Out at the dog park with our friends K and S, and my sis.

My sister wants to premiere the room in all its glory on her artist blog first… but just to whet your whistle, have a look at the raccoon, fishing in the pond.

Boy, I wish I could share with you the pictures we received of the girls today!  But that will have to wait until we are through court – Hopefully next week!

They are so incredibly cute… and they look so happy and vibrant!  Here is a little sneak peak

You can see their previously shaved hair is growing.  In one of the sets of pictures it was free, and one it was done up in these cute fabric puffs. There were big smiles and laughs in every picture, though!

My sister is back in town finishing up the murals in the girls’ room. Today she finished up Summertime and is already moving to Spring, which I am looking forward too!

I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

Links to more pictures of the girls’ room

The murals start…
Our mural artist takes up her brush
Winter is all finished
Stinkers in the Fall
Summer Picnic with a Porcupine

If you are interested in having murals done in your kid’s room, Silena will travel! to to locations near Calgary, the Okanagan, Vancouver and the Kootenays. Check out her website, www.mosscampion.ca , or contact her at mosscampionsae@gmail.com .

A series of articles, radio coverage and a special report on the National aired this week, about Ethiopian adoption through the CAFAC agency (we are with Imagine Agency). 

We are very concerned.

1. For the children – if allegations of misdocumenting family ties, a lack of care and physical discipline are true… the children in CAFAC’s care now should be the first concern.
2. For the Ethiopian adoption program.  The story was very sensational, and it came off as all adoptions are suspect… which they are not.  It didn’t even mention that there is another agency (Imagine) who has passed Ethiopian inspections with flying colours. This kind of negative publicity can get a country’s adoption program closed if the authorities are short-sighted and extrapolate one agency’s problems to all agencies.
3. For our adoption.  We sincerely hope that we get though court on April 2nd, and everything is finalized, before any permanent negative spillout happens.

For all you kind people who have asked but may not know, FYI:

• We are with Imagine Adoption agency.  This agency passed the inspections from the Ethiopian government in 2007 with flying colours.
• All families adopting through Imagine are encouraged to connect with birth families, and Imagine is great about facilitating these visits… providing drivers, etc. 
• Physical punishment is the cultural norm in Ethiopia, but it is not allowed at the Imagine Adoption Agency’s transition homes.  They follow Canadian standards of care.

To all you families adopting with CAFAC and to the many good people who work for them- our thoughts are with you as you navigate through this difficult time.

A bit of sunshine for you, sent from a friend:

   “Today is the day when bold kites fly,
   When cumulus clouds roar across the sky.
   When robins return, when children cheer,
   When light rain beckons spring to appear.

   Today is the day when daffodils bloom,
   Which children pick to fill the room,
   Today is the day when grasses green,
   When leaves burst forth for spring to be seen.”
          – Robert McCracken, Spring

I am not a patient person – not even remotely.  I am getting pretty sick and tired of this… today (or yesterday in Ethiopia) was our third court date. And once again, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs did not produce the letter needed to complete our file. 

Apparently the judge was not impressed (we are on the same page on that one!) and has rescheduled our fourth court date for April 2, two weeks from now….

You wouldn’t think we’d get used to being disappointed, but I actually think we are.  It seems like we will never be finished and the girls will never be ours – and never know about us.  They must be wondering – all these kids are leaving with new parents, but no one out there is showing up for them.  They are almost three – they must be wondering.  Hopefully April 2 they will know they have new parents who will love them and come for them soon.

Last week a few of us received emails from a reporter from the Globe and Mail.  She was interested in doing an article on sibling adoption – and today the result was published. 

I’m pretty pleased with the results… and I have to say our friends from Westbank contributed a great picture!

It was nice to hear about Debbie and Rod’s girls as well.

ADRIANA BARTON
From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail
March 17, 2009 at 4:36 AM EDT

Barely a month has passed since Mekfira and Kalkidan made the long journey to West Kelowna, B.C., from Ethiopia, and already the two seven-year-old girls have settled into a routine. Each day they splash in the local swimming pool or play in the snow. And each night before bed, they well up with tears as their adoptive parents, Brent and Laura Livingstone, try to soothe their raw grief.

In their short, turbulent lives, Mekfira and Kalkidan have lost their birth parents, their orphan community and their homeland. But the children can rely on one constant from their former lives: each other.

The girls prattle away in their native language, Amharic, dress their dolls together and fight like sisters do. Although they are cousins, they were raised as siblings in Ethiopia.

Read the rest of the article here….

Well, even if we did have a big disapointment yesterday morning, I still had a good birthday!

