The Drinkwater Family: October 2011

Sunday, October 30, 2011

We'll miss you...

Our good friends the "H" family are pulling up stakes and moving back East. Insert sobbing here...

We met S & K several years ago when we took a trans-racial parenting course offered for adopted parents (along with the Rowan's). We hit it off that weekend and discovered we were both hoping to adopt from China through a local adoption agency. Many months later we discovered we were both logged in on the same date March 11, 2008. During our wait we kept in touch, going to see a movie together, having dinners, or grabbing a coffee. Cory and I decided to switch gears and entered the China Waiting Child program and welcomed home our bundle of joy, Sylvie

S, J, and Cory (July 1, 2009)...of course they can't take a

nice picture for me - you will soon sense a theme!

A, K & Joyanne (July 1, 2009), notice we are all smiling!

S & K also decided after this time to also switch their application to the Waiting Child program, and we decided to adopt a second child. We both updated our home studies and waited each month for a phone call that would change our lives. S & K's phone call came in late May for beautiful Miss V, and our referral came in July for Mary. We waited together for our LSC's from China and finally our Travel Approvals.

Late summer picnic while waiting for our LSC's & Travel Approvals (August 2010)

Finally all our paper work arrived and we were invited to travel to China to meet our daughters! Although we used different travel facilitators, we discovered to our great delight that we would both be in China together at the same time, and were in fact on the same international flights. After being logged in together years earlier, it seemed only fitting to share this moment of growing our families together as well!

Waiting during the first leg of our flight...

S & K helped keep our spirits up during our long waits in the airport.

Bumping into the H family at the Jade Factory in Beijing. The first time we get to meet

their new daughter V, and they get to meet Mary. We had been skyping

while in different provinces, but this was our first meeting in person.

After returning home this past year, we have continued our play dates for the kids, gymnastics and music class for the girlies, lunches out for the Mama's, and wing nights for the Baba's.

Ladies lunch out (January 2011)...

Celebrating St. Paddy's Day...

Bundled up for the cold during a winter/spring walk (April 2011)...

Miss V and Miss Mary checking out some fishies this past spring (May 2011)...

Hiking the Greenway (June 2011)

The three kidlets...our last evening together (October 2011)...

The Baba's...FINALLY taking a nice picture for me (October 2011)

So it is with great regret that we say good bye to our good friends and wish them well on their new adventures out East. We are thankful K has family out here in BC, so there are bound to be visits back West for them. As well the Mama's have plans of taking the families to Disneyland in a few years together! Best Wishes H family!

Don't cry V, we will see you again in Disneyland!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Camping Trip #5 - Mabel Lake...AGAIN!!!

Ok, I am shameless... I LOVE camping at Mabel Lake. If you have read our other post Camping Trip #3, you will remember that we spent four nights in July at this lovely site with family.

Luckily however, the weather cooperated beautifully for us and we had hot (30 degree Celsius), sunny, blue sky weather each and everyday. Sigh...I miss summer and camping already!

We spent this camping trip with three other families, all of whom are also teachers (poor Cory)! While we did slip into "teacher talk" every once in awhile, we spent most of our time on the beach playing in the water and on the sand.

We scored the best camping spots in the campground, right beside the beach. This was the view we enjoyed each morning from our trailer as we had breakfast...

It was only a 30 second walk down the path from our camp spot onto the beach. So as you can imagine, that is where we spent most of our mornings and afternoons (after nap time of course). The girls loved playing with the other kids, building sand castles and getting pulled around the lake in the kayak by willing adults.

The Daddies on duty...

At times we had four kids piled into the kayak and paddling...

We also took many little walks around the campground looking for squirrels and searching for yet more interesting rocks to put into our pockets. On one of our walks we checked out the small waterfalls nearby with Mary and Sylvie's little friend "S"...