Gulbrandsen Family! 😊

Mike – Sharene – Brielle -Brooklyn

  

 Dear New Friend,

We hope you are having a fantastic day!  

Mike and Sharene met in college in a choir class.  Mike quickly noticed after a day or two of class that Sharene was the most beautiful girl in the class.  He was able to entice her to spend time with him by asking her to play the piano for him at an upcoming Christmas performance in which he was to sing O Holy Night.  As a bachelor, Mike had a few things going for him.  He was kind and he is a captivating unbelievable tenor.  He was even a great kisser.  Despite all of these great things, he had one insurmountable problem that could get in the way of his love life.  He was bald!  No hair on top of his head.  He could pull off a Friar Tuck hairdo, but that was about it.  Despite this grave disadvantage, Mike was able to convince Sharene to date him and within a year they were married in the Salt Lake City LDS temple.

Michael, Mike, or sometimes “Princess Daddy”, lived in many different places growing up.  Born in the Chicago area, he soon moved to Palm Springs California and subsequently spent his growing up years between California, Utah, Idaho, Nevada and Washington State.  Mike grew up in a multi-cultural family. His stepdad was Filipino.  He was lovingly welcomed into the extended Filipino family and treasured being a part of their culture.  He graduated high school in Issaquah, Washington and has a great love for the Seattle area.  Mike loves to cook, spend time with his family, and sing whenever he gets the chance.  Mike currently works as the head of the treasury department for a company called Young Living.

Sharene, or mom (her favorite title), was born and raised in the small town of Roosevelt Utah.  She is the second youngest of five children; she loves being around family.  She is still close to her siblings, parents and extended family.  She had a great childhood, going on many family vacations and playing sports.  She is a talented pianist and teaches piano to kids of all ages currently.  She works from home as a medical transcriptionist, so she can be home to raise her children as that is the most important job she will ever have.  She is also an avid game player including sports and board games.  Sharene loves being a mother and is a great friend and parent to our two girls. 

We are blessed with two beautiful girls:  Brielle, 11 and Brooklyn, 9.  Brielle loves to read, play soccer and play with her fluffy, white bunny named Snowball.  Brooklyn loves gymnastics and is constantly doing handstands and cartwheels everywhere she goes.  She enjoys playing with her bunny, named Fluffy.  She also loves to jump on the tramp and play with her sister. One of their favorite things to do together is to create an obstacle course in the basement and pretend they are on American Ninja Warrior.  They are both very smart and excel in school. 

We are so grateful and feel blessed to be able to have our two miracle daughters, yet there is still room in our hearts for more.  We feel strongly that there is another special person who needs our love.  After 17 years of marriage, we have noticed that a family is where the most joy can be found in this life.  We yearn to add to that joy by bringing another child into our loving family through adoption.  We feel an open adoption can be beneficial for adopted children and are open to having a continued relationship with the birth parents.  Brielle and Brooklyn are ecstatic to welcome a new sibling(s) into our home.  They will be the best big sisters anyone could ever want.  Brielle has mentioned that the only thing she wants for her next birthday is another sibling.  Both girls have loving sweet hearts.

Below are some of our likes and dislikes:

Likes

Favorite foods:  Mac & Cheese – pretty much the best food ever (according to Mike), Thai Food – Yumm, anything Mike BBQs, pizza, potatoes of any variety (Sharene could live off potatoes), and pasta (according to Brielle and Brooklyn).

Favorite restaurants:  Cheesecake Factory, Olive Garden, Café Rio, Spicy Thai, Baked Bear, Hu Hot, Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Pizza Pie Café (Brielle and Brooklyn’s favorite).

Sports:  Ultimate frisbee, NBA – Go Jazz!  Football – both college (Go BYU according to Sharene and Brielle and go Utes according to Mike and Brooklyn) and NFL – Go Seahawks!!, volleyball, soccer, swimming, and gymnastics.

Games:   Istanbul, Mario Kart, Guitar Hero, Clue, Seven Wonders, Terraforming Mars, Sleeping Queens, and Life.  Splendor is our current favorite.

Best TV Shows:  American Ninja Warrior, America’s Got Talent, The Voice, Designated Survivor, Stranger Things, Walking Dead (only Mike) and the Bachelor/Bachelorette (only Sharene).

Best Movies:  Star Wars (all of them), all recent Marvel movies, The BFG, Sing, Trolls, Moana, Ever After, Mulan, Cinderella (new live version), Harry Potter, Remember the Titans, The Princess Bride, and Lion.

Family trips:  Hawaii, Branson MO, Cancun Mexico, Arches National Park, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, Disneyland, Lagoon, Lake Powell, Chicago, Seattle, and New York.

Dislikes

Country Music (Mike), spiders (Sharene), bees (Brooklyn) – ouch, mosquito bites (Brielle), black licorice (Mike), and really mean people (all of us) ☹!

Thanks for getting to know us better!  We would love to get to know you too and have you become a part of our loving family. 

