Happy Holy-Day

Jodi and I want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas.

I can't believe how fast time flies. Our last entry was around Thanksgiving and here we are to Christmas Eve already!!

Yesterday was pretty dang cool. A bit of a dream come true if you will. Let me set the scene for you. It's a beautiful rainy dark day in Oregon. I'm out running errands with all the rain soaked gift toting crazies. I slide into the garage back home and walk into a little slice of heaven. My sweet beautiful pregnant wife is in the kitchen with grandma and the house smells like a gourmet candy shop. Chocolate chip cookies, heath candy bar squares and caramel corn is stacking up on the counter-tops in a endless stream of calorie stuffing goodness. It's hard to believe that this scene could get any better but in about two months it will!! Sure the sight and sounds maybe a little different but it will be awesome. Instead of walking into the house and hearing the sounds of "White Christmas" on the TV it will be filled the cries of a baby boy and instead of the sweet smell of cookies there will be the smell of...of... well.... the smell of baby I guess.....

Yeah, the look of the counter-tops will change too.... instead of the cookies and caramel corn there will be formula and diapers and well more baby stuff.

2008 it going to be great and by the grace of God we will have a healthy baby boy.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!
Hey, I just made a total elf of myself. Check it out by clicking the link below.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1762086823

Tis' the Season

Well well well, it's been too long since our last update but as you can imagine things have been busy here. We are preparing for baby boy Stephens (name to be announced some time around the beginning of March) and the time is flying by. We just celebrated Thanksgiving and before we know it Christmas will be here and gone.

We have a lot of things going on this month and tonight we are kicking off the holiday's by attending the 45th annual Singing Christmas Tree. This will be Jodi and I's first time to attend and we are looking forward to it.

For everyone who wants to see all the pictures from our Disneyland trip just click on the link and sign-up for the free Costco photo service. Costco has a great website to upload your pictures to.

Disney Photos

Well, Happy Holiday's everyone and we will talk to you all soon.

BABY ANNOUNCEMENT

ok! ok! so we are a week behind on getting the news onto the blog but the day after we found out we flew off to Disneyland. So, the picture above should be obvious enough!!!

That's right a baby boy is on the way!!!

Jodi is 20 weeks along and doing great. The doctor said that everything looks just fine. Once we found out what we were having we decided, hey lets go to Disneyland!!!

Soon as we get more time we will upload pictures from our Disneyland trip.

17 days to Disneyland

Well, we are all getting pretty excited about Disneyland but the day before we leave for Disneyland we will find out if it will be a boy or a girl!!!!

Will it be pink Mickey Mouse ears or blue Mickey Mouse ears? Tell what you think on our new poll.

Labor Day at the Coast

After a weekend at work, we wanted to spend Labor Day at the coast. We drove to Newport, originally wanting to see the Oregon Aquarium. It was a very scenic drive, we took Wilsonville Rd then cut thru Newburg and then got onto Highway 18 thru wine country. I called my sister-in-law, Anne Marie. She decided to bring her three boys and join us. Greg and I stopped at the outlet mall in Lincoln City and shopped for about a hour. We all met up at this beachfront restaurant that Anne Marie discovered called Georgie's. She told us that she wanted to eat there because she digged the orange-colored sign. The restaurant was right on the beach. Afterwards, we all hiked down a long stairway to the sand. Greg brought along his kick-butt stunt kite and managed to pull off some pretty cool tricks. After playing along the coast, (greg and I got wet!) Anne Marie and the boys drove home, and Greg and I drove to Depot Bay and walked around. We decided not to go to the Aquarium that day, but we did see some seals in Depot Bay. The traffic was so thick on our way home, there were no accidents or construction, just a lot of people making their way home afterward a long weekend.
It was a fun day.

August Birthdays

Holy Cow!! Finally getting a chance to update our blog. Two weeks ago on Sunday the 26th we celebrated 5 birthdays. Andi's, Mine, Phebe's, Brian's and Courtney's. Jodi and I had a full house with somewhere in the neighborhood of about 21 people. We barbecued opened gifts and then took the kids to Murase park in Wilsonville.

Lots of fun, lots of food and lots of cake. Here are all the pictures.

Birthday Party August 2007

Goracke Summer Party

Yesterday, Chad and Anne Marie threw quite the shin-dig at there new place. Harvest is over and so it was time to celebrate. There was probably 75-85 people and enough chicken for everyone to have at least three chicken breast's. Chad and Anne Marie also rented a big inflatable slide; it was a huge hit for kids and "big" kids alike.
To see all the pictures from the party click on the picture below.

