I needed this today

I saw this link on my journal blog, and I sure needed it today. I hope you enjoy it, if it doesn't work right you can go here to view it and many other amazing things.

And We're Back!

Hello All! (As I'm sure there are so many people out there reading this blog :P). Maybe someday I will catch up with different events that have happened for the majority of this year, but for now a short post that we are alive and well and are back on the net. As the purpose for creating this blog was to help our adoption efforts, when we decided recently not to pursue adoption further the blog needed a focus overhaul, and after months of procrastination here it is! So yes, we have decided not to continue our efforts to expand our family through adoption, but we still believe that it is and can be a great and amazing experience and we are still adoption supporters. Anyhew, other than all of the craziness with that, things are going relatively well around here. We just finished (kinda) pulling the house apart and putting things into storage or donating to yard sales what we felt we needed to, and it was a neat experience. I have always had an attachment to "stuff", but as we are starting a new chapter in our lives it was nice to go through it all and really make a step to help our home feel more clean and put together. So alas, the great inspiration for the original title of this blog (Mike and Risa's Jolly Blog of Doom), aka all of our Invader Zim memorabilia, went into the storage bins to have its fate decided later, and pretty much all of the pictures I had posted on this blog about the look and layout of our home have drastically changed, but all for the better at least. It's an interesting feeling to suddenly wake up and realize that you're "all grown up" (to an extent, at least feeling your age finally), but Michael and I feel ready and excited for whatever the future may bring.  We love all of you family and friends and truly appreciate all of your love and support, especially through the rough times this year and beyond. We are going to keep trying for children, wish us luck - we'll need plenty of it :)
Risa

Our crazy family...

So, when Michael got home from work yesterday, there had been such beautiful weather that we had to take the dog for a walk. After a couple hours of getting dinner ready, we were finally able to get out the door. Little did we know the two cats were out also, which is fine as they love going outside, but it made the evening interesting. Normally cat owners (at least in our experience) don't have to worry about their kitties leaving the general area of their home, but as our family has been anything but normal why should that be an exception? As we began our walk around the neighborhood, both of the cats ran up beside us and followed us the entire time, Teach harassing Inca and playfully rolling in the gutters as we walked along the sidewalk, sometimes even running and tackling Bosa as he tried to get ahead of us, Inca being upset that Teach was on the same planet, all sorts of fun. Risa was a little stubborn about leaving the immediate neighborhood with cats in tow (she worries they won't cross streets as fast), so we just walked a small circle around the homes where we live, but we have the feeling they would follow us anywhere (Inca has been known to follow us to church a few blocks away). We wonder what the neighbors thought, but as our cats are known for following us to other people's houses and sitting outside yowling until we come out, maybe it's not unusual behavior. It was a peculiar experience and brought new meaning to "taking the family for a walk."(Funny though how they will follow us freely, but if we try to put a harness or leash on them they turn into lumps of limp kitty). There was another time when Teach followed us to the gas station next door but sat on the fence at the edge of the lot and cried like a wounded animal until we got our redbox movie and came back. Fun times, fun times. Ah well, it could be worse, we could have this :)


(Go to this website for more fun kitty pics!)

Another inspiring message

Yeah yeah, I know we've (I've) been posting a lot of these lately, but this one is a goodie too. We want to let each of you know who read this blog that you are all wonderful, beautiful children of a Heavenly Father who loves you so much, much more than you can comprehend. And we love you too :) Hope this post brightens your day!

Courage is Amazing

This amazing family's story has changed our lives. Watch this video and check out Stephanie Nielson's blog to find a special look at the love that can be found in this life to truly accomplish all things. (Our blog cuts part of it off so I can't embed it, but please follow the link below to view it, you won't regret it!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHDvxPjsm8E

The dream vacation, New York City Baby!

