How's the adoption coming?

We get this question a lot, and I'm pretty sure that the people who don't ask are just being shy. I'm also fairly certain that most of our loving friends and family who ask have no idea what they are actually asking, so I thought I would take a moment to offer for anyone who is interested--

"Adoption 101: The 4 Step Process."

Step 1: Make the decision to adopt and choose an agency.

This is a very big, very scary for many people, and a very important step. It includes getting a lot of information about how different agencies work (very differently) and making a decision and usually some kind of payment to your agency of choice. (With LDS Familly Services, it is a very reasonable $1000.00.)

You get a case worker and a very large stack of paper (or passwords to a very large stack of electronic online forms).

Step 2: The Application Process, Home Study and Approval.

After selecting an agency, you spend the next 2-6 months getting approved. The process includes:

1. Filling out an obscene amount of information including statistical (age, weight, race, location, etc.), financial (pretty much your taxes, plus your assetts, debts, and credit report), personal (likes and dislikes, hobbies, interests, relationships, career, education, etc.), religious (bishop writes a letter), and finally legal (birth certificates, marriage certificates, authorizing criminal background checks, etc.).

2. The Home Study: In addition to providing information on your home and everyone in your family, you prepare your home for a safety inspection.

3. The Profile: Summarize your life stories, everything that you value and that is important to you, your personalities, testimonies, etc. on one piece of paper. Don't worry, you get to use both sides :) Then you get to use both sides of an additional piece of paper to create an illustration of your family (a picture collage).

This is what a birth mother will use to chose you, so no pressure. ;)

(Can you tell this was the hardest part for me).

3A) After all this was approved, LDS Family Services switched to a new online profile system, so we got to build another profile online. We like the new system. It is not limited in the amount of information or pictures you can include (and as far as I can tell, it is not biased towards people with the ability to scrapbook). They may not require the physical profiles anymore.

Step 3: The Waiting/ Finding Game

LDS Family Services calls the next stage the Finding Stage. But, I think most adopting couples call it the Waiting Stage. There are lots of creative (and many might say awkward) things people can do to get the word out that they are adopting. Many people send their friends and family a letter and profile that they can share with anyone they may run across who is considering adoption. Some people purchase advertising online or in other sources. Slightly less assertive are methods such as sharing with people you know that you are trying to adopt. My good friend made beautiful "business" cards to hand out that included the information that they were trying to adopt.

And of course, your profile is out there on "itsaboutlove.org" for anyone searching to find.

There is no waiting list. There is not really an "estimated time to arrival." It could be 10 days or 10 years. Someday, a birth mother chooses to give her baby an eternal family with a mom and a dad, and from the thousands and thousands of waiting couples, she chooses you.

Step 4: Placement and Finalization

See, the question "How's the adoption going/ or how is it coming along..." Unless someone is in the process of an overseas adoption (which is an extensive process that does come along) or unless they are working with a birthmother before a birth or placement, adoptions don't "come along." You just wait... and wait... and wait... and then they happen. Sometimes suddenly. Sometimes you have a few weeks to get to know your birthparent(s) and get ready for the new arrival.

Please check out our updated profile, and yes we would LOVE feedback! :)

(PS I wrote this a couple of months ago, and am just getting around to posting it).

Blonds are more fun!!

So, it was my birthday, the first one with a zero in a long time, and I needed a fun change, so here it is, I'm blond :)

My dad is in denial. He says I'm not blond, I just have highlights.

I called my nieces to chat and found that my secret had been released as barter for top secret information (My mother-in-law traded my blond pictures for "If you tell me whether your new baby is going to be a boy or a girl, I'll give you pictures of Aunt Nicole's new hair!") I was surprised at the amount of anxiety it caused. Poor Grace!

"Aunt Nicole why did you change your hair! You don't even look like you! I would never be able to find you in Disney World now!"

I assured her that by the time she needs to find me in Disney World again, I'm pretty sure I'll be a brunette again. Not because I don't love it, but because I just don't spend enough time on my hair to keep it up.

I think she had a harder time getting used to it then Brent, who, by the way was very supportive.

Love you Honey!

Nicole's Hair

For some unknown reason* Nicole has recently been experimentally dying her hair. This is what we started with around last October: (and isn't she pretty!)

Apparently, I'm not supposed to take pictures during the dying processes, but I did:And viola` a few hours later:And then around Christmas she did it again, while I was running errands so I couldn't take a picture during:And THEN, for her birthday, we invited these shaddy characters over:
And the result:

Hmm... apparently, we didn't get a picture of her new hair (maybe one of the shaddy characters has the evidence). Nicole's dyed it again since then (but not too much) so I'll see if I can find a picture of that for next time.

*Actually, it is known, we're just not allowed to say. :(

Guess it's time to take matters into my own hands...

:) This is Nicole. You may or may not realize that most of these posts are written by Brent (the pervasive sarcasm is a giveaway). But, busy as life has been, my darling has not had time to keep up, so I'm swooping in to save the day and post an update on the life of the Mellings. (Brent, Nicole, Buster Gabriel, Tabitha Puss (as in Pussy Cat), and Starvin Marvin the oldest living Walmart Goldfish).

