I am pre-writing this, so the moment it is offical news, I can post it!

My little (6’3″) brother called me earlier this week to let me know he is going to propose to his girlfriend D this week.  I am SO happy for them!  D is a really nice girl – serious and fun at the same time.  We haven’t spent a lot of time together, but I’m really looking forward to getting to know her better… she’s certainly a welcome addition to our family.  And little B certainly is head over heels in love with her, so I am SO STOKED for him.

Little brother, you deserve all the happiness in the world. Treat her well!

Well, I had a career highlight and a career low yesterday.  I didn’t get the job I was vying for, and it was a real disapointment. So I’m staying doing advertising for a realtor.  But it’s a bit of an ego blow.  One month, I have an assistant.  The next month, I am an assistant.  I think to myself in a whirl of self pity and identity woes: Why did I get a Master’s degree?  To photocopy for someone?

Not that being an assistant isn’t a valuable profession – but it’s not my career aspiration.  If the kids were here, it would be easier to swallow my loss of professional identity, since my previous title would be replaced by “Mother.”  BUT, for now, this will do.  And it is nice being able to be honest about the kids coming.

On a totally different note, I GOT TO INTERVIEW STEPHEN LEWIS YESTERDAY for a magazine article I’m writing.  Thank you so much, my friend L, who got me in.  Talk about a career highlight… and for my first major feature article, too!  Mr. Lewis was very kind on the phone (which I was a little worried about since he was kind of tired and crusty the first time I met him) and answered all my questions wonderfully.  Now I just have to write a killer article and jump start my writing career!

Dazed, confused and wondering where this path is taking me;

Nicky  

Jrock and I haven’t posted for a little while because we’ve been awfully busy. 

First news, we bought a house!  The inspection is tomorrow, but the other conditions have already been removed.  It’s a lovely storey-book tudor revival.  We’re going to have lots of fun fixing it up (ok, so I’ll have fun and J will have stomach pain!) but we don’t take possession until October 1st.  Any offers from friends and family to paint would be very welcome in October, ha ha.  We’re also putting in all new windows, new exterior doors, and the OK necessity: air conditioning.

Second news, I started a new job Monday.  It’s a part-time job  helping out a realtor in town.  I certainly like the people I’m working with, but the job isn’t that challenging.  I had another job interview today, though, doing what I used to do… so wish me luck.  It’ll certainly help with the house payments when they start happening.

Otherwise, life is ticking along.  We finished our last visit with our social worker on Monday, so we expect a copy of the homestudy report tomorrow. Then off it will go to Kidslink where the rest of our file is waiting.  Then the whole deal will be shipped off to Ethiopia, and we WAIT.  And wait.  6-8 months from now, hopefully we’ll have news!

Monday was also our 2nd wedding anniversary.  It wasn’t too eventful, since we had the last SW interview.  But we went out for dinner at a pub and there was a nice message waiting on the answering machine from my Gramma when we got home.  “Congratulations!” she said. “2 down… only 58 to go!”

Let’s hope so Gramma!

Sisters are different flowers from the same garden. 

One thing about living in the Okanagan – you sure get a lot more guests!Locals complain about the yearly invasion all the time, but for us, it’s just wonderful. 

My sister S and her buddy K came to visit us last weekend.  We had lots of fun hauling Jrock around doing girlie things… We visited the lavender festival where the main activities were cutting a bunch of lavender to take home and shooting photos of each other.

We hit a few wineries (Tantalus, Grey Monk,) and S suffered through our wine musings.

Of course we also had to hit Carmelis Goat Cheese place.  Poor J -> I told him beforehand that there were sandwiches sans goat cheese, but there weren’t.  K decided she sides with J – anything goats cheese smells like goat. 

The new goat milk gelato was pretty awesome, though.  I recommend coconut!

I also showed S around the neighborhood (including the beach) where we hope to move, so she’ll know how to find us next time!

Mostly, it was just great to hang around the house, eat and drink a little too much wine, and get caught up with my sister. 

And another one just for you, S:

Big sisters are the crab grass in the lawn of life.  ~Charles M. Schulz

When I talk to moms who’ve adopted from Ethiopia, they often say that doing their children’s hair is either 1. their biggest challenge or 2. their biggest pleasure. 

Personally, I’m really looking forward to it! I love doing hair and I think it’ll be good bonding time.

