Andrew’s Hobbies- Parts 5 and 6!
Hi friends and welcome back to my miniseries on Andrew’s Hobbies! I’m realizing I know VERY little about these last two hobbies, so I am going to combine Andrew’s final hobbies into one post. The final two hobby topics I have for Andrew are video games and airplanes.
The fifth hobby I have to share is video games. Currently, Andrew has been very into playing Destiny. Here’s the little bit I know about Destiny: it has four ‘seasons’ that come out a year, it has new raids that come out a few times a year, it is a first person shooter game, you can play it on your own or with other people online, and it makes for good background noise for a nap. Andrew plays Destiny most nights after I go to bed, since he is a night owl and I am a morning person. When new seasons come out, he tends to play a bit more for the first week or two. When a new raid comes out, they are apparently much more challenging for the first 24 hours. So Andrew plays for that period as much as he can, stopping only for sleep, food, and the bathroom. I don’t mind this, because I get a nice evening and morning to myself with the pups. Hopefully soon, I’ll also get to spend that time as special time with me and our future child.
Andrew loves everything about airplanes and airports. He gets excited about checking out the different planes we might take when we travel. Andrew knows the most recent models of planes, always reading up on what is coming out. He also loves watching them fly, land, and take off. If he has the choice and the time, Andrew would spend time at any airport— far more than I usually have patience for. Recently, he had some flight delays when he was traveling home from a trip on his own and missed a connecting flight. Instead of accepting the later flight bringing him home, he chose to detour through Orlando and take two flights instead of one. He thought it was a great adventure. Andrew’s love of airplanes has rubbed off on me a little bit as well— we enjoy going to air shows and the open house at the Brainerd airport. I think it’s fun to see the little planes and the older planes, while Andrew finds genuine enjoyment out of each airplane. We also both enjoy photographing planes (but Andrew more than me).
~Natalie
Andrew’s Hobbies- Part 4!
Hi friends! Thanks for coming back to continue to read my version of Andrew’s hobbies, today’s topic is computers! Andrew is super techy and knows so much about technology and how it all works. He is my go to IT guy and he was my grandma’s preferred tech helper. Last year, Andrew built himself a gaming computer from parts he got for Christmas or ordered online (yes this ties into one of his other hobbies—video games—but I haven’t written about that yet.). This isn’t the first computer he has built either— he and his dad built computers growing up. It's a great hobby that he shares with his dad and brother. Andrew helps keep our house up and running and current on technology, especially computers.
Andrew’s Hobbies—Part 3
Hi friends! Today’s topic in this miniseries of posts is home improvement. Andrew enjoys doing projects around the house to make things better or cooler or just helpful. He told me this is one of his hobbies, so I’m not making this up! He has done so much around our house since we bought it. Most recently, he made a gate for our back garden, which I love! We had some trellis left over after the grape project last year, so he cut that and some wood boards to connect the pieces and made such a nice, secure garden gate to help us keep critters out of the plants. He has replaced so many light fixtures in our home as well—our bedroom light/fan, the family room lights/fans, and our bedroom closet. In our closet, Andrew switched it from long florescent bulbs to a track light system that has a nice dimmer switch. He did all the plumbing for our kitchen remodel to get the new sink and garbage disposal connected. Andrew’s changed outlets and light switches as well. Andrew redid our bedroom closet and it turned out amazing! We are starting to look at redoing the flooring in our main level and Andrew will likely be involved if not DIY it himself. Andrew is super handy and seems to genuinely enjoy doing these home improvement projects around the house. He also helps at both of our parents houses if asked! I’m sure he’ll be happy to have a helper if our future child is interested in learning from him as well.
~Natalie
Andrew’s Hobbies— Part 2
Hi all! Today I’m going to continue my series of posts of what I know about Andrew’s hobbies. Today’s topic is photography! This is another common hobby that Andrew and I share. I actually turned Andrew more into a photography nerd than I am but I’m not sure how that happened. When we were dating, Andrew got his first DSLR camera (I think). A few years ago, we sold our individual DSLR cameras to get a nicer one that we now share (not our best when we both are into this hobby but it works). Andrew loves going to airports or airplane routes to photograph the planes. He also AMAZING at getting photos of birds in our back yard, our pups, and the littles in our family. He shoots in RAW rather than JPEG, and is much better at photo editing than I am. I asked Andrew what his favorite thing about photography is and he said “It encourages you to go find cool stuff to take photos of.”
