Thanks for all of the birthday wishes! It's weird to think that I am 28 already! I can't believe that 30 will come so soon! I had a nice day filled with phone calls and emails, it was so nice to be thought of. This is our first year away from family and I was worried that I would be sad to celebrate without everybody around, but it was a wonderful day made all the better by all of you!

We have been busy around here. We've gotten all of our paperwork for our home study in and are hoping to be approved to adopt within the next week or two! We're pretty excited about that. I'm just relieved to not have anymore paperwork looming over my head! (seriously, it's a stack of papers about 2 inches thick!) So we should be up on the church's site (http://www.itsaboutlove.org/) soon and then will be available for birthmothers to view.

We also took the opportunity last week to take in a baseball game. It was my first Yankee's game and Daniel's first professional baseball game ever! (which is kind of surprising because of how much Bryan loves the Yankees, he is undyingly loyal to them... in a cute way, he's not obsessed!) We had such a good time. (Daniel has started to make funny faces in pictures,

little punk!)The Yankee's were playing the Indians up in Cleveland so it was just a 2 hour drive for us. We arrived about 2 hours early to watch batting practice and attempt to get an autograph for Daniel. It was fun to watch the players warming up and practicing, you can get a lot closer than you'll most likely be sitting for the game, so you can see it all better. Unfortunately they weren't signing anything that day, I don't know why, I think they were just trying to stay focused on the game. (they had lost the last couple of games to this same team.) We brought a couple of baseballs, (in case we got to get an autograph) and I was soooo nervous that Daniel would throw one! He almost did a few times, but we took them away soon enough.

When we found our seats Daniel was enthralled by the picture of a swinging batter on the end of the row. (you can see one right above his head in the picture below) It served as entertainment throughout the game. I love his little imagination.

Daniel was pretty impressed with all of the players, his favorite was "A-Wad" (Alex Rodriguez) pretty dang cute if you ask me. We were close enough that we could actually see what was going on. This is Jeter at bat. It was a good game but the Yankees couldn't pull it out in the end. :( I keep telling Bryan that we should go to a game in NYC before they tear down their stadium next year. (luckily he's the more practical of the two of us! I would just hop in the car and go!) But instead we might shoot for next summer and see a game during their first season in their new stadium. (anyone we could stay with in NYC?)

We were sitting closest to Johnny Damon. He kept leaning over and picking the grass, at first I thought he was either bored or really particular about the cleanliness of his outfield. (!) But then I watched more closely and noticed he was picking a few blades of grass and throwing them in the air to see which way the wind was blowing, so smart. I never would have thought of that. Good thing I'm a mommy instead of a baseball player! I took tons of pictures of him and tried to convince Bryan that it was because he was the closest player to us and in the best light, not because I thought he was hot... I don't think he believed me.

While we were there Daniel kept up with his latest phrase of choice, "I'm hungry!" (I seriously cannot keep this boy fed, he's eating us out of house and home!) So we got him a hot dog. He refused the dog and just wanted to eat the bun. It's the most expensive bun he'll ever eat. We also got him some cotton candy to try. He wasn't too impressed so Bryan and I 'had' to finish it for him.

On our way out of the stadium Bryan asked a police officer the easiest way to the freeway through the traffic and Daniel yelled, "Thank you Mr. Police Officer!" Everyone around us laughed and the cop talked to him for a little bit which made Daniel's day. As we left the parking garage I looked back and Daniel was out. I guess being a baseball spectator is exhausting work for a little boy!