Wow. Another year gone by
June 11th, 2009

I stopped by here to see if the blog need to be updated, and I couldn’t believe it has been a year since i last posted.  While a lot has happened in my personal life, nothing has happened with the Adoption.  We are still waiting, patiently, and it seems that maybe another year will go by before anything happens.

As a reminder, we are LID June 26, 2006.  Currently, or last I heard, China has processed referrals up to March 3, 2006.  They seem to be going at about 6 days per 30 -45 days.  So with that math we are looking at another 9 months before we see anything.  I figure a year though just because it seems that the closer they get to our LID the slower things go since we apparently sent our dossier in at the height of China Adoption popularity.

All of our paperwork on this side of things needs to be renewed which is our goal over the next couple of months.  After that, we are planning on going to Europe for a few weeks in September.  London, Scotland, Belgium, and Germany.  I want to round the trip out with a stop at Oktoberfest in Germany.

Last year I started my own company and I am happily building a well-rounded software development firm.  My blogging habits continue, and my latest venture incorporates my love of beer.  [ New Brew Thursday ] is a video podcast with me and two of my buddies were we try a new beer each week and discuss it.  It is great fun.  Here is my favorite episode so far. [ Stone Smoked Porter ].

Laura and I both have taken more of an interest in getting fit.  Laura started first last year, and got a personal trainer to get her in shape, and last month she ran a 4K trail run in Malibu.  She is looking fantastic, and I figure by the time we go to China next year, she will be stunning!  I just started with my personal trainer, since I had a knee injury last year I had to wait.  He has been working me like a rag doll, but I am loving it so far.

Here are some recent pics :

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That is about it for now, I hope I will have more “adoption” stuff to post here soon, but for now, we are waiting, as always. :)

Thanks for dropping by

–
Stephen

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Posted in Adoption, Personal |
Just a brief check in..
June 25th, 2008

Laura and I are still around, still waiting, and still wondering if the process will ever speed up.

In the meantime, we are pursuing other adventures.  We figure that instead of watching the web for news, and counting the ticks on the clock that we would do some of the things that we won’t be as able to do when we have a little one in our lives.

I have taken back to writing again, although I am still a little gun shy about digging up the old novel to get that going again, but I found a great site that lets me exercise my writing in small bursts.  It is called [ Ficlets ] and it limits you to writing a 1046 character story.  You can add prequels or sequels to your stories, as can other ficlet authors, which makes for some interesting stories.

I have also become a full-fledged blogger over at [ For the Love of Geeks ].  It is quickly becoming a highly trafficked site and a full-time job in itself.

We will be in Palm Springs this next weekend (Fourth of July), soaking in the sun, and relaxing by the pool.

Laura is pursuing a career in crafts, and doing her volunteer work , she is in marathon mode for that this summer, so I doubt I will see much of her during the day.

So that is pretty much it for the time being …

Hopefully news will come soon

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Posted in Adoption |
Tempus Fugit..
April 28th, 2008

Yep, you may have forgotten about us, but we have not forgotten about you. ;)

Time does fly, and many months have gone by.  CCAA is up to January 9th, 2006.  As a reminder, we are June 27th 2006.

So…  another three years or so…

See you in a few months.  In the meantime, you can read me at [ For the love of Geeks ].

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Posted in Adoption, Personal, The Wait |
15 years ago… on the 13th…
February 17th, 2008

Last night we celebrated our 15 wedding anniversary … yep 15 years ago this geek moved out of his parents basement, sold off his star wars toys and got hitched…

Since then, I have been trying to reclaim all my star wars toys… ;)

We had the party in our newly finished backyard… grilling, bonfire, good friends and good food and drink.

Here are some pics for your enjoyment.

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The beautiful cake… it was very nice, until the party degenerated into a cake fight at about 2 in the morning… we were sober…. sort of.. LOL

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Us cutting the cake… apparently you have to do that at your wedding and any anniversary divisible by five.

