Sunday!

Today was a busy day – as are many days with Mark and I!

We were out of the house at 7:45am to drop by Kelly & Chip’s house to pick up some baby things that they are letting us borrow. They are finished with them and graciously asked us if we would like them. THANK YOU!

We were gone from their house by 8:45 and on our quest to find a place to wash the car. I just couldn’t take it anymore. All my pants, coats, gloves etc are COVERED with salt. Today was a sunny day, so everyone wants to wash their car when it is sunny so it wont (hopefully) freeze. We tried at 7:45 at THREE places and the line was too long. On the way to mom’s house from Kelly and Chip’s, we located one of those do it yourself places. Mark said – do you want me to do it? I said – No I am good thanks, you just stay in the car. Well by the time I had soaped up the car (NOT using the brush as it was frozen in it’s stand), my hands were just about to fall off from cold, my hair was frozen from the mist and my feet were soaked. Mark took over and rinsed while I tried to warm up! BUT we did get a clean car out of all of this. Then we were off to Mom and Phil’s place. They live in a bungalow and have an unfinished basement…with all that space I am sure that they won’t notice a bunch of baby things accumulating in one corner (unless of course they are reading this…).

From there we were at Dawn’s house by 9:30 and she made us a wonderful breakfast and we had a great visit – a little rushed as we had to get out and make it to our next stop.

We quickly stopped by home to change and get ready for our adoption agency’s Chinese New Year celebration party. We were already late. It started at noon and we didn’t get out of the house for the second time until noon.

We were they by 12:30.

We were meeting up with Dolores & Shawn, Rhonda & Josh, Nicole & Tim, Paula & Brett and Rebekah & John.

Paula and Rebekah were manning the registration table and Dolores and Shawn were in charge of the ‘pig mask’ craft table. The rest of us were just there for the festivities. However, since we were sitting at the craft table, we thought we should partake in the making of the masks - here are our creations! There were other craft tables too and Mark thought he would try his hand at Origami - here are the results...The reason there are three are because the first one he did to try. The second and third ones he did because kids sat down and asked him how to do them. The person who was in charge of that craft table (who was MIA) was not as dedicated as Dolores & Shawn were!!

While sitting at the craft table with Dolores to keep her company, a lady sat down with a plate of food, her coat on, NO name tag and a pile of books. We were looking at her curiously…we (Dolores, Rhonda and I) were thinking that she didn’t ‘belong’ there. Well when she asked “So what is this all about - is this a kid’s event?” our suspicions were confirmed. She focused in on Mark with these questions and being the gentleman that he is, he answered her array of questions. Since she was Russian, she kept inquiring whether she could adopt from Russia or not. Mark was trying to answer her questions on the Russian adoption process and then she just got up and left – an odd incident…

All in all, it was a nice celebration. While we were there, Mark recognized a man on the other side of the room. He went over to talk to him and low and behold, it was his former junior high school principal. Bill and his wife Julie, happened to be selling their wares there and they have a website - you can click here.

We left the party about 2:45 and headed to the Pacific Mall with Dolores and Shawn, Rhonda & Josh and Nicole & Tim. What an interesting experience that was. Just getting into the mall and finding a parking spot was an adventure. Mark and I had never been there before. We made a couple of purchases – 7 of them and only 4 were worth anything...wink wink!

From there the 8 of us left and headed to the restaurant for dinner. We were meeting up with Paula & Brett and Rebekah and John again for dinner. We were at the Mandarin and with 14 people, I really wish that they had round tables. You only seem to talk to the people beside you on either side and don’t really get a chance to converse with everyone together. Regardless, we still enjoyed it. We are just going to have to get together again with everyone in smaller groups to have a better conversation.

The Mandarin all but kicked us out as they had another group booked for the table. We all said our goodbyes and off we went.

Thank you to everyone for a wonderful day!