To Utah and back in about 30 hours...

Yes, it's true, I loaded up the kids - minus Alyssa, she was busy being the county commissioner at Girls' State - and headed to Utah. This was a very special trip, mind you, a trip that was very important for me and my kids to make, a trip that we wanted to take to show my youngest sister how much we love and support the difficult, yet, totally unselfish decision she decided to make about 9 months ago. We wanted to go on this trip to meet the incredible couple who would adopt the precious baby that they had waited so long to have! And, boy, were we blessed with an extremely smooth ride, despite the violent wind howling around us, fun conversation with each other, and a lot of pondering about things to come. I like rides like that. I enjoy the pondering, the thinking, and the working out of problems I do while I drive for those hours to our destination. Anyway, we arrived at the hospital with a lot of nervous energy to see the cute little bundle awaiting his eager visitors. We were so excited to see this little boy and to make sure Ashlee was feeling ok after a c-section. Wow, she was a real trooper! She was sitting up talking and eating her clear liquid diet with much more energy than I ever mustered after 4 c-sections! Good job, Ash! And as for the highly anticipated meeting with Jared and Amanda - AWESOME! Those two people are so cool!
I feel like I've known them for years, when really all I've done is stalk their blog for the past 5 months or so! (And a great blog it is!!!) I was so impressed with them and feel so honored that I finally got to meet them. Congratulations, Jared and Amanda, we truly love you and are so grateful Ashlee was inspired to choose you to adopt her baby. He is such a lucky baby to have great examples as parents and fortunate to have such excellent aunts, uncles, grandma, and grandpa. I was sorry to have had to leave so soon; there was so much more I would have liked to observe with this new family! Enjoy your precious bundle and know that we are so happy and grateful for you!

Here are a few pics of our whirlwind trip!