Greetings from Canada! This blog chronicles our adoption journey to our kids in Ethiopia.
I’m “Nicky” and my husband’s name is “Jrock.” We live in Kelowna, BC.
Jrock’s big hobby is the NFL: he’s a big San Fransisco 49ers fan. He also enjoys watching WW2 movies, golf, skiing.
Nicky keeps busy volunteering with Rotary, taking pictures, practicing yoga, gardening and reading.
We both have a passion for wine and travel, enjoy scooting around town on our bikes and spending time outdoors. We overhauled our 1916 historic home in Alberta, and renovated our 1940s cottage in BC as well. Our dogs and cats are our family and we get a kick out of their daily antics. We hike about Canada, spend a lot of time entertaining visiting friends and relations, and travel abroad about once a year.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
We are also hoping to use Kidslink. We are just finishing up our homestudy with Choices Adoption and we will go from there. I think you are a few months ahead of us, but who knows, we may end up travelling around the same time. We are hoping that by next christmas we will have a little one home with us.
We are also fairly new to Vancouver. Feel free to email me instead of just blogging comments. We live right near the best Ethiopian restaurant in Vancouver and eat there all the time, so perhaps sometime we can meet for dinner.
All the best
Laura
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Thank you so much for your amazing website!! We are just finishing our homestudy with CAFAC. We hope to bring two siblings home from Ethiopia under the age of three. Your site has one of the best lists of Canadians who are adopting from Ethiopia and it is a great resource for us!
Jenn, Manitoba
October 30th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
I love your website. It has helped me hugely and I check it every day. We have just received provincial approval to adopt siblings under 5 and are waiting for the dossier to get sent to Ethiopia (it’s at foreign affairs now).
Thanks for sharing such great information.
Good luck getting a referral soon!
October 31st, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Karin - really nice to meet you!!
I decided to scroll through my junk posts today, and there I found your post. Ooops! So I dusted it off and reposted
All the best for a speedy referral for you too!!! Are you with CAFAC or Kidslink?
Cheers
Nicky
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:47 pm
We are with CAFAC. We are hoping that the dossier gets sent to Ethiopia soon. It arrived in Ottawa a week ago and I have checked Canada Post at least 20 times to see if it’s been mailed back. Months have gone by since we’ve started but sometimes a week seems like ages. The wait is definitely tough.
Thanks again for the great info and good luck.
Feel free to email me if you want to chat outside the blog.
Good luck!
December 10th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Hi!
Are you in W-town or K-town these days? I can’t remember which card I got most recently. lol!
We have joined you on the expecting to expect list, but just through the local agency. Jan and I have our papers in to adopt and in the meantime we are certified foster parents. It is certainly a different twist in our days.
Hope you are well.
Good luck with the waiting - just think of how this is your last chirstmas before 5 am stockings and paper all over everthing (:
December 12th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Hi Jan and Mary-Anne! What a lovely surprise!!!
K-town
Are you in I-village? Hope so, ’cause that’s where I sent your Xmas card!
I’m so very happy for you, that you are adopting. Jan told me a while back it was on your minds, and I think you’ll find that it’ll be a wild but absolutely wonderful ride. Keep us posted on your ‘lil ones too!
Hugs!
December 13th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I enjoyed reading your blog. We too are adopting from Ethiopia. We are going through Holt and are requesting a baby girl or twins. It’s been a long road since we have been waiting in the China program for 1.5 years and it took us a complete year since we started to complete our home study. So we feel like the wait will never end. Holt is just beginning adoptions in Ethiopia and we will be one of the first families. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not. But we are anxious and excited and hope to hear something in January or February.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:19 am
Hello! I just stumbled upon your blog and saw that you linked our family’s blog. I’m truly honored. I just wanted to mention that the actual link for “Julie and Marshall” goes to Brianna and Kevin’s blog. Rather than doing the actual URL (web.mac.com…) for my blog, it’s probably easiest to use http://www.journeytofamily.com as the actual link. (if you decide to change it)
Best of luck to you on your adoption journey and I hope you are staying warm!
January 5th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Thanks Julie! I changed it on the links
Best of luck to you too!
Nicky
January 6th, 2008 at 2:05 am
Congrats on your adoption journey! My husband and I are also adopting from Ethiopia (with CAFAC). We received a referral for a beautiful baby boy in Oct. All the best!
June 4th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Hi Nicky,
If you want to add us to your list, I have a blog now too! lehmanadoption.wordpress.com is the url.
Dave and Jenn
October 18th, 2008 at 9:39 am
After a long time of just checking in on a few blogs I am finally working myself up to actually commenting. For awhile I’ve been thinking I should send a hello to you guys for a couple of reasons. First, my husband and I are also adopting from Ethiopia, which is of course what brought me to your site in the first place. Once here, I noticed your comments about Rotary and exchanges. I was actually went on a youth exchange myself (a long time ago!) and since then have been very involved at the district level with our youth exchange program. Just a few years ago I finally actually joined the Rotary club here, the same one that sponsored my exchange. The other thing I noticed was your comment about Jrock being a huge NFL fan - my husband and I are both huge fans as well (neither of us cheer for the Niners though!). Anyway, I just thought it was interesting to see some similarities like these. Cheers… A
October 18th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
That’s really cool, Andrea -
yup - I was a Rotary Exchange student too - and overall, an exchange student 3x. And I’m in Rotary and have over the years helped a lot with youth exchange as well!