Love,

Michael, Sharene, Brielle, and Brooklyn Gulbrandsen

If you would like to contact us, our emails are sharenew@hotmail.com or mgulby@gmail.com.  We would love to chat with you!  

Prayers are answered!

So today I had a ditsy moment and I drove away with my hatchback open.  I realized it about 1 minute later and noticed things had started falling out (after I had just driven out of our neighborhood) and immediately backtracked to grab anything that had fallen out, but I realized my laptop was not anywhere to be seen.  I knew I had put it in the car.  I was devastated!  I started praying immediately that we could find it.  I had to take my oldest to her soccer game, so we went and she played great.  I kept praying.  After the game, we went back home and looked everywhere in the neighborhood for it.  I knew that someone must have taken it.  I was so sick to my stomach.  It was our nephew's birthday party so we headed there and the kids had a great time while I just was so sad and worried.  I just kept praying that whoever took it would return it to me.  Miracle of miracles, about 6:30 pm (7 hours after I lost it), a man Facebook messaged me and told me he had found my laptop!  I couldn't believe it!  I was elated!  We went and picked it up and he said he found it a block further west from where I had even driven??!?!?  I told him thanks many times (it was all I could o to not hug him for returning it to me) and we took it home.  It was pretty beaten up but everything still works.  I'm so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who answers prayers.  I'm so grateful I got my laptop back and for the nice man who was willing to find me and get it back to me!  I will never forget this experience.  I hope my kids never do either and they remember that prayers are answered and how much Heavenly Father and Jesus love us! 

Favorite holiday

I really love all holidays.  I love the traditions we have associated with each and that we use them to spend time as a family doing fun things.  What first comes to mind of course is Christmas.  I love everything about Christmas.  I love spending time with family, giving presents, going to parties, playing in the snow, Christmas lights, thinking more about Christ and the overall feeling in December.  I love the smell of cinnamon sticks, freshly baked goods, and especially a freshly cut Christmas tree which is why we always put up two trees, one fake and one real.  We have many Christmas traditions that we love and each one means so much to us.  We read A Christmas Carol each year and go to the play.  We see the lights at temple square in Salt Lake City.  We sing Christmas songs around the tree on Christmas Eve.  We go to family parties and ward parties.  We have a Grinch dinner with our good friends and so many more.  I love this holiday.  The last picture is of our Christmas pajamas we received on Christmas Eve!

Spiritual Experience

Hello!  Welcome to our blog!  Thanks for visiting us.  I felt strongly I was supposed to tell you about a spiritual experience I had last night.  I was dead asleep when all of a sudden I woke to a girl's voice saying mom.  I woke up and put my arm out for one of my girls to climb into bed with me but no one was there.  I was so surprised.  I'm crying right now thinking about it.  Both Mike and I have felt a little girl's presence many times.  I know we are supposed to have another girl in our family.  Whether we have more out there than her, I do not know.  I think maybe she is trying to tell us to be patient.  This process can be very emotional.  It was not until I had another very spiritual experience telling me we were supposed to adopt to have our next child that I really started considering adoption as a possibility.  It always seemed so scary to me.  Now, Mike and I know there is another girl that is supposed to come to our family through adoption. 

We have a family member, through marriage, that is an adoption attorney in Utah.  He has been through it himself three times so he knows what he is doing.  We are hoping to make this process as wonderful and easy as we can.  If you are feeling like we might be a good match, please email me at sharenew@hotmail.com.  I felt very strongly I should get up and post this this morning.  If you feel like maybe this is speaking to you, I would love to talk with you!

 

Here is a picture of our oldest daughter when she was a baby.  

Favorite pair of shoes

I'm sorry to say I strongly dislike shoes!  I only wear them because I have to.  If I'm home, my shoes are never on, and even in my yard a lot, I don't have shoes on.  If I could create my own world, I would not have shoes.  I know a lot of women love shoes and have many pairs.  I know this is weird but honestly, usually Mike buys my shoes.  I just don't love them.  If I had to pick a pair, I would probably just choose some newer shoes I have which have memory foam in them. 

Favorite Smell

Smells are very important to me.  I love, love, love great smells.  I love to have candles going or smell good food.  If we had unlimited money, I would have fresh flowers on my table every week.  I think my favorite smells are orange and vanilla.  My grandma used to have an orange air freshener in her bathroom so orange reminds me of my grandma who passed away just before I got married.  I think that is why I love smells, because they bring up special memories. 

My Collection

As a child, I loved to collect rocks.  As I would walk home from school, I would kick the rock and see how many times it took me to kick it all the way home.  I loved beautiful rocks and have passed that onto my girls.  They also love rocks.  Now as an adult I collect snow globes.  I love the beauty  of them.  As we go on vacation, that is what I choose to bring home to remember our trip.  We also love to collect Christmas ornaments for the girls.  My parents did this and I loved the tradition so we have passed it onto our kids.  Each year they get an ornament so when they go off and get married, they will have a whole box of ornaments that are theirs to decorate their trees with.  They love finding the perfect ornament to help them remember something fun they did that year.