Happy Anniversary!

I am a day behind but...Happy 4th Anniversary to my dear husband Clark. I love you so much and know that you are the one for me :) You make me smile and always know whats best for me (hehe most of the time). I wouldn't trade you for the world. I love you and look forward to mannnnny more years with you!

Birth Parents

Today was a really special day!  I got a call from the Missouri State Adoption Services. Kinda caught me off guard.They found a match for my birth father. I put in my papers last September thinking there might be a chance that my birth parents put information in as well. I got a letter back saying they didn't have anything in the system but I would be informed should that change. For those of you who didn't know, I am adopted, and was at 6 weeks. My birth parents were 15 and 16 when they had me. I knew just a little about them from a paper I got about them. I didn't know their  names but I knew how tall they were, their height, weight, and hair/eye color at that time. I also knew some of their interests and  health backgrounds.

Back to the story. I talked to this sweet adoption service worker who said she had just talked to my birth father on the phone. He was really happy too. He had been looking through the records of the hospital trying to find a match. He had to get permission from my birth mom to contact me as they both have to say yes. She isn't ready to speak yet but since she has kept in contact with my birth father (they must still be friends) she gave him permission. I know his name, his address, and his phone number, which I won't disclose on here, and I also know what state my birth mother lives in. Pretty cool huh! The service worker said today was meant to be. My birth father had put in his papers in March of last year and I did my in September of last year. Apparently the papers were still at the court house I think so maybe that's why there was not a match right away. Crazy. I always thought I would go through out life not knowing much more about my birth parents, and I was okay with that. I just know the Lord had a hand in this and knew both of our desires.

I do want to contact him so I am waiting for the right time. Perhaps before the end of the year I will make the call. I am so blessed and love my parents I have today. I wouldn't trade them for the world. I do however feel like a piece of me has been found and that I don't have to go on forever wondering.

Oh happy day!

Tampa Visit

This past weekend Clark and I visited Tampa! My friend Danielle was having her baby shower and of course I couldn't miss that!

Doesn't she look great! She is due late August/early September!

Sheri and I headed to the beach with the kiddos and it was super fun! I even got some sun which I am reallllllly happy about!

We went out with Jen, Sheri and Matt one night for dinner at Bern's steakhouse. Doesn't this place look like it could be the haunted mansion at Disney!?

Desert was divine! Matt, Sheri and Jen had never been to Bern's so we did the kitchen and wine collection tour. We were super full after dinner but we had to make it up to the desert room!   

On Saturday Sheri and I headed out to do some errands and when we came home Clark looked like this:

He's gonna be a great dad some day!

That night was the pioneer celebration at the church so we showed up to eat the yummy pulled pork and of course to line dance... ;)

Clark and his friends Chris and Mike drove out onto the farms in Mike's deuce to hog hunt that night...and of course they didn't bring anything back...typical ;) hehe

We ended our trip by attending our old ward at church! I love our friends back in Tampa! We'll have to visit again real soon! Thanks to Matt and Sheri who let us bunk at their place!

Cow Appreciation Day!

So my friend Laura and I were being pretty goofy and headed over to Chick-fil-a to claim our free meal for Cow Appreciation Day. You had to dress up like a cow and show your appreciation...obviously. So here I am looking rather hot ;) plus it was 100 degrees outside too and that didn't help!

You should have seen the ladies in front of us. They were wearing a huge sign draped over their shoulders,  hand stitched ears, and a big yarn tail. They def. went all out.

Happy July 4th!

On Saturday we had a couple of friends come over to celebrate the 4th of July with us. There was tons of good food and plenty of entertainment!

The yummy feast!

Clark making the virgin margaritas!

Melanie and Layla hanging out!

The boys playing pool bball.

Layla deciding she wants to swim too!

The delicious cake Laura and Scott made!

The happy couple!

We are so grateful to live in a free country and to be blessed with so many things. We've lived and visited some many other countries but America is the best by far. Happy July 4th!

Emilina Ballerina Giveaway

I am really excited about next week because starting July 5th and running through July 8th will be Styled by Nights FIRST giveaway by Emilina Ballerina! If you want to win this necklace

then visit Styled by Night on Monday July 5th and leave a comment! Don't forget to become a Follower of Styled by Night! Tell all your friends about the giveaway! Thanks!

Del Ray

Tonight we headed to Del Ray Beach to eat dinner at JB's and we were just in time for the Elvis show...Phil, my father in law, loved this guy. He could have stayed all night listening to him. It was pretty funny. I took a video but I don't see where I can upload it on here. Bummer!

Instead of listening to Elvis after we ate we headed over to Kilwins, which has the tastiest ice cream! YUM! I got the Banana Fudge Pie and it was DIVINE!

We love our new home and look forward to exploring it a lot more!

First Visitors

Two weekends ago we had our first visitors in Boca! Danielle and Chris Harris came down because Chris teaches a class on the weekends in certain Florida locations. We pretty much had a lazy weekend which was awesome! We hung by the pool, watched the World Cup, ate dinner at Payzins, and finished it off with frozen yogurt at Yogurtland!

Yogurtland has around 15 flavors to choose from and tons of toppings (like Pinkberry out west). You pay by the ounce and its super yummy! I think we waited in line for 10 mins!

Me and Danielle

Thanks for visiting! You guys need to come more often!

Boca Living

Well we are here in Boca and alas we have INTERNET! I finally have time (other than working and lounging by the pool) to blog and update all my peeps!

Here is a picture taken about 5 seconds before we were kicked out of our house because the new renters showed up...

How bare and sad this picture is. We will never live in this home again. I still haven't really had time to be emotional about our move to Boca. I'm not depressed by any means but I am sad about all the friends we left behind.

So to all those folks who want to see where our temp. home is (aka the in-laws) here you go!

The lovely Gray home

My lunch breaks

The kitchen and living room

Our room is on the left. We painted and re-carpeted the room on the right last week.

Our bathroom

The gym!!!!!!!

The boys bball court.

So I must say, living with the in-laws has been great. They are the nicest people and we have fun! I think we have our first Tampa visitors this weekend! They get to stay here:

Well not the bathroom...haha but this is the pool house bathroom attached to the pool house bedroom! So nice!

We're here!

Well, it has been a few crazy past days for both Clark and myself. Clark decided it was best to quit his job earlier than anticipated and head on down to Boca. We were so blessed to have great friends who allowed us to stay with them in Tampa before we headed out for good. All my girlfriends came over to have a good bye lunch for me and it was really nice of them.We headed out Friday night and pulled in pretty late. Clark had to take some McDonald's safety test so he was up early the next day. We will be living with Clark's parents for sometime as we rented out our house in Tampa and wont be able to buy anything of our own. We are excited to be moving in with them into their new house they purchased.

We will be unpacking today so I am sure I will find the camera cord to upload some pictures on here! Everything has happened so fast and its still weird to think that we aren't heading back to Tampa to live. We are both really excited though to be here and we are anxious to meet new people and get in the groove of things.

Again, I want to thank everyone that we have met in Tampa and for everything they have done for us! We should be back to visit sometime soon!