Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! I keep getting these e-mails from friends saying, "Where are the Cooks?" Sorry we haven't posted in awhile, but we've been having a great fall! Busy, but so much fun! Some of our October highlights:

Will finished soccer! We provided decorations and team gifts for Soccer Awards Night. The kids had so much fun, and Will even got his first real medal! Bill was remembering how special his first team trophy was when he was a kid, and now Will's getting to experience that feeling too.

Paula is serving on the Leader's Committee for Will's preschool. Thepreschool had its Fall Carnival fundraiser last week. It was fun to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes, and we provided a craft project for about 200 kids. Everyone had a great time - especially Will! We all ate lots of corn dogs, bake sale goodies, and candy - what could be a better fall?

Paula also helped with the church carnival this past week too. We've baked cookies, served pies, and hung decorations. Will was a big helper too - stuffing goodie bags and helping decorate. We had a great time at the carnival last night with one of Will's soccer buddies and his parents - and of course, the other couple thousand folks that turned out for the food and fun!

We met our last weekend at the zoo for a Dillon OKC Vietnam Family Day. It was so great to meet all of these families that we have known only through e-mail and blogs. There were eight families in all - four with kids at home, three with referrals waiting to travel, and our family waiting for our referral. It was fun to watch the kids play and interact. Bill & I love to watch Will when he is with little Vietnamese children. You can just see his mind imagining what his new brother might be like. Thanks everyone for a great time - let's do it again soon! You can go to my friend Kerrie's site at http://www.zakmakesthree.blogspot.com/ to see a picture of our whole gang!

We've been celebrating Candy Week - oops, I mean Halloween! - big time this year at our house! Between the Fall Carnival at school, the Festival at church, the school party today, and a bit of trick-or-treating tonight, we should be good and sugared up for awhile! :) I think Will has worn his knight costume about 4 times this week, and has loved every minute of it. Today's excitement includes decorating pumpkin sugar cookies at school and trick-or-treating through the church offices. (Will's preschool is at a great church here in town.)

If all of the business above hasn't kept us busy, we have been getting ready for our big family vacation too! We are going to Disneyworld! Bill leaves tomorrow for a convention in the Orlando area. Will and I are flying out early next week to meet him - and to see Mickey, of course! My parents are even coming for the last few days of our trip to have some special grandkid time. Will has this free vacation-planning DVD that he watches several times a week - as much as I will let him. He knows all the cool rides (and the scary roller coasters too!) and exactly what he wants to do in each park. I expect he will be our little tour guide, because he was telling me yesterday how you get on the monorail and transfer between different parts of Disneyworld. The kid's got it down! I'm sure that we will be posting lots of fun pictures for all of you, but not until we return. There's just too much fun to spend much time in the hotel room in front of the computer! :)

We hope that you all are having a great fall! For my adoption buddies, I know that the wait has been a bit slow and quiet lately. We are so thankful that God has filled our lives with so many other things lately that we haven't had too much time to sit and count the hours until our referral. Sometimes busyness can be a curse, but for us lately, it's been a blessing! Of course, we'll drop everything as soon as we have some good news to share! Keep checking back - there may be baby pictures soon! :)

Happy Birthday to Me!

So, tomorrow's my birthday! We received a really wonderful early birthday present today! The Dillon staff e-mailed us to tell us that they sent our official paperwork over to Vietnam. Our papers are on the move again! For those of you not on the adoption road, this is really good news, because it means that we are still inching closer and closer to completing everything even while we wait to be matched up with our child. Sometimes things tend to slow down a bit during this phase, so we're thrilled that our paperwork wait was really short! I'm all about cheering for every little achievement - however small - in this process, so Hip! Hip! Hooray! :)

I was thinking how funny it is to e-mail and chat with my adoption buddies every day, and yet know so little about their "real lives." I don't know when it's their birthday or where they work or what they like to munch on while watching T.V. - you know, the stuff you pick up about your friends just by spending time together. So, in honor of my birthday, I thought I'd tell you a few things about me that you might never know otherwise!

1. I love to cook. Not like to cook - I love to cook. I love having a home-cooked meal on the table for our little family of three. I'd rather have a pork roast in my oven on a cool Sunday afternoon than go to the snazziest place in town.
2. I used to build things. In my previous life, I was a structural engineer. I designed buildings of all types - condos, houses, stores, restaurants, churches, schools - you name it, I've probably built at least one! Now, I do most of my construction projects out of Legos - occasionally Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys, but Legos are the most popular with my four-year-old by far!
3. I grew up in Colorado, but I really don't like to ski. I was never really enough of a daredevil to be a great skier. There was a time when I enjoyed an afternoon on the blue slopes, but now, after tearing up my knee a few years ago, it's really low on my list. I've felt shaky knees way too often in the past few years for me to ever want to ski again.
4. Beach vacations do NOT interest me. I really don't like to lie in the sun at all. I have ridiculously fair skin, and I just feel like a lobster in the steam pot the entire time. I really don't have tons of interest in visiting Florida again, outside of Disneyworld and perhaps an overnight in Miami just to see the architecture.
5. So, given #3 & #4 above, you may be surprised when I tell you that I am absolutely the opposite of a homebody. I don't like to be stuck inside for more than about 2 days, and sick-kid weeks are worse than a root canal to me! I'm a go and do, see and experience kind of a girl. I love to travel, and I love to visit cities. I've been to 40 of the 50 states, and 40 of the 50 most populated cities in the U.S. (Can you believe San Antonio is in the top 10 Most Populous Cities in the U.S.? You can learn something new from Google everyday!) I always want to stay downtown, and the more buildings the better, in my book - I've got to feed that little hiding architect/engineer in me somehow!
6. Many people joke that my true career path should be as a concierge - I love to tell people the insider secrets about the most fun things to do in any town. When we lived in downtown Chicago, I think I was the only local who actually enjoyed sitting next to tourists on a bus - I could give them enough good, inexpensive things to do to fill their whole trip! I also have guide books for just about anywhere we've ever been, because I love to read and study and learn about the places we are planning to visit. I don't want to miss any of the good stuff - and there's always good stuff! Just today I found a Canterbury Concert, a ballet, and a Christmas Children's Theater performance in Oklahoma City to take my in-laws to see during their next visit. My husband was laughing that only I could turn a trip to OKC into a cultural event! :)