There's No Place Like Home

Last night we returned from spending Christams with Sam's family in Arizona. The trip also included some time in Albuquerque to see Sam's brother graduate from the Police Academy. It was a little strange seeing Cooper dressed up as a real live police officer. We are very proud of all of his hard work and know he will do a great job. Congratulations Coop!


On our way back from Albuquerque we stopped at one of our favorite restaurants, the Anasazi Inn. They have THE BEST fry bread and peach pie. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

This is us on Christmas morning. I asked Santa for a sassy apron. He brought me one, and Sam's sister gave me another! Sam's brother gave him the furry hat.


We spent a lot of time in the car! I think this is the first time we've taken my new car to Arizona. I used to have a blue VW Beetle, but we sold it and purchased a baby-friendly 4-door black Toyota Corolla. I miss my beetle, but I appreciate the practicality of the new car. Sam drives a Nissan Frontier--it has four doors, too. Now all we need is a car seat!

Sam's dad built their house from the ground up and he did an amazing job. There are still a few things that need to be completed, so every time we visit we work on something. This trip we painted and installed tile flooring in one of the bathrooms and did some minor electrical work .

We saw this beautiful sunset on our way home. Of course the picture doesn't really do it justice. It really looked like the sky was on fire.
It's the first time I've spent Christmas away from whatever place I called home. Sam's family definitely made us feel welcome and it was great spending time with them. On Christmas Eve we celebrated one of Sam's families traditions of making/eating hors d'oeuvres and playing games. We spent a lot of time relaxing and just hanging out. I'm glad we went, but it's good to be home again.

'Twas the Week Before Christmas

This week has been crazy busy and a lot of fun!



Tuesday we took a group of cub scouts to see the lights at Temple Square. (I'm the Bear Den Leader and Sam's the Cub Master. We were just called to these positions about two months ago and have really enjoyed being able to work together.) The lights were beautiful and it was quite an adventure having four rowdy nine-year-old boys along for the trip.




On Wednesday we continued our tradition of baking treats and giving them to friends and family. I came home form work and Sam had already made all the cookies. I just got to do the fun part of decorating them!




On Thursday we went sub-for-Santa shopping with my sisters and then we all came back to our house to wrap up all the loot.




My sister's birthday was yesterday and I made her this box. We usually have a girl's night out for each other's birthdays, but we decided to go to lunch instead. Later that evening we went to our friend's Christmas Party.

Today we're headed down south to spend some time with Sam's family.

Oh, Christmas Tree … Oh, Carpet!

After months of drywall dust, painting, tile laying, countless trips to Home Depot and a mandatory shoes-on-at-all-times policy, we finally installed carpet!

We already installed tile in the bathrooms and kitchen, and bamboo in the living room. Now that the flooring is 100% finished, I seriously feel like I’m living in a palace! I have never appreciated carpet like I have the last couple of days. I keep running around my house BAREFOOT and it feels SO good! When we remodeled our first home we contracted out a lot of the work and most of it was done when we moved in. We’ve done this house all by ourselves (except the carpet installation) and we’ve lived in it the entire time. We are not planning to do that again any time soon!

With the carpet in, it was finally time to decorate for Christmas. I’m a total sap for all things Christmas. Here’s our tall ‘n’ skinny Christmas Tree sitting atop caramel-colored bamboo flooring.

The tree is decorated with ornaments we’ve collected from all over the world. Do you see the train circling the base? Sam bought it last year and I love it! It actually blows smoke from the engine.

Here’s our just-barely-carpeted bedroom and Christmas plant.

We still have a few finishing touches – for both the remodel and Christmas decorations – but I think it’s looking pretty good!

Negative Pregnancy Tests

This may be TMI for some of you, so if the title makes you uncomfortable, you may want to skip this entry.

Yesterday I could feel a UTI coming on, so I called the doctor. My regular doctor was booked for the next 2 weeks, so I decided to go to an urgent care clinic instead. I did the usual pee-in-cup test and then waited around to get a prescription. When the doctor came in, she said that my suspicions about the infection were correct and that the pregnancy text came back negative. Pregnancy test? Didn’t remember asking for that.

I laughed and explained that I could have told her that.

“Have you been trying to conceive?” she asked.

"If you call three years of unprotected hanky-panky trying, I guess so,” I replied.

I explained a little about my situation; that we valiantly tried, found out it’s highly unlikely, and that we are now pursuing adoption.

