Tagged!

Thanks Kathy for tagging me/us! I am supposed to write about our lives from 20, 10, 5, 3 and 1 year/s ago and also about yesterday, today and tomorrow. Here goes:

20 Years Ago

20 years ago I had just been out of high school for 1 year and working for a large savings and loan in Las Vegas. I had just began my banking career and besides a car payment and rent didn't have too many responsibilities. I don't think there was really much else going on....

15 Years Ago

I know I am supposed to do 10 years ago but I want to do 15 years because Drew and I met in 1994 and I love our story. I met Drew at a car wash in 1994. He was washing his motorcycle which I thought was so cool! It was a Saturday after work and he walked up to me and started asking me questions about where I got my car serviced. We ended up talking and he told me he had just moved to Las Vegas 3 days before to build and open a new automotive shop and didn't know anyone. I invited him out that night with my friends to our favorite bar, Tommy Rockers. We had a super crazy night and he ended up driving most of my friends home around 5 am! When he told me he would call me the next day I thought there was no way on earth he would because my friends had acted so crazy!

He did end up calling and we went for a motorcycle ride. Don't ask me why I went for a ride with a strange guy alone! I had called my friend to let her know I was going and if she didn't hear from me that night to call the police! I was just smitten with Drew.

3 months after we met, Drew asked me if I could go anywhere on vacation where would it be. It took me a couple of days but I came up with Antigua, in the West Indies at Sandals Resort. He bought the tickets! It was the most romantic place and vacation either of us have ever been on. If he would have asked me to marry him there, I would have. I knew he was the one!

8 months after we met, on Thanksgiving, we went up to Big Bear, California to be with a family that was close to Drew. While we were there he proposed to me in the most quaint little cabin. I couldn't believe my life!

The following year, I quit my job at Bank of America where I was an assistant manager to work with Drew. We opened the first Auto Tech in Las Vegas in 1995 and were married later that summer at the Flamingo Hilton chapel. After our wedding I even danced with Elvis!

10 Years Ago>>>> i love you momey love luke!!!!!!!!<<<<I guess Luke has been on my computer :)

After 6 insemination's we moved on to IVF. We were working with Dr. Sher in LA who was offering a full money back guaranty if you did not carry a pregnancy to full term. The first IVF we did we finally found out why we weren't getting pregnant. That IVF yielded 4 poor quality embryo's which we put back. As we suspected, we did not get pregnant. We did another round of IVF with ICSI and assisted hatching and had 11 perfect embryo's. In those times they put back 4....we were pregnant and with triplets! I am very small and we discussed way before we started IVF how many we would attempt and what we would do if we were carrying multiples. We knew my body would never be able to carry triplets and so for the very best possible outcome for our babies we chose to reduce to twins at 14 weeks. It was one of the hardest things we have ever done. From there my pregnancy went down hill. Not only was I throwing up 24/7 I was experiencing preterm labor. At 18 weeks I was put on complete bed rest and at 22.5 weeks I went into the hospital and one of my waters broke. I spiked a very high fever and the doctor forced my labor because he feared for my life. My first son and daughter were born way too early and did not have a chance at life. We were devastated to say the least.

After much begging I convinced Drew to do a frozen cycle of IVF. I waited and waited to start a new cycle. 60 days after the birth of my twins I found out I was pregnant completely on accident! We were blessed with a perfect pregnancy (except being sick again all the time) which resulted in Luke. We were so happy and couldn't believe our luck.

When Luke was 2 we decided we wanted to raise Luke somewhere other than Las Vegas. We bought a motor home and travelled the west coast. We went to Colorado and although we really loved it there, we decided we didn't want to live in the snow. We went up to Oregon in the fall of 2001 and fell in love. It was so green. We picked wild black berries from the side of the road. We were in awe of the beautiful landscape. We decided to put our house up for sale in Las Vegas and move our family to Portland, Oregon. We landed in our new home with 10 acres in June of 2002 thinking we were going to take care of the land on our own and slow down. Neither Drew nor I had ever run a lawn mower or weed wacker in our lives and now we had 2 acres of grass we had to mow every 3-4 days! For the first few months we butchered the landscaping and I contemplated ripping it all out and putting in rock! However, it was a great place for a little boy to explore and that was good for our family.

