


We are so thrilled to welcome Jacob Thomas into our family. We were a couple and now we feel like a family. Our lives have been blessed by the miracle of adoption in ways we could have never imagined. When Brianna first picked us it felt so surreal. I never knew that we would grow to love her so much and have a wonderful relationship with her. Brianna called me to be in the hospital room for the delivery which turned out to be an amazing experience. I thought I would be a little grossed out with the process but instead I was amazed at the miracle of it. She even let me cut the cord! Afterward we were both able to hold him and we knew he was meant to be part of our family. We felt the Spirit so strongly during this week as we spent time with Brianna, after Jacob’s birth, and at his placement. We have much to be thankful for - a loving Father in Heaven who has a plan for each of His children, a birthmother with strength, courage, and an incredible depth of love, and the sweetest little boy I have ever seen. We are loving being parents!
We are already being initiated as parents. Jacob pooped through his outfit soon after we brought him home, and just as we were putting a new diaper on him, he pooped again. Many more adventures are in store, and we are looking forward to experiencing them!
Erin's parents recently visited and spent a couple of weeks with us. We had a great time with them, which included our annual spring trip up the canyon to have a cookout. The above picture is of Erin (far left, sitting in the blue chair) with her mom and sister spending time by the fire. We roasted hot dogs, and Thomas made his famous baked beans with bacon. After dinner, we roasted marshmallows and had smores (with regular chocolate only; Thomas LOVES to have smores with a reese's peanut butter cup in place of normal chocolate). Then, Thomas told a scary story that had one of Erin's sisters particularly frightened. The canyon was beautiful, the weather was pleasant, and the family was entertaining.
During the parents' stay, we also visited a couple of other parks and played a fun game called bocce (Italian lawn game: think bowling and curling). It was girls against guys and the girls won! We also borrowed a friend's projector and watched a couple of movies projected onto one of our walls.
After Erin's parents left, things settled down and we got back into our normal routine. On Saturday, Thomas' sister gave us two tickets to the Real Salt Lake game in Salt Lake. Thomas really enjoys soccer, and follows both Real Salt Lake and Manchester United in England (he has a friend from England who is a lifelong United fan). This picture shows us at the stadium during halftime. The game was incredible: RSL scored 6 (!) goals in the second half, all in the goal behind which we were seated. We had a great time. Here is a 10 second clip of the best goal of the game.

Our wonderful niece Cora was watching the video in the previous post and asked her mom (Thomas' sister) why Thomas was singing so high. Some of you may not know, but Thomas had an early childhood goal of singing for with the Vienna Boys Choir. Unfortunately (fortunately to all of you), Thomas discovered that a high range is not the only requirement for choral singing. Holding a tune also helps ...






Spider Soup eaten out of Pumpkin Soup Bowls (quite the delicacy among ghouls these days).
Iris of Troll. You can only get these specially extracted from the eyeballs of trolls in Northern Iceland. There is no expense too great for our spooky fun. Thanks Camille and Mike. And you are probably wondering what we did with these eyeball guts? We did this:
Dan got so choked up over those irises or maybe he was just choking.










