A Quick Stop at the Arch {St. Louis}

If you follow me on Instagram (@MomsGonnaSnap) then you have had a chance to see snapshots taken throughout our vacation. Now that we’re home, I have started going through the 2200+ (!!!) photos that we took on two cameras and my phone.  Brace up, there will be lots of vacation posts coming!!!



I think it’s funny how much we look forward to going on vacation, and also how much we look forward to coming home when the vacation is done.  If you read my last post, you know that we were on vacation this past week – we drove from Minnesota to Orlando!  Just in case geography is not your thing, that means we drove through 8 states for a total of 1,440 miles EACH WAY.  This was no small venture!  When we left Orlando, I was wishing I was Dorothy and could just click my heels 3 times and be home!  We experienced incredibly heavy “spring break” traffic (so the digital road signs told us) throughout Florida and Georgia on the way home.  In fact, at one point, we drove about 10 miles in 1.5 hours!  It was awful.

Since Anthony attends a year-round school, following a 45/15 calendar, he has 3 weeks off for spring break.  Hubby had to take some mandatory vacation days and my work schedule is somewhat flexible these days so we made a decision to go for it!  We decided to leave early on a Saturday morning, the day after Anthony was done with school for 3 weeks to spend a week in Florida and planned to leave Florida sometime in the afternoon on the following Saturday to start the drive back to Minnesota.

As I said in my last post, we ended up leaving around 4 in the morning, which actually worked out pretty good.  Anthony was able to fall back asleep for awhile as we started trekking across the country.  That morning we drove from Minnesota, through Iowa and down through Missouri to St. Louis – our timing was perfect to stop for lunch at the arch!  Since I was a kid, I have always thought the arch was pretty cool, so I was ready to share my excitement with Anthony.  We all needed to stretch our legs, so taking some time to walk around the arch was perfect.



It was a nice day, and unfortunately we were not the only ones who thought visiting the arch was a good idea.  When we got inside (under the arch) we were all ready to purchase tickets to take a ride to the top.  Then we found we would have to wait about 3 hours for a turn.  Ugh!  Waiting three hours on a day when we were planning to drive approximately 1000 miles was not an option.  Anthony was thrilled though – he was nervous about riding in the tram to the top of the arch and he really didn’t want to.  I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed, but there was nothing we could do about it.  We took a handful of pictures, made some sandwiches for lunch and hit the road!  In total, we stopped for about an hour before jumping back in the van and heading down the road.

Here are a few more pics from our stop in St. Louis…

Anthony raced to the stop of the steps.  I kept asking him to stop so I could tell him something (I don’t remember what, but it was probably for a picture) and he just rushed to the top, not letting us catch him.



I think he was pretty excited to be out of the car – I had to hang on to him so hubby could take this photo!






Our mini photographer took this next one for us!  We stood on a bench and he sat on the ground below us – he did pretty good!  The weird thing coming out of my head is my hand – in the first round of photos I had hair standing straight up – this helped with the hair, but it looks like I have an arm coming out of the side of my head…



A stranger saw our photo attempts (see above picture) and took pity on us.  On trips like this, we love nice strangers so we can get some family shots!







Maybe next time we go through St. Louis we’ll be able to take a trip to the top – I sure hope so!

It feels good to be home, now I just wish the Minnesota snow had melted while we were in Florida!!

Are we there yet? {Disney World}

The last couple weeks have been really busy. Working on the fireplace in the basement, planning/prepping for a road trip across the country, and working, so that we can actually go on vacation.

All of our hard work has officially paid off and we are on the road headed for Florida! My alarm went off at 3:05 this morning and after a snoozing it a couple of times, we got up, pulled ourselves together and hit the road.

Any ideas what we have forgotten?? Yeah, we don't know either! I'm sure there is something, although if you saw how packed our van is, you would think we haven't left much behind.

After a slight detour in Minnesota (yes, we missed a turn before even getting out of the state!), we are officially somewhere in the middle of Iowa and I'm blogging from the car. Have I told you that I'm a big fan of technology?

Anthony is definitely excited - he woke up on his own around 3:25 and was thrilled that today is the day we FINALLY leave for Disney World.

Let the adventures begin!!

Celebrating Gotcha Day

Tomorrow will be 6 years since Anthony joined our family.  Whenever I think of that day I am filled with so much emotion.  Reminders of the nerves and excitement that came with the first phone call, driving to northern MN to meet him, to the actual transfer in Minneapolis just a few days later. 

(Photo taken Feb 2013 by Midwest LifeShots Photography)

Six years ago we the became parents of an amazing 8-month-old.  Anthony, we love you so much and we are so thankful that your birthparents chose us to be your forever family.

We love you Anthony!


Want to read more about our adoption experiences?
Adoption Home Study
Fingerprints
Annual Christmas Ornaments for Birth family
Waiting for the right one
Still waiting to adopt
Gotcha Day
Waiting to Adopt is Hard
Starting school

Fireplace Stone {Basement Progress}

This past week has been a full week – nearly every evening we have been working in the basement on the fireplace stone.

Here’s a quick iPhone photo to show the progress we have made!



The stone will go all the way to the ceiling – we are hoping we can get the rest of the stone installed this weekend!

Happy Friday!

A Month in Photos {February}

February brings the end of the coldest period of the brutal winter’s that we experience each year in Minnesota. We are tired of the cold, the novelty of the snow has worn off
and we are sick of spending all of our time inside.  That said, we still had some fun!

