Until We Meet Again

In “Until We Meet Again,” President Thomas S. Monson shares the touching story of a mother who lost her son at war but learned that he would live again because of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Our petting zoo and little boys

I work with a brilliant engineer named Randy; we share a cube wall. He has three grown kids and two grandsons. Whenever his grandsons come to the office with him, you will find them in my cube talking about animals, trees, bugs and other such interesting things that little boys enjoy. Nick is 5 and Nathan is 2.

On a whim, invited Randy to bring his grandsons out to our place to feed the baby goats and play with the horses. He called on Saturday afternoon and brought the boys out with their dad, Jake, and aunt, Katie, (Randy's son and daughter).

While they were here, out neighbor to the south was doing some target practice and one of the Guardians came over to say hello. He is the big white dog in the photo and his name is Rock. I thought I would share some of my favorite photos from their visit.

I had a great time with the kids and it reminded me of our babies, all four that we have lost. Our sweet twins, I miss them so much but I am grateful for the time we had with them and the lessons we have learned since their loss. We are traveling on a path that we may not have found otherwise.

Watching these little boys renews my faith that Heavenly Father has a child waiting for us and a Birth Mother who we know from another place in time. I know that some way, some how, we will find each other and be able to start our own family through the miracle of adoption. I pray that we will be connected and be able to recognize each other.

It does my heart good to be around little children and to be reminded of their unconditional love and their thirst for knowledge.

Changes

So many changes in the last few weeks; nothing ground breaking...

Salem, our sweet adopted kitty disappeared. We think he wandered beyond the boundary that the Guardians protect and became a kitty biscuit for the coyotes.

Ducky, our 13 year old kitty disappeared. We think the HUGE red tail hawk got her because the hawk was hanging around and Ducky never travels far. Being 13 years old, she was unable to out run a hawk.

I have to say: it is all my fault. I take full responsibility. For our adoption home study we had to provide vaccination records for each animal (no small feat when you live on a farm). As we stood in line to get the three cats vaccinated and I looked in dismay at the cost, I said the following to R: "Just watch, I am going to pay $120 for vaccinations for barn cats and in 3 weeks, they will get eaten." Sure enough, they got eaten; I will never say that again.

After 3 weeks of waiting for one or both to return home, we went to the pound to find another kitty. We still have Jasper, the spastic orange tabby given to us by Momma Sherri (R's Mom). We came home with Jake (see photo below). He is just as spastic as Jasper and since they are about the same age, they get along just fine. We are working on fattening Jake up, not for the coyotes but because he was a little on the thin side. He seems to be happy and this weekend we will allow them both to go back outside. Since Salem 'left' our rabbit population has exploded. I feel much better knowing the dog or cat ate the bunnies rather than living with guilty conscience and less ammo.

Shameless plug for our local humane society below:
We have gone to several shelters and rescues over the years but I have to say that the staff at our local Humane Society work harder than most and reap little reward. They were able to meet with us and match us to a kitty in under 30 minutes. AND they have half-price cat day (who knew?!) so Jake was only $12.50 and came with a collar, carry box and a bag of food; I think I might have paid $2.50 for the cat! We may be back in another week or two to get another kitty (3 seems to be a good number around our house).

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The babies are growing and eating more and more. They leave home next weekend. While it will be sad to see them go, I will enjoy not having to feed 3 times a day and I will actually be able to use the milk.

Our dear Phoebe left last weekend - no, no, not a coyote or hawk snack. She was purchased by the Burdick Family of Castle Rock, Colorado. She went to a show home and will be pampered.

Phoebe was our last and final tangible reminder that we lost our twins. We kept her in anticipation of having 4 mouths to feed, then we lost the twins and still had Phoebe. With her gone, I feel like we are finally turning a corner and moving forward. We had our first interview with our case worker two weeks ago and he didn't laugh at us and tell us no, so that was encouraging! We have our second interview scheduled for the end of this month and should be good to go by July.

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