My family

My parents house - don't Mom;s flowers look nice this year?

it was so wonderful to see all of our family while up in Fort St. John.  The only person missing was Jrock.

 

 

My sister and her husband were actually in the process of moving while I was there.  They are heading down to a new life in Invermere, which I think they will really love.  Notice in the moving van picture there are three cat dishes in their hands?  Well, it was a really really full house at Mom and Dad’s.  B and D have moved in until their wedding - and one of the nights I slept with my sister S, her husband M, and their THREE CATS in Mom and Dad’s camper.  Now, that is family togetherness.  (Didn’t sleep a wink.)

Anyway, lots of luck to M and S in their new home!  So nice it will be closer than the 12+ hour trip up north, I tell ya!

Old Farmers (aka the In-Laws!)

out at Kelowna Land and Orchard

My mother-in-law saw one of the pictures I took of her in the garden and exclaimed “I look like an old farmer!”  Well, the irony is, they are.  Ha ha.  But I thought I would rub it in and title the post that way.

Jrock’s parentals are visiting this week - it’s really nice to have them here.  He really missed them - this past 6 months is the longest he’s ever gone without seeing them, and he was so glad when they decided to come out.

So we’re showing them Kelowna - you can see Jrock’s stepdad sipping iced ciders at Raven Ridge, and us going for a walk at Kelowna Land and Orchard Company.  But you know, you can’t have 2 farmers - er, sorry, old farmers! - in town without putting them to work.  so you can see my mum-in-law hacking at the weeds, etc.  The yard will look even more ship shape when they’re gone

   

My New Sister’s Shower

My little bro, B, is getting married in 2 weeks.  Wow! only 2 weeks.  While I was up north, we held a surprise shower for his fiancee D.  She was really taken aback - we had a lovely little group of 13 people there, all to wish them well.

D reading the guests' advice on men and marriage

My sister did the invites and my mom hosted with a great spread.  I was in charge of fun and frivolity.  I made fruit shakes (with and without the booze!) We all wrote marital advice on cards for D to read outloud - some pearls of wisdom there! - and then we D played the Newlyweds Game against my bro.  I taped hime answering questions earlier that day, and she played against his video answers.  It was pretty fun

   

Can’t wait to see everyone at the wedding!- Gramma, my aunties and uncles, S and T, my mom and dad, my sister, her hubbie, and of course, the soon-to-be-newlyweds!

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was Jrock and I’s 3rd anniversary… I got home just in time so we could spend the evening together.

Anniversary Dinner at Mission Hill

      

We went for dinner at Mission Hill - the Terrace Restaurant.  It was just lovely - the food was fantastic, and there was a different wine paired with each course.  I thought I would take a picture of each plate, but we kept diving into them before I remembered to take a picture!

       

If you are ever in Kelowna and want a very special night out (fine dining), you just can’t beat the view and the atmosphere of Mission Hill.

Cheers to three years, my love!  Only 57 to go.

the wedding ceremony in Fort Edmonton

at last! my love has come along

walking towards the wedding reception in Fort Edmonton

singing to J along with the 18 piece big band in the top of an ancient barn

Greetings From Up North!

 

This past weekend I travelled up to Northern BC to paddle down he Peace River and protest the proposed Site C Hydroelectric Dam.  I’ll tell you more about my trip when I get back, but for now here are two pictures.  If you want to know more, visit paddleforthepeace.ca !

Little Stinker

We sometimes find our baby Haatim in the strangest place. 

Like… what is he doing here?

   

Just when you think that cats don’t like water…

Actually, I think he was spider hunting!  We do have a few in the house

Harambe!

Harambe is a wonderful family camp that takes place in Naramata each year for families with kids of African descent.  It’s a wonderful opportunity to hang with families that look like yours, and the kids have a great time learning African drumming, Hip Hop dancing, etc. We fully plan on going each year when we get the kids home… but for this summer we just went out for the day. 

Below are a bunch of pictures (friends, games, walking down by the beach and the meditation labyrinth) and a short video of some of the evening’s performances.  The little kids’ dancing is so cute! If you would like to know more about Harambe, click here.

 

Mom and Dad beat the heat

My parents also cruised through for an overnight last week.  They hit the absolute hot hot hot weather - it was 35+, 37+ and 37+ over the 3 weekend days.  Whew! 

