Visit to San Francisco - Meeting Meirambek!!

My friends, Terri & Jim, just brought home their adopted son, Jonah Meirambek, from Kazakhstan a couple of weeks ago. They've been working for the past 5 or 6 months to get him home. Lots of trials and tribulations, ups and downs over this period of time - a truly emotional roller coaster - along with much bureaucracy wrapped all around it. They prevailed and welcomed home their son!!

Family Picture!!

Of course, I had to come meet this new addition to the family and take some pictures for them!! They didn't know I was planning to take pictures until I showed up but I brought the camera just in case we had time/inclination to do so. Here are a few more of our favorites! There are many more really wonderful pictures - they are so happy!!

The weekend was really just about visiting with him and them! Baby time.... We didn't really do a whole lot else which was just fine and fun! Weather started becoming kind of wet/cool on Saturday evening and as we speak, I'm sitting at the airport with a 3 hour delay to get out because of weather - rain/wind. So..... I had a fabulous time!!

The one place we did manage to go on Saturday was to their local farmer's market which was incredible - see my pictures below - and to get a manicure/pedicure!! I was just amazed at all the wonderful produce at the farmer's market. Wish we had something like this in Houston - I'd be there!!

It was so wonderful meeting you Meirambek!! You are so happy and a joy to be around! Your smiles just light up the room and you are learning to clap and work those fingers to pick up all sorts of things around you. Crawling is quite close.... but you certainly know how to scoot very quickly to what you want!! It was so fun spending the weekend with you!

Terri & Jim - you all are wonderful parents!! This child is well loved and so lucky to have parents like the two of you. There is much to learn as you settle into your new roles and many wonderful experiences to come as he grows. Parents love to give advice and there are many, many pieces of information that could be imparted, but the most important one is to nurture your own relationship as a couple during this time as well. Don't let that go by the wayside as you take on your parenting role. It's very easy to let that slide. Make time for "date night" and reconnecting with each other often. Even set it as a firm date of the week. Get a standing babysitter and go somewhere - dinner, coffee, wine - for time alone together. Happy families and happy children are built on happy marriages!

Thank you so much for allowing me to visit and have fun with you all. I hope to be able to come out again soon! Love to you all!!

Mary-Austin

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! It's 2010!!

Happy New Year to everyone!!

We had a very low key New Year's Eve around the Cox house. John cooked the most incredible dinner for us last night. Rack of Lamb, mashed potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts and roasted butternut squash (I love it). The lamb was absolutely amazing!! I think it may now be my all-time favorite meal and usually, I'm not a huge lamb lover. But.. OMG!! It was incredible. We ate the leftovers for lunch today - was perfect. We rang in the new year out on the back porch under the blue moon with a good fire going in the firepit, drinking champagne and listening to all the fireworks going off around us!! Enjoyed it!

Can you believe it's actually 2010!! I can't. It feels like yesterday when the world was wrapped up in the turn of the century into the Millennium. We all thought the world would end and quickly found out at 12:01 am, 1/1/2000, that the world kept on going, nothing blew up, the lights didn't go out forever and the ATM's didn't start spitting out money! Much to our dismay!

Well... 10 years later.... and my how things have changed in my life.

The Past Decade has brought:

Divorce & happily, a New Love & Marriage (John)

Ten more years of growth for both Rachel (16) and Stephen (12)

Happy, healthy & smart children progressing well through school

Greater love for the simple things in life

Greater love for scrapbooking and memory keeping

Great wine and food!

Wonderful trips and tons of great memories

Two Employers since 2000 - Hanover & Wells Fargo

Great work colleagues

Three vehicles - Sequoia, Honda CRV and Jeep Wrangler

Purchased a house all on my own!

Just a small snippet of life over the past 10 years. So much more... not enough time to write it all!!

Ok - so let's continue.

Christmas 2009 was a wonderful time. I will post several pictures over the next few days, but they are all loaded in my Flickr photostream which you can access from the right sidebar.

We spent our Christmas in Boerne, TX with my parents, sisters, nieces & nephew. It was a lot of fun and a lot of food!! One thing we all know how to do well is cook and eat. And man... we did that quite well this year!! I think we just lived life by the meal. :-) Yummy!! Mom cooked amazing things this year including for Christmas dinner, a beef tenderloin with horseradish sauce that was killer!! Double yum! In addition to the tenderloin, we had cookies on top of cookies, dips and chips, kringle, breakfast casserole, brisket cooked by John, potatoes, pinto beans, lima beans and green beans (I kid you not!), ham, Christmas salad, cheese wafers, oreo cheesecake, pecan pie, apple pie, Cakebreak Cabernets and Vueve Cliquot champagne. Whew!!

I leave you with a picture of our family on Christmas morning!! More to come!

Have a happy day celebrating New Years!!

MA