Ingredients for a nice summer afternoon:

• Green sun tea with mint (Add green tea bags to water in glass jar along with sprigs of fresh mint and set i the sun for a couple of hours.  Then chill, baby.)
• One friend with nice pastries from the bakery
• Her cutester daughter
• Mint and chicken spice (sage) ready to be picked, to amuse a 4 year old
• Good conversation
• A camera to capture the moment (and for the 4 year old to take 4 pictures with – see below!)

And here are Z’s pictures she took with my camera – there you go, kiddo!  Live on the internet, as promised!

Jrock can be pretty obsessive sometimes.  This year, he was all upset because he can’t use his toxic weed killing potions anymore… (city bylaw came into effect) UNTIL I gave him his handy-dandy-lion killer!  It’s a neat but simple device that rips up the offending weeds by the roots.

Our backyard is well aerated now, because of all of his de-weeding… he comes home and then heads out to the yard after work to see if any new ones have reared their ugly heads!

I had to send him back inside, though, when I caught him in his tie and dress shirt the other day.  His tie was dangling in the dirt and he nearly missed stabbing it a few times.

Now there is enthusiasm for yardwork, and their is obsession. Thin line.  I think he had crossed over!

It’s been a while since I completed my Master’s studies… and I do love going to school. 

So this July off I’m going to a continuing education class for a whole week at the local university - the course is “A Brief History of Jazz.”

A whole week of studying jazz music – how awesome is that? Sounds like heaven to me.

“A Brief History of Jazz” is an introduction to various stylistic periods in the history of jazz music, with emphasis on the evolution of different jazz styles and trends. Together with the study of recorded examples and videos by some major artists of the 20th century, discussion of the social conditions surrounding the evolution of jazz will also be included. The course invites you to explore new ways of listening and to develop appreciation for jazz as an art form. No musical prerequisites.”

I am so grateful that our agency sends us an update about the girls every month.  Usually there are pictures and their current height and weights.  Sometimes we get more information too. Above is a “sneak peek” of our girls’ pictures this month… we can’t show their faces on-line, but noone could identify them with these little bits, I’m sure

I didn’t feel like sharing it at the time, but last month we got a more comprehensive update.  One of our girls is quite shy – that we knew already.  But what we didn’t know is that she likes to play make-believe and has a great imagination.  She’s the more cautious of the two – she takes time to climb down from the playsets and takes quite a while to warm up to strangers. Jrock was laughing at how she’ll probably cry when she meets us, as they told us this is the typical behavior with new people.

Our other little girl is quite different.  She is active and loves to ride a bicycle.  She’s very friendly and loves to meet new people.  Typical twins – different personalities even if they look really alike.

They both are good in class, can count to 4 in English, play well with other children, can string a few words together, and can’t dress themselves (but can get on the underwear! lol)

This information is like manna from the heavens, I tell you. 

They haven’t grown since last month – except for maybe the hair.  Look at that! Braids!  And in November they were as bald as can be.  Oh, I am going to have so much fun with their hair…

This past weekend we sure put on the miles – 2400 km to be a bit more precise.  We took two days to drive out to Saskatchewan, had two days there, and then drove two days back again.

I think I need a vacation from our vacation!

But we did get to see a lot of people that we haven’t seen in a while.  The official occasion was the wedding celebration from Jrock’s close friend A and his ‘new’ wife W. 

Jrock and A have been friends since elementary school, and he was one of the groomsmen at our wedding.  (And apparently A does read our blog, so consider this a personal shout out! lol)

W and A have been together for a million years, and even have a beautiful little girl… but they just tied the not last month and this past weekend was the hometown hoe-down.  To give you an idea, there are about 400 people in the small town where Jrock grew up – so visiting there is sort of like a bit class / family reunion.

Besides the wedding, we also got to spend time with Jrock’s parents, his brother D and wife R and their little munchkin.  It was the first time I had met our nephew, so that was pretty special.  Jrock’s grandad also drove all the way out from Eastern Sask to come and visit with us.

Before the wedding we also got to hang out at the farm with Jrock’s other best bud K and his family; I like going there: minus the cows, it reminds me of my family.

On the way home, we stopped for a brief overnight in Calgary and saw our dear friends L and K and my godson – who is growing by leaps and bounds.  We weren’t very good company (too exhausted) but they fed us and put up with our dgs and sent us merrily back to BC in the morning.

Enjoy the whirlwind trip pics!

… hold your breath!

June 11, 2009 – here we come!

Somehow in all this distraction and confusion, I forgot to showcase the girls’ room… here are some pictures I took last evening: enjoy! 

And remember, if you want your own murals done (in BC or Alberta)
visit the artist’s blog.

And a video tour, with some details…. fabrics, toys, close ups of the animals, etc.  (Yes, it’s worth a look!)

We’re not completely out of the woods yet, but mercifully, we got some wonderful news today.  The biggest stumbling block in our way, the thing I was really REALLY worried about (let’s say no sleep for two weeks!) has been dealt with. 

It’s such a relief.  You have no idea.  We were so terribly worried and fearful that our adoption was falling apart.  I sat in the girls’ room and wondered if they would ever sleep in the beds.