One exciting bit of news is that we have tickets to the Comi-Con!

I never dreamt in my life that I would have tickets to the national comic book convention. Our dear friend and soon to be famous artist and author, Heather is going with us. It will be a joyous summer road trip.

In other news, Nicole just completed her fourth and final out of town weekend for the Leadership Course she is taking with Landmark Education. The course completes in March, and we are all looking forward to the finish line. It's been very valuable, awesome actually, but also pretty intense.

Brent is still traveling to Salt Lake twice a week for his internship with the LDS church research department. He is only teaching one class this semester, and it seems to me he's been a little less busy, which has been nice. He is making progress with his disertation also. (I'm pretty sure I spelled that wrong...).

Brent and I have been having some electronic difficulties lately. Our treadmill, dryer and my new computer all went on the fritz at about the same time. We got pretty handy-man the other day and fixed the motor controller (like the motherboard) on our treadmill, so Brent can get back into gear in his bee-line to 200 pounds. :) I also got my computer replaced (after a few months and a lot of hours of phone calls with Dell. Still workin on the dryer, but we're going to run out of clean clothes soon, so I'm sure it won't be long...

Love you all!

Mega Post 2

A few posts ago, (back in August), I mentioned a few things coming up on the horizon. We did all them and more, so much so that catching up on reading blogs, let alone posting to them, has fallen by the wayside. But fear not! I try to keep up on facebook, with mixed results.

I'd also at this time like to promise pictures to go with the following post at some latter date, but while my intentions are good, I don't see that happening any time soon. Still, if I don't post something, we're likely to forget what we did this year and then our end of the year letter will be lame. So...

AUGUST:
* I finished Team-teaching Psychology of Gender. It was certainly an experience and I'm going to continue to take a break from that one for awhile.
* Nicole and I flew to Connecticut and visited with family then drove up to Toronto for APA. Southwest mislaid my one suitcase with all my clothes in it. It didn't make it to Connecticut by the time we had to leave for Canada and they don't fly to Canada, so we make a detour at the Buffalo airport and picked it up! (Luckily we had already finished doubling back to get a forgotten passport and arrived in Toronto without further incidence).
* I got assigned to teach Psych 111 (Intro to Psych) at BYU and History of Psych at UVU. Fortunately, I've taught both before and have been learning what the minimum prep time needed is. Twice (once in each class) I've prepared for the wrong lesson (i.e. a chapter that I hadn't assigned my student's to read). I was able to teach what they had prepared for, however, so I'm feeling pretty comfortable in my role and ability as a university professor.
* I did end up applying to an internship in Salt Lake. It's with the LDS Church in their research information Division. I didn't even know that we had a Research Information Division until they recruited me! All the research is pretty proprietary, so I get to pull the whole secret agent schtick about not being able to talk about my work, but sometimes I really want to.

September
* Nicole finally got her official raise (with compensation) and began transitioning to replace the assistant director at her work. She gets an office, but she'll probably end up sharing it with someone.
* Nicole also began her monthly weekend travels to Denver/Phoenix for her leadership training (As well as Friday night classrooms).
* We sat in a Leadership class in the MBA program. Nicole found it very difficult to not participate.
* I began my last officially required course for my PhD program. After this, nothin' but Dissertation! (and "fun" classes).
* I began to think about my Dissertation topic. I think I've got one, but explaining it will have to wait for a longer post.
* We went to Logan where I ran the "Top of Utah" marathon. I had a great half time, then the pain overwhelmed me (apparently you need to train on pavement more than once a week, the treadmill won't cut it). I survived, but with such a time that I resolved to run another marathon in November to make up for it.
* We went camping with friends and caught what there is of Utah's autumn in the mountains (a better show than from the valley). I had to leave right from work and thus began the trip in a suit.

October
* I turned 28 and actually started to feel really old. On my bus commute to and from SLC, I'm finding it harder to read and study without becoming nauseous and running has become even more wearying. I also didn't have a big party. Mostly because most of my friends moved away :(
* In fact, although I had registered for the Mesquite marathon in November, I contacted the coordinator and got switched to the half-marathon. Fortunately, out of all our activities, running is the only one that has really suffered, and even that is still going moderately well.
* We also found out about a new TV show, that so far seems good, clean, and funny, it's "White Collar" on USA (we've just watched the first two episodes so far).

November
* The end is in sight! I'll be doing that half marathon on Saturday and then I have a week off from teaching and taking classes. I hope to get all prepped for the end of the semester. I should mention that in addition to 20 hours a week in SLC (plus 6 hours of commuting), teaching at two universities, and taking a few classes, I'm also doing research at BYU's Faculty Center, TAing for another professor, finishing off some qualitative research on health and religious community of immigrants, working with the editor on the next edition of "Taking Sides in Psychology," doing another research project on daily theistic experience, helping organize the division 24 midwinter meeting, and writing abstracts for several presentations for the next year. And some other stuff. Anyway, as I always say (and always get wrong), next semester should be easier.