Check out my friend Shelley’s home videos about simple hair techniques, by clicking on the picture of Tenaye (her daughter)’s hair.  (Love those coil curls – so cute!) Shelley also has a home business selling hair care products online to Canadians who don’t live in major centres:  http://shuruba.sasktelwebsite.net

Through the whole homestudy process, I think Jrock and I have really spent a lot of time thinking about our families, and the way we were raised.  How lucky we are to have such great, loving families… and how lucky our kids will be to have such awesome grandparents, aunts and uncles!

Here are the photos we sent off with our dossier… these will be the first pictures the kids will see of their new family members.  You can see that we’re all smiling and ready to greet the next generation! 

Thanks to our friend T in Golden, Jrock and I got to go out last Thursday evening to the Harambe Camp in Naramata. 

Harambe is a swahili word meaning “Coming Together As One”… this camp is for Canadian families with black children adopted from Haiti, the USA and Ethiopia.   It really reminded me of the French family cultural camp we used to attend when I was a pre-teen.. but instead of canoeing and making crafts in French… the kids at this camp got to go to hip hop and African dancing lessons. We arrived on the last day, and it was obvious all the kids and adults had a blast.

Also thanks to T, we got to meet three other couples about our age from Kelowna… one with a darling little Ethiopian girl, and two couples with biological blond-haired daughters and cutey girls from Michigan and Florida, respectively.  Amazingly, one of the couples is building a house just down the street from us! 

J said the best part of the evening, aside from the wonderful entertainment, was seeing the kids, (because he said got an idea of what his kids might look like!)  I’ve included some pictures but blurred them since I didn’t get any parental consent to put kids’ pics on the net.  Notice Jrock bright and clear in the background!

It’s amazing some of the lines of hooey that politicians feed you when they want something to happen.  For example, “hydro-electric energy is green energy.”

Hooey!  Water coursing through a dam is renewable energy… but what about the devastating effects from flooding a watershed?  Animals and their habitat drowned.  Farmers and landowners displaced.  First Nations cultural places and artifacts lost forever.

This is the mighty Peace River a few kilometres from where I grew up.  I remember my parents fighting the Site C dam when I was growing up in northeastern BC.  The community beat back the proposal then, but now with an energy crunch, the BC province is once again trying to flood the Peace River and Halfway River valleys. The local farmers, First Nations, landowners, environmentalists and generally concerned citizens are waging a peaceful war of protest, but their efforts aren’t being heard in Victoria, where decisions are made.

1. learn more by visiting the Peace Valley Environmental Asoc., or Hooey explaining the government’s side of things, or Peace River Heritage River status description.
2. write the Premier of BC (and your local MLA if you live in BC) tell him that the Site C dam proposal has to stop. Contact information here.

I haven’t convinced you yet to lend your support to our northern neighbors?  Download and take a look at this google earth simulation of the effects of Site C.  It’s huge. (Get google earth first if you don’t already have it.)

Adopting involved a TON of paperwork.  There are all the documents and clearances you need to collect, forms to fill out, homework to do…

We’re almost done!  I finished up all the immigration paperwork on Sunday and as soon as we get into see a Notary, (and our family gets their pictures to us,) our complete dossier will be sent off to Kid Link.  Yahoo!

P.S. The picture here is of Jrock getting fingerprinted for his interpol clearance.  The cop was a real knob (a couple backhanded racist remarks about our future kids – seriously!) but we smiled our way uncomfortably through and all the resulting paperwork arrived in a timely fashion.  Some battles are worth fighting, but this one wasn’t.  Luckily, everybody else we’ve been in contact work for checks and references and letters have all been awesomely supportive.

 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1g_Q7s3atU]

Doctors Without Borders

Stephen Lewis Foundation

The Global Fund

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tEC7OTQwGk]

For those of you that don’t know, Jrock and I spent our honeymoon in France.  We have a serious wine hobby and I just love food…

As J said, “I really never noticed what I was eating until we were in France.  Everything is delicious there!”

Last night we went to Ratatouille, and totally enjoyed it. J hates animated films but he just couldn’t stop laughing.  If you know the Michelin guide intimately or just are in a mood for a good laugh, don’t miss this movie. 

P.S. The night before J rented Team America.  My opinion: don’t rent it and waste $4. Jrock has had his movie-selection privileges revoked indefinitely because of that decision.