Our Rattie model.

Just saw Andrew's picture of the rat photo shoot.  It's Lia that was chosen.  She looks beyond adorable.  Clearly her 'what is going on here look'.    I hope he does well in the contest.  Noticed that all of his comments on his facebook page are calling Lia a mouse. 

Fei's New Room

Little Missy getting ready to go to the theater with Gramma.

As always, what a gorgeous group of girls! 

Jia woke up talking about cupcakes.  She wanted to make them yellow with smiley faces.  So, here's the tea party but she didn't want her picture taken.  In the end she didn't eat her cupcake and doctored up her tea six times and didn't drink it, thank goodness, it had a LOT of sugar in it :)

Finally getting to the last project in Fei's room.

Eric kept Jia busy bowling in the dinning room while I was painting.

Strike!

Fei and I think it turned out pretty ok.

Finally all done.

Neat as a pin.

Doesn't have any feel of Lili's old room at all.

And then Fei mentions that too bad her chandelier wasn't in.  Arg.  Called Eric back and an hour later we were once again done.

Now, it's finally all done.

 

Next we start Luk's room.  We're doing blue walls, the same as the playroom color.  Then a jungle ceiling.  Still have to pick some greens for that project.  Jia has asked for some pretty stuff on the wall like Fei, so I promised her I do a little something more in her room too. 

 

Three weeks tomorrow since Luk's referral.  Most of the time I'm ok with the wait but every once in a while I get frustrated with how long it all takes.  This morning driving to work I was wondering if I'd get a chance to visit Luk's SWI and then realized I'd only be a half hour away from Changting and Little Guy and then the tears started.  It's crazy that in all of China Luk would be so freakin' close to Little Guy.  Even if I could visit Little Guy, what the heck could I possibly bring him that would improve his life?  The best I could hope for would be to brighten it for a few minutes and likely as I was there bawling my eyes out it wouldn't really serve to brighten anything.   I'm not allowed to give details about Luk and where he is.  I will say that the strangest thing has happened.  All of my children, all four of them come from the same area.  What are the odds of that?!  We never made any requests, it's a complete fluke.  Lili and Fei's SWI were only an hour apart, different provinces but very close together.  Luk's is right in the middle of them.  Jia's is a couple hours away.  If we wanted, it would be possible to visit all four SWI's in one day. 

Kissinger

Our 8 man tent slept 5.  No room for another mattress.  Not sure where Luk will sleep?  I don't think Eric wants to tent camp with us ever again, if that's the case the four kids and I will all fit.

She was the only one to help with cooking, cleaning and chores.

The view from our site.  Never gets old.

Waiting for the sun.

Penny and her gang.  There were other people around, took a while to get a shot with just our group.

Lili and Haley taking Jia for a row.

Fei and Hanna taking Jia for a row.

First two out of the water.

Ah ha!!  Finally!! The boat all to herself.

Jia took herself for a row.

 

The annual Kissinger trip.  This year I decided it would be the weekend we use a tent.  I take the girls tent camping once a year.  So they can experience it.  So they can learn how.  So that one day they will be able to take off with their friends and have confidence.  This year however, Eric decided to go with us, mostly because he loves Kissinger and partly because we'd be off the grid in the middle of no where.  Eric hasn't been tenting with me since we first got married 21 years ago.  He hated it then and he isn't any more fond of it now. 

We arrived in cloudy weather and before the tent was up it was storming.  We didn't get the fly up and ended up quickly throwing a tarp over the whole tent.  Girls were inside, playing, setting up their beds etc.  Big girls sat in the vans at one point and played ds's with Haley and Hanna.  We did easy snack and got to bed earlier than planned.  Jia then kept us up until 2:00am.  Never in the history of time has anyone been more excited about camping in a tent. 

We woke up early and it was still raining so we all stayed abed until it stopped.  Eric got a tarp over our table and we started the camping part.  Food was good.  Supplies all worked.  We had everything we needed.  It was a waiting game for the sun.  I told the kids in the morning that they wouldn't be swimming until two and at two, twenty one the sun came out (yes, Lili is precise with her times).  I didn't go in, too worried about never warming up again.  Everyone else had a good long swim.  Jia was more interested in the little yellow boat than swimming and she rode around with all of the girls while they took turns paddling.  In the end Jia finally got the boat all to herself, pure joy.

We all slept well the second night.  Beds weren't as damp, we had the fly on the tent.  Jia crashed fairly quickly.  Then we woke up to rain!  Arg.  Tear down in the rain.  Eric ended up wadding the tent and ground tarp in a ball and just shoved it in the car.  He says he won't go tent camping with me again.  I have to admit that all of our weekend tent trips involve rain.  Lili and Fei think it's because I plan that weekend and we should leave it until the last minute and just watch the weather. 

Clean up was a pain with everything needing to dry out.  In the end it all dried, it all got put away and life carried on.

Jia and Chayse having their own party.

My friend Natalie is here from Ontario with her two girls, Madison and Chayse.  Natalie and I met on-line when we were waiting in the same log in group for Jia and Chayse. 

The girls took a few minutes to warm up to each other and then they were off and running.  They had a great time together.  So incredibly cute.

Madison and Fei have the same Gotcha day.  Very cool.

