On my little, I love camps. This year, I got the opportunity to become a Camp Counselor for the Playdate Cruise Camp! I was so happy and excited, it was unreal! I had heard that last year's cruise was incredible, so I am really excited to participate this year!

I have been to many camps before on my little, so being able to experience this as an adult, being around all the kids, is going to be so amazing! So, Misty and I, we got our camp shirts on, tickets in hand, the Jeep loaded up... we are going to camp together! We're both so very excited! Although, to be honest, I think I'm  just a wee bit more excited than her!

We're going to have so much fun!

Recently, Misty and I went on our fall vacation! Well, it was a winter wonderland in fall, anyway. We invited a family friend (who is pretty much family anyway), Liiani to come on vacation with us, as well! It was fun, we had such a great time! We didn't do nearly as much as I wanted to though, as Liiani had work some days, and I had RL obligations to tend to for several of the days. But, it was still a successful vacation! (This will be a image-heavy post, as I'm going to dump the week's worth of photos here!)

Naturally, we have to pack up! The three of us got our stuff together, packed up the car and away we went! We had to have warm blankets, heaters, and lots of pillows, because where we were going, I had heard it was going to be COLD!

Once we got there, I made sure the kids were bundled up, everyone had long sleeves on, and we went exploring! Of course, once we were done, we had to stop and pose for a photo. They look tired after our explore adventure, don't they?


We also settled in the cabin for a movie night! I had put on Finding Dory for us, and we all really enjoyed it! It was great to bundle in the cabin on a winter day with a movie!


Next activity on the list... snowman building! The best part of snow, is being able to play in it! There's no better way to play in snow than building a snowman, for sure!


Of course, I definitely cherished my time with my favorite family member, my adorable daughter. I snapped this photo, and this is probably my most favorite of us right now! It came out so great, I knew it was going to be perfect even before I took it into Photoshop.


What's a winter wonderland vacation without being able to stay in the cabin in your PJ's? To me, there's nothing better than spending time with loved ones, in your pajamas.


I had a lot of fun, and I was even more glad to hear that Liiani and Misty had fun as well. We're already looking forward to our next vacation together!

It's been about 2 weeks now since I had asked Misty to be my daughter. Things are still going really, really wonderfully! I really found the connection with a child that I've been really striving for. She's much like a little compact version of myself. Very much my child, in many different ways. LOL!

When I first met her, I mentioned that I have many photo frames in my house that needs to be filled up. Well, Misty and I seem to have taken up the challenge to fill all those empty frames up. Of course, though.... I know we have a lifetime together to take ALL the photos together!


We've been doing all kinds of things, from exploring, shopping, PaleoQuest (even if we do get frustrated at it), to even watching more movies! Some days, it feels like I haven't only known her for three weeks, it feels like so much longer.

This one, I'm keeping forever, no matter what happens.

Over the course of about three months, I have had a panel up at Heritage. I've been really wanting to adopt a child, and it's been a heartbreaking process. It was the same the first time we adopted, but for some reason, it seemed harder this time. I have been on trials with great children, and met several more. Although it didn't work out with them, I still hoped for the best for them. I had decided, that once this last panel expired, I wasn't going to put up another one.

One night, I was standing at Heritage, when I was IM'ed by a special little girl. I felt that her and I instantly had a connection, which is what I really needed with a little girl. For the next week, we spent more and more time together. We killed zombies, watched a movie, went to Arcade yard sales, and I made her move in my house with me. Pretty much right away, I knew I wanted this adorable girl to be my child. I struggled to not call her my daughter during the trial, to try to hold off asking her to be my family!


When I finally asked her, she said yes with no hesitation! I was so excited! So yesterday, she became my daughter, and a Pennell. Compared to other trials I have had, I've known her a short while, but it already feels like I've known her forever already, in a good way, of course! She changed the way I live my Secondlife already, in just the matter of a week. I wouldn't have it any other way! I adore my new daughter, and hope she sticks around with me for the rest of my SL existence!

Last night, we took Yuna to the pumpkin patch and then we decorated our pumpkins! This was probably one of my first "real RP" experiences with our family, and we all had so much fun. When we were first adopting, one of our things was that we weren't really into RP that much. It still holds true today, we are not that big on mealtimes, tuck ins, but the RP that we do, it's so much fun, and we are always laughing like crazy! Our trip to the pumpkin patch was really our first attempt to plan an actual family event, and I was sure it was going to be a huge, epic fail somehow.

