Just for Fun : The Marriage Tag

What are your names? Brandon Tyler Dopf and Lisa Renee (Voorhees) Dopf

How long have you been together? Married 4 years in August!

How long did you date? Here's the funny part and also what we use as our disclaimer is that we knew each other for nearly 6 months before we started dating. We dated 3 weeks before we got engaged, and then were engaged for 3 and a half months.

How old are you? He is almost 26 (next month) and I am almost 25 (next month)

Who eats more? With out a doubt and especially now that I am behaving myself; Brandon.

Who said I love you first? Brandon

Who is taller? Brandon is 6 feet and I am 5 feet 10 inches.

Who is smarter? I think we are pretty tied on that one. We both know quite a bunch of neat things, as well as lots of useless information!

Who does the laundry? Me. I am pretty particular. But he is great and helps to fold the clothes.

Who does the dishes? Both of us really. We both don't like to see the sink full of dirty dishes, but we both slip up every now and then.

Who pays the bills? He does. I don't like to see how much I am spending. ;)

Who mows the lawn? We have only ever rented, but he has told me he enjoys it! I guess that takes care of that one for the future!

Who cooks dinner? Usually me, with his help. He always offers, and he never complains about having to cook dinner on occasion.

Who drives when you are together? Almost always him, since my job requires SO much driving.

Who is more stubborn? I just might take the cake on that one, but it really can depend on the reason for being stubborn.

Who kissed who first? We can both take the blame for that one.

Who asked who out first? Interesting, but I told him I thought we could go out for some fun, and then he asked me out not too long after that.

Who proposed? He asked me! He fooled me in to walking up Old Main Hill and under a tree say 3 roses. He explained that one rose represented our past, the next our present, and the last as our future. The last rose had a white satin ribbon around it with the ring tied to it. He knelt down and asked me.

Who has more siblings? We are equally yolked on that one. We are both the youngest of 3.

Who wears the pants in the family? Funny thing is, we are pretty good at the give and take in our relationship. I think that is the only way to go.

Just for the fun of it I now tag Tammie, Shelly, Rachel, and Tanya!

Great Week, on ALL Accounts!

This week was a little busy for me!

Monday was our home study. Tuesday was work and more work. Wednesday was work and driving to SLC for the kick off of the UTRID conference for interpreters. Instead of driving back and forth with the crazy gas prices, I stayed with my wonderful friend/3rd sister Amber. She lives fairly close to the Deaf Center where the workshops and conference were taking place, so I took full advantage of being able to see her, and attend the conference as well! It was a blast! I learned so many new things, and saw so many people that I hadn't crossed paths with for a while. While I was gone, I am sure that Brandon was able to enjoy being a "bachelor" again, and to come and go as he pleased. I sure enjoyed having my own bed for a few days! I often would check in with Brandon through text messages or what have you and I got a VERY pleasant and happy surprise that we ALREADY had received our foster parenting license in the mail! I was thrilled!

In other news, I haven't said much of anything, but with some recent developments in jumping through the hoops of dealing with foster care, and everything else, there is a list of possible things that could happen as a result of trying to get Taylor. We have been prepared emotionally and mentally almost from the beginning of it all, but we have really tried to remain positive and just hope for the best for everything to work out. We have done everything we could possibly think of to do. Now it is up to the courts to decide Taylor's future. I am glad that months or even years after all this is done and over with, that I won't have to look back and regret or second guess anything that we have done.

Stamp of Approval!!

After what has seemed a long process with working to get our license we passed the health and safety inspection for our duplex, and the home study as well! We will officially be licensed as foster parents by the middle of next week! We couldn't be more excited about this! Thank you for your support and prayers, because we are going to need more in the weeks to come! Love all y'all!

Playing Cinderella... with OCD

I have seriously spent more than 3/4 of my weekend cleaning bathrooms, mopping floors, scrubbing walls, moving furniture, vacuuming, dusting, organizing, shampooing my carpets, and running around like a chicken with my head cut off! I have paid more attention to how I clean which really means something if you know my family and how most of us are germaphobes! I can't stand having a dirty house. It does happen from time to time that it gets cluttered when I work long hours but it quickly puts me into what I like to call "Cinderella" mode and I clean the house from top to bottom.

But with this home study tomorrow it's been more like Cinderella with OCD/on crack mode when it comes to getting everything done. I stayed up until 2 am Friday night (can you tell I have no life?) cleaning house. I wiped down the inside of my kitchen drawers, organized my medicine cabinet that now has to be locked to meet Utah's Foster Care guidelines, I shampooed the same area of carpet probably 5 times (the area where Lexi has messed the carpet a few more times than I would like to admit), and organized out the yin-yang closets and cabinets. Then I went back and re-vacuumed the house today, and used a rag to get all the hair from me getting ready this morning in the bathroom. It's been interesting to say the least.

I just hope that all this work will be to our benefit. I don't really think it's possible that we will fail this inspection because we have had to jump through so many hoops just to get to this point. But you never know what could happen!

This week is going to be busy, I have a UTRID (Utah Registry of Interpreter's for the Deaf) conference from Wednesday to Saturday! I am excited for it!

Finalizing Our To Do List...

Excitedly since next Monday is our home study/health and safety check from the state office of licensing, we have a to do list of things to make sure that we get done!

Installing necessary magnetic safety locks
Making sure all chemicals, knives, and scissors are locked up
Covering all exposed electrical outlets
Cleaning house
Screwing in the baby gate at the top of the stairs

We are thrilled that this day is finally so near! Brandon is coming home with a friend tonight with power tools to make sure things are installed correctly!

