Charlotte, oh Charlotte.

*Sigh*.  It came and went.  This weekend went way too fast for my liking, proving only that next year, I need to plan extra time for myself.  I’m flying in a day early and leaving a day late!  lol

Yes, the birth mother’s event was this weekend.  So, on Friday, my flight was to leave at 12:40, ended up delayed ’til 13:45 for “repairs” and then we didn’t actually board until about 14:00… soooo, long story short, I missed my connecting flight in Dallas and where I should have originally arrived in Charlotte aroound 20:30, I ended up arriving around 23:30.  LOL  Which was really disappointing, because I was ALREADY disappointed about my original flight being so late, but even LATER, was even more disappointing.  Still great though.  Took a cab from the airport to the hotel (awesome cab driver!) and Britney, Coley, Anomar and Leigh were waiting by the hotel entrance for me.  LOL  It was great.  I couldn’t get the cab door open (shock surprise) almost broke my finger trying, then finally got out and got attacked with hugs, of course first by Coley!  Yes, I have finally, FINALLY hugged Coley Socks.  So… continuing… we ended up back in Coley’s room, where Lani, Pam, Charlene and… wait, I think that’s it… anyway, we hung out ’til almost 3:00, eating fudge and laughing and talking…. so I think we all went to bed around 3:00, then I got up at about 7 to get ready for breakfast.  So, count 4 hours of sleep there.  Check.  Had breakfast, even though I was like 40 minutes late… I was surprised with the number of people I DIDN’T know, but that was awesome.  The more, the merrier.  Literally.  lol  Let me just tell you, meeting these women, most of whom I’ve been friends with for a few YEARS now, was just amazing to me.  I’ve considered myself extremely lucky for having such great friends all this time and didn’t think it was possible for it to get even BETTER, but meeting them in person… was even better.  I can even be honest in saying I was slightly worried, because I tend to not get along with girls very well, at least not for long periods of time, but it was like walking into a room full of family.  It really, really was.  There was no awkwardness or not knowing what to say or uncomfortableness… there just wasn’t.    Just completely awesome.  I mean it.  I was in awe.  I LOVE these girls SO much it doesn’t even make sense.  LOL  So the entire day was pretty much wonderful.  It would take hours to play-by-play the entire weekend, so I won’t… but… it was awesome.  After breakfast we went around introducing ourselves mostly, then went into discussions and everything.  I did pretty good, until Leah and her daughter’s adoptive Mom spoke, then I started bawling… then their oldest son spoke about his adoption and I bawled even more… lol  Well, I cried for pretty much the rest of the day.

The session/discussion I led was fun.  I was talking to Ali later and admitted that it was pretty hard for me to talk about some of those things in front of people… talking about my past and everything… but it was amazingly healing.  Not one person even remotely judged me for everything I told them about my past and my experiences that led up to deciding to place Dustin for adoption and even my experiences afterward leading up until now.  Not like I gave my whole life-story, but a lot of things that I don’t normally talk about to the every day person.  I was truly amazed with how close I felt to all of these women.  There wasn’t one moment of feeling awkward, or uncomfortable, or judged… it was as if I’d known all of them my ENTIRE life and I could literally talk about anything and everything and it was as if they already knew and still loved me.

So, I’m probably going out of order as far as what we did first, etc. but later on, after we did breakout sessions and stuff, we had lunch, then the balloon release… which was surprisingly emotional for me.  I really REALLY didn’t expect to cry… I was just thinking it was gonna be a cool symbolic gesture for our birth children… but the second I let go of my balloon, with my personal message to Dustin written on a piece of paper tied to the string, it was like something extremely unexpected occurred and I had a flood of emotion.  Anyway, it was cool.

