St Louis

OK. First of all, obviously we've had an Extreme Makeover - Blog Edition. We're going with an "elegant-modern" look inspired by our most recent photo shoot of the girls (photos of the shoot will be coming in a later post).

Because we've neglected the blog over the busy summer months. We are going to catch up, starting with our anniversary trip to St Louis:

The Arch

 

St Louis Union Station (where we stayed)

Tammy at the Zoo

Again, Tammy at the Zoo

Joe at the Zoo

Again, Joe at the Zoo

At the Base of the Arch

Tammy in the Tiny Cylindrical Arch-Elevator

The Shadow of the Arch

Us at the Top

Tammy with a 1/2" thick piece of stainless steel between her and 600 feet of nothing

Why St Louis? Well, why not St Louis. It's the gateway to the West. The arch is very romantic, and St Louis Union Station is gorgeous. It really had nothing to do with the fact that we got the the hotel, food, and half the airfare paid for because we coupled our anniversary adventure with a business trip.

Anniversary Post!

To mark the 1st anniversary since our first blog post, we're posting our family picture taken after Sara's adoption was final. I thought it only fitting since our first post, entitled Sara Christine Hood, was about introducing her to everyone.

This is what we wore as a family to the court room. We had a hard time getting everyone to settle down . . . and we're lucky we got them to look toward the camera, much less get any smiles.

So, in celebrating our blog's 1st anniversary: here's to you--all ye who dwell in the bloggernacle--may your posts be fun and your comments be many!


While I'm at it, I may as well mention some milestones from the past year:

1-The kids are all still alive, and relatively well (this was harder than you think to achieve).

2-I'm not crazy . . . yet. But I am suffering from some sort of Post-finalization Depression (I went through PPD with the other three and it's fitting for it to happen with Sara--just means I have truly accepted her as my own) who knew!?!

3-Our cars are still alive, but our HVAC system, washing machine (twice), dishwasher, stove, alternator, 2 car batteries, and the radio in the van all died beyond repair and had to be replaced. (yes, all while paying for a VERY expensive adoption)

Post-poned

Sorry our blogging has been put off for the month of April. Tammy has been a single mom for half of the month, raising anywhere from 4-6 kids at any one given moment. Meanwhile, Joseph has been living it up in Vegas and NYC. So, don't give up on us now. There will be more of our beloved posts, but probably not until the month is o're. Our apologies again--and as tigger would say, "T-T-F-N, ta ta for now!"

Don't worry about the site logo

If you liked the window sticker theme, don't worry--we did too and it will be back. We just wanted to have a little fun playing with the logo.

(no, joseph wanted to have fun playing with the logo. he seems to have this strange attraction to the google theme [why don't you marry it]. here's the conversation:

"hey tammy, isn't this the coolest logo for our family for the blog?"

"nope. not really. i like the other one better. what's so special about this one? and what's this thing at the bottom with all the o's? are you just trying to make it even on the page?"

"it's the google font. isn't that cool? it's our name with the google font. i changed our stick family robinson to this new logo. and anybody can see that the thing at the bottom is the google thing that tells you which page you're on. everybody knows that."

"ah. well, it's not that obvious because i had to ask about it. can you change it back please?"

"yeah eventually. i was just trying it out anyways.")

Google Bomb

This is kinda cool. We are now thoroughly googlable. Just enter "Joseph and Tammy Hood" into Google and see what you get . . .

Update: When this blog was first posted, searching "joseph and tammy hood" in Google would show our blog at the top. Well, It seems that's not the case anymore for some reason...