Even the dogs (theirs and our 2) were really hot, so we headed down to the dog beach… 5 adults and 3 dogs! (Boy, I’m glad we have the Pilot now!) You can see my dad and his dog Tori way out in the lake - it was refreshing for all of us.  That with a little gelato, helped us beat the heat. 

 

In the evening, Jrock’s BF K treated us to Thai food take-out (no cooking - yeah - ) and we cracked open a couple bottles of light, fresh wine.  The last pic is of my Mom playing Settlers of Catan with us while my dad took a quick drive down to Summerland. (He’s doing some work studying mountain goats down there.) 

Luckily, 2 days ago the temperature started to fall, and we’re back to the balmy 25-30+.  Very nice.

Jrock’s BF

Last week Jrock’s best friend from Calgary visited… they’ve been BFs -best friends- since elementary school - which is quite something.  Since J had to work the first day, I took K on my bike tour of downtown Kelowna, complete with breakfast in a sidewalk cafe, a cruise down the boardwalks and through the bird sanctuary, followed by some shopping, of course!

It was just nice seeing them hanging out.  It’s hard not seeing your closest friends regularly (I know!) so it’s appreciated when people make the effort to visit. The last pic below is kind of funny.  We made parfaits with the first cherries of the season, and you can see little Hamish lining up to see if he can score some cherries!

10 months

I thought I’d give a little update on the wait this month…

Well, we are still “top of the list” - meaning that the next kids who come in who fit our age request will be referred to us - and we are still waiting.  10 months.  Who knew?  Certainly not us.  People who submitted their paperwork for siblings a few weeks/ a month before us have their kids home already. 

My analogy: It’s like being on a train and every time you pull up to a station it just zips on by the platform.  Maybe the next one you’ll be able to get off.  But you’re not sure, because you are not driving the train; you are just a passenger.

We’ve tossed around changing our age request again.  First, because I thought (ok, I knew) that the “one child under 1 year old” is why we haven’t got a referral yet.  Second, because I’ve been spending more time with babies and 1.5 and 2.5 year olds, and I’m finding that I’m enjoying the older ones more.  But we haven’t made any changes.  I worry that we’ll get the kids home and then I’d think “Oooo, I miss not having had a baby…”  And since these are our only 2 kids, well… I just don’t want any regrets.  So I continue to mull that one over.

However, we’ve now reached that shady time of the year when referrals come in, but the courts are closed. (For August and September - the judicial system shuts down for the rainy season in Ethiopia.) We wouldn’t be bringing our kids home till Christmas if we got a referral tomorrow or mid October. So… we wait. And it doesn’t really matter as far as wait times go if we change our request in the next 3 months or not.  I’m starting to think about what work I will do in the fall (my work is contractual, and I hadn’t taken any contracts, anticipating that I would be with the kids at home - WRONG-O!) and am starting to resign myself to another 5-6 months of no kids. Resigning doesn’t mean being happy with, it just means (hopefully) being able to live a little more in the moment, knowing that it won’t happen any time soon. 

Spy Cam

A few people commented on the spy cam we used when Leo was here - what great reception it had.  Well, it gets even better, people.  What we got was the super-duper, slightly creepy it’s so effective, see-in-the-dark, cordless, doesn’t-even-really-look-like-a… baby-cam!

You can completely see a black/white picture in the pitch black dark - it’s amazing.  Then in the day the monitor works in colour. You can hear the baby moving or talking… and it even hooks into your TV so you can watch a movie and just flick back over t the baby channel every once and a while.

I bought mine on Ebay from this vendor and totally love it.  It freaks Jrock out but he did admit it was awefully handy when Leo was sleeping upstairs and we were playing games downstairs.

SUPER fun toy.  Er, essential baby tool! lol

A toddler weekend

   

My dear friend L and her little boy Leo came to visit us last weekend… Leo is 2 1/2 and so we got to do all sorts of fun kid things!  We visited friends, went to the dog beach for a picnic, went to the goats chaeese place for icecream, rode the old steam train down in summerland, coloured, hung out in the backyard, and generally had a great time. 

Boy, were we exhausted though when they left!  It’s always tiring having people visit - I love it, don’t get me wrong, but you are full go for as long as people are here.  We got to try out lots of our kids stuff… toys, bibs, etc.  I built some gates on the deck last week in preparation, and I’m so glad I did.  Lot of things were hits that we didn’t expect… the pea gravel out in the garden was great for playing dumptrucks.  The setup in the family room worked wonderfully.  We could also have Leo eat a snack in the kitchen and watch him without him being in the middle of the cooking.  All that kind of stuff that you need to experiment with a kid and see if it works.