Ok, so after all the speakers, sessions, lunch, fun, etc. we had a little while to go back to our rooms and relax before dinner.  We went to dinner at an Irish Pub (can’t remember the name of the place) and our waiter was absolutely adorable, classic Irish accent and not too hard on the eyes either.  I had a “killkooly” sandwich (not sure if I spelled that right… probably not) and Britney thought it was funny I’d never had (or HEARD of) a sandwich with fruit on it.  Killkooly = turkey, bacon, cheddar cheese…. and apples.  Yuuup.  It was probably close to the mose delicious weirdo sandwich I’d ever had.  Wish I could recreate it.  LOL  I think I’ll try.  Met a funny guitar player dude outside of the pub, Anomar and I ran back to the hotel to change into our 80’s drab, then ran to meet the rest of the ladies at “The Breakfast Club”, which is an 80’s club in Charlotte.  I won’t tell a huge long story about it, but basically… it was awesome.  Awesome, awesome, awesome.  First of all, the group of girls that stayed later with us (half the group left I think around 11 or so and 7 of us stayed ’til about 2:00) anyway, awesome ladies.  Lets see if I can remember who stayed… so… me, Anomar, Stephanie (thank god for Stephanie, otherwise I would have left my debit card at the bar!) Britney, Michelle (R.), Ali and Michele (L.)  We danced, danced and daaaanced.  It felt so good… and I’m totally in love with these ladies.  I can’t wait for next year.  We went back to the hotel and hung out outside for a while, then went up to Coley and Lani’s room and hung out for a while longer, which was entertaining.  lol  We left their room around 3:30, I think… not sure really… but Anomar stayed in my room and we talked for a while, all I know is we didn’t go to bed until about 5:15 A.M. and I had to be up at 7 to get ready and Melanie was picking me and Leigh up for our flights at 8:45.  So, yup… 2 hours of sleep.  6 hours of sleep TOTAL for the weekend.  I was still basically drunk when I left in the morning and after hours of being on flights (delays everywhere), I still felt drunk when I touched down in Utah.  LOL  Apparently you gotta actually SLEEP for it to go away :p

I posted a bunch of pictures on Facebook and I assume anyone that would read this blog is probably friends with me on Facebook, so I’m not even gonna post them here.  Just go there!

Ok, well anyway… overall score for the weekend… well, I don’t know what the max. is, so I’m just gonna say a big wicked 10!  …If we’re going to 10….

Now… separate blog stuff:

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it in any previous posts… probably not… but Sam has been sick.  For a few weeks now, he’s been eating very irregularly and then the past 2 ish weeks, he’s basically thrown up every day.  Bart took him to the vet on Monday, found out that he’s lost 16 lbs, which under normal circumstances would be good since he is fairly overweight for a lab, but… not super exciting considering it’s basically from starvation.  We also found out that all of his glands are swollen.  Long story short, because I’m not sure I can type it all without crying (again!) the vet believes that he has Lymphoma.  Which I believe he said averages a 3-6 month survival.  Lets just say, this isn’t easy news.  Sam is Bart’s baby. That’s all there is to it.  I almost don’t see any difference if it were a human baby.  Just because he’s a dog, doesn’t mean it’s any different.  Bart has had him since he was practically born, raised him, taken care of him, loved him… they’re best friends.  I’ve been crying a lot the past couple days, almost every time I look at Sam and have to imagine burying him.  I know I’ve complained about Sam in the past and get annoyed easily, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him.  He really is an amazing dog and regardless of how annoyed I get with some of his habits, it’s going to hurt when he passes.  I am dreading what it’s going to do to Bart.  I already know there will be nothing I can do and basically no way to comfort him.  I wish I could take away the pain that I know he’s going to have.  …I will say that I’m grateful we don’t have to put him to sleep.  It’s hard enough already, having to accept that he’s going to die, but I would hate for Bart to have to make that decision.  I just couldn’t take it.  As terrible as it might sound, I’m really hoping that he just goes in his sleep so he doesn’t have to feel any pain and he can just be at peace.

Sorry, on a slightly more cheerful note, Sam’s birthday was Monday, the 3rd.  10 years old!   We had a birthday party.  lol  Lisa and Xoe came over (and Zala and Max).  Sam got new toys, treats and got to play with his friends.  We had dinner, then went to McDonalds and got ice cream cones, as well as kiddie cones for the dogs.  It was awesome!  lol  HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!

It was a good night and I think Bart was happy.  And Sam was happy.

The next little while will be difficult… but, I guess all we can do is try to prepare.  At least we know.

Guess what we’re doing this weekend?  And by “we”, I mean… Zack and Bart.  “We” are pouring cement for our patio!!!  I’m so excited.  Then, if the weather is good, we’ll tear up the yard NEXT weekend and plant grass.  I’m excited that it’s actually starting to happen.  Even more excited that it’s basically not costing us anything.  I’m a little stressed about the idea of buying a new sprinkler system, which we’re not going to do right away anyway, but… eventually we’ll want to.  But, Zack is basically doing trade work for the entire yard to be dug up and new top soil brought in and I think he’s trying to talk us into letting him pay for the cement too.  Dunno about that yet… I feel guilty if he paid for that TOO.  Next project will be new fence.  We still don’t know what we’re going to be allowed to do, since we live on a corner with a stop sign.  If the fence is too high, people won’t be able to see around the corner.  I really want a fence though!  Someday.  We’ll get it done.    Excited for the patio though.  It’ll be cool.  This time, I’m going to remember to do “Before” and “After” photos!  I wish we had done that when we first moved in of the yard and how horrible it was with weeds.  Too bad.  lol