So, as a special trip Michael's parents bequeathed skymiles and such to help us get tickets to visit one of Michael's best friends who is studying to be a surgeon at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Michael's friend Rory and his wife Raphelle were SO amazing to let us stay with them for a few blissful days, it totally rocked the casbah as far as vacations go. We just can't say enough good things about NYC and our dear friends for being so wonderful (not to mention the parents that helped it all happen). Here are some of the details and a few pictures of our trip!
This is Mike at the airport right after we landed. It was so exciting to feel the moist air and to realize that we had finally made it after a few bumpy flights. (The flights home were much worse, however, thanks to a storm blowing in and sitting in the back of the plane, but we had an amazing pilot and landed safely.)
Our first night, Rory took us out on the town. Here's him and Michael in the subway terminal, which really wasn't as bad as we expected (considering most everything we knew -or at least what Risa knew- about NYC is from hours and hours of Futurama episodes and general fiction-y shows, etc). We actually grew quite fond of public transportation while we were there.

While on the town we saw Times Square, the New York Hard Rock Cafe, the Broadway theater, the Late Night with David Letterman Show theater, the Hershey's store, and more, even a giant billboard roll of toilet paper advertising for Cottonelle. One of the best places was Grand Central Terminal, where Michael is pictured below, it was HUGE!One of the best places of the entire trip was here, where there is a place called "whispering corner" just outside the Oyster Bar restaurant. You can see a better picture at our online album, but just outside the restaurant the acoustics are so amazing that if you stand in opposing corners you can whisper at the wall and the person on the other side can hear you, even if it's rush hour, and it worked! It was phenomenal.

We went to a Tim Burton exhibit at the MOMA museum our second day there, it was pretty neat but Risa definitely prefers his more lighthearted works and stop motion animation versus some of the more abstract stuff. It was still really fun, we got to see some of the puppets from the Nightmare Before Christmas and the Corpse Bride, as well as costumes and props from Edward Scizzorhands, Beetlejuice, Planet of the Apes, and some of the Batman movies.

Here's Risa in her gnarly NYC outfit, we got the hat from a street vendor and she felt pretty snazzy as everyone was wearing scarves there, so we took a picture. It's at Rory and Raphelle's house. We spent a lot of our time just wandering around the city looking at all of the amazing architecture, visit our 2nd online photo album to see some of the amazing sites we saw including Rockefeller Center, cathedrals, restaurants, and even a giant Hello Kitty statue in the courtyard of a building. We also got to eat at Lombardi's Pizza, the first pizzeria in the USA and the birthplace of New York style pizza, it was so good we were dreaming of Ninja Turtles and cheesy heaven. We visited markets and street vendors, saw street performers (even some who performed on a moving subway train), and brought home some cute little pictures of alien creatures.

Here's Michael at The Cloisters museum we went to on our 3rd day there. It's a medieval museum where a lot of medieval architecture, relics, tapestries, etc, were saved, brought over to the US, and restored into this beautiful museum. We also saw the many beautiful bridges around here (including the amazing Brooklyn Bridge, one of our favorites), and some amazing parks, forts, and random beautiful archways.

We tried visiting Coney Island to see the side shows, but alas fate would have it that there was a scheduling mishap (grr Coney Island website) and everything was closed when we got out there, but at least Rory and Michael were able to eat a hot dog at Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, a really famous hot dog shop out there apparently :)
Definitely one of the highlights of the entire trip was our time spent in Central Park, one of the most beautiful places we have been. We loved wandering around the grounds. We saw an awesome Alice and Wonderland statue, tried some Knish (a Jewish food that is kinda like battered and fried mashed potatoes), and just took in the awesome beauty of everything, even the benches were awesome.

This is us in the traditional picture required by all who visit Rory and Raphelle on City Island (a suburb of NYC), they ROCK and we were just all too happy to participate. In the end, our feet hurt more than ever before, and it was heartbreaking to leave so soon, but we are so so so so so so so so so so so so grateful for our amazing friends and family for giving us a much needed pick-me-up and opening our minds to new places and people. The big city experience is amazing, and we can't wait to do it again. (Don't forget to look at our 2nd online album for more photos!)

Wowza!

Wow, so, Risa's best friend Miranda just introduced us to this website: http://myfoodlooksfunny.com/ which is totally amazing! Anything that has a Futurama reference (still convinced it is the greatest show ever made, though we haven't seen the new season yet) is awesome in our book, you should totally go give it a look!

“I like Brain Slugs so much I made Brain Slug cupcakes of my own free will.”