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I am not sure how to start this post, how to get my emotions in order or write this story in a way to really convey the wonderfulness of it all. So many people have asked about the story that lead us to find Charlie's birth parents, we wanted to share the events of the past days and express our gratitude for everything that has happened.

Over the past couple years, Charlie's desire to find his birthparents became stronger and stronger.We took some steps to get the non-identifying birth information from LDS Family Services and after months of waiting, we got three pages of information about his birth mother and birth father. It was amazing to read about these people, their personalities, their likes and what they looked like. It was exciting but we were unsure as to what to do next, we tried google searches, searched adoption websites to no avail. Life kept moving but we always talked about doing more to find them.

Flash forward to last week. A friend of mine on Facebook had posted a picture of her brother with a poster searching for his birthmom. She asked everyone to share it and his picture was all over Facebook. The next day while waiting to pick up Sadie, I pulled up Facebook on my phone and saw my friends update that her brother had found his birthmom in less than 24 hours. I got goosebumps and the tears started rolling. As a birthmom myself and seeing Charlies struggle with not knowing his parents, I understood how amazing and special this was for this boy and his mom. When Charlie got home that night, I told him we should try it. He told me I was crazy. Well, being the stubborn persistent person I am, I went and bought a poster board, wrote some of the facts on the board and gave it to Charlie and told him to stand still so I could take the picture. I immediately put it up on Facebook (Friday, February 15th) and asked all my friends to share it. 

I knew Charlie was trying to not get his hopes up, but I kept telling him we would find them. The next morning (Saturday), I reposted the same picture and it just took off. As of today, the second picture has been shared 1399 times! We have a friend whose husband was trying to gather some information for us from a kava mix and talking to all his Tongan friends, we got a name of an older gentlemen and I contacted some of his family members through Facebook and realized that he wasnt the right guy and he didnt know anything about Charlie's birth father. It was devastating but I refused to give up hope. I started to receive emails and FB messages from people all over sending words of encouragement or asking questions. It was amazing to see perfect strangers praying and hoping for us and sharing Charlie's picture. On Saturday night, Charlie got really sick (his nerves got the better of him) so we sat in bed looking at what everyone was saying and doing to help us and we just cried. We were overwhelmed with the kindness and support. Charlie fell asleep and I decided to have a date night with my DVR and get caught up on my shows, all the time checking FB and my email. At about 12:30 am, I got an email from a women saying that she possibly had some information about Charlie's birthfather. However, though some of the details matched his age was different than the information we had. She told me she had saw Charlie's picture that day on FB and couldn't shake his face and that he looked like her FIL. She said she could send me a picture of him and I could see what I thought. I can remember waiting for the picture and just hoping that something was similar. I wasnt prepared for what I saw, the picture of this man could have been Charlie in 30 years. It gave me chills. I continued talking to this lady trying to get more information but her FIL couldnt remember many details, so we decided to wait and see what Charlie thought of the picture. By this time it was after two in the morning, I was tired but could not sleep. I tossed and turned all night, but woke up and realized Charlie was gone. He had been called into the hospital. After getting the kids breakfast and ready for the day, I opened up my Facebook account and found a ton of friend requests and a couple more emails. Charlie had deactivated his Facebook account back in October because of privacy issues with one of his jobs, but he wanted to reactivate it so we could use it to spread the word. He had asked me to reactivate it the night before, so I started working on reactivating it. Spent the morning doing that and taking care of the kids and hoping Charlie would come home so we could talk about what happened the night before. As I was preparing dinner, my phone beeped that indicated I had a new email. I saw the subject line of the email and my heart skipped a beat. It was an email from a women who was "99% sure she knew who Charlie's birthmom was." She said she was best friends with her and that they had had many conversations over the years about her baby boy she placed for adoption. One of her family members had shared Charlie's picture and she knew all the details on the poster from her friend. I couldnt believe it. I wrote her back and asked for her friends name so we could get in touch with her and see if she really was Charlie's mom. At this time, Charlie walked in from work. I must have had a look on my face because he asked what was wrong. I walked over to him and said, "Charlie, I think we found her, I think we found your mom." I showed him the email and he just sobbed. We both did, we stood in the middle of our living room, holding one another and just let the tears come. After a few minutes, I told him about the conversation I had had with the women the previous night about his possible birth father. He was in shock, couldn't believe this was happening. I told him I wanted to show him the picture. I pulled it up on the computer, and it seemed like time stood still. Everything went silent. Tears welled in his eyes and he whispered, "that's my dad." It was incredible.


We had so many emotions and yet we were still scared that maybe this wouldn't work out, that maybe we had jumped the gun. My mind was racing as I am sure Charlie's was, so we just went about our morning. Then my phone beeped signaling another email. I gave it to Charlie and we read an email from a women who was sure she was Charlie's mom. She explained that she had placed a baby boy who was Tongan and born on December 5, 1979 at McKay Dee. She said she had been dreaming of finding him one day and hoped that she had finally found him. We had purposely left some important clues off of the poster and we didnt tell anyone, so we emailed her back with some questions to really make sure she was his mom. She quickly responded with the exact answers to the questions. We were confident we had finally found his mom and we quickly started emailing back and forth with so many questions. We also told her a little bit about Charlie and sent her a picture of Sadie and Brig. We asked her about Charlie's father and she gave us his name. We were disappointed because his last name didnt match the last name of the lady I had spoken with the night before (she had never mentioned his name.) However, we were elated that we had found his mom. Charlie had so many questions but didnt know where to start. We gave her our phone numbers and told her to call whenever she felt like she could or was able to.

