Telling Our Parents the Exciting News!

This post will have us caught up with everything that has happened in the past 2 weeks. We appologize for the past posts being so long and promise to try and make them shorter in the future.

As soon as we received word that our preliminary application had been approved with Bethany, our minds started thinking about telling our parents. We decided to create small picture books of our journey as husband and wife over the past three years. After flipping through the book, the last page would reveal our annoucement. This page had a picture of baby feet with the words "We're Adopting" over the image. Now that the book was completed, we had to come up with a legitimate reason for meeting up with our parents.

The first call was made to Kelly's parents. Dinner was scheduled at Buffalo Wild Wings in Fayetteville. After placing our order, we told Kelly's parents that we had a gift for them. We explained that we had made a picture book for our anniversary, sharing our journey over the past three years. We told them that we thought they might like a copy and this one was theirs. Kelly's dad flipped through the book first. When Kelly's dad flipped to the last page, his eyes got big and he couldn't stop smiling. He wanted Kelly's mom to be surprised. So, he passed the book off to her and said, "Here, go ahead and look at it!" She slowly flipped through the pages. We watched closely as she neared the end of the book. When she flipped the last page, she screamed in the restaurant. After a brief moment of embarrasment and looking around to see if anyone was looking, we all laughed and exchanged hugs! Telling Kelly's parents couldn't have gone any better. One family down...two to go!

Lindsey's mom and step-dad were going to be driving through Fayetteville the next afternoon, headed to the beach. So, Lindsey called her mom and asked if she wanted to meet up at McDonald's and chat a bit on their way down. No, McDonald's wasn't our favorite choice of location, but given our circumstances and the logistics of meeting up, this was our best option. So, the next afternoon, we met up at McDonald's, just off of I-95. We explained the picture book, just as we had with Kelly's parents. As Lindsey's mom began looking through the book, our hearts began to race a little. We knew that in a matter of seconds she would find out that she was going to be a grandmother! As she turned the last page, her face glowed with excitement and great joy! She said she felt something was up, but didn't know what was going on. She and Steve were both very excited and anxious to hear all about Bethany and the adoption process.

Last, but not least was Lindsey's dad and step-mom. Coordinating a time to tell them our news was a little challenging. After numerous text messages, we determined it would be impossible to get together and tell them our news over the weekend, espcially since we wanted to announce it to our church family on Sunday. We decided to call them and tell them over the phone. We told them about the book and that their copy was waiting for the next time we saw them. They were so excited to hear of our news and are looking forward to being grandparents. We'll have a picture soon of Lindsey's dad and step mom with their picture book.

It's wonderful to know how excited all of our parents are and we can't wait to see them with their grandchild.