snow

it's snowing today. it started as rain last night, then sleet this morning, and now it's full-on snow. it's coming down hard and sticking to everything. i'd guess we have an accumulation of about an inch already. maybe we'll be able to make a snowman for fhe tonight.

tomorrow it's supposed to be sunny and 71.

hummingbirds

w and b gave me a hummingbird feeder for mother's day. it took us awhile, but we got it set up last week. this morning, though, was the first time that we've actually seen a hummingbird at the feeder--and boy this hummingbird really likes our feeder. it's a black-chinned hummingbird.

i caught a picture of it at the feeder. i love hummingbirds--so it's so fun to finally have a feeder and see them (or at least one very hungry black-chinned bird) all the time!

9 years and 1 day

yesterday was our 9th anniversary. much has changed since may of 2001, but many things are still the same too. brian and i are still best friends and love being together.

to commemorate our love we went out to a nearby canyon and hiked up in it to do some high-adventure trout fishing and hiking. it was a lot of fun. the weather was beautiful, the canyon was beautiful, and the trout we caught were beautiful too. we caught 8 fish and then cooked them up over a fire. then we hiked/fished some more. once we had 8 more we cooked those up over another fire and ate them.

eating 8 trout each sounds like a lot, but these aren't huge fish. honestly, it was just a nice, light lunch.

the high-adventure part of the fishing expedition was a lot of fun. we both ended the hike dirty (from sliding, falling, ect) with a lot of scratches, a little sunburnt, and wet.

two other cool things were (1st) brian found a wild morel that we ate with our fish. we looked around for more, but could only find the one today. second, we saw a male and female western tanager. if you don't know what they look like, look them up. they're beautiful--especially the male.

the morel brian found. we cooked this up with the second batch of fish--very delicious.

the scenery.

the adoption

yesterday was the big adoption day. we all woke up early and enjoyed a "special" breakfast of nutella on toast and then drove up to the court house. i figured we'd have to wait awhile there, and we did. william did a good job of waiting though. my mom and brother kyle came too.

the actual court proceeding was pretty easy and quick. brian and i both got to answer a few questions, and there were a few other testimonies, but that was it. it was all over very quickly. at the end, the judge welcomed william up to her seat. she gave him a present, let him sign his name on the official document, and let him bang her gavel. he loved it all. then, of course, we took quite a few pictures.

then there was paper work that needed to be sorted out. the paper work stuff is the un-fun part of all of this, but eventually it will be over with. eventually as in probably a few months from now.

once we were done at the court house we went and bought william a bike. the plan was to go out for lunch after he rode his bike around for awhile. but after realizing that all of his friends were at school (and wouldn't be out for 4 more hours), william came into the house and asked if he could go to school. we couldn't say no--so we took him to school.

later that afternoon, he rode his bike around a lot more and showed it off to many people. then we took him out for all you can eat shrimp with one of his good friends.

all-in-all it was a great day. william is a great kid, and brian and i are very lucky that he is our son.