Jake—Our New Pup
I haven’t been posting much for a few weeks, but I will get back to my interpretation of Andrew’s hobbies soon. This week I wanted to let you all know we welcomed a second pup into our lives and hearts! We adopted Jake from Underdog Rescue the weekend before Easter. We saw him on their social media and fell in love. Jake is about 19 pounds and is a miniature schnauzer. He appears to be a purebred since he was a breeder surrender at 7 years old. He might not have been abused but he was definitely neglected in his life. We are beyond grateful for Underdog Rescue for taking him in and to LuAnn, his foster mom, who was the first home to show him unconditional love. With LuAnn’s help, Jake started realizing that people are good and loving— he played with her pup, got fed good food three times a day, and had the love and attention he wanted. Jake took a couple steps backward in development with the change of coming into our home, but he is making more progress in just a couple weeks than I could have imagined! He is bonding with both of us, although Jake definitely takes to Andrew a bit more—not that I blame Jake, since he and Andrew spend all day together at home. Jake is learning how to tell us he needs to go outside to relieve himself, and we are learning what his cues are. Jake loves Goldy, but wishes Goldy would play in a different way—Goldy doesn’t play like most dogs though.
Jake is slowly showing us more of his personality too! He likes to curl up to sleep, but in the morning he wants to play. Yesterday we tried playing with a frisbee and a tennis ball—turns out Jake loves the tennis ball! He will chase it all around the backyard. Jake has a lot of things that trigger worry or a scared response, but they are slowly becoming less of a problem. He used to be absolutely terrified of the leash but yesterday we walked to the corner of our block and back home! He is learning a lot from Goldy and from us. In turn, we are learning a ton from Jake! Jake likes being carried and can’t quite figure out how to do these stair things yet, but he is curious about them. Over Easter, Jake even did pretty well with the littles in the family, choosing to escape to his crate rather than be aggressive when he needed alone time. Jake is so full of love and all he wants is love and attention in return—something we have plenty of! I think Jake will also be a great big brother to our future child—he is watchful and protective and wants to just be near his people.
~Natalie
Andrew’s Hobbies, Part 1
Hello and welcome to the new miniseries where I (Natalie) am going to write about Andrew’s hobbies. Disclaimer—I don’t know much about some of these topics but I’m going to try my best! Today’s hobby is reading. Andrew enjoys reading, as you know if you’ve read some of our other posts. He and I read a lot of the same books, which works out awesome for both of us. He tends to read a bit less than I do, but once he gets into a book you can’t get him to put it down in his free time. Andrew reads a lot of mystery and some nonfiction books. He is really into the Inspector Gamache series from Louise Penny. Andrew is also unique in my opinion because he will literally read through a cookbook when we get one and thoroughly enjoy doing so.
Andrew also gets excited about reading to the little children we know, and he can’t wait until we have an adoptive match so he can read to our future child as well!
~Natalie
Connections in Our Community
Hello again!
Recently I asked in our Instagram story (@_buildingournest) what you guys wanted to see me post about. One of the responses was our connections in our local community. As you likely know, Andrew and I live in the Brainerd Lakes Area here in Minnesota—and we love it! We initially moved into the area when I got a job as a prosecutor in a neighboring county about 5 years ago. Last summer I switched jobs and now drive a lot further to get to work. But we aren’t moving because we love our house, our neighborhood, and our community.
I’m connected with our local church, which is walking distance if the weather is nice. I’ve been registered with our church community since we moved and love the parish. I’ve participated in a few different activities since joining, but stopped with the pandemic for health reasons. I’ve been going to mass in person again though and am loving it.
I’m also on the board of our neighborhood association. We meet monthly as a neighborhood to learn catch up, hear from a speaker, and discuss what we want to be up to as a neighborhood. We are currently working on getting involved in cleaning up our neighborhood parks and streets in an event I’m planning called Spring Into Action! We will help out the park staff by picking up trash, trimming trees and shrubs, mulching, and planting flowers. We’ve asked the local park board to invite us for input when they do the master plan for our neighborhood parks in order to ensure we are working together to create the best parks we can have.
