Kind Words From Colombia

a few months ago i mentioned our new friends jose & luz helena upegui in our blog. jose works for kone and heath & i had the pleasure of meeting the upegui's back in march of this year. they welcomed us into their home with open arms and shared information and their stories about colombia (jose is from armenia & luz helena is from medellin). about two months ago i found out that jose was relocating back to colombia (with kone) and that he would be living in bogota! luz helena is staying back in moline with their daughter until she graduates from high school, so for now jose is living in an apartment in bogota. we recently corresponded via email and every time i hear from him, i get more and more excited about our upcoming trip! it turns out that he is living very close to los pisingos and not very far from the hotel we are considering staying at. the upegui's are so kind that they have even offered for us to stay at the apartment! his family is almost as excited as we are about our colombian adoption and it gives me such comfort knowing that we have such a wonderful, generous family thinking about us and willing to watch over us while we are far away from home. jose has advised us that, "the upegui network is at our disposal"! thank you upegui family!

Pics from the SSS

a few pics from the big shantytown softball shower!
think our kids might be sports fans?

the proud parents-to-be

The SSS

the shantytown softball shower, that is! last night our wonderful softball team hosted a shower for babies reedy & benedict and we had a blast! laura, kelley & gretchen organized a fabulous shower/happy hour in honor of our children-to-be and it was so fun. not only was it a great chance to see everyone again (we'd been going through withdrawals...when you're used to seeing everyone on a weekly basis & all of a sudden it's over, you tend to get a little sad), but we also found out that there will be two more babies added to the mix when next season starts! the krautkremer's and roark's are both expecting their second babies next spring. congrats to them!

the foul swingers & 10RF teams showed us all how much they care & how excited they are for us by spoiling baby reedy with all sorts of great gifts....from our video monitor to crib sheets, blankets, mn twins gear and all sorts of other goodies. we also decided to have a little fun (i'm calling it 'betting on babies') and everyone placed $1 bets on when baby benedict would arrive and the day that we will receive our referral call. i've got my money on the afternoon/evening of the big iowa/mn football game for baby girl benedict! baby reedy referral date guesses ranged from november 16th (go steph! i hope you win!) to february 17th (boo, aaron! you better lose).

it was a special night for us and meant a lot. thank you to all of you again! we can't wait for baby reedy to join us at the softball fields and cheer us all on! soon there will be more kiddos than players on our team. :)

ang

All Grown Up

as mentioned below, our good family friend, shawn urban, got married on friday night. the urban boys have been like melissa & my brothers since we were in diapers. we were able to get a pic of the five of us all grown up...i think we all turned out pretty well (especially considering how we looked circa the mid 80's!).


ang, melissa, shawn, cory, brandon at our favorite vacation spot, thom's resort



brandon, ang, shawn, melissa, cory

congratulations shawn & bethany!

Practice Makes Perfect

we had the opportunity to babysit our friends', cory & roxy urban's, identical twin daughters on thursday night. lyric & jersey are now 4 months old and their uncle shawn got married on friday night. cory & roxy were both in the wedding & had to attend the rehearsal dinner in stillwater on thursday, thus giving us the chance at some practice at being parents. the girls are adorable & we had a great time with them!

my hands were full!

heath looks like a natural

double trouble? lyric & jersey

thanks for the fun night!

Dear Baby Reedy...

please come soon! we are all more than ready to meet you and this morning i received a request from a very special person that is excited to meet you! our families have gone through some rough times recently and could use some good news in the form of a phone call that you have finally been referred to us. we promise you will love it here and we will take such good care of you (and probably even spoil you just a little bit!). we're even going to be showered with more gifts for you next week at a special softball team baby shower for you and your cousin, baby girl benedict! (shout out to the foul swingers & 10RF!)

we can't wait to meet you!
love,
mommy & daddy

A Public Service Announcement

a colombian mommy facebook friend of mine shared this link and it really hits home. please check it out if you have a chance:

http://www.danoah.com/2010/09/how-much-did-your-kid-cost.html

i know that none of you would ever say things with bad intentions, but some people just don't get it! adopted children are still our REAL children and adoptive parents are still REAL parents...we just arrived at our roles in different ways than most. :)

that's all...i'll get off my little soap box now.

have a great weekend!

ang