Making braids

For the first time I tried yarn extensions yesterday on [edit:Spice! oops - wrote the wrong pseudonym!] Yikes - two and a half Disney movies long!!!! ehhh!!! She did sit still the whole time, though. People ask me how they do that - the trick is, it’s the only time they watch TV. So they are rivetted!

But it does look really good.  Please please please last a long time!

here is the vid I used to do them, for all of you who request videos the wonders of youtube.

I am SUCH a bad blogger! Last week was the third of my cooking classes at Mission Hill. The first class, I managed to take some good pics and made you all insanely jealous. BUT, the second class (Channeling Julia Child) I forgot to take my camera. It was good. You’ll have to take my word for it. This third class was the 100 Mile Diet - and you can see the photo results!

So I got the menu…

Then, well……..

That was wash. Let’s just say it was all pretty tasty. Minus the cake, which was pasty. But the rest? Delish.

There is a long break in the middle, and my favorite thing (other than chatting to my new aquaintence/friend the sous-chef,) is sitting in the adjoining room and staring at the Chagall tapestry. I could sit there all day. Once, when we went to San Fran, we stumbled on a gallery with 20 or so original Chagall paintings and it was an amazing delight. Just this one is pretty fun, though.

I did get some cool pics of the kitchen, if you’re into such things. (I am.) They have a wonderful store of the most lovely preserves - I keep telling Riley (the chef) that he has to do a preserves class…

Duck Prosciutto, Enderby Trout, Forest Mushroom Bisque, Nicola Valley Bison Flat Iron and Sugarpie Pumpkin Cake. Not shabby. This class was with my favorite of the two chefs. He’s a young guy and pretty fun. I learn new things from him each time! This is what I learned this class:

• Don’t put salt in a meat marinade. It dries out the meat. Add salt later.
• Prosciutto is actually pretty darn easy to make! I am totally going to try out curing some of my own meat.
• Blanching herbs for a sec in boiling water then plunging them in icewater makes them really really green and pretty.
• What the devil to do with those sunchokes (Jerusalem aartichokes) that my friend gave me last summer.
• Use a spoon to take the filaments off the bottom of portabello mushrooms - the black stuff is bitter and stains everything black. Well, I knew that, but I didn’t know how to take it off. Grilling mushrooms on the BBQ will never be the same! 

OK, so for the good news. My mom is coming up at the end of the month, and she decided she wanted to go to another of the classes with me! So we’re going to learn how to cook LOBSTER! Not that I can’t already cook a decent lobster… (I was married for 6 years to a Nova Scotian. Not Jrock. He’s a keeper. The other one.) But we get to cook Bisque, Ceviche, Thermador, Ravioli and Surf & Turf. YUMMERS>

So have I got you all excited, Mom? (And jealous, other readers?!?) You will be sitting right here:

To Spring
by William Blake

O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
Thro’ the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

Duck watching

The hills tell each other, and the listening
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime.

My four stooges on a walk.

Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.

Huck and Tom

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languished head,
Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee.

Our neighbor and our conjoined twins swinging.

Boy, you can see that they are twins in this picture....

I’m not a beads super-fan, but they did turn out pretty good this week. You learn things from other moms all the time… and I learned if you weight the braids down with more beads, they tend to stay straight and last longer. Who’da thunk…

Something just for fun!

I was thrilled to hear that a young 22 year old rapper had been named Edmonton’s Poet Lauriate last year.  I lived several years in that city, and honestly, have never lived anywhere with as strong of a cultural scene.  It’s just great.  Anyway, I really like this guy’s music, and his poetry is pretty good too.

You can listen to him present his first poem to City Council here… of course, it’s a bonus it’s on an environmental theme! (He says it’s about a cyclist, truck driver and a pedestrian.) 

I know it’s a short month, but it just seemed to fly by.  There wasn’t enough time in the day for anything - many of the committments I had got bumped for others. I’m sort of doing a half-job of almost everything.

When’s the last time I baked bread? Last week? I usually bake bread ever day or two. (I know, I know; play my little violin.)

But March is here and slowly stuff is being ticked off the to-do list. One part of one of my contracts (a big milestone) is done. The other contract is centred around March, so when this month blows by, I’ll pick up all the other pieces. In the meanwhile, the girls are doing well and going with the flow, as usual. Jrock and I haven’t seen as much of each other, but they’ve got more face-time with him, two-on-one, which is showing in their relationship. (A bad example, but when I pinched Sugar’s chin in her bike helmet strap yesterday, she started crying for Daddy immediately. Poor little tyke. She had a little blood blister to show for it.)

One thing I’ve learned in the last couple of years is that I (now) do better with a slower pace - time for biking and baking and puttering. Deep breath - next month I’ll get my balance back. And we will take a weekend away later this coming month, which will be our first vacation as a family. Totally looking forward to that!

Some residual non-posted tid-bits from February. Enjoy! [click the pic 2x to see it bigger and bigger]

Or at least, may Sue Hayhow, former Executive Director of Imagine Adoption, be brought to justice.

Babies were malnourished, children (including ours) got one meal a day for some time, Ethiopian staff families did without income and went hungry for months - all because of her incredibly selfish, ruthless, and maniacal decisions. What kind of twisted person? I ask you.

And the irony is, we think she is in Ethiopia living off those thousands of dollars stolen from the mouths of babes (literally) as the investigation continues.