Andrew is on our city charter commission. This commission doesn’t meet frequently but they have been going through and updating our city charter.
Andrew has also joined the city park board! He is loving the involvement he can have in our broader community through park board. They have been busy lately creating master plans for the parks in our city in workshops between park board meetings.
We have both worked in the planning committee for the Brainerd Lakes Area Walk to End Alzheimer’s, but are taking a year off to focus on other things (like the neighborhood association and park board). We love volunteering for this event and raising money for a great cause.
Of course we also have connections in our neighbors and friends in the area, but those are less 'official’ things to share. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about some of our local area community connections in this post! Feel free to send us an email or contact us by this website if you want me to share about anything or you have any questions for us!
~ Natalie
Family Time, Part 7
Hey all, welcome to our last entry on my miniseries of things we enjoy doing as a family. Today’s topic is yard games! When the weather isn’t freezing and snowy, we enjoy getting outside in our own backyard or in the nearby park. While we are out there, we enjoy just relaxing and reading or playing with Goldy. But we also love playing a few yard games. In our backyard we play Bocce Ball (not regulation, which I’ve learned is apparently a thing). At the park we bring along Kubb, which is a yard game that involved throwing wooden dowels at pawns to knock them down. The last person or team without any pawns and to knock down the king wins. It is a lot of fun and can be played with two players or a bunch of players on two different teams. At the lake we also play corn hole with family, which is a lot of fun.
What outdoor games do you guys play?
Family Time, Part 6
Hi friends! Today’s topic in our mini series about things we enjoy doing as a family is traveling. Andrew and I love to travel together, whether it is to the lake, to Milwaukee or Eau Clair to visit friends, Hoboken or Hilton Head Island to visit family, or somewhere to get away as a family. We haven’t done much traveling during the pandemic but we took our first step back into traveling just after Christmas by visiting family on the east coast. Usually, we try to take a trip somewhere warm for a long weekend in late winter or early spring. We also love traveling the world! Andrew visited me when I lived in France and we went to the French Riviera and Monaco. We’ve gone to London and Italy together. We want to go back to France, back to Italy, and I want to bring Andrew (and our future child) to Australia. Andrew and I enjoy going new places and returning to favorites as well. We try to do a mix of relaxing and exploring where we are staying. If there is a zoo or an airplane museum of some sort, you will almost certainly find us there during our vacation. We are always open to new places to visit too! Where do you guys like to go on vacation?
~Natalie
Family Time, Part 5
Hello again, today’s topic is gardening. I know, what a strange topic to be writing about in February in Minnesota, but gardening is one of my favorite things. Andrew and I enjoy different parts of our gardening adventures. If you’ve read our blog, you know that Andrew built me raised garden beds last spring. Andrew also takes care of the soil—cultivating, adding new soil, setting up the soaker hoses and doing some of the weeding. We plan out the layout of the gardens together, after I’ve mostly picked out what I want to grow. We enjoy picking the vegetables, enjoying the flowers, and taking care of the gardens together. I love picking out the plants and seeds we are going to grow, thinking about what we might cook with, and trying new things. We’ve already started working on our list of what to grow this year and the first plant is in the ground! In the fall we planted a hardneck garlic variety. We’ll also grow loads of tomatoes, some zucchini, cucumbers, basil, onions, radishes, herbs, jalapeño, flowers, and we are going to try tomatillos. Watching the plants grow from seeds or seedlings to huge, healthy, and happy plants is so satisfying. Plus, we get enough to share with our neighbor and families!
What do you guys grow?
~Natalie
Family Time, part 4
Hi friends! Today’s topic in the category of things we do as a nuclear family is playing games. Growing up, my family had Sunday nights set aside for game night. And I loved it. I hope to continue that tradition with our future child as they grow up. For now, Andrew and I don’t play games as often as we probably could. But we love playing games together! We’ve got a nice collection of games that we can play just the two of us and games to play with larger groups. For Christmas, we got some fun new games too— A Little Wordy, Wingspan, Pandemic, and Code Names Disney Edition. A Little Wordy is a ton of fun and is just for two players. We played Code Names Disney Edition with my parents when they visited recently and it was hilarious! We also play mind-heavy games like 221 B Baker Street (similar to clue but with a Sherlock Holmes spin) and the subscription and premium services from Hunt a Killer, where we play detective and sort through clues to find solutions. Playing games together is definitely something that brings us joy.