Goracke Summer Party 2007

Amazingly the rain stayed away and the slide did not turn into a slip and slide. I saw enough little ones running away from the slide crying after taking head on head collisions I can only imagine how bad it would have been with rain.

Seattle weekend bonanza

Two weekends ago, I spent some time in Seattle with my mom and siblings. Two days is just not enough time to do all the fun things that city has to offer. We arrived at our downtown hotel, the Renaissance Friday night at around 8pm. The traffic on the way up was very thick starting in Olympia. I thought Portland was bad! We had to rush to get ready for dinner (we had reservations at 8:15) at the Italian restaurant on the very top floor (the 28th). I was getting frustrated because my size 0 banana republic pants were a little snug around my waist (I was in my 8th week of pregnancy). Right then and there, I decided that since I was in Seattle, I was going to do some shopping for some new clothes! Anyway, the restaurant was a bit of a disappointment. We all were thinking it was going to be along the lines of the Portland City Grill, with the same size, atmosphere and all. Well, it wasn't. It was very quiet (no music!) and small. The dining area was about the size of our family and kitchen put together, maybe a little larger. And the food was alright. I like Ramono's Macaroni Grill better. Despite all the negatives, we did enjoy each other's company. Afterwards, it was about 9:30pm, my brother, Adam decided to drive us over to the other side of the sound (West Seattle) and meet some of his friends. The view of the skyline at night was awesome, but I was freezing! I don't have much tolerance for the cold.
The next morning, my sister Amy really wanted all of us to go down to Pike Street Market and try these donuts that she claimed were famous. But being pregnant, there was no way I was just going to eat donuts for breakfast. I wanted a real breakfast, eggs, hashbrowns, maybe some sausage or bacon. You get the idea. I never really liked donuts anyway, except for maple bars. We walked for about 30 minutes or more around downtown Seattle until we finally ate. It was about 11am when we were done. The restaurant we ate at could have been a jazz club at one point.
Now we were ready to shop, shop, shop. least I was! Seattle is the place for it!
Amy really was in desperate need of new shoes. She wore these black pointy toe flats that had holes in them. She wanted to replace them with something practical, shoes she could wear to work and just everyday. What did she buy? By the end of the day, she ended up buying a pair of patent white and black leather high heels! But what's a girl to do? If you see a pair you love, a girl has little choice but to bring them home with her.
If you have never shopped in Seattle, here's a taste. The Old Navy itself has three levels (maternity on the 3rd level). There's a Nordstrom, and stores within the Nordstrom, Macy's, Barney's, a city center mall, tons of speciality stores, and Pike street market. We covered a lot of ground.
We hit happy hour at Palamino's. I last ate at one in Indianapolis. We all ordered pizza (except for Mom). She's on a gluten-free diet and doing quite well I might add. Mine was a little too heavy on the onions.
Adam wanted us all to visit his church that evening for the Young Professionals service (ages 25-35). Service was at 7:30 and there was a parade in town that was happening that night! 2/3 of the downtown was blocked off! It took us about forty five minutes to travel ~ 2 miles. We were fashionably late to church (missed the worship service) but was just in time for the message. The pastor was young, of course, singing the blues of turning 30 (Oh you poor thing!) Mom definitely felt like the oldest one there, but I didn't even think about it. The service reminded me of the Onyx house college-age group,except a little older. It is amazing how God can revealed himself in the middle of a mega metropolis. My family is a bunch of nightowls, except for Mom and I,and they wanted to go somewhere to get dessert. It was around 10:30pm. We just got done seeing Adam's apartment. Truthfully, I just wanted to go to bed and maybe just watch some TV. But I was going to be a good sport and go with the flow. We ended up at this very trendy urban place that was a few blocks from our hotel. Andi and I shared some sorbet (we wanted to eat healthy), Mom had some creme brulee, and Adam and Amy shared this molten "lava" chocolate cake.
The next morning, Sunday, we did finally go to the "famous" donut booth and the very first Starbucks. I got my very first Barista bear! Amy now has a dream to operate her own donut cart. Good luck on that one! We then dropped Adam off at his apartment and drove home. It was a good time and as always, it went by way too fast. Next time, I want go to the Aquarium and ride the ferries.