A weight has been lifted. We certainly have some people to thank and give hugs to in Ethiopia when we arrive.

To celebrate, here is a song from my favorite singer. The video isn’t much, but the music:

our gracious host, his son and me

This weekend we got together with a bunch of other families who

• have children adopted from Africa 
• are somewhere in the adoption process
• have African cultural heritage

Our group is called Okanagan Families with Children from Africa.  We formed… when was that? two years ago now? wow! and have been growing ever since.  This potluck get together had over 50 people in attendance – isn’t that cool?  And we have families with kids from Ethiopia and Swaziland… and soon Ghana too. 

SEE MORE PICTURES HERE

Jrock showing pictures of our girls to a couple interested in adoption

We are also lucky to have several families in our group with one or two adults of Ethiopian heritage – in fact, our hosts for this event were Ethiopian, and boy, did we get treated to some awesome food.  I stayed afterwards and talked injera shop – I’ve managed to get the texture pretty good with injera, but the flour composition hasn’t been quite right.  So next time I’ll try 3 self-rising flour to 1 corn, 1 whole wheat, 1 brown rice, 1 dark rye… and see how it goes.

A great group of people – if you have kids from Ethiopia or are considering adopting, I highly encourage you to reach out and meet some other families – it’s invaluable for the adults and for the kids. 

For example, there were three girls who attended (all from different families) who had slept together in the same bed in Ethiopia and hadn’t seen each other in Canada until last Saturday.  What an invaluable connection for those girls.

Finger Puppets – an essential tool for international toddler travel!

I bought a set for my secret pal (what seems like eons ago, now – ) for bringing her 2 and 4 year olds home… and she said they were great.  So Jrock and I were out shopping and we picked out an “under the sea” quartet of finger puppets for that long long plane ride home. 

We hummed and hawed for what seemed like forever picking them out… I guess it’s just one of those small joys: imagining your children playing, and thinking up stories and songs for them.

So I’m now checking with the agency about what I can and cannot do – and they are doing the same.  You have to be careful in these situations not to interfere where you are not wanted or supposed to be.  (And just so you don’t think otherwise by my lack of information disclosure – our agency Imagine has been great.)

That said, I realized this morning that I am so lucky that I have resources and friends to call on halfway across the world – at a moment’s notice. No – I will not be jumping on a plane anytime soon (a drop of irony there) but I think I’m done being the passive waiting adoptive parent.  It wasn’t me anyway.

I am <this close> to hopping on a plane.  There has to be something I can do… I only worry that if I interfere I will jeopardize our adoption in another way. It’s the only reason I am not in Ethiopia already. 

I contacted my old friend who lives in Ethiopia today. Bless her soul, she returned my email in 2 hours… when the last time I wrote was 1/2 year ago.  She’s such a good person – and had some ideas about getting some help… it’s another option, anyway.

I know I can’t tell you much – I think the only reason I am blogging is because it’s a bit of a pressure release.  Like yelling into a pillow, or crying at a red light just so you can concentrate on the next few kms of highway.  It is hard for us to concentrate on daily life… we are constantly preoccupied with the girls and a whole bunch of unanswered questions.  And waiting – oh, the waiting.  It’s brutal. 

Even though I’m happy for the people I see getting referrals and getting through court on the discussion groups, I don’t feel like responding. I’m not even sure if I want to go to our Families With Children from Africa gathering Saturday.  All those new families – I’ll just scare them off adoption being Debbie Downer.  And Jrock isn’t much better, I tell you.  I’m trying to enjoy spring – trying to get some work done… and then I have five days that I’ve given myself off and the first two have been equally boring and frustrating and gloomy. 

$2283.  That’s how much a return ticket is to Addis on Sunday.

Spring is here and it’s a great time to play a guessing game with Mother Nature – so all you gardeners out there… why don’t you give a try?

I’ve posted pictures below of five of our trees’ blossoms… can you guess which is which? The photos were taken two days ago.  Just post a comment with your guesses… and in a couple of days I’ll post the answer.  The winner gets all the gardening glory

Click on the photos to enlarge if you want.

enjoying the sunshine in the backyard

This weekend my sister-in-law spent the weekend in the area.  So we spent some girl time together eating Thai food and antique shopping. I sure enjoy her company – I wish she lived a little closer!

me and my gramma

uncle S and me

d and jrock

My grandmother was also in the neighborhood – she was with my uncle S up in the Shuswaps for the weekend.  So they drove down Saturday afternoon and met us and my great aunties in Vernon.  We had a nice lunch together catching up and joking around. 

aunties R and S

Would you guess that my aunties are both over 90?  Seriously!  And when we left Auntie R gave me identical quilts that she had stitched by hand for our girls.  Wasn’t that sweet?

 

the quilts my auntie made for the girls

On a lighter note…

We heard via a discussion group that Amharic Tees was going out of business – so we ordered some little Tshirts and they arrived this past week. (They still have some stock, if you are interested…) Super cute, aren’t they? They look big in the picture, but they’re all pretty tiny.  That should round out the girls’ shirt selections for the summer nicely. Hopefully we’ll have them here before they outgrow them!