What types of games do you guys like? Anything Andrew and I should try out?
~Natalie
Family Time, Part 3
Hi friends, welcome back to my mini series on things we do as a nuclear family. Despite the cold weather in Minnesota these days, one of our favorite things to do is walk and spend time with Goldy—our rescue pup! We call him a number of nicknames, but Golden Dude and Puppernut Squash are our favorites. Goldy, our rescue pup, is about 27 pounds of fluff and love. He is about 9 years old we think, has the cutest curls in his fur, and brings us so much joy. We try to take him for 3 or 4 walks a day during the workweek (morning, lunch, after work, bedtime) and at least 2 on the weekends (a long walk and a bedtime walk). When it is nice out, we go for longer walks and spend more time hanging out at the park with Goldy. We’ll also try to go to the dog park when it is warm out. Unfortunately, it is SUPER cold out, like below zero temperatures or just above zero. So for now, our walks might not happen first thing in the morning (but we still let him out), and our after work walks are shorter than we would like. Our neighborhood is amazing for walks—-full of sidewalks and parks, so it is an absolute blast to walk Godly around the area.
In addition to walking Goldy, we buy him way too many toys and treats. We have chasing play time, where Goldy always wins in the end. We also play tug and attempt fetch. Goldy doesn’t love bringing the toys back though, so fetch turns into chase usually. We also enjoy time outside in our own backyard. Goldy loves chasing sticks and apples, laying in the sun, and getting pets in the grass. Inside, Goldy loves to be in the same room as us, get pets and snuggles, and begging for food. Honestly, even if Goldy is just in a pupperball on one of his beds or a sofa, just being in the same room as him brings a smile to my face and happiness to my heart.
~Natalie
Family Time, part 2
Welcome back to our mini series on what we enjoy doing as a family. Today’s topic is reading night. Since we both love to read, we try to set aside one night or block of time on the weekend, to spend time reading together. This doesn’t mean we read aloud or read the same book, but that we take away distractions and turn off the TV to spend some time dedicated reading. Andrew and I do have a significant overlap in books we enjoy reading, so we do end up reading books after the other one has read something often. Reading night is one of my favorite nights together in the week, because we can discuss a book if the other one of us has already read it and we get to spend time together doing something calm but enjoyable.
I picture reading night continuing into our future, but obviously with some changes for a bit after we bring home our future child. We are excited to share our love of reading with him or her! Whether it is reading to them, listening to them read as they start learning how to, or having time set aside to read independently but together—there are lots of ways we can include our future child into this great family activity.
~Natalie
Family Time, part 1
Hello again! Today I’m going to start a mini series of posts about what Andrew and I enjoy doing as a family, so you can get an idea of what we are up to when I’m not posting. In this first post, I’m sharing how much we enjoy cooking together. Andrew and I cook together most nights (I’d be lying if I said all nights, but it really is most nights). It is just a blast in the kitchen when we are together—we are a great team. Whether we are cooking a meal from Hello Fresh, homemade pasta, bagel egg sandwiches for breakfast, pizza, or a new recipe we can’t help but love this time together. I think we enjoy cooking together because we both love to cook on our own as well. Our skills in the kitchen really compliment each other as well—I’m great at making homemade pasta while Andrew makes pizza look round and not like the shape of Ohio. We chat, chop, and cook while also giving Goldy vegetable snacks to see if he’ll actually eat anything besides meat and carbs. So far, Goldy consistently eats cucumbers, zucchini, and purple carrot skins. We love cooking delicious food for our friends and family too, like the saying from Penzy’s goes: Love people, cook them good food. One thing we are very excited about is cooking for and with our future child! It definitely won’t be the same but it will be even more amazing in it’s own way once we have a little one in the kitchen with us.
What do you like to do with your immediate family?
~Natalie
Time with Extended Family, Part 4
Hello again everyone!
