Family weekend.....

We got up this morning at 6am to start our weekend in the mountains. A family weekend at Hubby's hunting cabin. When I say family,I mean family. Hubby's cousin, her husband and her Dad. Our oldest daughter Cheerleader and her boyfriend. Our daughter Tornado and her boyfriend. Our youngest daughter Foo and her friend. A jammed packed family weekend to celebrate Hubby's birthday. Hubby's cousin left for the cabin Thursday morning and our two oldest daughters left Thursday afternoon. We decided to leave Friday morning instead. Hubby wanted to leave Thursday but I know too much family time is not good for us. HA! After our 4 hour drive we arrived at the cabin. Did I mention it has no cable,Internet and no cell service?? There aren't even WiFi places in town. Actually the town doesn't even have a fast food place. It's that backwoods!! 

It should be an interesting night/weekend for the Burg family!

Thankful Thursday......

I thought I would give some updates about this guy and my Hubby today. Our springer made it out of surgery fine. The doctor still isn't sure if it was a tumor or a cist. We all agreed it was big,ugly,nasty and it had to go. They would like him to wear the cone for 10 days. I really don't see that happening. The poor thing can't walk from point A to point B without smacking,knocking over, and killing the back of your legs. The last two days I have been hand feeding him since he can't find his bowl. HA! Poor thing. I have to tell you the funny story the Vet was telling us when we picked him up. When we took Springer in they gave him a shot to calm him before surgery. I even joked with the Vet about giving him an other shot. The vet knows how he gets with seperation anxiety. They asked that we sit with him until he calmed down. Tornado,Bubby,and I sat with him for 30 minutes and he still wasn't calm. We were getting into our car and Tornado says"I hear him" Sure enough there was a dog in there carrying on. I assumed it was ours because thats how he gets. The vet confermined it was him. They had to give him another shot. Apparently that one didn't work. He got another one. When that didn't work they had to give him 100% gas during his whole surgery. After surgery he didn't stop barking once. I'm surprised he could still bark after that. That's how anxious he gets when I'm not around. Finally someone else understands what its like to be his owner. HA! I think they were counting the seconds until we picked him up. :)

Hubby met with the oncogolist on Tuesday to discuss the results of his CAT scan. He could not see anymore lumps on the scan nor did he feel anymore on Hubby. He doesn't want to do a PET scan and subject him to anymore radation. I agree! Hubby will see him again in 3 months. I'm not sure if he will be back to having 3 month visits again but at least they are keeping an eye on him. I'm thankful!

My nieces Firefly and Lady Bug are flying in from Minnosota today and are spending 2 weeks with my In laws. I get excited when they come in. We only get to see them once a year. My half sister and her family are also up from Virginia visiting this week. I haven't seen her yet because of our schedules. I'm hoping to see her and the kids before they go back. If you don't see any new blog posts its because I will be busy enjoying family visits.

Have a happy Thursday.............

Happy Presidents Day

I haven't had much time to blog this weekend. Actually not much time to be on twitter or facebook either. If you remember from this post, I have been researching my family tree. I am actually trying to do three different family trees at the same time. I know. What the heck was I thinking? Any Hoo, Ancestry is running a special Friday thru Monday. You can look up any 1930's census report for free. Needless to say I have been one busy girl. I have a couple of great/great grand parents that I have never been able to find on paper. Actually no one in the family seemed to remember their real first names. Can you imagine trying to do a family tree and not know names of family members? It is HARD! My mom and I were talking on the phone yesterday and she remembered that she had a container of old obits and newspaper clippings. When she got the phone she went looking for them. The very first one she finds? My Great grandmothers. It listed her parents and they were the ones I didn't have names for. What were the odds that was the first one in the box? Weird. My Mom thought it was if my great grandmother was saying You hoo these are my parents. To say I was excited was an understatement. I'm sure I will be up tonight late looking up more family before the free offer ends. If you get a chance check it out. In April they will be releasing the 1940's census report. My grandmother and her sisters should be on these. Can't wait!

Dec 10

59 years ago today one of the greatest woman in the world was born. Ok maybe just in my world. Without her I wouldn't be here. The pain and hardships she has endured makes her one of my heroes.

