Waiting for Grant

I noticed a lack of pictures on my blog lately.  I was still to lazy to pull out my camera and the USB cable but I did take a few pictures with the camera on our laptop.

Here's one of Qimik & Sativa chilling out on the bed we have set up in the living room for Grant.  I just couldn't wrap my head around trying to get him up the stairs to our bedroom with a bad leg.  So I convinced him to let me set up a bed for him downstairs at least for today and tomorrow.  He's still at the hospital, I'll be picking him up in a couple of hours.  The animals will have to share with him then!
My hair is dark again.  I can't stand one hair colour for too long.  There are just so many choices out there, you've GOT to mix it up!
This is Grants' rehab center.  We bought a magnetic trainer and attached it to my road bike so it's now a stationary bike.  He'll be spending hours and hours in the next couple of months pedaling his little legs off.  Behind the bike you can see an exercise ball and a wiggle platform thingie, they're for his physio too.
One last picture of Qimik looking insanely cute!! I just want to snuggle right up with him!  Only he hates snuggling so that would spoil it all. 

Grant makes me laugh.  This morning when we were getting dressed, I had the lights turned off because I'm used to dressing in the dark since I'm the first one up.  Without warning me first Grant flicked on the light.  I cringed, covered my eyes, and yelled that he should have warned me.  His reply ... "Lighten up"  ... I'm laughing again just thinking about it.

OK, so I only have another hour to kill and then I'm going to go and pick up my husband.  He asked me to be waiting with juice & cookies.  I think orange & chocolate chip will do nicely!

A new knee for Grant!

Well not a new knee, just a fixed old knee. Grant tore his ACL last fall and is having reconstructive surgery tomorrow. We are both a bit anxious about it. We have both spoken with people who have had this done and that's helped, some. We have weighed the pros and cons and we know that this is the right choice. Grant is like a hyperactive 7 year old, having no knee stability is not a good thing.

Grant will be off work for the next couple of months so he can rehab fully. (Right husband?) He understands the importance of a full recovery. (Right dear?) He gets that in order to return to his previous splendor he is going to have to listen to his doctor, his physio guy, and his wife. Or maybe I should switch that order and put wife at the front of the list!

We are supposed to be at the hospital at 0600 and they are calling for snow tonight. So hopefully we can make it. Anyone have a toboggan we can borrow? Snow here shuts down the city, the roads are not built for icy weather.

Keep my dear Grant in your thoughts tomorrow. Hope that the surgeon doesn't go out drinking tonight with his old college buddies. Pray for Grant to be safe and recover well.

DAY-O!

me say day, me say day, me say day... daylight comes and me wanna go home.

Well, not exactly go home, me wanna go PLAY!  I love this time of year because you can actually see the days getting longer.  Every single day for the past 2 weeks I have noticed that there are more daylight hours!

It has inspired me to start training for the 10km race.  That's right Skeleton Crew runs again!  Sunday April 27.  

For those who don't know, last year I decided to teach myself to run.  I did this by becoming the captain for a team of my coworkers who ran in the Times Colonist 10k (A local race that has about 10, 000 participants).  The reason I became the captain of a team is because I couldn't chicken out that way.  I had NEVER run before in my life, the last organized sport I played was in 8th grade!  I am a certified couch potato/book worm/craft-a-holic.  Well somehow my little legs made it across the finish line still running! (one day I'll tell you the story of the missing timing chip...) So I decided to do it again this year.  

It is much much easier to get my run-on when it's bright and sunny outside.  So "Thank you Mother Nature" for helping me get my lazy butt off the couch!! Qimik thanks you too!

1 month

I realized late yesterday afternoon that it has been a month since we saw our baby girls face for the first time.  We both fell in love in an instant.  It took us a while to get going with the next step, but we are now on our way!  We signed the acceptance paperwork on Jan 3.  BUT that's only because that was the first day that we could sign them.  That is the first day that our local agency (Choices) was open, our international facilitator (KidsLink) wasn't open until Jan 7.  I was told on Jan 9 that the Ethiopian representative was already trying to arrange a court date for us!  It seems that court dates are taken about 10 weeks, which puts us in late March.

I had a freak out last night.  There are now two routes that we can bring our children home.  The 'old' way is with a Permanent Residence visa (PR visa) or the citizen way which is 'new'.  For today I'll leave it at that but I will make a post to explain both processes in the future.  Grant & I chose the PR visa route.  

Now on to the freak out.  I mailed our application for sponsorship paperwork to KL a couple of weeks ago and we were expecting to hear back from them this week with an approval from the government.  Last night I got an email from Choices that said if you hadn't already submitted this paperwork by the date the new legislation came into effect (Dec 22) then you were to follow the new route.  AAHHH!

Luckily I got ahold of the "immigration specialist" at KL today who told me that we CAN choose either.  Unfortunately she told me that our file was on the top of her pile and should be mailed out tomorrow... ARG! It should be returning tomorrow not being mailed out!  She explained that because of all the questions of the new citizenship legislation she has fallen behind in her work. (I'd say!)  Still it only takes 10 business days so in just over 2 weeks we should have our approval.  I also realize that we can't move forward with the immigration process until after our court date, so we have some time.  