Today, I’m finishing up our miniseries of posts about what we enjoy doing with our extended families. If you’ve read our blog in the past, you probably can guess that one of our favorite things in the summer is to spend time at the lake with my family! We spend time there from May through the beginning of September usually. While my dream is every weekend, the reality is that gets overwhelming. This year, we settled on a good mix of about two weekends a month down at the lake. We almost always see my parents there, plus often my cousin Suzanne and her family and my aunt and uncle are there. My sister and her family come when they can, as do my cousin Christina and her family. We even get grandma up there a few times a summer! It is so relaxing at the lake, it is just amazing. I love spending time on (and in) the water, cooking, or just hanging out and reading. When the weather is a bit chilly, we can light a fire in the basement wood burning stove to help us stay cozy. We have toys for the little ones, loads of books to read, TV, internet, and a beautiful yard. For the children, we have a kiddy pool and water table to splash around outside when we aren’t on the lake. For the water, we have a canoe, two kayaks, a speed boat, a pontoon, a lily pad, lots of tubes, some floaties, and water skiis. Honestly, with it getting colder out, I’m feeling a bit meloncholy that weekends at the lake are so far away.
What do you like to do around water?
~Natalie
Time with Extended Family, Part 3
Welcome to day three of our mini series of how we spend time with extended family. Today’s topic is our visits to Hilton Head Island! Andrew’s grandpa lives on the island so we try to visit when we can, which has been a problem during the pandemic. Andrew and his family have been going down for years to spend time with his grandparents. I was able to join them the summer before we got married and it was amazing! I’ve loved going down each time we have been able to since then. Typically we go when it is nice beach and swimming weather, so we can spend time at the beach or pool in the morning. We eat a lowkey lunch in the hotel and get a bit more time in the sun or take a nap. Late afternoon we get ready to see Andrew’s grandpa and figure out where we are going for dinner. The first night in Hilton Head the tradition is to get pizza takeout from Giusepe’s (honestly, not sure if I spelled that right), which is a local Steelers bar and restaurant. We usually have a night to ourselves for a date night. This year, we are going down around New Years, so it will be a bit different. Also, COVID and Omicron Variant. Andrew and I are still staying at a hotel, but we will by trying to spend as much time as possible at grandpa’s house (after a negative test from traveling) rather than the hotel. Plus, we haven’t seen him in person since before the pandemic and we are excited to see him and get some quality time in! Andrew’s parents will be staying with grandpa so we will have a great chance to spend time with them as well. We usually go for a week or close to a week, but this trip will only be a few days. Still, it is so amazing to think that we get to see Andrew’s grandpa this year!
I’ve got one more post coming at some point in the next week or two about things we do with extended family, but I want to hear from you! What are your favorite things to do with family?
Time with Extended Family, Part 2
Hi everyone,
Today I’m continuing our mini series of posts about things we do when we spend time with extended family with a seasonally appropriate favorite: Christmas Candy! Every year, my parents get together with our family friends and make chocolate candies. As often as we can, my sister and I join them too, which means Andrew joins us. Usually, candy weekend is in early to mid December. We spend time getting ready Friday night and Saturday morning, then usually head over to Perri and Des’s home for a LONG Saturday full of snacks, chocolate, candy, wine, laughter, and catching up. Typically, we make about 10-12 different chocolates, including toffee, dark chocolate caramel balls, coconut balls, bourbon balls, macadamia nut brittle, nutmegs, brandy balls, apricot balls, nutella chocolates, mint chocolates, peanut butter cups, and more! We have a dinner tradition of spaghetti with red pasta sauce (when we are there, I bring my home made sauce), salad, and garlic bread. I’m honestly not sure how this tradition started exactly, but the candy making seems to run in my dad’s family since my aunts and cousins make them too.
You might be asking yourself, how will our future child fit into such a chaotic sounding day?—rest assured, we’ve had babies and children involved before and it only makes things more fun. My parents started this tradition before my sister and I were born and our family friends adopted their children as infants when I was in school. As newborns, they can’t do much to “help” but our future child will be doted on and played with. As a toddler, they get to start feeling helpful by dropping the candy centers into chocolate and helping mix the peanut butter cups by hand (with an adult helping). I honestly cannot wait to have a little one join us at candy weekend!
