In some ways, the last three months have flown by – my new job has kept me hopping and Jrock and I have been up to our ears in renovations. But in another way, it’s been the longest three months of my life. If you are an adoptive parent, you’ll understand – you know a referral will happen for sure. But you just have no idea WHEN. So until, magically, you receive an email with a picture of your children, the waiting is infinite. No end in sight.

“6-9 months” expected wait time. Bah humbug.

The best Christmas present I could possibly get would be a referral this month.

When we started planning for our new family, Jrock and I decided that we needed some additional life insurance.  We already both had policies, but we decided that if we had kids, I would need more coverage, so he could keep living in the house, etc.  So we called up our old friend B (really, he is a good friend) and said “sign me up for $X more!”

B said that since we were increasing the policy, it was like signing up for a new one.  So he asked the usual questions… including, are you travelling out of Europe or North America any time in the next year? to which I replied “yes, to Ethiopia to pick up my kids” to which he replied are you sure? to which I replied “yes, I’m sure,” and I spit on the spit stick. 

A month later, his office called up – seems the insurance company didn’t like that I was going to Ethiopia and had to fill out a new form.  So I filled out a new form. 

THEN, they sent a nurse to my house to collect a urine sample (which tests for, among other things, AIDS…)

Finally, $50+ in courier fees later, B called me and told me I was declined for any additional coverage until I was back from Ethiopia (and had more tests.) Apparently, Ethiopia is on the dangerous list, according to B.  Nice.  He was a little flustered himself, and said at least you’ve had the existing policy for over three years, so they can’t do anything about that. Nice.

So a warning to any expecting parents out there who are nesting and preparing and buying life insurance before travelling to pick up your kids: Remember, you are not going to Africa.  Nowhere with poverty or illness or crazy stuff like AIDS.  Better pretend you are going to stay in the city, navigating your car around traffic accidents, eating French Fries that clog your arteries and stressing over work until you have a heart attack.  It’s much safer.

The wintry white stuff is not that common in Kelowna, so we were delighted when we went to bed last night and could hear the soft quietness of snow falling.  I don’t know how long it will be here, so I snapped some pictures of the yard while it lasted!

Meanwhile, inside, the cats are cuddling up to ward off the chills… (they probably won’t enjoy the change table as much when it starts getting USED…)

This is the neatest site.  Check it out! You play the vocabulary game, and ever right answer you get, the site donates 10 grains of rice to the UN Food Programme.  Who pays for the food?  The advertisers at the bottom of the page! (who I didn’t even SEE, since I had my screen resoluation set so low ) You do a little learning and earning at the same time.  Pretty cool.

I decided to surprise Jrock and take him out for a “date night” to the Kelowna Rockets Hockey game.  (I got free box tickets through work.) J really enjoyed the hockey game – it’s not my thing… but the atmosphere was good and it was fun to get out and do something different.

When we got home, we were surprised that the dogs didn’t want their bedtime snack…

[youtube=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=I8bk1DF9P48]

Turns out, they had got into a box of brandy beans and eaten the whole thing.  It was funny at first, because Hamish was quite obviously drunk and his little tummy was all round.  But we started to get worried as soon as we realied how much brandy actually was in those chocolates.  (Possibilities included cardiac arrest, his lungs going, seisures, etc.) So the two of us had to wake up every hour last night to check on Hamish – and he was vomitting up pools of brandy and chocolate all night.  NICE.

Not exactly how we anticipated the date night would go!  Today we are tired and J is going to bed at 6:30pm.  (And he didn’t get up half the times I did last night.)

O, the things you do for love.

Our animal family keeps us loved and amused… and sometimes puzzled. Like,

How can this possibly be comfortable? (Vega sleeps like this all the time!)

Why do they always pick the new furniture?

And, how can Hamish possibly sleep through Jrock swearing and yelling at his football team every Sunday?

aaaahhhhh

This is crazy – I get an email from our local agency today…

All it says is

“See the file.”

