Off to Sacramento...

The paperwork has finally all come together and I'm off for apostilles tomorrow. I'm taking the kids with me since they will only miss a half-day of school. We'll make another stop at the infamous California State Railroad Museum. It's a great place to kill some time while the 90+ documents are being processed. Once these documents are apostilled I will send them to our placement agency where they will package them up and send them off to Russia to be translated. At that point I believe we will be eligible for a referral.

I read a book this weekend, or rather a book grabbed me Friday afternoon and wouldn't let go of me until 3am Saturday night. It was called Two Little Girls by Theresa Reid. Has anyone else read this book? I found it while looking at some other books on Am@zon. When I finished the book, I felt like I'd been worked over, and three times again. She is incredibly honest about her feelings during the adoptions of her two girls, and I found myself identifying so closely with her, that as I read through her account of her trip to Ukraine for her second daughter, it was exhaustingly like I was right there. Kevin's reading it right now. Reading this book was a "shock and awe" experience.

At the health food store the other day I asked the clerk what Holy Basil was and he told me that two capsules will noticeably take the edge off any stress or anxiety within 20 minutes. I looked it up and it's an herb that has been used in Asia for thousands of years for medicinal, religious, and even culinary purposes. I tried one capsule just to make sure I didn't break out in hives but didn't really notice anything. That's probably a good thing!

Friday I finally put my surfboard in the car and went down to Santa Cruz for some time out on the water. (My friend Mollie will understand the rest. Ha ha!) Let's just say that I need to spend some time in the pool before I go out again.

The sun has been slowly getting higher in the sky every day, and since both the adoption and probate paperwork is in the wrap-up stages, I've been starting to think about the yard. Next week I've got a couple of contractors coming out to give me an estimate on a new lawn. Today it felt good to get out and do some yard cleanup... we have a lot of blackberries to yank out. I'm still thinking about some redwood pruning too. I can't wait!

Kevin, the kids and I went out Sunday afternoon to plant a new geocache that the kids got for Christmas. So we spent the afternoon hiking around one of the local parks looking for a great place to hide it. Kevin packed a nice picnic and we ate by the side of the river. The kids loved it and were running around excitedly. Then Kevin took them fishing, while I came home to do some laundry (well, play the piano). About 90 minutes later, they return home but C was banged up from a fall, and K has no pants on. She'd fallen into the lake. Fun with dad! Making memories is hard work.