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My lovely wife , and my sister … respectively. Behind them is the bar… see the part about the cake fight.. LOL

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This is Jen… without Jen, the party would have consisted of alot of beer… and some hot dogs… Thanks to Jen, the party actually had a theme, and people actually had a good time… Of course, Jen is the one that started the cake fight… but that is why we love her. ;)

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Here is a really bad picture of the fire… but it was all I had.. and it was starting to die down…

It was a fun night…

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Posted in Personal, Photos, The Wait |
It’s Disneyland for geeks…
January 22nd, 2008

I am referring to MacWorld.

MacWorld is a yearly conference / expo where all things Mac (apple) computers are brought out and paraded for all to see, drool and purchase… oh wait, scratch purchase, since no one was selling anything this year …. good for the pocketbook, but bad for geek in me.

I was also a little disappointed with the keynote announcement of the MacBook Air. Yeah, it is the smallest notebook on the market, yeah it is a new Mac product, and yeah it is pretty dang cool… BUT… 1800.00 for the low end model… Pass.

During the Keynote address when Mr. Jobs was speaking about this new product, I kept thinking that this would be a great “low-end” laptop that could finally compete with the under 1000.00 laptop market. Instead it ended up being their most expensive laptop.

The Apple TV take two announcement was far more exciting for me… and I am looking forward to having a small little white box attached to my TV to bring me hours and hours of tv enjoyment.

MacWorld had a “meet and greet” which also included a concert by Devo… that was great! I have been a long time fan of Devo, but I have to admit it was kind of sad seeing them old and overweight still trying to be the same 80’s techno band they were…

The highlight of the trip was the purchase of my new and shiny iPhone…. still playing with it.

Anyway, spent a week in San Francisco, saw some old friends, learned a lot and had a great time.

Here are some pics for your enjoyment (all taken with my iPhone) :

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Posted in Personal, Photos, The Wait |
2007 – A year in review..
December 26th, 2007

I remember posting last years year in review post, thinking next time I post this it will be really long since I will have a whole adoption process story to include and talk about…

Of course, as you know, I have little to talk about with the adoption. That is a big reason why nothing has really be posted lately.. it just gets a little depressing to keep saying – “no news, still waiting”… The highlight of the year was in this post [ Hurray!! ]
Yep, we have been reviewed and deemed worthy to parent a child by the Chinese government. We would like to thank them for that. :)

Otherwise, our life has been about normal, although we have been pretty busy doing fun stuff.. You may be aware, from past post like this one in March [ Backyard Woes... ] that we have been working on getting our backyard usable. I am happy to report that we have done that.. I promised pictures and I swear that I will post some, but I want to put a few final touches on before I do that. Currently we have our grass in, a “built-in” fire pit and a patio with a gazebo, and a grill.. We have had lots and lots of relaxing fires in the backyard with some brews and good friends. I still have some paver work to do , and I want to put in some walking stones.

We have done some traveling.

As you know from this post [ Update on the Johnson's ] I went to South Dakota and visited my friends Kevin and Michelle and the kids…
Over the thanksgiving holiday, Laura was back home visiting her family (her brother opened a Cold Stone Ice Cream shop in Marshall, MN so if you are ever there stop in). Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to visit Mexico with some friends or the weekend. Here is a picture of what I would put on my top ten list of things I don’t ever want to see in Mexico..

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Yep – that is the police… and in Mexico, you really really really don’t want to be stopped by the police. Fortunately, they were not after us, but the lights scared us, and they completely just blew past us and cut us off going after their real target… FUN TIMES… :)

We also did some horseback riding, site seeing, and of course eating lots of Mexican food. ;) I have a picture of me horseback riding, but I choose not to post that. ;)

Here is one of the crew though at Papa’s and Beer in Ensenada. The guy in the middle was the waiter… as I think back, I probably just should have had him take a picture with me in it, rather then the other way around… but whatever.. LOL

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We also spent this last weekend in Big Bear California… That was probably one of the best weekends I have had in a long long time…

We got a cabin up there, which had a great view of the mountain, and the ski slopes, and a hot tub on the deck. There is nothing quite like kicking back in a hot tub outside when it is 30 degrees… I was warm and toasty, and the air was brisk and cold… it was great. We went snowboarding (or at least tried to.. ) I didn’t do as well as I had hoped and fortunately there are no pictures of that event.. LOL We all took a private lesson to try and get the basics down. After mastering falling and getting up for a couple of hours, I decided to switch back to skis and give that a whirl.. Now, mind you, it has been about 12 years since I went skiing…. so I was a little scared the first time. Turns out it is like riding a bike. I had a blast.