Did you know she ran marathons?

For those of you who don't know this, Brent is training for a marathon. 26.2 blistering miles. In order to qualify to even run in the Boston marathon, you have to run this distance ridiculously fast, like in about 1/3 of the time it took me to run it in 2007. (I am and will always be proud of my 5 hour 51 minute time. That means I finished.)

But, Wow! Elaine Dalton qualified for Boston, huh? That's kind of cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIrGKB5nRKE

Bequest of wings

She ate and drank the precious words
Her spirit grew robust;
She knew no more that she was poor,
Nor that her frame was dust.
She danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book.
What liberty a loosened spirit brings!

-Emily Dickinson

Mega Post - The Last Month

We've had a full month, rather than post all the events individually, I thought I'd use this post to catch up with everything:
* I got really sick (the flu) for almost two weeks. Sick enough that I didn't even update the blog :( Although I wasn't able to run for that time, I was still able to stay on track with my running goals. I did an 18-mile run last week and a 20 mile run this past Thursday, so I should be on track for the Marathon on 19 September :) (also National Talk Like a Pirate Day).
* Nicole finished all her work for her Bachelor's Degree. She can be seen here celebrating with the steam cleaner she picked as a reward for finishing all her classes. I call this picture "dualing vacuums." (She also got a bread maker, but we don't have any pictures of that).
* We found some great deals for trips to Ireland and ended up getting tickets! We're going next April with my Mom and Nicole's best friend, Marie.
* Another product that Nicole just had to have is called the defurminator (yeah, I know). It actually did work as advertised, as seen in the picture below. All that white stuff on the lawn is just some of the fur that was defirminated off Gabe. As you can see, it's totals more mass then Teddy (the little dog). Nicole also got Gabe a shock collar on account of the police visit in the middle of the night, but that's another story.

* This month saw a lot of activity on various DYI and home improvement projects. We decided if we keep going to Home Depot, we'll need a bigger car; you can only fit so much into a Corolla. We'll post some before and after pictures later, but we've 1) had a new roof put on the garage 2) new window put in the living room and bedrooms 3) initial painting done in the future "super-office" 3) Nicole repaired the sprinklers and 4) the swamp cooler 5) We're planning a new granite counter-top for the bathroom 6) actually, that's it, but isn't that enough for one month?
* We have continued to eat. I've continued to cook and try and be creative. Here's "Love with a side of meatballs":

* Nicole's also regularly been attending a weekly seminar in Salt Lake.

* In the midst of the defending of the thesis and the finishing of degrees and working full time jobs and home projects and running and eating, we also took the chance to take a long weekend in Cedar. We went camping in the mountains and hiked the beautiful Zion's narrows. Here's the pictures:

Pretty beautiful, huh? We also finished reading a book together (it only took about 8 months) so it was a nice break.

*Oh and we bought a car:

We're thinking of names. Here are the top contenters, place your vote or suggest a new one: Magnum, Prometheus, Remington (Steele), Craigen.

So anyway, that's our been our month. Up next: I'll wrap up teaching the Gender class and start teaching History at UVU and some other class at BYU. Nicole starts a Leadership training seminar. We go to Canada, New York and Connecticut and register our new car. Oh and I might apply for an internship in Salt Lake.

(Sore) Green Thumb

We finally got around to buying AND planting some roses for our front yard. We have two "Golden Unicorns" (GU) Three "Kings Randsoms" (KR) a mystery red rose bush (MRR) and a white climber (WC).

We named them:
Dreamweaver (GU)
Moonshadow (GU)
Oberon (KR)
d'Artagnan (WC)
Randor (KR)
Kyrie Eleison (MRR)

Théoden (KR)

We have another white climber in the back, but we don't have a name yet, feel free to post suggestions.

Weighter Matters

I've posted about reaching my weight goal (215 lbs for a month), but in the month or so since then, the lbs. have started inching up again (and my waist has begun to centimeter out again). Partly this was because of a sever foot injury (requiring my first X-rays!) preventing me from running for awhile, but mostly it was just not having a goal.



It was hard thinking of another sufficiently motivating goal, the Wii was a really good one (even if I never have time to play) and I struggled to come up with something else that would entice me to drop another 20-25 lbs or so (5-10 of those being ones I had already lost this year). Then I had it. I'm going to run a marathon!



I know, suffering both mind and body for 4-6 hours doesn't sound like much of a reward for getting in shape, especially when compared to a Wii (note how there's no "Wii Marathon" game), but I know myself and a little reverse psychology* is just what I need right now. The other thing I need is support. I have my eye on the Logan Marathon in September which does give much time for dilly-dallying as they say. If I tell a lot of people, especially in writing, like now, then that'll help motivate me, because you all can keep me honest. So if you chat with me before September, ask how the training's going. The first two weeks have been impressive, although my 10 mile run yesterday was more of a shuffle, still I'm getting faster and more consistent in my running.



*I'm also using some regular old psychology to buy myself some books on Amazon a certain running sub-goals.