Small world, eh?
I’ll email you off-line too
Nicky
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:03 am
hello i just googled canadian ethiopian adoption and found you. I am an Australian with 3 children adopted from Ethiopia and my husband and i are considering a move to Canada for a few years. i was hoping to get in touch with a support group there.
I am very involved in all things Ethiopian and am the aid advisor for the Australian group as well as having a project that supports some Catholic Nuns in Addis and Jimma.
Anyway if you have any suggestions or advice I would love to hear from you.
I have enjoyed your site, you are great with the computer.
Cheers,
Kate
January 8th, 2009 at 4:47 am
Hi [Nicky], hi [Jrock]!
Henni and me just came home from skiing in austria. great snow, but not comparebel to canada for sure… anyway, great to hear from u guys!
in berlin, everything is fine aswell. we still try to work on our careers, not everytime wich that success we has appreciated ;-). We still have no children. youre little girls look so cude! we definitly want to see them when visitig you the next time.
so you come over on feb/march? for sure, you can stay at our appartment if you like. we just have three rooms, but they are huge. much space for everybody.
arnica, we talk about our canada-trip very often. it was more than nice to see all you guys and enjoy your guest-friendship.
Hope to here from you the next weeks!
Henni & Kai
January 12th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Hi-
This is Jenn from Wisconsin! Thanks for posting a link to our Youtube video…Our Journey to Jonah. It’s been such an exciting time for our family. I really enjoy your blog! Thanks for sharing with us.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Awesome Jenn - it’s a great video
Glad to meet you!
February 17th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Thank you for capturing so well the magic and reality of a part of our world. You guys were great guests & we look forward to welcoming the new arrivals from Africa the issBindi way
March 9th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Hi Nicky,
My name is Adriana Barton and I’m a reporter at The Globe and Mail. I’m writing an article on Canadians who are adopting siblings from overseas and I came across your website while I was browsing online.
Are you interested in being interviewed about your adoption journey? I’d love to know why you’ve decided to adopt siblings instead of just one child and to know what the process has been like.
Please get back to me as soon as you can…it would be great to talk to you.
Thanks,
Adriana Barton
Globe Life Reporter > The Globe and Mail
April 20th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Hi there,
My name is Tracy Clark and I am a freelance writer for Okanagan Life magazine. I am currently working on an article about domestic and international adoption for the June 2009 edition of the magazine. I found your blog while looking for Okanagan families and wondered if you would be interested in speaking about your experiences?
I would be interested in finding out why you decided to adopt from overseas, find out more about the adoption process, and about your family and (what appears to be) huge network of friends and supporters!
If you could get back to me as soon as possible, I would love to set up an interview with you!
Thanks so much in advance for your consideration!
Tracy Clark
May 5th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Hi,
I’m an Italian-Canadian from Montreal, now living in Turin. I check your site every once in a while as we have a beautiful 6 1/2 yr old son, Abenezer, adopted from Ethiopia 3 years ago.
Just wanted to send a few words of encouragement, this wait is the longest, once you have the babies in your arms, this will all be forgotten. During our wait, we had the elections and then there were civilians killed in Addis Abeba during manifestations against the elections, we were always on edge…we also had a case here in Italy of an 8 yr old who was relinquished back to social services after only 2 months in Italy….so all Italian-Ethiopian adoptions were on hold for a while.
Just take a deep breathe and know that your babies will soon be in their new home and with their new family. My son will always be my baby even though he was already 3 1/2 when he came to his new home.
take care,
Anna
June 9th, 2009 at 11:19 am
http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....le1174325/
Have you had a chance to read this article? what do you think?
July 6th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I was forwarded your blog. It is wonderful! If I am reading this right, the girls are not home yet. Right?
I am the mother of two twin girls from Ethiopia, too. My girls came home July 7, 2008. They turned 3 in May. I have a blog on them. It is noelnielsen.com or http://noelnielsen.blogspot.com
I loved looking at your pictures. Your girls are darling. Please find me on facebook. I want to stay in touch.
December 19th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Hi Nicky,
My name is Nicole Bellefleur, and I live in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. I’m adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia, through Imagine Adoption (as a single parent).
I’ve been following your blog for some time now… at least a year. I don’t even remember how I first stumbled on it, but I’m so glad I did. I’ve enjoyed following you and Jrock on your journey to your daughters… and especially over the last few months - through IA’s bankruptcy and subsequent restructuring, the story of your family has been such a source of inspiration. Your girls are precious, and you all look so happy together. You’re a fabulous blogger, and I’m learning alot through your posts. I appreciate that you share so much with the adoption community - thank you.
I’m very sorry about the death of your grandfather. You wrote about him so beautifully… it sounds like he was a wonderful man.
I also have a blog - it’s private though, so if you’d like to follow along, just let me know and I’ll send you an invitation.
I wish you and your family a joyous Christmas season, and all the very best in 2010!
Nicole