A Reconciliation

For the past month or so it has been a little more than frustrating when trying to get answers from people involved with this whole process in trying to get paperwork and other things pushed through, approved and where they need to be. Since I have more time and a more flexible schedule that enables me to make the phone calls in the attempt to become more educated as to how everything goes and trying to get updates on the status of background checks and trying to set up a home study.

About a month ago or so, we finally got a phone call from a gal named Amanda who works for the Utah state office of licensing for foster parents. Funny thing is that for an entire week we played phone tag, but what didn't really impress me was that she was very ambiguous when she said that she could only be in charge of our case for 2 weeks before she was leaving for 6 weeks,and that we would be reassigned to a new case worker. I couldn't help but think it was silly that we would be assigned to her if she was leaving, and that we should have been assigned to someone else so as to maintain consistency, but has we have all but learned in the last few weeks, there is anything BUT consistency in working with the government's agencies. But I tried to stay optimistic and started asking Amanda questions as soon as any came to mind. It seemed that she didn't really care to help us. So I was passed along from person to person with my questions and not getting a lot of answers. I actually spent an entire 30 minutes on the phone with someone that was not only rude to me, but would talk over me when asking questions or explaining answers in return, only to get to the end of the conversation extremely frustrated and sick of this person treating me like an idiot, and no answers were given.

So after SEVERAL what seemed like unending weeks of nothing but road blocks and dead end conversations, I had just had it in dealing with stupid people. To me it's one thing to admit that you don't know the answer to my questions, and another different thing when you pretend to know the answer to my question that leads me to absolutely nowhere. But if you were in my shoes talking to some of these people, you would wholeheartedly agree with me that it certainly takes talent to be that stupid. I knew at the beginning of this whole process that it wouldn't be easy. I know that God doesn't just open a door of opportunity to just let you be able to walk right through with out taking each vital step. But there finally came a point that I honestly thought I couldn't take it any more. Let's just say that I nearly came to a "breaking" point. I just broke down crying. I had tried to be strong for so long that I just couldn't be that anymore. What made it worse was that I thought of all the people I know that seem to have been able to carry any type of burden without ever breaking, always so full of grace. Then I realized that I don't necessarily have to be one of those people. It was then that I finally found strength again by getting on my knees and praying to God to carry me through this. An overwhelming peace came over me that I needed to experience for myself instead of having people tell me that it would be okay.

A couple of days after this, I was feeling a lot better and I received a call from a new licensor. At first our conversation started out by saying that she had gotten all of our paperwork in! That meant the background checks that we were told were going to take a very long time to get back, and our entire file! I sat in shock at hearing this, and then my excitement was shot to heck within seconds... on the other end of the line I heard her say that she was mistaken. She had been fingering through our file and couldn't find our background papers. She apologized over and over for getting me all excited, so I started asking some questions. It was a good thing that I kept her on the phone because she said she found the papers she needed at the very back of our file, so we were able to schedule June 9th for our HOME STUDY!!! We are thrilled at this and are gradually making the efforts to finalize getting everything done in our home to have her come to do the Health & Safety Inspection and the actually home study itself. She explained that it should only take her about a week to write up our home study since she will be able to type in our answers while she is here on her laptop! We were told that it would take a month to get our home study to get done! So this was WONDERFUL and totally WELCOME news! I just kind of sat there and was trying to soak all of this in. I was so grateful for some good news. I was in dire straits for some good news, and for answers! Thus the State being able to reconcile their stupidity by finally being able to provide someone that knew the difference between their rear end and a hole in the ground!

Ever since this call and getting this good news, I have been extremely calm. It couldn't have come at a better time for me.

Tomorrow we are going up to Twin Falls again to see Taylor and our other nephew as well! We will post some pictures after we get back!

Me to the Rescue! (Scary Thought I Know)

So the funniest thing I could think of to blog about was that I got a text message from my sister on Wednesday asking what my plans were for Thursday. I didn't have much of anything to do after some appointments that I had that day, so I headed over to her house on my way back from Bountiful. She told me that she needed help fixing her hair, because she had gone to get her highlights touched up from a long overdue appointment. The gal that did her hair was a little overzealous with the blonde and ended up making my sister (or so she thinks) like a Play Boy Bunny Blonde. I told my sister that all I could think of was something called a toner, since the damage was already done by bleaching it. Basically toner is a concoction of chemicals that will help tone down your hair and make it come out a little less bright, without having to dye your hair all over again. My sister must've thought it was bad enough, so we went to Sally Beauty Supply and bought some toner and creme developer. We came home to her house and I put the toner in and sat and waited. Then while my sister and I had been styling her hair to make sure that everything turned out alright, I noticed that the hairstylist hadn't cut her hair evenly. That was the moment in time that I wish my hair experience was more that just that of home hair care! So my sister left me to take care of her kids while she ran back to get it fixed. Luckily the manager of the hair place recognized Katie from the day before and helped to smooth out the unevenness of her hair,and Katie came home. Then I was looking at her hair again, and the gal must have been blind because the bottom was NOT even at all. So my sister (exhibiting more than her share of faith in me) handed me a pair of scissors and told me to fix it. So I did. Like my sister said in her blog, it is sad that I as a sign language interpreter was able to fix her hair without any real experience in hair styling.

Other than that, there is really nothing new in the adoption/foster parenting arena. Just waiting and waiting!