BUT!!!!!!! My Norton Anti-virus deleted the file attached. AHHHH!!!!!!! It was “information.zip”

So when I looked up the “virus” it was suppoed to have, it’s a mass mailing worm that sends itself to all the email addresses on the computer.  So, PROBABLY, probably, the agency just has a virus and Norton is working properly and the zip file was not my kids but really a hideous wormy computer virus, mocking me and driving me CRAZY!

But I don’t know.  And because they close at 4:30… I won’t know until tomorrow! 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it’s official.  We have graduated to a family-sized vehicle.

It’s a (new to us) 2003 Honda Pilot, with about 100,000km on it.  Leather, which should be good for wiping up kids spills, and plenty of room for kids and dogs and luggage and us too.   In fact, it has a third row of seats that actual adults can sit in… so when we have people visiting we can all (max 8 people) climb into the car and head of to the winery/beach.  The pilot has all-wheel drive and racks for the canoe. It also tows a trailer – we are planning on buying a dinky little RV for summertime travels and the week at Harambe Camp.

All these good things aside, I was having a little environmental guilt apleximy when we were looking at buying it.  I mean, it’s huge.  It has the best gas mileage in its class, but that’s in the “huge” class. But J rock has agreed to drive my little car back and forth to work every day… while I walk and bike to work.  We’re going to do our best to drive it as little as possible.  And in the end – we needed this truck.  It’s not like we will be driving it solo to commute… we’ll be towing a trailer or hauling 2 dogs and 4 people around.  *So I’m feeling a little better – but still pretty away that we’ll need to watch how and when we drive it.

It’s so silly… I am having such trouble making some decisions.

My mother-in-law decided she wanted to get “the kids” a present for Xmas,  referral or not.  So she suggested I pick up two little horses.  Jrock and I picked out 2 at Superstore last night… but today at Save-on-food I found 2 more horses.  So this is the silly part – I totally can’t decide which 2 horses to keep. We THINK one of our kids will be bigger than the other, but we don’t know.  Jrock wanted the 2 horses to be different, so we picked the big brown one and the little paint originally, but the brown one doesn’t have a rocker.  And what if that kid feels left out because it doesn’t have a rocker?  So the others have rockers, but they also neigh and wag their tails.  I really like the small paint, but what if that kid feels left out because their tail doesn’t wag?  Maybe we should keep the two tail-waggers even if they are the same size…

Pitiful.  I know. And this isn’t even a major decision.

I’m calling my mother-in-law to pick out her own horses!

So we’ve been waiting almost 11 weeks for a referral now… yikes!  It’s so torturous.

It feels like 11 years. 

I’ve started checking my email more frequently – at the middle and end of each day, at least – JIC.

But no news yet.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mup5L-c9e2A]

http://www.spreadthenet.org

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/K3E7Lw9huqk&rel=1]

Good-bye WRX.  Hello small SUV!

Previous post on car…

Last night I went to see Jrock play hockey for the first time – he’s been playing in a rec league since September and is really enjoying it. 

It’s freezing in the stands at the Capital News Centre, but I brought some hot chocolate and our picnic blanket, and I got to sit with one of the young ladies from my work, whose boyfriend is on the same team.  Here are some pictures from the game:

Period one.  Wait a sec… is that J in the penalty box?

Period two…  Maybe he just wanted to be near his adoring fans, because he’s back in the penalty box again.  I’m sure he was keeping warm stuffed between two other team members – I, on the other hand, had run out of hot chocolate!

Period three.  Well, the time is passing by quite quickly.  I know nothing about hockey, but I can tell Jrock’s team is now getting very frustrated and sloppy and is starting to substitute body slams for worrying about the puck.  And wait -> is that Jrock in the penalty box again?

Well, the game is almost over (they lost 8 to 3) so I’d better get some action shots – I’ve only got fan photos of Jrock in the penalty box.  I stand up, take off the blanket and move to the plexiglass… but where is he going?

[youtube=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=uW1tn136Bzg]

Seems J was thrown out of the game.  My peaceful, calm and polite husband is a bruiser.  HILARIOUS.  We all have a dark side of our personality – I guess his is on the ice.

So it wasn’t that torturous watching… I’ve agreed to go back once again this season.  Jrock says he’ll try to stay in the game until the end next time