Here is a pic of me on the slopes…


I am completely addicted… I forgot how much I love to ski. So expect to see more pics in the near future of me swooshing down the slopes. :)

Laura also tried snowboarding, but after taking out a nearby fence, she decided to take the rest of the day and chill in the lodge.. LOL She is going to try skiing next time, but she will forever be a cross country fan…

Here is a great shot from our deck at the cabin of the mountain.


The Newcastle just makes the shot… ;)

This has been a year of waiting, a year of drama and emotional heartache, a year of discovery, a year of rebirth and a year of fun.

Hopefully next year we will get to meet our daughter.

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Posted in Adoption, Personal, Photos, The Wait |
Updates on the Johnson’s
October 23rd, 2007

OK.. I realize that I have been remiss in keeping this blog up-to-date, and I sincerely apologize… Things have just been CRAZY!…

So here is the update.

First of all, I am moving.. Not houses, but my office. For the last 6 years I have had an office about 1/4 mile from my house. It has been GREAT! The longest part of my commute was to the Coffee Bean in the morning to get coffee. That is all coming to an end. It has been decided that I should be in the Garden Grove office of the company that I work for, Southland Industries. I don’t mind though. The commute is not that bad, no freeways anyway, and my boss was generous enough to ensure that I was moved into an office, with a door, and not a cubical. So. I have spent the last couple of weeks packing up 6 years of my life… It is amazing how much you collect, even in your office.

Our Backyard.. well, I plan on a separate post for all of the backyard info, and also plan some pictures.. But the two year saga that has been our backyard remodel is coming to an end. We FINALLY got most of the sod laid down a couple of weeks ago.. I say most, since I under estimated how big the backyard was and we were about 100 sq feet short on the sod. I decided to let what I laid take before I got the rest, in case I also needed to order some replacement for that the stuff. Good news, it all took wonderfully.. It looks so great back there…

Back in September, I got to finally get back to South Dakota and see my buddy back there, and his four kids.. It has been so long since I have gotten to see them.. it was great fun. Here is a pic of the crew :

Kevin and Crew

Otherwise, things have been about the status quo.

If you’re reading this and I haven’t heard from you in awhile — email or call me…

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Posted in Personal, Photos, The Wait |
Johnson Adoption Update…
October 9th, 2007

We are still waiting…

That is pretty much it. CCAA has just posted completion of dossier’s from 11/30/2005 (we are 06/27/06) .. so… We still have some time to wait.

Our 171-H needs to be updated, and for that we need another home study, so we are ramping up to get that stuff done.

At this point, I estimate referral for us sometime in September of next year with travel in December or January.

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Posted in Adoption, The Wait |
Hurray!!!
July 26th, 2007

The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before June 30, 2006.

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We are officially out of the review room… :)

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Posted in Adoption |
In other unrelated news…
July 16th, 2007

I am web programmer by trade, and I just finished a rather massive website for a client, that I thought some of you adoptive folks might be interested in.

http://www.thumbnailresume.com

The concept is pretty simple, if you have need of passing your resume off to people, you can have your resume put onto a business card and give that to people instead of a big huge piece of paper. People are more likely to hold on to a business card then an entire resume. Technically speaking the site is something I am pretty proud of, but I won’t go into all the details with that.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… “what do resume cards have to do with adoption, or why would we care about this website… ”

Two words for you… “Referral Cards”…

It dawned on me while working on this site, that referral cards would be the coolest way to spread the joy of your new baby on the way. The card system even allows you to include a picture of the baby… SO.. you could include whatever information you wanted to broadcast, as well as the picture that was sent from China, have 1000 cards made up and just start handing them to everyone you see to share your joy…

So — give it a try..

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Posted in Adoption, Personal |
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