And aside from Leo - who is a lovely little boy, it was wonderful to relax and enjoy my friend L’s company.  We’ve lived apart for several years, but we have such a good friendship.  It was really nice one afternoon when Jrock babysat and L and I got to go out windowshopping and for coffee and just really catch up.

Anyway, enjoy the little film below.  There were too many pictures to post, so this seems to do the trick. 

New Haircut

Those who know me off-line, - or even those who have been following my blog for a while - will know that I change my hair up really frequently.  Short, long; red, orange, brown, black; whispy, sleek… these are just my favs.  I’ve had everything from purple streaks (quite nice) to long and blond (terrible - my skin is way to light to be a blond.)  Anyway, I haven’t changed my hair in a while, because I wanted to have the same hair colour/cut as the photos that we sent with our dossier, so that our little kids would recognize me in person.  But enough is enough.  I never dreamed I’d have this same hair cut for so long.  So off it goes! And I’ll just have to send the kids all sorts of pictures with me with different hairstyles.  They’ll recognize the smile.

Growing Garden

My mother made a sarcastic remark to me on the phone the other night that I hadn’t put any new posts up on my blog recently… true! it’s been a little slim in the news department.  I promise to try harder, Mom!

Actually, I already promised my mother-in-law that I would put up pictures of our yard and show her all the planting and construction we’ve done.  So let’s take care of two moms with one post! ha ha

  

 

Please take into account that it’s a first year yard, so much of it is quite barren.  The roses and the existing shrubs are a nice spot of colour.  Oh! and those window boxes I showed you that I planted a while back - well, they are just lovely now. We also have a couple of planters on the deck, full of lillies, since we can’t have them inside.  (Lillies are toxic to cats, and it gets very expensive when you come home to a black and white feline face with orange lips.  Trust me.  So, even though they are our favorite flower, they have to remain outside of the realm of our munchy cats.)

Click on the pictures below to see the details of the back yard.  In the far left corner I have raspberries, blackberries, boisonberries and blueberries planted, along with a couple of mounds for melons..  The far lefttree is cherry, then comes the pear in the middle (with 5 varieties on it - yum,) then the Gala apple.  In front of the shed is the peach tree, which, if the taggy on it is correct, will grow quite enormous.

     

  

So the garden is coming along.  We had a huge truck load of pea gravel dropped off today, so guess what Jrock and I will be doing tonight?  Covering up the sod I removed all along one side of the house, and between the garden beds.  It’ll look really nice and tidy when it is done, though. 

Better get off to swimming, now… just to make you folks in the colder regions jealous, here is a favorite rose picture from this morning just outside the kids’ room window.

Cruisin’ the Show n Shine

Today we had a nice afternoon out - we took our bikes downtown (truly the best way to park and say cool - bicycles!) had a nice lunch at a pub, and then walk around at the Kelowna Father’s Day Show and Shine. There were all sorts of cars from all different eras… The part I find the most interesting is the upholstery.  I love how people do these wonderfully tailored designs in old cars - they are truly works of art.  We weren’t celebrating Father’s Day, so to speak - guess we’ll have to wait till next year on that one - but it was nice to have an afternoon doing guy-things.  I think J-rock really enjoyed himself, which was the point. 

It just keeps amazing me, too, how many fun and free things there are to do in Kelowna.  My godson is visiting with his mom next week, and I’m really excited, planning some 2 1/2 year-old-friendly activities and outings.  We’re going to take him out to the orchard, and to an old steam engine for a ride, and to the beach! of course… I can hardly wait.

I’ve also had to make the house a little bit more kid-ready.  We’re putting the crib upstairs in the guest room for the duration of their visit… and trying to clean out our “kids room” - also the room-o-junk - so he can safely play with the toys and such we’ve accumulated.  Out with the dust, medicines in boxes on the floor, boxes of winter clothes we’ll never wear again… and in with the rocking horses and tickle trunk.  (Ok, so those things are already there, but we have to uncover them.)

Have a good week, people.  Referrals are trickling in, we’ve been assigned to a new case worker! and things are lookin’ up

Nicky