We have a tradition that Jrock started a few years ago that we open our gifts at breakfast…. here is a sampling of my treasures – aren’t I spoiled? I got lots of cards, letters, emils, good wishes and phonecalls too.  Makes a person feel loved, for sure

For supper, we went out for Japanese and then joined some friends downtown for a lecture from Craig Kielburger, the founder of Free the Children.  It was really good – and the Kelowna Youth Global Citizen of the Year Award was given out at the same time – how inspiring is it to see all these teens making a big difference in the world!

I called our caseworker early this morning, to checkup and see if our court date was successful or not – (for those of you in the process but not here yet, we are behind Ethiopia in time, so by the time you wake up, your court date is over and the agency in Ontario will have the news…) – only to get a confused response from our caseworker saying that we are a week early calling. 

Oh, seriously?!??!

It’s not her fault or anything – I checked my emails and she must have just told me verbally, and I was a bit of a wreck when she told me (when our last one didn’t go through.) BUT – today is my birthday and I don’t think I would have gone “March 19 – Well that’s my birthday!” when it’s March 12.

Drat! In any case, she confirmed she would be giving us an early morning call March 19th.  So to all of you that left me wonderful, encouraging emails and comments – I will reread them again next week.  Thanks for your support – you’ll have to stay in suspense.  Just like us.

Last weekend was great to get away!

We met up with our friends K (male) and K (female) in Revelstoke – they’re from Calgary so it’s sort of in between.  K (male) is Jrock’s best friend from when they were literally babies, and we always have some good fun together.

I don’t have any pictures from skiing – hopefully the K team will send me some.  Let’s just say Jrock on skis and those two on boards have way skills than I do.  And Revelstoke ski hill is NOT a novice hill.  I enjoyed parts of it – but oh boy, lots of it was beyond me.  Plus they are all better skiers/boarders so I left them finish off the day on black while I skied down the long long green run.  That hill is crazy though – It takes 45 minutes to an hour to ski from the top to the bottom… non-stop. 

Anyway, we subsequently spent a lot of time in the hottub, went book/antique shopping, ate out - and on Sunday, went snowshoeing in the National Park.  Very nice!  and overall, we had fantastic weather.

We stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment with the dogs, and the K team stocked us well with junk food and wine.  The dogs, for the most-part, were extremely well behaved.  We were happy since this was Laughlin’s first trip since this summer.

Isn’t the picture below funny? Seriously, that woman has good taste in outdoor wear.

Thanks for coming out, guys!  We had a wonderful weekend.

Vega on her new cat tree

Jrock and I have been having a stressful time lately – we have our court date coming up next week… but in addition to that, Jrock is changing jobs, and I’m working about 70 hours a week on a project additional to my regular work.  It’s one of those times of flux, I suppose.  I think J will be really happy once he settles into a new job, but the uncertainty in the meanwhile is unsettling.  And my work is really intense right now – but, I am enjoying it immensely and the work is really gratifying.  Let’s hope the court date has a silver lining as well.

the 'dawg's on the couch

The few hours we do have off together we’ve been trying to just veg – so American Idol has risen to the top as a 2x weekly ritual.  Heck, the dogs and cats are into it too!  (Actually, I think they just like playing and cuddling on the couch.) Our favs so far:

Nicky’s piks

Jrock’s pik

This coming weekend, we are running away to Revelstoke with some friends, so you’ll see a more relaxed couple in pictures next week.

Many of you have found your way to My Bookstore – and several people have sent me emails/comments tahnking me for suggesting adoption and Africa-related books.

Recently I added a couple more sections to my store – focussing on themes that are important to me as an individual and as a parent: Nature, Wellness, Creativity, Environmentalism and Food!

Every one of these books I either own myself or have taken out of the library and highly recommend. I hope you enjoy them as well. 

And remember, you can always write the title and author down and get the local library to bring a book in for you – for free!

Parenting
     General
     for Adoption
     for Transracial Adoption
     for Nature and the Environment
     for Wellness
     for Creativity

Children’s Books
     with Black Main Characters
     about Ethiopia
     about Adoption
     with Multicultural Themes
     about Nature and Environmentalism

Adoption Baby Books

Africa
     Ethiopia
     African / Ethiopian Music

Recipe Books

Please pull up a chair and visit my bookstore - you can always find a link at the top of my blog.

My sister started selling her pysanky (Ukrainian Easter eggs) at the Village Arts Gallery in Invermere a week or two before Christmas.  The star seller suprised all of us – she made some eggs “written” (that’s pysanka-talk for painted) into different species of Penguins.

So for Easter, she made a bunch of bunnies and chicks – and would you know, they are selling like Easter hotcakes!!! I told her she needs to get a picture of all these BEFORE she puts them in the store, so she can post them on her blog (because they sell so quickly and then she doesn’t have a record.)  But she did take a couple of pictures of the little women she is writing.. they are super cute!  And can you believe, this is on a real egg?!?!?

www.mosscampion.ca

You can see a few more pictures here on her artist blog.