Preparing for Disneyland

Sure this might be a little early but hey I don't think you can ever be too prepared for a vacation to Disneyland; especially when there are 15 of you going and six of those are under the age of eight!!!

Yep, coming this October we are going to Disneyland!! Any tidbits of info., helpful hints, and any general warnings you might have feel free to leave us comments. Don't forget of course that Jodi will heading into week 20!

Here is a handy little site I just found: Familyfun.com

And in this corner.....

Coming in at 1.83cm in length in Jodi's belly out of Wilsonville, OR....... baby Stephens!!!

We had our first doctors appointment with Dr. Allard Conger today. He gave Jodi a clean bill of health and some pretty cool pictures. Check em out!!

Greg and I are very thankful that we got a borrowed portable air conditioner from our family. It is stationed in our bedroom and it works great! It almost gets the room too cold. We will be getting air conditioning for the whole house in less than 3 weeks. It just only took a few days of suffering in the 90+ degree heat for us to make that move.
Happy Birthday to Greg's dad, Bob, my mom, Freda, my brother, Chad, and our brother-in-law, Wes who all have July birthdays. I will miss the party at Dad's because I have to work, but I will be thinking of you all. God bless you. We love you!

Fire House

Yeah, that's how we roll here at our place. No AC! No problem! we love it! Isn't that right, Jodi. Jodi? where are your? Hey would you get your head out the the freezer and quit putting ice cubes in Baylee's water. What? No we can't turn on the car and pipe the AC into the house!!

Yeah!!! Summer lovin'

How hot did it get at your town so far this summer? Let us know!

Baby Names

Ok!! So we are opening this up to you our beloved family and friends. Not because we will actually use any of your suggestions for names but this way we will have record of some of the crazy names that we can show our son or daughter when they are old enough. "See, see what you could have been!!!"

So give us your thoughts and ideas and enjoy this little vid!!



Don't forget to leave your comments!!!

Our Fourth

My first fourth being pregnant! Greg and I drove down to Eugene to spend some good times with family. Greg went out to Dexter with the Stephens and Koesters to spend some time on the water tubing, knee boarding and swimming. I did not want to go out on the boat in my condition, so I watched the 4th of July parade in Harrisburg with my sister, my nieces, my cute little doggy Baylee, and Ginnie. It was so hot! Myka, Rya, and Phebe (my nieces) go so much candy thrown at them that all of it filled my sister's backpack 1/2 full! The girls had so much fun doing that! I had a lot of fun watching them. I got a little worried when they seemed to forget about the cars and trucks driving in the parade while they were out in the street getting their precious treats. The parade, filled with automobiles of the early 1900s -1960s, motor coaches, floats, horses, and mules (mules are so big, my Grandpa had a mule), lasted for ~ 1 hour (the perfect length of time for a parade). Before we arrived to our sitting spot, however, we were all on a quest to find my mom and her friends and sit with them. My mom (love you!) has not been blessed with the gift of a sense of direction and insisted that we were travelling the wrong way! However, by the end of the parade, we all discovered that we were sitting less than a block away from her! Well, as you all can imagine with three little girls and a little dog in almost 90-degree heat, we were getting pretty tired and hungry. My mom, my sister, my nieces, and Ginnie ate lunch at mucho gusto (I love mexican food) and shopped at Old Navy (where Mom bought my first maternity shirt) and Bed, Bath and Beyond. Afterwards, I took a long nap at Mom's house. At around 5pm Mom drove me over to be with Greg and his family. We barbecued, played the ultimate 4-square challenge, light a ton of fireworks, and then crashed into our beds. That was my fourth, and yes, most of us got bad sunburns, but we all got great memories.

Tuesday's Bible Study

So for almost a year now Jodi and I have been hosting a small group at our house every Tuesday from 7:30 to about 9:00. We have a great group and really feel blessed that we are able to use our house in such a way.

Right now we are studying the book of John. Every couple has there own section and tonight Jodi and I have John 5:1-18 the story of the lame man next to the pool of Bethesda.

This has been a great study and it's been cool seeing each week what every one brings to the table and what we get hung up on discussing the most.

What is your favorite verse in John? (besides John 3:16 :} )

Baby?!?

Yes, its true after six months of going through the adoption process Jodi is now pregnant and come this winter 2008 we will be having our first baby. This means we will have to put the adoption process on hold for a while but we will still be adopting.

Jodi and I very excited and would ask for your prayers as we enter into this very exciting time.

Hope to have more updates soon.

We would love to hear from you so leave comments. :)