I got on Facebook, decided to ask the women from the previous night if her FIL's name was the one Charlie's mom and given us. I was shocked when her response was YES!!! She wanted to know how we knew and we explained that we had found his mom. Everything just spiraled from there. She called and talked to Charlie, tried explaining the family and brothers and sisters etc. Later her husband called, Charlie spend some time talking to him and hearing more about the family. Charlie couldnt quit smiling, he was just elated. Later that night, his mom emailed us and gave us her number. We decided he would call her later that night once the kids were in bed. He got more and more nervous as the night dragged on, so we put the kiddos to bed early and he made the phone call. It was overwhelming to watch. I have never seen him so happy. They talked for hours, shed a few tears and promised to meet soon.

Laying in bed that night, trying to digest everything that happened, and crying more tears of joy Charlie told me he finally feels complete, finally feels "home."  There are no words that can express our feelings, our anxiety about the future and our immense gratitude for all of our friends and family who shared the picture on FB, supported us, emailed, texted and messaged us with words of encouragement. It has restored my faith in God and my faith in humanity. It still seems like a dream and we both hope and pray that the future with these new wonderful people with be bright and full of good memories. We are meeting his mom on Friday and his dad on Sunday. I guess I better get over my fear of taking pictures because this upcoming weekend my new camera is going to get a work-out. 

Again, thank you to everyone who shared Charlie's story. We have always been blessed with amazing family and friends and now we have more people to share our lives with.

Christmas Eve and Christmas

We were flying back home late Christmas Eve, but we had to check out of the hotel at noon. We decided to spend the day on Coronado Island and at Seaport Village. It was rainy in the morning but cleared up in the afternoon. Brigham loved all the birds around Seaport Village and watching the ships and boats on the ocean. Sadie was getting pretty antsy for Christmas and just wanted to go home. 

Riding the beautiful carousel at Seaport Village

During the day I had been checking Facebook and kept seeing updates about a big winter storm in Utah. I started panicking that our flight would get cancelled and we would be stuck in Las Vegas for Christmas. We headed to the airport and kept our fingers crossed. Our flights were delayed but everything worked out. We flew from San Diego to Vegas and then Vegas home. When we got on the flight home, we were so relieved and grateful we were going home. We had told the kids that maybe we would end up seeing Santa flying in the sky and it was fun to watch them look for him. Sadie swears she heard his jingle bells.

We ended up not getting home until midnight, but due to some serious pre-vacation preparation we were able to get the kids in bed in their Christmas jammies, laundry started, bags unpacked and Santa came by one am. 

The kids slept in until ten and we woke to them jumping on our beds. Santa had brought them a few things and it was so fun watching their faces light up as they opened their gifts.

Bean Bags!

Super hero capes, they turned out so cute!

Sadie is a bit obsessed with Merida from BRAVE.

I got an awesome new SLR camera and a necklace from Charlie. I LOVE both of them. The camera is amazing and the necklace is perfect.

This Christmas was one full of good memories and lots of laughs. It was centered around our family and being together and it was beautiful. I love this time of year and am a bit sad it is all over. However, I am grateful for the gifts that I have each and every day in my life. 

We hope this holiday season was a special one for all of you too!

We are looking forward to a new year with new beginnings.

Legoland and Sea World

We spent Saturday at Legoland. The weather was perfect and it wasn't too crowded. The Christmas decorations were awesome and they had the biggest Christmas Tree made from legos. 

Sadie was tall enough to go on all the rides and Brigham was able to go on most of them. The new Star Wars area was pretty exciting for Charlie and the kids. They also have a new aquarium that we zipped through quickly before they closed.

We headed to Sea World on Sunday. We grabbed a map and planned out our day so we could go to all the shows and also let Brigham meet Elmo at the newer Sesame Street area. Some of the shows were new and Christmas themed so it was lots of fun. A couple shows we got brave and sat in the soak zones and ended up very wet but it was worth the laughs.

Feeding the sting rays.

Giving Grover the "knucks."

Feeding the Sea Lions

So much fun!!!

San Diego Christmas

During the summer while doing some home renovations and going through all the kids rooms, we realized just how much crap our kids had. Most of the stuff was from past Christmases and had been played with very little. We spent days going through everything, purging, donating and reorganizing their rooms. I told Charlie that I didn't want to do the traditional Christmas and waste money on crap the kids would play with for a couple days and forget about. Then I saw this on Pinterest.

We decided to make these our new family motto and started planning a Christmas vacation. We decided San Diego was the place for us. We wanted to go to Legoland and Sea World. The hardest part was getting  EVERYTHING done for Christmas before we left and keeping it a secret from the kiddos. We were leaving on Thursday the 20th and coming home Christmas Eve. 

On Thursday, we were all packed and ready to pick up Sadie from school and surprise her. It is usually just Brig and I who pick her up from school so she was so excited when she saw all of us in the car. Then she jumped in and spotted the suitcases and asked, "whats going on?" We just giggled and blurted out that we were heading to the airport for a surprise vacation. Her face was priceless.

We flew into Santa Ana that night, grabbed our rental car and drove down the coast to San Diego. We stayed in an awesome hotel in Old Town. 

On Friday, we headed to Balboa Park. We had never been there before and it was beautiful. The weather was gorgeous and we spent the day walking through the gardens and visiting the museums. 

 We went to the Air and Space museum. It was awesome!

Flight suit jumpers

Sadie flying like the Wright Brothers.

Sadie in the wind tunnel.

That night we went to our favorite place in Old Town for dinner. The Acapulco. It is so yummy and has an amazing view of San Diego. The kids favorite part was the fried ice cream for dessert.

Posts about the rest of the trip to come soon!