AT LEAST scurvy.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE.

Payments to a transition home in Ethiopia — where the Christian agency kept orphaned children in the last stages of the lengthy adoption process — had climbed to $70,000 a month by May 2009.

A year earlier, according to meeting minutes of Imagine’s board of directors, the annual cost at the same transition home was $25,000 — or just over $2,000 a month. [my note: they weren't getting this at the transition home, I can assure you.]

The accountant was concerned about $30,000 to $40,000 a month in agency credit card expenses. He asked for statements, but never received them.

Questionable items charged to the cards included trips to Disney World, New York City and Deerhurst Resort in Muskoka. Others were for jewelry and a horse… The couple earned a combined income of $320,000 a year — $180,000 for Susan and $140,000 for Rick.

Staff worried the waiting list for adoptions was too long and urged Susan Hayhow to stop taking on new clients.

…credit card statements suggested they were routinely used for personal expenses, including shopping at high-end clothing stores, restaurants, and spas, and extensive cosmetic dental work.

“I’m sure Paris Hilton’s credit card statement looks like that,” he said. “The expenses we saw, there’s no way you could justify them.”

Susan Hayhow told her in an email this month that she is travelling, doesn’t have a home address and can’t be easily reached. All future contact was directed to her lawyer.

Olaf Heinzel, a spokesperson for regional police, said investigators have heard she might be in Ethiopia, but haven’t been able to confirm it.

PS: If you are wondering, what the heck is this all about? Short summary: Sue Hayhow “allegedly” racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars and ripped off Imagine Adoption. After months of the Ethiopian side of the agency (which was trying to take care of the kids) not receiving any money, the agency went bankrupt in Canada. That same day - July 13, 2009 - we flew to Ethiopia to pick up our kids. I have never talked about this before on our blog, and one day, when I am not so angry, I will tell you what REALLY happened in Ethiopian during those crazy weeks. It was worse than we expected. I’ll just leave it at that.

PS2: If you want to vomit in your mouth (Jrock’s words, Gramma, not mine - ) watch this episode of 100 Huntley Street interviewing Sue.

At LEAST scurvy.

I am so behind in my posting, it’s not even funny.  Here are some pics from today - we had two play dates (one with T from Swaziland and her mommy), as well as meetings, errands, an emergency icecream trip (I was having a melt-down,) a hair cut, etc.  This month coming up will be even hairier, so we’ll se how the posting goes!

We had a great time last weekend at our annual winter get-together up in Lavington, with all our friends from Okanagan Families With Children From Africa.  Above is a picture of SOME of our collective kids - there were quite a few more.

Here’s a little video to show you a bit what it is like when 10 families are all talking and playing together.  More pictures should come soon on the OKFCA website. If you are new to the adoption world, there are groups like this across Canada - you can start on our Okanangan chapter website to find one, or just start asking around at your agency or other families you know.  You’d be amazed at the nice, interesting people you will meet!

Any analysis, Auntie Ena?

Spice

Sugar

It’s funny how identical (as far as we know) twins can have such different face shapes.  Added to the usual difference, Sugar just shot up another centimetre (yes, that’s added tot he two inches in Dec/Jan!) and Spice is currently sporting a pre–shooting-up rounder face.

Anyway, Sugar always looks fresh and best with her hair back from her face - usually up in a pony or high “two puffs” is pretty; Spice can have twists hanging, or stuff down by her ears and it’s super cute. Interesting how the genes play out, eh?

Anyway, we’re off to an Okanagan Families With Children From Africa getotgether tonight and I still haven’t got my slide show togaether - so I’d better hussle!!!

This kid makes me feel so woefully inadequate!  And when I started feeling better that “well, at least he doesn’t know all the lyrics!” - crum. His first language isn’t English.  Durn it. He learned to play the uke in three months!  Amazing…. What is he, like, four years old?

Eat your hearts out, prairie folk - we have tulips 4 inches high in our yard. (And the Vancouver people say “so what?” lol!)

But with the Olympics on the tube every night, we felt inspired to spend our day off up on the skihill.  Despite Spice’s pleas to ski, we decided they should start off tubing (read: cheaper) and had a blast going up and down the slopes together.  Then off to a Tapas bar for dinner - yum yum! What a nice day.  And a real pleasure to get it away from it all. It’s so nice Big White is 45 minutes away - we really should go more often.

We are so very lucky - at the girls’ pre-school there are five families from Africa, including one Ethiopian family.

We got invited to their son’s birthday party today, and it was so great. There were 5 or 6 Ethiopian/Eritrean families there, as well as a Kenyan family (the only one we had met before.  The girls were a little overwhelmed at first but they did really great and had a marvelous time.  As for Jrock and I, well, what a treat.  Great Ethiopian food, real coffee (which I helped roast on the stove!) and we got to meet some really neat people.  A couple of the ladies I think I will meet for coffee again, including the B-boy’s mom.  SUCH a small world - we live a few blocks away from each other and she’s like a sister to one of the ladies I got to know really well in Ethiopia.  Amazing. 

I didn’t have permission to post adults’ faces, but here are a couple of semi-anon pics.

If you recognize the lady’s name, Hanna Pool wrote “My Father’s Daughter” - a great true read about an Eritrean woman, adopted to a UK couple, who went back to examine her roots. (In my bookstore.)