She then went on for the next 15 minutes telling me that it could still happen someday. She told me stories of people she knows who tried for years and then one day “it” just happened. She threw in a few, “but families are made all different kinds of ways.” But she’d always go back to trying to give me hope that I could get pregnant.

I know she meant well. But after trying so hard to get pregnant, and then deciding adoption is the path to be on, the thought of trying to get pregnant makes me cringe. Yes, I do want to experience what it’s like to grow another human being inside of me. And I definitely want to be a mommy. But trying to conceive for so long definitely takes a toll—mentally, physically, emotionally. It’s like running a marathon and then finding out you took a wrong turn and now have to go run it all over again—but you have no idea where you made the wrong turn and the odds of finding the right course are slim-to-none.

Plus, I truly feel that adoption is the path Sam and I should be on right now. It's the path we want to be on right now. It is an answer to our prayers. Instead of hoping for a positive pregnancy test, we hope for a birth mother to find us. So when people make comments about me getting pregnant, it feels like it's undermining our adoption plans. And again, I know they mean well. But while pregnancy has it's own unique gifts, so does adoption.

Sam's the Man

He cooks AND bakes.

One Sunday he felt like bread and we were out.

So he made TWO different kinds. I just did the dishes.

Here’s a cake he made me for my birthday. How cute is that?!

Iron Chef Sam at the first Annual Corn Festival at the Navajo Village Heritage Center.

He made traditional Navajo dishes and introduced his new creation,

The Navajo Cheese Steak. Yum!

He's very creative.

Our neighbors cut down a giant tree in their yard, so he took a chunk of the trunk to make a powwow drum.

Last summer we went to Lake Powell and he made an awesome sand castle.

At Pioneer Trek he made a makeshift shower so I could wash my hair …

The rest of the ward ended up using it, too.

Everything’s much better with clean hair!

He knows how to make me laugh.

At least one Hotel in Mexico has a trampoline and we were lucky enough to stay there.
Sam performed a hilarious cheerleading-meets-Cirque de Soleil routine
while diners at the nearby restaurant looked on.

Sam SERIOUSLY prefers this picture over the one we use at the top of this blog.
We have it in our house and it makes me laugh every time I see it.

I LOVE this guy!

Open vs. Closed

Yesterday at church a woman who is new to the ward shared her experience of placing her baby for adoption a few years ago. She chose to have an open adoption and she keeps in regular contact with the adoptive family. I (Megan) wanted to run up to the pulpit and give her a big hug and thank her for sharing her experience. Of course that wouldn’t have been appropriate—plus I had to use all my strength to keep from making a spectacle of myself since this subject makes me very emotional.

My oldest sister placed a baby girl for adoption when she was 17 years old. I was only eight, but I remember a lot about the experience. I remember somehow knowing she was pregnant before she and my parents told me. I remember feeling tremendous sympathy for my sister, while also having great admiration for how she was handling everything. I remember anticipating the birth of her baby more than Christmas day. I remember going to the hospital to see my very first niece and I remember that she looked just like my sister. I remember my parents were sad to say goodbye to their first grandchild, but that they were supportive and respectful of my sister’s decision. I remember thinking my sister must be one of the most courageous people in the world.

My sister and I didn’t talk much about her experience until we were both much older. When Sam and I began looking into adoption, I was so grateful for all of the questions she was willing to answer. I found out how hard it was for her to say goodbye to her baby—back then adoptions were pretty much all private/closed. She had very minimal input as to which family her child would become part of. When it came time for her to leave the hospital, she had to leave her baby behind. She explained how strange that was to her—leaving her baby at the hospital, assuming she would make it to the family someone else had chosen for her.

I am so grateful that the woman who will bless Sam and me with a child will have the opportunity to get to know us. I’m grateful that she will be able to choose which family her child joins. I’m grateful that she will know where her child is and how he/she is doing. And I’m grateful that, if she chooses, her child will know who she is, too.

Jackson Hole & Yellowstone

Our friends Jason & Tara asked us to run away to Jackson Hole with them last weekend. Of course we said YES! Their two little boys Roman & Hayden came, too--traveling is always much more of an adventure when kids come along. We spent a day at Yellowstone and the rest of the time in Jackson. We had a great time relaxing, eating, sight-seeing and laughing. What a gorgeous place! Thanks J & T!

Good Old Faithful


Loved the door! The rest of the building was pretty cool, too. Check out Roman's dinosaur-skin coat!

Hello Earthlings! We all felt a little like we were on another planet.


