Our friends and family keep asking for pictures of the new abode – and now that we’ve unpacked (excepting the mountain of boxes in the garage) I’ll post a few pictures! 

The animals are starting to feel at home, although the yard is taking some getting used to.

We had our first guests yesterday – my Auntie W and her friend K.  We sat out on the patio and had some fresh-squeezed lemonspritzers and raspberry brownies – yum!  Thanks for coming around, Auntie W, you are always great company!

In order of appearance… the deck through the living-room window… the kitchen… the dining room (working on more chairs)… the living-room (sofa not in the picture)… and the guest room.  Guests be warned – so far, there is just a double air mattress!

Lastly, the humans are starting to feel at home as well:

Now for something on the lighter side…

So J decided a week or so ago that he needed to do some reading.  Here is the reading list I put together for him, which I think summarized some of the best adoption, parenting and Ethiopian culture resources in easy-to-read formats.  Maybe he’ll give you book reviews when he is done each!

.

Adoption
The Complete Book of International Adoption: A Step by Step Guide to Finding Your Child
Dawn Davenport

Parenting
Supernanny
by Jo Frost
 

Ethiopia
Lonely Planet Ethiopia and Eritrea
by Lonely Planet Publications

.

.

I should add the disclaimer that I’ve read 20+ books on international adoption, several parenting tomes and numerous websites etc. about Ethiopia.  (Plus, we’ll be travelling to the country to gain firsthand impressions and experiences.)  These books are, however, definitely good introductions and summaries, if you don’t like reading as much as I do.

On Monday we met with the social worker (SW) for the first time.  (The appointment a week before turned out to be with the lady who runs the local agency.)  We had homework to do before we got there… three long questionnaires to fill out on our personalities, our families, and even on how ready our house is for kids.  (Considering we didn’t have an furniture then, it was pretty harmless!)

We actually enjoyed filling our the personality characteristics forms – it was neat to see what we think of each other as partners and future parents.  Jrock and I got a kick out of it.

When we met with the social worker, it was just like 1 1/2 hours of small talk.  I was somewhat frustrated afterwards, since I don’t know the topics we will be discussing or where this is going over the next 4 visits.  She was very nice though.  We were sent away with another lengthy questionnaire as homework.  This one asks some pretty personal questions. 

The SW thinks we’ll be done our homestudy before the end of July… yahoo! J gets worried everything is moving too fast, but he is forgetting that we’ll probably be waiting 6-8 months for a referral for 2 kids (as opposed to a couple of weeks for one infant.)

We also were given a 2 inch binder full of readings and questions to do over the next few weeks… Did you all know that we are part-time adoption students?!?

My sister made the comment that all couples having kids should have to go through this training.  She was a little peevish after a hard day teaching some “challenging” kids with FAS, but she totally has a point.  You can’t just ditch the birth control one night and become an adopting parent.  You have to be pretty darn committed.  AND do your homework.

So a couple weeks ago I got to go visit my little buddy Leandro.  I always try to visit him and his parents (really dear friends) when I’m in the neighborhood.  You’ll see he’s growing up to be quite a charmer!

 Leo just got a new slide in the backyard.  He was a little unsure at first, but soon he was screaming to go down it.  Here I am helping him out:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ0d4mrhO0o]

And here he is enjoying it himself! (I think I taught him how to scream, too, ha ha!)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwIy1OTj5X4]

Leo’s mom is a great friend and an excellent mom.  You can read about some of our similar views about parenting on her blog.

They have our stuff.

This only reason I haven’t been screaming bloody murder on the phone day in and day out.  We are held hostage by the fact that the moving company has all our worldly possessions.

The dispatcher in Surrey is a gem -
“Your stuff is in Winnipeg?  Well, I had no idea.”  As if!  HE’s the one who sent them there. 
“It should arrive in 3-4 days.”  How about a couple of weeks?!? 
“Oh, it looks like Jun 2nd now…”  June 7th and counting…
“Oh, they’ll be heading straight home from Winnipeg.”  Actually, we found out from the national headquarters that they are going through Calgary and then Fort McMurray first!

And the best nugget yet: They movers called us, (all choked because they want to be at home with their wives and they’ve been on this never-ending trip) and told me that the dispatcher told them to just dump our stuff in storage in Winnipeg or Calgary to make room for other people’s belongings… and then they’d eventually send someone else to pick it up.  Are you kidding me???? Luckily, the movers refused on ethical grounds… so the cross country trip continues.

Being without our stuff for 2 weeks is having some financial repercussions as well as being a major pain in the butt.

