Hello from Croatia!

Hello from Croatia! This morning Dan and I woke up to the beautiful seaside town of Split, Croatia. Today we will tour Dioclean's palace who was a Roman emperor in the late 200 AD. He was known like Nero for his cruelty towards Christians and people did not mourn him when he died. His beloved palace is now in ruins and I will take some pleasure in seeing this man's life work decaying while the gospel of Jesus Christ lives on.


We had a bit of a rough start to our trip. Our third plane in Chicago broke down and delayed us over three hours which meant we missed our plane from Rome to Venice. Dan worked a miracle and got United to book us on a later Al Italia flight. We were quite tired that first night and I fell asleep in Venice to the sound of 1000 year old church bells ringing in the distance, Venice is quite an amazing place. It is like Disneyland only real. I kept trying to imagine what it was like in its golden age with mask balls everynight and all the upper class parading around in their fancy clothes and wigs. We saw where Mark (from the Bible) is supposedly buried. Ah there is so much history it is wonderful taking it all in!

We got on our boat and have slept here two of our tweleve nights so far. WE LOVE CRUISING!!! It is so exciting to wake up to a new city every morning. We will be in Athens next.  Well thanks for praying for our safe travels. Our luggage made it fine too! We miss you all and hope you are doing well.

Love, the Shacks

p.s. Our Snowflakes coordinator says that our embies will ship on August 30th! They will make it to California before we do!!! Yea!

70lbs!!!

I am super excited!  Dr. K (my FET doctor) will be glad that I have lost over 25lbs since I have last seen him in February.  I am hoping that our Italy trip/Med. cruise will be a good balance of eating delicious food and vigorous walking and exercise in the ship's gym.  I am not going to think about losing weight on our trip but I don't want to gain unnecessary poundage on this trip right before my FET and my triathlon.  I am excited that as soon as I come back from our trip our embies should be close to making their journey to California.  I haven't spoken to the embryologist at all lately and don't really know much about when I will start my medications to prepare my body for the transfer.   I think I will just give her a call on Monday to let her know we will be gone for awhile so they don't wonder where we went! I've got to get back to travel planning now.  We still need to refine our plans in Rome, book a few train tickets, and finish organizing all of our packing. 

Elizabeth the Triathlete!

I've always wanted to do a triathlon and so I have decided to do the Long Beach Sprint Distance Triathlon on September 19th which will probably be just a few weeks before my embryo transfer.  In a sprint distance triathlon you swim 1/2 mile, bike 11 miles, and run 3 miles.  This is a view of the course:

I am hoping to finish in under 1 hour and 45 minutes.  I signed up for the Athena division for women who are 145lbs or heavier.  (I thought it was nice of the race people to give us a dignified name like Athena rather than what they call the heavier men, "Clydesdales".)  It will be interesting trying to keep up my training while in Italy but you can run anywhere and I can bike, run, and weight lift in the gym on our 12-day cruise.  Maybe I will practice my open water swimming in the Mediterranean.  This is the triathlon suit that I just ordered for the race.  It is a bit daring huh?  It will be good though for moving from water to the bike to running. 

On the recommendation of one of my spin instructors who is the strength and conditioning coach at UCR I have recently added a lot more weight lifting to my exercise routine and I am sure it will make a difference.  Dan and I even bought a Bosu ball which I was introduced to by a personal trainer.  It is amazing how many exercises you can do on it.  It is especially good for working on your core which is one of my weaker muscle groups. 

A Super Fun Surprise!

So tonight Dan and I got home from dog park with Jersey and "Other Dog" (who we still have) and Dan brought in a present that was sitting on our porch.  I saw that the gift bag spelled out "BABY" on the outside and immediately thought, "Oh no!  Somebody accidentally left a gift for the wrong family on our porch."  Then I read the note inside the bag and saw that it was for US!  It was our first baby gift from a very thoughtful neighbor who has been following our story and lifting us up in prayer through our adoption journey.  How amazingly fun is that!!!  Ginny you rock - and your thoughtfulness absolutely made our day!  I can't stop smiling.  =)

I want to publicly say thank you to our friends and family (and our blogger friends too) for praying for us and walking with us through this amazing journey.  I chose early on to be very open about our adoption plans for many reasons but especially because I knew I didn't want us to go through this alone.  Your encouraging words, advice, bible verses, book recommendations, song recommendations, etc. have played an important role in where we are today.  I know there may yet be difficulties ahead but I am really glad I have you all to share this with!  To God be the glory for blessing us with 4 baby embies and such wonderful family and friends!

All Star 5K and Fan Fest and Home Run Derby 2010!

Dan and I are both baseball fans so we were really excited that the MLB All-Star game was being hosted by the Anaheim Angels this year.  We participated in three events this year thanks to the generosity of friends and family who are season ticket holders.  (Thanks Joe & Craig!)

Our first event was the All Star Fan Fest at the Anaheim Convention Center.  It was filled with games, displays, and memorabilia.  We saw Babe Ruth's jersey, the world series trophy, and old baseball stars like Chuck Finley, Rollie Fingers, and Chili Davis.  (We missed seeing Tim Salmon, boo!)  After a fun time at Fan Fest we went to Fire and Ice at the Anaheim Garden Walk and had a blast eating and visiting!

Our next event was the All-Star 5k where we got to run through Angel Stadium.

 Lastly, we were able to attend the Home Run Derby.  Dan went with my brothers and I went with our neighbors and friends.  The boys all sat in the outfield and caught 5 home run derby balls!

Miracle of Miracles: Our adoption is FINAL!!!!

Our adoption is FINAL!!!!  Well I got word from our Snowflakes coordinator today that the donor family has signed the adoption contract and it is in the mail on its way to sunny Southern California!  When I saw the coordinator's email in my inbox I half expected it to be disappointing news again, but it is not!!  Good-bye pessimism, hello optimism!  I am turning a new leaf and to celebrate I bought my first maternity clothing item today on www.babysteals.com  I bought the Nina shirt in white.  Do you like?  Lilac Clothing specializes in maternity clothing that you can wear at any stage of pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, and post-pregnancy.  Let's hope I get to wear it past the "pre-pregnancy" stage.  =)

Also, I have to brag. . . Dan and his co-worker Chris won silver medals in tennis doubles at the police and fire olympics in Reno, NV today!  Congrats to my man!

Signing of the Contract - Take Two!

Today we signed our EA contract at AAA.  It felt good to be done with everything on our side of things.  This is as far as we got with our last failed match so we will be REALLY excited when we get word that the donor family has signed the contract as well.  The notary thought I was a little odd that we were taking pictures and I just explained to her that this was like our "You're pregnant!" moment and we wanted to remember this day.  She replied, "Oh, that wasn't how I felt when I found out I was pregnant."  (said in a voice with a tinge of disgust)  I just said "Oh" and thought in my head how sad for this lady that she (at one time) saw her baby as a burden rather than a blessing.  I realized what a gift of awareness and appreciation God has given to Dan and I through our deprivation.  I can't wait to be pregnant and make Dan a dad.  He will be such a great dad.  Tonight I just want to fast forward to October and let those babies grow!