But it really wasn't! I planned this for many weeks, kept on the lookout for a fabulous pumpkin patch, made a holding pose, bought all the gacha pumpkin carving stuff we needed, and set it all out. I didn't know how the RP bits of it worked, and my wonderful friends on Plurk even really helped me better understand a lot of it!

In the end, for us and our family, it kind of came naturally! It was so much fun, and for a minimal-RP family like us, we really enjoyed it so much! The planning, the locations, the decorating, and the pumpkins, it really made for an awesome time.

I had been looking for weeks for a pumpkin patch, and really enjoyed this one that I had found. It was pretty, had pumpkins that you could pick out, and even more. You can do much more than explore the pumpkin patch, but that's all we did there.


Then we went home to carve and decorate our pumpkins. It was so worth all the anxiety I had to make it perfect! I think I made it more complicated than what it probably should have been, but I really didn't know what to expect, or anything. Next year, I'll definitely be more prepared, know what to expect, and know what will work for our family.


I saw Alicia's wonderful family on plurk actually "decorating" their pumpkin patch pumpkins. I loooooved that idea, it looked like so much fun. It also gave an actual purpose to the pumpkins we picked out! So, we copied them, and did the same! I think this really completed the event for us, and what really made it so it wasn't SO much RP. This made it perfect. It became more of a "OMG I need to add hair and shoes!" and "What is happening to daddy's eyes?!" thing. We were laughing so much last night, it was great. It probably would have been a very stiff, I-don't-know-how-to-RP thing without the silliness.

So, lately, we've been spending a lot of time doing a variety of things. A little over a week ago, we messaged a girl who's panel we liked at Heritage Adoptions. We met up, did a couple of things together, before deciding to go on a trial. We have been on a trial for almost a week now, actually, and it's still going great! I blogged a little bit about her when we took her to the sim-warming party, but I didn't mention too much about her, really. Well, this morning, we all agreed to extend the trial a little longer! This was a big thing to me, because, it actually said to me that she's interested in continuing with us, and likes us enough to want to spend more time together! More milestones!

So, we've been doing lot of things together, as Jeffry says: "as a family," but I still worry we are boring people! We took a few days to do PaleoQuest, we've watched a couple of movies, and even visited The Cornfield. It's been fun, doing these things all together! I really hope it continues, and I hope that we can have a very happy outcome at the end of this "extended trial!"

This is where we are now venturing into territory that we are completely unfamiliar with! Other trials we have had did not get this far. Actually, they really didn't even get past a couple of days. So, I'm not sure where to proceed from here, and when we know that we're "ready" to adopt. I'm just thinking that, When we know, we "know" right? Like finding the perfect wedding dress? LOL! I don't know what I would have done without Alicia and her adorable family answering all the questions I have about families/RP, and all their guidance and tips they have given us through the whole adoption process!

I'm just going to come out and say it: Jeffry and I had decided to adopt a SL child! I suppose I'll do a little background. We moved in together in RL several years ago, and we decided a couple years ago to start trying to have a child in real life. That was over two and a half years ago now. It's been difficult, the hole that still occupies my heart. We made the decision to get a dog last year, and I've chronicled Amelia's life with us so far through my RL blog.  From videos, to our breeder visits, updates on how big she is.... she's been the love of my RL. I complain a lot about her, but she really is a beautiful, smart, incredible dog. Anyway! Even with her, there's still... something missing.

The more I looked into SL adoptions, the more it appealed to me. If I can't have children in my RL, I need to pour my love into a child in SL. So, after talking with Jeffry about it, he agreed, and wanted to go pick out a panel... right then. I, however still had questions. I bombarded the lovely Alicia with questions about their family, the role play involved, and all that. I am still a little nervous about the role play aspect - I would love to do it, but I am not entirely sure what that entails. So, I'm hoping get matched with a lenient child, who is willing to teach us the role play part. Or give us hints on what we need to do. Parenting is not a exact science, right? All parents learn as they go, even adoptive parents.

We took this photo together, before we listed our panel at Heritage Adoptions. This was part of our little "photo shoot" to get a photo of the both of us for our Parent panel. I liked it, and kept this one. We're hoping to find a good match for us, so we can shower our SL child with all the love we can't give in our RL.