and Julie, were the first to hear about our plans to adopt. We drove all the way across the state to see them for a total of 15 hours before having to head home on our short weekend getaway. Let me first preface this story by saying that Josh’s parents are wine nuts. There is always a bottle opened when we arrive at any family gathering. I don’t drink alcohol, but they always welcome my glass of ice water when we cheers at the dinner table. So back to the story -- Before sitting down to dinner, we brought in a bottle of wine, still wrapped in its classy brown paper bag from the grocery store. Tied onto the bottle was a handwritten card. Before even taking the bottle out of the bag, Josh’s mom was able to read the card. This will be John and Julie's first grandchild, so needless to say, they were quite ecstatic.
On the way home from visiting Josh’s parents, we made a quick stop to see my oldest sister Cheryl and her family. They were going to have dinner for us, and I had offered to bring along a dessert. Friends of theirs were also coming to visit that evening and were set to arrive at the same time as us. We decided to leave an hour sooner that day to make sure we arrived before them. We wanted to be able to announce our news without making other people feel uncomfortable during a ‘family moment.’ I brought over a cake for dessert and wasn’t sure how to get Cheryl to lift the lid before her friends arrived. After some time went by and we weren't sure how to get Cheryl to see it, Josh said in desperation, “Look at the cake that Erika decorated this morning!” We loved her reaction. Hands went straight over her mouth, eyes wide, and lots of excitement. Cheryl and her husband Cory were both thrilled and had so many great questions for us. When we mentioned that we are open to all races, Cheryl's reply was, "We could use some color in this family!" That totally made our day. :)
Josh celebrated his birthday in September. A few days before his big day, I called up my sister Teri to see if her family wanted to share some cake with us for Josh’s birthday. We knew we didn’t have any other plans that night, and I was certain that I would eat the entire cake if I didn’t have someone to share it with. So, we decided to do the same cake announcement idea with Teri’s family. We brought the cake over to Teri's house and shortly after we arrived, she opened the lid of the pan to see how it looked. We shared our joy with her for a few brief moments before she put the lid back on the cake, wanting her husband Jason to be able to see the announcement for himself. However, when she closed the plastic lid, she pressed down a little too hard in the middle, so when Jason opened it, all of the words were stuck to the lid! By looking at the indents left in the cake, he was able to make out the words “We’re Adopting!” and immediately asked, “Another dog?” HA! For those of you who know us, you know that we’re crazy dog people. We fostered dogs from a pet rescue for about two years and we just recently adopted a little Beagle puppy. So, we were certain at some point in our adoption announcements that someone was bound to ask.
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| (We don't have a photo from our announcement at Teri's because I forgot to take a picture before the cake lid incident.) |
Almost every time we visit my parents, I always bring my mom a shirt to fix that has a hole in it. I haven’t sewn anything since my home economics class in junior high, and I’m too impatient to teach myself, so I’m hopeless. My mom’s an expert. She made my prom dress and bridesmaid dresses, did alterations on my wedding dress, creates adorable dress-up clothes for my nieces and nephews, makes her own curtains, and the list goes on and on. I’m very lucky to have such a crafty mom who helps me out with anything I need. One of Josh's shirts happened to have a small hole that needed to be fixed, so we knew that was our opportunity. I made a card that had a photo of all six of my parents' grand kids on the front. I placed the card inside of Josh's folded shirt so that my mom would easily be able to find it when she went to fix it. We weren't able to get her to look at the shirt right away, but when she did finally find the card, I don't think she quite got it. You see, she had been wanting a picture of her grand kids for quite some time, and I think she was just happy to finally have a photo. I guess the giant text over the photo didn't quite give it away, so I had to say, "Open the card!!" Both parents are looking forward to having a new grandchild.
We had a lot of fun sharing our excitement with our families and we are very grateful to them for their love and support!
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