Happy Birthday Mom! Here's to many more years.

3 years and 1 month ago......

National Adoption Day. Every year the Saturday before Thanksgiving is set aside for finalizing adoptions. It is a day families have dreamed about for a long time. The feelings and emotions you feel this day is so hard to describe. A few years ago we finalized a month before National adoption day.

This is the little guy who changed our lives

Three years ago we got up just like we do every morning. Today was different. We got dressed and brushed our teeth. Only today was different. We ate breakfast and got in the car. But today was different. Instead of driving everyone to school we drove to a courthouse. We were meet there by our social worker, Hubby's parents,and sister. We sat down next to another family and waited for them to call our names. I couldn't help but look around at the other families. You could see nervous,excited and happy all at the same time.  Our social worker couldn't tell us what to expect because this was her first finalization too. We passed the time by taking photographs. (I discovered this later but I had the wrong setting on my camera. I can't enlarge my pictures any bigger than 4x6. I can't tell you how upset I was when I found that out. Grr.)

Finally what seemed like an eternity they called our name. We were sworn in. I have to admit the court room was a lot smaller than I expected. The Judge told us that finalizing was his favorite part of being a Judge. I was the first one to take the stand. He asked us the names and ages of our kids. What we were changing our son's name to. Hubby took the stand and we both promised to love and care for Bubby as if he was a naturally born to us.(Can I just say,I hate that word. Naturally? Really as apposed to what? Time to update words. Geesh.) We of course said yes. Judge hit the gavel and Bubby became legally ours. We took some pictures with the Judge and some more outside the courthouse. We said our byes to my in laws and spent the day as a family.

Forever Family~Trust me. We really do not look like this anymore. HA!

We kept it simple. We went to a huge mall and had lunch. Shopped. We made Bubby a build a bear dog. We wanted him to have something to remember the day with. When you are 17 months you don't remember a lot. HA! We had a huge party that weekend. I can't tell you enough how thankful I am to our friends and family who celebrated the day with us. They have never looked at him as anything but our son. Not foster. Not adopted. But our son.

He just thought it was a day to get balloons,to us it was so much more.

As I think about the families celebrating today a big smile comes across my face. I know the feelings they are having. The excitement. The happiness. The I can't believe it's finally happening. I wish them luck. Most of all, I hope they have the day they always dreamed of.

I'm including a link in case anyone wants more info on adopting.
http://www.davethomasfoundation.org/free-adoption-resources/research-and-awareness/

Pity Party Table for One..........

A couple of weeks ago I decided to finish/start up my family trees. I started my maternal grandmothers side about 16 years ago and put it away until a few weeks ago. When my grandmother was alive she had given me a lot of names and dates. I wish I would have finished it when she was still alive. It was so important to her to have a completed family tree. I never realized how much info she knew. I've hit a wall with getting past my grand grandfather's parents and can't even find my grand grandmother's parents. As if doing one family tree isn't hard enough,I've added two more. I have wanted to do my bio father's Mom and Dad's side since I was in school. We always had those stupid family tree projects and I never had any info on his side of the family. So a few weeks ago I took out my trusty notebook that had nuggets of info I managed to collect of both families and went to work. When I started out on this journey I never gave a thought to the emotion that would hit me as I searched for my past. I knew I would get misty eyed for the family that I remembered but never expected to get emotional over the ones I never met or that died when I was a baby. As I was uncovering my father's side I couldn't help but wonder if any of them ever thought about me. Did they even know I existed? Some of them are just names on a piece of paper. I have no photographs of. No memories. I felt sad for my father when I realized how few siblings he has left and felt even sadder when he told me his mom hated his father's side of the family. He only ever saw his grandparents a few times his whole life. Kind of like my life. Sad. Yesterday I started working on the tree for the first time in 3 days when my Mom called. My aunt had passed away from cancer that morning. She was my Grandmother's sister. I lost it! I felt like I was losing my Grandmother all over again. I know people don't live forever but she was one of two sisters left in my grandmothers family. 7 siblings  and only 2 left. Until yesterday. I really don't know what I hope to find. I just know I'm doing this for my Grandmother.

 I love you Nan! I'm so sorry I didn't finish this when you were still alive to enjoy it with me.