It was Fei's (and Madison's) Gotcha day yesterday.  I wasn't feeling well.  Thank goodness Daddy stepped up and made the day fun.  They went to the Maritime center in Cowichan Bay and built wooden boats then went for ice cream at Fei's favorite ice cream place, home made, she had mandarin orange with dark chocolate flakes.  

Fei has requested that we go to Kissinger Lake.  We are tenting there this weekend.  Wish us luck folks.  I haven't had Eric in a tent in 21 years!  We're all packed.  Crazy amount of stuff.  Now we're all hoping like crazy the rain won't come. 

The Ratties Photo shoot

The set up.

Waiting for Lola to come out of the pocket.

Lia's turn.

My feeble attempt, totally blurry.  Will replace with Andrews shot when we get them.

We have a local photographer who was looking for light colored rodents.  A friend of his is a friend of mine so I showed her a picture of the girls rats.  They were chosen.

He is entering a contest and trying to re-create a national geographic photo of a baby squirrel climbing out of the pocket of jeans hanging on a clothesline. 

Too funny.  None of us could fathom how he would ever get that shot.

So, Andrew was over last night and we ended up having to enlist Scott to help hold the line, the light was checked and the background of the silvered fence was chosen.  Then the set up and then the ratties were dumped in the pockets, we all just waited for them to pop out and look forward, darned it they didn't do it over and over again!  Wild.  Andrew got lots of shots and seemed very happy with them.  He's going to send us one of each of the rats, since they both popped out and looked forward.  Andrew showed me a couple of the pictures and they looked so sweet.  No clue which one will be in 'his chosen' shot.  We think they are both beautiful but it will be which one was the better model I suppose.  Always something fun happening around our place :)

Opening Luk's file and pictures last Tuesday

Huddled around Mom's laptop, trying to figure out how to get logged in to my mail account.

Suggesting to everyone that I could just open the file up on my phone, NOW.

 

Here he is!

 

 

Collective 'awww'.

 

It's a week tomorrow since we saw his little face.  He's 14mo. in the picture and 23mo. old this Friday.  We really need an update, on his size, his health, his development and physical levels and abilities.  We're cautiously moving forward but seriously my reading and researching is doing nothing to help the anxiety over his need and the possible issues he could encounter.  Once he is ours and we adore him the needs won't matter, I do know that, but it's hard to dive in while reading all the worst case situations.  I sooooo want updated photos, clearer ones.  I know he must have changed a lot in the last nine months! 

 

We got an updated file and photos for Fei.  She was 9mo. in her file and 15mo. when we got referral.  We were told then the the files are updated every six months.  Let's hope that is true for Luk! 

 

I did have an update on Jia too, but I paid an ourside company for those pictures.   Not on purpose, I actually sent moon cakes to the orphanage and got surprise pics in my e-mail one morning.  I'm not allowed to send anything to Luk until pre-approval. 

 

About pre-approval...  families are reporting getting theirs in 2 - 10 days, but when I asked Sunrise I was told 3 - 5 weeks!  Yikes.  I was a tad concerned about that but then I read on the weekend that there are new rules with the new computer system and if you are logged in (we were) and you send letter of intent in for a log in only child (Luk was) then you skip pre-approval and the pre-approval is actually when we are moved to the matching room.  Which means our file has been reviewed and approved and we're in the room where LOA's come from.  Which is the all important paper that asks us if we want to adopt the child proposed and we're only one step away from travel approval.  It's a long and tedious procedure for sure.  Which only gives me more time to worry and get caught up in special needs angst.

 

So right now, collective thoughts and prayers for a speedy review and approval of our family file.

 

Dragon Boating

We arrived early and had time to go for a walk and climb trees.

The water dragons!

Our whole group.

Happy 7th Birthday Asia!

Our busy weekend.

We took a trip to the mainland to visit friends.  We did three days, four houses and two nights in a hotel.  Fun and super busy.  I know, this is drivel compared to a referral but I have nothing else to add and extra energy so might as well carry on with the post I would have done normally.

Jia didn't travel well.  It's been a while since we took her anywhere.  Transitioning is not her thing.  She was nervous and it took her a while to warm up everywhere we went.  She had tons of fun once she relaxed.  She loved the waterslides and is asking to go back.  We thought she hated the hotel room until we let her drink milk out of the container and then it was all good.  The oddest little things that make kids happy.  Go figure.  Lili and Fei enjoyed seeing everyone, as did Eric and I.  Lots of laughs.  Oh, and always good to come home, especially if you get a referral right away!

The obligatory ferry shot.

Olivia, adopted with Fei.

Olivia's little sister Serephina.

Lili with her nose in a book.

I was simply stunned at how brave Jia was at the waterslides!

She loved it!

High-lite of the day, a baby ladybug.

They are sooo stinkin' cute together.

Fei did hair and Jade got everyone dressed up.

And Lili had her nose in a book.  She even thought to pack a flashlight!  Seriously.

LOVE IT! 

Best moment in the hotel.

She told us repeatedly that she wanted to go home and she didn't like the hotel.  Since we're home she's asking to go back to the hotel. 

Making new friends with Elsa and Evelyn.

Their family is waiting for a match to a boy too.  We had so hoped we'd end up traveling together.

This is what Eric would look like with five kids :)

Totally random.  Look what Eric made for me!  Used to be just the wooden ball.  It's so pretty.  It's so much fun watching all the projects happening these days.