~Natalie
Time with Extended Family, part 1
Today is the first post on our new mini series on what we enjoy doing with family. First up: the holidays! We try to spend most major holidays with some part of our extended family. We tend to stay home for New Year’s Eve/Day, but when we see people it is Andrew’s parents to celebrate his mom’s birthday. For Easter, we are working towards being the family that hosts for both sides. We were successful a few years ago, but then the pandemic hit and everybody stayed home for Easter the last few years. It was awesome when we could have people over though— celebrating with Andrew’s parents, my parents, and my grandma! Memorial Day is usually the first lake weekend for us, but it is a quieter one. We help my parents get the cabin ready for the year and help with planting flowers.
Independence Day is a HUGE lake week/weekend. Most of the extended family on my side comes up, so we are a full house with cousins, nieces, our nephew, aunts and uncles, my sister and her family, my parents, and my grandma are all up. My dad and I put on a big fireworks show (when it is safe and not a huge draught) and we have a lot of fun. A house on the lake puts on a concert for boaters to come to as well. We also spend Labor Day weekend at the lake (and usually going to the State Fair). It is another great summer weekend at the lake with my side of the family.
We spend Thanksgiving with Andrew’s family. His parents make a delicious dinner and we stay with them for the long weekend. Andrew’s brother and his wife also come over for dinner on turkey day. Neither of us are big into in person shopping on black Friday, but we might buy a bit online that day.
Christmas is the big one that is a bit trickier. We love to celebrate with everybody, but that just isn’t possible all in one day. We usually celebrate Christmas with Andrew’s family before Christmas itself. This year, we celebrated over this past weekend which was a lot of fun. Andrew’s parents or his brother make brunch or dinner and we open presents and hang out all day. Andrew’s brother and his wife hosted this year, and they made the most delicious brunch! Christmas with my parents is usually on Christmas Day, but my sister and her husband switch years of joining us on Christmas or celebrating with the extended family in January. Usually, Christmas is at my parents, where we have crepes for breakfast and open presents in the morning before my aunt and uncle and cousins and their kids come over for the afternoon and evening and Christmas dinner. This year, we will be celebrating Christmas Day in our house before flying out to the east coast to celebrate with my parents and sister and her family.
We have enjoyed adding our nieces and nephew into our various celebrations for the holidays and cannot wait to bring our own bundle of joy to these days.
~Natalie
Thanksgiving 2021
Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
I hope that wherever you are celebrating Thanksgiving this year, you are doing well and enjoying yourself. This year, Andrew and I are home with Goldy again. This time it isn’t due to the pandemic, but because I caught some sort of a bug. Despite being sick, there is so much to be thankful for! Like last year, I’m going to take the time today to list some of the things that we are thankful for.
The family we are building (Andrew, me, Goldy, and our future adopted child),
Our extended family (our parents, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephew, and grandparents),
The Brainerd Lakes Area community,
My new job in a different county,
Our friends,
Our house,
Our neighbors,
Goldy snuggles and playtime, and
the love and support of everyone on our adoption journey.
What are you thankful for today?
~Natalie
Keeping the Biological Family Involved
Hello Everyone!
While closed adoptions are still an option, research has shown that open adoptions are better for the wellbeing of adoptees. That’s why we are hopeful to have an open (or at least semi-open) adoption. We want to be parents but we know that we will not be the only parents of our future child or children. And that is okay! In my head, that just means more people who will love and support our child in their own way. Our goal is to have the biological or birth family involved in our future child’s life in whatever way they feel most comfortable. That might be getting updates by letters, having access to photographs, having conversations between us to keep each other informed, having meet ups, anything. We want to support and love our future child’s biological mom and dad in any way we can. At the same time, we are working to understand how difficult this situation could be for the biological family. We want to pursue what is best for everyone in this situation. If you prefer to love your child from a distance, we will work with you. If you hope to be more involved, we will work with you on that too. There isn’t a single answer and each adoptive situation is unique. We want to be parents and bring a child into our home to love and care for forever. But that doesn’t mean you, the biological family, plays absolutely no role. We are open to you playing whatever role in our joint child’s life that you are comfortable with.
~Natalie