As far as freak outs go this one was minor, especially in the international adoption world.  I know in the future I will have a lot more to freak out about.  The real test is if Grant gets worried.  If Grant gets worried then it's ok for me spazzing out!  Last night Grant read the email and said "I don't know what you want me to say.  We'd better call the agency for clarification in the morning"  He's so smart, or rather so freakishly laid back!  I'm glad he's my partner, he is a good foil for me!

Page turner

Last night I started reading Melissa Fay Greenes' book "there is no me without you".  Already I can't put it down.  Grant is going to read it when he's off recooping from his knee surgery (Right Grant?) ;)  In fact I want all our family to read it.  (family: you don't have to act surprised when you get your copy...)

I belong to a yahoo board for Canadian families adopting Ethiopian children and a few families on the board posted that after reading this book they changed their minds and chose to adopt two children rather than just one.  For this very reason I have put off reading this book.  Grant and I had chats about how many children we were going to adopt this time, I was thinking two or three he was thinking one.  Thus our referral for a single child.  

When I'm finished this book I'll try to write up a synopsis.  At the rate I'm going I might be finished next week.  That is of course if the TV writers stay on strike! :) 

8 months old & Random act of kindness

Today our baby girl is 8 months old!  Sofia, Mumma & Papa are thinking of you and sending you hugs and kisses! We love you! MWAH!!

Random acts of kindness really do happen!  One happened to me last Friday.  I was doing a CT on a lady, she was anxious about the needle.  I tried to distract her by asking her about her Christmas etc.  Turns out that she was having a horrible time, her family had just lost 3 members ( 2 friends and a family member) in the past week.  I got the feeling that she needed a pick me up so I asked her if I could share some good news with her

.  I told her about Sofia and she teared up and got a big smile on her face.  That was thanks enough for me.  After the test was done I wished her good luck and said I hoped that her year turned around.  A few minutes later our receptionist came to me to say that their was a lady at the front desk with something for me.  It was my patient with a stuffy!  She told me it was for my daughter!  Now it was my turn to tear up!  I gave her a big hug and luckily I had a picture of Sofia on me to show her... What a wonderful experience, what a super lady!

This puppy is super soft and cuddly.

She has a super sweet angelic face.

She has different material on her pads and her feet are filled with beans.

This little puppy has a special place in my heart because of how she came into our lives.  I can't wait to see Sofia snuggling with her!

Can you tell?

I had a facial today! A 90 minute facial... Thanks to my brother! My face feels wonderful!
Please excuse the messy hair. What did they do for 90 minutes you ask? It included a cleansing, exfoliation, pressure point and lymphatic face massage to stimulate skin renewal, a balancing mask, hot aromatic towels and a relaxing neck, shoulder, arm, and hand massage. It was heavenly! :)
It's amazing how a spa treatment can make you all over happy! I recommend treating yourself, a pedicure, facial, it doesn't matter. Just give yourself a little TLC. We all deserve a treat once in a while.
Poor Qimik wasn't happy with me today. Look at the glaring eye. He hates people crowding him when he's trying to sleep!

Part of the face massage today reminded me of something my Mom used to do when we were kids. We called it Fairies. When we were tired but couldn't get to sleep Mom would lie with us and trace circles around our eyes. She would alternate figure eights and circles, I would try to guess what she would do next. It didn't take long before I was drifting off into dreamland! If you have never had this done ask your husband (or wife) to do it for you. It is uber relaxing! I can't wait to do Fairies on Sofia!

The next step ...

... is waiting for our court date.  Now that we have signed the acceptance of our proposal, we need a court date to finalize the adoption.  The court date takes place in Ethiopia and makes us legally Sofias parents.  Currently the agency is telling us that the wait is 2-3 months.

Following our court date, it seems that we will have about a 6 month wait for all the correct paperwork to come together so that we can bring our sweet girl home.  Of course we are very hopeful that things happen quickly and that Sofia be home with us sometime this summer.

Why Ethiopia?

Because our daughter is there!

Her name is Sofia Ann Tahir Dybdal and her birthday is May 11 so that means she is almost 8 months old!  Our referral call came on Dec 21 at 1615, we were so amazed!  We took the information to Mexico with us and spent the whole week in a happy daze.  We are now waiting for our court date to make her legally ours.  We are expecting to travel to pick her up in 6 - 8 months.

I'm not going to post a picture of her right now, I'm going to wait till after our court date.  But I can assure you that she is beautiful!  The process of international adoption is a gigantic roller coaster.  I am fully appreciating this "high" because I'm sure that there are some stomach turning "drops" coming.  For now we are just focusing on how great it feel to be parents and trying to figure out what in the world we are going to do with a one year old!  We've got lots of work to do around the house to get ready.

Happy New Year!

This year is going to be a good one, sometime this year we will welcome our first child home. 

We wish you all health and happiness in 2008!

From our house to yours;

 CHEERS!