Tempe, Arizona

I had the opportunity to tag along with Trent to a conference being held in Tempe, Arizona. In the beginning of March. Just when you can't stand winter any longer in Pennsylvania. We flew out of Philadelphia's airport at a brisk 32 degrees and touched down in Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport at a lovely 80 degrees.  It felt like Heaven.

Front of Tempe Mission Palms

We stayed at the Tempe Mission Palms hotel. I can't even tell you how lovely this hotel was. But I'll try.  Open your door to a beautiful open-air courtyard full of palm trees, orange trees full of oranges, and the most deliciously fresh, clean scent you can imagine. The room itself was also nice, recently updated. The pool was on the second floor, a roof pool over looking shiny buildings on one side and a desert mountain on the other.

Orange trees right out our door!

Courtyard view

  The main reason (other than the obvious escape from the cold) I wanted to go was the chance to visit my grandparents. They live in Clarkdale, Arizona, about 2 hours away from Tempe. My Grandpa (78) made arrangements for someone to cover for him at his job at the hospital (he does valet parking at the hospital), and my Nana (72) communicated with me on the timing of it all. They were very generous and helped pay my way to them since they knew we were trying to be super careful with our spending as we plan for the huge expense of our adoption. I was thrilled for a chance to spend a full day with them.

The last time I saw both of them, Magdalena was just three weeks old, and I was still recovering from the c-section and the whirlwind of adding a third child under age three to our family. I was not fortunate to grow up with any grandparents living in the same state as my family. My family is originally from California, but we moved to Pennsylvania when I was four years old, leaving behind aunts, uncles, cousins, and both sets of grandparents. I remember well the angst of "grandparent's day" at school, knowing that mine would never be there. I feel extremely grateful that we were able to drive out west multiple times during my childhood to see family and they were able to come see us a few times as well. I'm very grateful that my daughters can get to know their grandparents very well.

Even though I didn't get to see them often, the feelings and memories are alive. When Nana and Grandpa stepped out of their car it was like no time had passed at all since I last saw them. What a treat to have them all to myself!

Selfie with my Nana!

We sat in the courtyard and chatted for a couple of hours, then made our way to Macayo's for lunch. Legend has it they are the unintentional inventor of the chimichanga (deep-fried burrito). The story goes that a burrito was accidentally dropped into the deep frier, and out came the chimichanga. The rest is history. Obviously I had to have one. With guacamole. Because you're in Arizona. So you need a margarita to go with it. What a lunch!

Macayo's with my grandparents!

What a treasure these people are!

Next we drove outside of Tempe for some sight seeing. Grandpa didn't get us lost at all. ;) We had a nice scenic view of the botanical gardens and even drove past the zoo. It was getting too hot for us to walk around at this point.

We went back to the hotel to get some water and lemonade and a piece of carrot cake. Trent was able to get out of his classes from 5-6 so he hung out with us for a little while. At 6 Trent had to go back for a cocktail hour and dinner. My grandparents still had a two hour drive home so they headed out. It was sad to see them go, but what a wonderful day we had.



Friday I was on my own as Trent had to be at his conference. I walked to Starbucks at 10 am for a late, delicious breakfast. The weather was just perfect. I enjoyed walking down the streets, not a care in the world, and perfect temperatures.

Totally turned into one of "those" people who takes pictures of their food. Haha!

Tempe seems to be a very young city. Everything was bright and clean, although there were a lot of homeless people. After leisurely strolling around I headed back to the hotel to hang out by the pool. I caught up on my Bible study, relaxed, listened to podcasts, and swam.

Bible Study with a view!

Trent joined me there when his lunch was over.

Watching my man swim :: weird leg pic.

I ate a nice big salad from the Pool Grille. After more swimming and more relaxing we headed back to our room.

Another food pic - but Oh man! I wish I could eat this salad again!

After cooling off and drinking lots of water we headed out for a hike to the little mountain we could see from the pool. It was a nice climb with many beautiful cacti. There was a gorgeous view of the city and our hotel on one side, and the other side was the suburbs and more red mountains. It was just lovely.

The little mountain we climbed (view from the pool, of course!)

"Mountain" top selfie

That night we went to an Irish Pub Trent had seen and wanted to take me to. Unfortunately, well, it was Irish (my mom's side of the family is Irish). And, I just had to chuckle because in some ways it reminded me of what a family reunion would be like. Loud. Lots of laughing, lots of loud talking. Definitely not Trent's scene.

Had to wear a fringe dress while I was in Arizona!

But the food was awesome, and of course I had to have some sort of Irish coffee. I went with the "Nutty Irishman". Warmed me right up!

Me and my Nutty Irishman!

We again walked the streets of Tempe. Found these candy cigarettes in a Sweet Shoppe. Am I the only person who loved these as a kid yet never smoked a real cigarette in my life???

Wanted to buy them for the girls - Trent said, "no!"

We ended the night by sitting in the courtyard of the hotel, enjoying just being together in a beautiful place. I'm so grateful to Trent's parents for watching the girls, my grandparents for helping make it happen, and Trent's job for letting me tag along. I really believe that one of the best gifts we can give our children is to show them what a strong marriage looks like. For me, that means occasionally getting away with my husband, so that when the kids are grown and out of the house we still know who each other are and still have a strong bond and connection.

So if you ever go to visit Tempe, Arizona in March, just be prepared that you might not want to go back home.

Love this man!

Adoption Update

Hey friends. If you haven't heard by now, we're adopting!! For the full story, go back one post and read and the details!

Several of you have been asking how things are going and where we're at right now in the process. Our application was filed on January 4. It is now March 10, so we are just over two months into this (typically the process takes 18-24 months). We have had all of our home study documents in place for about one month. We have had both of our home visits from our social worker. We are still waiting on one document that was misplaced or lost somewhere along the line (a clearance from when I lived in Mississippi). Once that is in and our social worker is able to connect with our local children and youth office to review our home study from when we were foster parents, THEN our home study should be written up, reviewed and finalized. Our social worker is hoping that she will have her first write up for us to review on Monday, March 14. However, she was having some difficulty getting in contact with Children and Youth. I'm hopeful that by the end of March we will have our home study finalized.

Can't wait until Little Sister is the one on Anne's lap!

As we have had these documents in place for awhile we began plowing ahead to gather the necessary paperwork for our dossier (another set of papers which will be sent to China). At this point we are waiting for one more reference and need to get one more paper notarized. Once we have those two things we will send that packet of papers to our agency's main branch in Oregon. We have opted to have them process all the dossier paperwork to get the special certifications and authentications. These things are very confusing and involve considerable amounts of time. For their fee we felt this was certainly worth it. I'm hoping to get the notary done on Saturday and it just depends when our friend gets time to write our last referral letter. Hopefully I will be sending these documents to Oregon next week.

So, to make a long story short, we're closing in on the paperwork part of our journey! That is a huge weight off our shoulders. There will still be some paperwork (filing for immigration, etc.), but mostly there will be waiting.

While we wait for paperwork to process and eventually we will be waiting to be matched with our daughter we will be doing some fundraising. As many of you know, adoption is very expensive, we were told to budget approximately $35,000. I'll post more about fundraising at a later date. For now, I'd absolutely love if you would PRAY for our remaining paperwork to go through smoothly, and for our daughter in China. Although we aren't matched with her yet, more than likely she has been born recently. We would love if you would pray for her birth family as well as her current caretakers.

Thanks, everyone!

xoxo,

Mama Hess