We are going to DisneyWorld!
Math & Munchies at school with Dad
Ice Skating
Pinewood Derby (photos of the Pinewood Derby coming soon!)
Swimming & Piano Lessons
A Valentine’s gift – $20! (he’s saving it for Disney!)
The School Carnival
Basketball at the YMCA

(*If you follow me on Insta, you may have seen photos from some of the events above)
I am MomsGonnaSnap on Instagram.

Adoption Home Study {Again...}

Once again it was time to make our annual trip to Minneapolis to update our home study with our adoption office. This is just part of the process of keeping us "legal" as a family that can be considered to adopt. We recently completed tons of paperwork updates, had new fingerprints done, and wrote out a few more checks.


Today, March 1st, is 3 full years that we have been waiting to adopt our second child. Not only has it been 3 years, but we also found out where we are “in the book”. At this moment we are #3 in the book. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean anything good. This does not mean that we are 3rd in line to be chosen. This means that there are just 2 families that have been waiting longer than we have. Two. Considering our agency places 60+ children with adoptive families each year, this means that we have been passed by birthmothers/birthparents at least 180 times. It’s all part of the process, but wow, waiting is hard.

We have always been extremely open with the staff at the adoption office. Any suggestions for us? Is there something offensive in our letter? Should we change out our pictures (again)? Is it time to completely re-vamp our letter? Do we need to create a website? What can we do?!?  The counselors have assured us that there really isn’t anything that we need to do, but there are some things we can try.

When we get back from Disney next month, we will be completely updating our letter. Hopefully we will have some fabulous fun pictures to include and some great inspiration to show the world that we are great people and deserve to be chosen during this process.  We are also planning to create a website that we can regularly update with photos and info about our family.

Here’s to praying that we are chosen sooner rather than later!

Basement Cabinets! {Pinterest Challenge}

Last weekend we made some great progress with the built-in cabinets. They are definitely still a work-in-progress, but it’s nice to have made it this far! 

Here’s how the basement cabinets looked mid-afternoon on Sunday:


Yes, the base trim and crown has not yet been installed, nor do we have cabinet doors or shelves, but this is progress!

If I back up to the beginning of the design, I have to give some design credit to Pinterest and the many blogs that I follow.  It seems like so many people are painting their woodwork – trim, kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, etc. white, and it took some time, but white cabinets have definitely really grown on me.  If you have been to our home, or looked at pictures, you know that the upper two levels of our home are full of traditionally stained woodwork, 6 panel doors, etc., so we looked at the basement as a fun opportunity to do things different.  We decided the design could be extremely different from the rest of our house – it’s our house, so as long as we like it, it works for us!  I initially kept trying to describe white cabinets with stained wood “countertops” and a chunky mantel to handy hubby and it took some time for him to “see” my vision.  Then I started finding some photos on Pinterest and blogs that provided even more guidance. 

LOVE the look of this mantel!

Source

Then Sarah of Thrifty Décor Chick started blogging about her built-in cabinet project.  THIS was the cabinet style I wanted and had in my mind – it was PERFECT to have an example for handy hubby!  White cabinets with stained wood counter-tops!

Source

Then Kate from Centsational Girl painted her built-in cabinets and left the hearth with a stained wood top (which initially was part of our design plan).

Source

As you can see, all of these pictures have definitely become inspiration for our basement cabinets! 
While the work is definitely not done yet, we are getting extremely close to installing the stone on the fireplace (eek!! wish us luck!!)

Here’s a few more (iPhone) pictures from last weekend:


Since these photos have been taken, prep work has been happening to install the stone on the fireplace.  Given our lack of experience (we have never installed stone before!!), this will definitely be an interesting DIY project for us. Sometime in the next couple days the fireplace will get its scratch coat in preparation for the stone installation.  Right now this makes the barn beam mantel installation look pretty easy!


You might be wondering Why is there already a TV in there??  Great question. We found a great deal on a TV at Costco and decided to take the plunge now, instead of waiting a couple months for the basement to be ready.  We HAD to set up the new TV to make sure it works well, so the new TV is currently upstairs getting used daily, while our old TV is currently hanging out safely in the basement.  Plus, it’s nice to watch while we work!

Remember where we started?  No?  See the beautiful photo below. Wow. Embarrassing, yet I showed it once again. It's so rewarding to see how things have changed! The new fireplace wall is just to the left in this picture (behind the little trampoline).  I didn't get a good photo of that wall when we first started cleaning out the basement.  I still can’t believe all the junk that was (and is) still stored in our home.  It feels like we have purged and purged, but we definitely have more work to do! 



As I was getting ready to share this latest update on basement progress, I saw that Young House Love and Bower Power were doing their seasonal Pinterest Challenge. This challenge they are teaming up with The Remodeled Life and Decor and the Dog.  Even though this project is not done, and has been in progress for months, I thought it would be fun to share how the design morphed from a few photos on Pinterest and from some great blogs that I follow.

I’m THRILLED that we have the cabinet installs completed, even though that means it’s now time to move on to the stone installation.  Eventually we will finish these cabinets (add doors and shelves), but since they are not required for the basement inspection, handy hubby has informed me that those finishing touches will just have to wait. Maybe this summer??

Here’s one last look!



What do you think??


Update:  Want to see how the fireplace looks now, 8 months later?