5 Years Ago

We came to Florida on vacation after a major ice storm that shut down the city of Portland. See when we moved to Portland everyone told us that it only snowed in Portland every 5-7 years and it rarely stuck. Liars!!! LOL It snowed every year more than once the three years we lived there. I even crashed my car into a tree because of the black ice! Florida in January after an ice storm that left us without power for days, was heaven on earth! It was 75 degrees in the middle of winter! We extended our vacation to explore the Tampa area. In June of 2004 Luke and I were living in Tampa and experiencing all Florida had to offer....5 hurricanes! Drew had to stay behind in Portland to sell our home and finish up his business and I wanted to get Luke settled before he started kindergarten. Drew was lucky enough to miss 4 of the 5 hurricanes!

While living in Portland we talked on and off about adopting from China. There were a lot of families there that had adopted from China. We decided to start the process and I got as far as sending in our application to an agency when we decided to build a home. We were not able to find a home or area in Tampa that we thought was exactly what we were looking for so I started exploring the Orlando area. I came across a great community and we decided to build a custom home. I knew building a home and living across the country from my husband, we would not be able to pursue adoption. I put the dream away.

3 Years Ago

Three years ago on September 30th we moved into our home. We were so excited and looked forward to building many memories here. I was really involved in Luke's school and even was a substitute teacher there. Still we were not thinking about adoption again at all. Our lives were very full.

1 Year Ago

I am going to have to go in between 2 years ago and 1. In January 2007 I approached Drew with the idea of adopting a little girl. He was for it so we talked with Luke about it. He had always wanted a sibling and was always asking us for a sister. We discussed China again and decided it wasn't right for our family for several reasons. I did some research and we decided on Russia. Because of some medication Drew took, Russia wouldn't accept us. Right around that time Ukraine choose us.

We started with an agency but quickly found that we could do this adoption independently. We began with Cathy Harris and sent our dossier to Ukraine in March of 2007. We found ourselves in a very long line of families she was helping and decided we didn't want to wait. We switched once our first dossier was expired in September to another stateside agent, Roman Kwit. He had our dossier submitted to the SDA in 3 weeks! We received our travel date in October and we were thrilled!

Yesterday

If you have made it this far and even care what I did yesterday here goes: I got the kids up for school and remembered it was "Doughnuts For Dads" day at school and everyone needed to get on the stick if they wanted to get to school on time. Rushed everyone out the door and got myself ready to go to the school to volunteer. I am at school about 2 days a week for one or the others class. Yesterday I was helping in Tetyana's class making fall trees with sponge painting. It was a lot of fun and a great way for me to observe Tetyana in a different setting.

Drew and I have been trying to sneak off to the movies on Friday's. We can see a movie around 11:30 and I can be home in time for the bus. We saw Nights in Rodanthe. I love all of the Nicholas Sparks books and the movie was great. I bawled my eyes out and Drew even shed a tear or two.

Today

Today we were up early for a baseball scrimmage. The Rangers looked great and we won the game. We have one more scrimmage/practice before opening day next Saturday. After the game we went and got lunch with some of the boys from the team and Coach Mark. Since we were next door to Super Target, I told the kids we could go over and just LOOK at the costumes. Every time we look at costumes online or in catalogs, they change their minds about what they want to be. I refuse to buy them more than one costume! They must have changed their minds 10 times in just the 30 minutes we were in the store!

Tomorrow

I need to get ready for my second Brownie meeting on Monday night. I am totally winging this whole leader thing! Luke has to sell popcorn for the scouts from 3-5. Luckily, the weather here has been so nice that it won't be miserable to be outside. This coming week is spirit week at the kids school so I need to help them put together all of the crazy outfits they want to assemble. Luke needs to make a dinner for his family for scouts so I will help him make tacos and he is insisting he needs to make guacamole! I really am a neat freak so having him in my kitchen is going to be a test of my patience!

Now it is my turn to tag a few bloggers to complete this little task....I choose Lisa http://payne-familyadventures.blogspot.com/ ,
Julie http://http//www.hinshawhappenings.blogspot.com/ and
Becky http://mymomthoughts.blogspot.com/ ( I told you I would do this. You have nothing but time on your hands right now and I am so envious!).