Brrrrrrrrrr

Check out the BLUE water. We wanted to jump in sooooo bad.

We took this photo from the car. Buffalo were EVERYWHERE.

This was NOT taken from the car. These three were part of a heard of about 50 that blocked our way back to the car--it felt like they were corralling us in for, well, who knows what, but it was a little scary and VERY cool to be so close! So much better than the zoo!!!

B-E-A-UTIFUL

Good Gravy!

Sam and I made Swedish meatballs last night. My cute little Granny D is Swedish, which makes me one-quarter Swed, but this is the first time I've attempted the dish. Sam made the meatballs, but I cheated by using an IKEA mix for the sauce/gravy. While putting away leftovers, I dropped the Tupperware dish that held the sauce along with one lonely meatball. Gravy flew all over the place. My first reaction was "Oh crap!" But then I realized that the container had flipped 360-degrees, landing right-side-up. Most of the sauce and the meatball remained where I put them, inside the container. My second reaction was to laugh. How lucky was that?

While I cleaned up the renegade gravy, I thought about how easy it is to think, "Oh crap!" when something bad happens. How often do I forget to look at things in the bigger picture? It's no secret to anyone that I have a serious case of baby-on-the-brain, adoption-on-the-brain, pending mommy hood-on-the-brain, etc. So this gravy incident made me think about how blessed Sam and I were when we found out about our infertility. The news is completely devastating to most people. While there was some sadness and frustration, I really don't think we had an "Oh crap!" moment. Even before doctors broke the news to us that it's highly unlikely for us to conceive, we already felt at peace and even excited to begin this journey of adoption. How lucky was that?

So then I thought of the woman who will choose us to raise her child. Even though I have no idea who this woman is, I think of her all the time. I'm sure she'll have the "Oh crap!" moment, but I hope it doesn't last too long. I hope she has an endless supply of hugs. I hope she feels Heavenly Father's and Christ's love for her. I hope she feels good about her decision to place her baby for adoption. I hope she finds good, happiness and peace through her experience. I hope she knows how ginormous of a blessing this is to us--how we'll see it as so much more than just luck. And I hope she feels the same way, too. How lucky would that be?!

Four is Better than Three

Yesterday Sam & I celebrated our four years of marriage! Sam woke me up with breakfast in bed--a big plate of yummy pancakes. The rest of the day included work, a visit to the dump and stocking up on year supply items. It was the best anniversary ever!!!

Okay, I'll explain ... We had discussed going to the Anniversary Inn to celebrate (yes, it's totally cliche-y), but I'm still a gimp after having foot surgery two weeks ago, and well, we didn't think we'd really get to "enjoy" it all that much. Anyway, we decided to just spend a night out together. Sam picked me up early from work (the surgery was on my right foot, so he's my chauffer 'till the boot comes off) and he was a mess. The poor guy had a nasty cold. I suggested we put off the night out another day so he could get some rest and he took me up on the offer. We decided that before we settled in for the evening, we'd take a quick trip out to the dump to unload the back of our truck that was full of ceiling tiles, yard trash and old baseboards and door trim. We're remodeling our entire house and the junk piles were taking over. So out to the dump we went. What a weird place that is. Not exactly romantic, but the fact that Sam, in his sniffley state, had loaded up the truck with all that junk was definitely a turn on--the things that get to you after being married for awhile!

Then we realized we had some keys that my sister Emily needed by Saturday--and I wanted to trade out her book I was borrowing, New Moon, for Eclipse (being gimpy has at least given me time to read!). We arrived at her house to find they were feeding the missionaries and they invited us to join. We enjoyed delicious homemade stew and bread sticks along with apples and melted caramel for dessert. Yum! We talked about goal setting and missionary work, and about a talk Elder Packer gave last week about the changing times. Again, not exactly romantic, but it was uplifting and greatly appreciated. After that we decided to stop by a nearby store we'd been planning to visit anyway to stock up items for our year supply. We've slowly been trying to build it up since we got married, but the fact that we've moved a few times has given us an excuse to hold off really getting into it. About a month ago we decided that we'd rather worry about moving a few more boxes rather than starve if the the you-know-what hits the fan.

Anyway, after that we went home and went to bed early. Sick husbands need their sleep. But before we fell asleep, we got the giggles together.

Yes, I do mean it when I say it was the best anniversary ever. It might not have been romantic in the worldly sense, but it still was in a more personal way. It's been four years of being married to my best friend. Even the dump isn't too bad if he's there, too.