• I can’t work because they have our computer.
• We have to eat out at least once or twice a day because there are only so many things you can prepare with no pots or dishes.
• There’s nothing to do at our house except go for walks, sit on the dog beds, read, and fill out our adoption homework.  This is good for the most-part… but sometimes we can’t stand it and we go out to the movies and spend money in other ways to relieve our sanity.
• We have to buy all these things we stockpiled, such as meds before we went off our medical plan.

I tell you, these people better be giving us a SERIOUS discount… or else I think we’ll have to take them to small claims court or something. We are so peeved, because we can’t seem to do anything.  But in the meanwhile, for heaven’s sake…

Don’t move with “Two Small Men with Big Hearts” out of Surrey!!!!

Well the moving has not been going as planned, but Nicky and I are enjoying the Okanagan.  Our moving company was supposed to arrive on May 24, but did not show up until May 28th.  In the meantime, Nicky and I had to go to Kelowna with the dogs and cats to move the food and for her to catch a flight.  Luckily, we had my parents at the house when the movers arrived (late) to supervise the loading of goods.  Unfortunately, our treadmill was not loaded as it needed to be taken apart in order to take it down the stairs and the movers had neither the time nor patience to take it apart.  My father would have taken it apart but he did not have the tools to do so.  Fortunately, I have strong friends back home who will hopefully help him take it downstairs and over to my parents before we can pick it up.  (Thanks again, guys)

We learned at this time that the movers would NOT be going directly to BC, but instead would be going to Manitoba to pick up a load and then moving our stuff.  They would not be arriving to BC until June 5th or after.  This left Nicky and I stranded in Kelowna with two dog beds, an air mattress, camping pots and utensils, and a large amount of wine. 

We have managed to do OK in the meantime and we purchased a new bed to sleep on.  Unfortunately, our air conditioning had not been installed in the rental and we hit a heat wave (30 -35 C) for four days straight.  This left us and our animals withering and wilting in the house, but today it has cooled!!!  Tomorrow our air conditioning will be installed for the next bout of Okanagan summer.

The delay of the movers has left us frustrated and left the house empty.  Nicky contacted the head office in Surrey and has got the run around from the manager.  “I wasn’t aware the load was going to Manitoba??”  and  “They should arrive no later than June 2nd”  were some of the lines he fed us.  Nicky talked to the office in Edmonton and they claimed the manager was a “real rotter” and definitely the bad apple in the company.  He has told us there will be some financial compensation, but we have not been informed of the total.  If it is not sufficient, we are prepared to take them to small claims court to wring out a proper amount!

Obviously, the blog has been silent in the meantime as our computer is in Manitoba.  (That has been our catch phrase….”We would, but it’s in Manitoba”)  We are currently at UBCO library cathing up on e-mail etc.

We have filled the void  of the house by reading, walking the dogs, shopping, and catching up on rest.  The animals have settled in nicely and when it is not too warm we can hear our cat Haatim running and rattling the doors.  Hamish and Maggie are starting to adjust to the hum of the cars on the street in front of our house and are becoming a little more civilized.

We have met and visited with my new employers and they were kind enough to lend us some chairs.  I start work tomorrow at the new job and I am excited and a little anxious, but I’m sure everything will feel more comfortable within a few weeks.

On the adoption front, we met with the adoption agency in downtown Kelowna and placed a payment with them.  We have been placed with a social worker and have begun some new paperwork important for the home study.  Our first visit with the social worker will be next Monday on my day off.  It will have to be downtown rather than our house because it will either be still empty (I hope not!!) or it will be very disorganized with the recently moved boxes.  We’ll keep you updated, at any rate.

So we’ve arrived in our new home, although our furniture has not!  Apparently the moving company routed it through Winnipeg.  Just a little sidetrip!  Luckily we moved off the air mattress onto our newly-purchased bed last night, but the only other furniture that we have is the dog beds.  So we eat on the airmattress on the balcony, and “lounge” by taking over the dog’s beds! It’s like going back to undergrad university days…

Anyway, today we  had our first apointment with the Kelowna agency.  They are obviously very nice people and I’m looking forward to looking with them.  I left our 1 1/2 hour visit feeling very excited and confident; Jrock was looking happy but slightly overwhelmed.  “I have some reading to do,” he said somewhat wryly.  This is one key difference in our personalities: I love planning, whereas J lives more in the moment.  Luckily for him, I have just the book or two waiting in the wings! ha ha. 

 We did get challenged right at the outset about requesting two children and being first time parents   Although the adoption facilitator made some valid points, it wasn’t anything we hadn’t already considered.

So we get to book the homestudy visits right away.  The adoption facilitator estimates that this part of the process will take about three months. 

 As they say in France, “Allons-y!”