Saturday

Saturday night party!!!

As promised, o.k. a little late, a picture of our gathering from Saturday night.

We had a great time. Having Dolores and Shawn here was FANTASTIC!!

Having Doris and Dan here to surprise everyone was GREAT!

It was great to see everyone else that was here.

There just never seems to be enough time.

1 and 3

One more sleep until Dolores and Shawn arrive at our house to spend a few nights!!

Three more sleeps until the gathering where some of our adoption friends gather here for a night of socialization (and lots of food and drink)!!!

We are sooooo excited!

There is much to do and to organize and prepare - but WOW is it ever going to be worth it!!

Can't wait until tomorrow!!

Catching up!

On Saturday Mark and I attended a family BBQ. What a beautiful day and an excellent time! It is always a good time when we all have the opportunity to spend time together. We played horseshoes as a family and had a riot! What made it even better was that Brad - my partner - and I WON THE TOURNAMENT!!! How exciting was that!! Last year we were the runners up, but this year we took home the trophy!

WE ROCK!!

The troublemakers!

Measuring out the point

My Mom!

Watching the match

Family shot!

Action shot by Mom!

Sunday was a beautiful day spent in Niagara on the Lake. Every time I go there, I forget how pretty it is! Mark and I participated in a potluck picnic lunch with Dolores & Shawn, Nic & Tim, and our organizers Rhonda and Josh.

We were a bit worried at the start of the day. Mark and I found everyone and went to park our car. We unloaded and we walking towards the picnic site. Well there was an ADULT and his kid (say about 18) horsing around - perfectly acceptable in a park. However, they were not paying attention and as Mark and I were walking one of us on each side of the cooler and a bag in our other hand, they basically ran into Mark. I should say that we were also on a 'hill' at the time. Well down went Mark, over went the cooler and mud was a pile we made.

What a MESS! All our ice and the water from the melted ice went everywhere. Since he went down in the dirt, we had INSTANT MUD!! EVERYTHING was covered in mud. Our potato salad container broke and I was ready to scream and turn around and go home. I was so pissed at these guys.

HOWEVER - the day only went up from there! After a GREAT picnic, we took a wander around the town and then down to the lake. The weather could not have been more perfect!

To top off the already wonderful day - there were presents. I was shocked. I was not expecting this! Do you all remember when Rhonda was talking on her blog about how she ordered something from New Zealand but she wasn't revealing what she had purchased...Well she had purchased something for PUMPKIN! Check out this picture. It is ADORABLE!! This wonderful little 'pumpkin' toque - I LOVE IT!!! Thank you so much Rhonda for this EXCELLENT gift!

And then as if that wasn't enough, Nicole MADE us this wonderful print. It is stunning! The picture doesn't do it justice. It is a representation of our blog with the pumpkin in the lap of the lady. I just don't have the words...
Thank you so much Nicole. You have a wonderful talent and I thank you for sharing it with us. I can't wait to put it up on the wall.

You will have to check out Dolores' and Rhonda's blogs too as they were also lucky enough to receive this great gift!

Another EXCELLENT weekend!

Friday & Sunday

The above photo is: Back Row: Tammy, Karen, Suzanne, Kelly, Chris, Andrea and Paula.
Middle Row: Nicole, Cari, Tracey, Leslie, Karen, Dolores and Julia.
Front Row: Catherine, Liz & Ava and Me.

Friday night I attended our 5th Waiting Mommies Dinner!! Can you believe it? We have been doing the dinners since last November, every other month, and this was our 5th. It was great to see everyone again and to meet some new people! It is a wonderful way to get together with others who are also adopting. There are mommies there who already have their kids home all the way to paperchasing.

Sunday afternoon Dolores invited some adoptive mom's to her house for 'Scrapfest'. I am NOT a scrap booker. I have NEVER done it. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't have any 'tools'. I didn't even know there were 'tools'. I had only MINIMAL supplies (what we bought the other day at Michael's).

Well boy did I ever learn a lot. First off, I can't believe how FAST the time passed. It just FLEW by!! Nicole and Cari are seasoned scrappers and I certainly learned from both of them. Nicole is incredibly creative and can organize a page in her head and produce it on paper in about 15 minutes. Quite amazing to watch. Nicole and Cari also had lots of 'tools' which make scrapping MUCH easier. They both also brought some books that they had already completed. It was amazing to look at them all!

I managed to create a couple of pages and I am quite proud of my first attempts so I thought I would share. I had to take a picture of the pages as I didn't know another way to get them on the computer.

Here they are:





More pages to come as I am trying to complete some pages of our wedding/honeymoon in Cuba.

Waiting Mommies Dinner # 4

I feel so behind...I am certainly playing catch up! The above picture is of the WONDERFUL Waiting Mommies Dinner that we had on Saturday night!! Can you believe how many of us there were? 20 Waiting Moms, 3 Moms & 3 kids!! How great is that? We once again had a fantastic night. Many of the women I had met previously, but there were a few new faces to me.

In the picture above we have - back row left to right:
Kathy, Jill, Leslie, Paula, Deb, Rebekah, Julia, Bev, Beth & Julie.

Middle row: Dayna, Laurie, Andrea, Me, Karen with her precious Samara, Nicole, Suzanne.

Front row: Catherine, Cari, , Liz & Ava (who only returned from China 2 weeks ago!, Debbie and beautiful Olivia.

We can't forget Rhonda who was also in attendance and she was the official photographer!

Pumpkin also received an adorable ladybug sandwich carrier from Liz & Ava - there is no picture because it ended up at Dolores' house when I drove her home. Also we received an cute 'tea tin' with a fortune cookie from Jill. Thank you both!

I would also like to thank Catherine for organizing this!! It is truly appreciated!

Back to the story...

Kathy and Joel & Dolores and Shawn arrived within minutes of each other on Saturday. It was great to see them all! Kathy and Dolores FINALLY got to meet each other! I really has been a long time coming! We were so happy to host this meet up. I would have LOVED to invite all of our bloggy friends, but our house is simply too small!!
This is the dinner table before we sat down. It is already expanded. We have a great conversation before dinner. I was pretty prepared so I was able to join in most of the conversation. Surprisingly enough, we didn't talk too much about adoption at all before dinner. During dinner, adotption did come up - of course, but it was really not the focus of the night. The 6 of us got along swimmingly!
Mark and I LOVE entertaing - we really do!! We are turning into a well oiled machine at it! It is really quite cool! This was the table at the end of the night - I really should have taken a picture of our kitchen!! Note to self - look into getting a dishwasher!! I say that, but our kitchen is too small.

We had some fun with the self-timers on our cameras to take the pictures. I personally LOVE self timers - they really are quite cool when you think about it!



Kathy surprised us with the BEAUTIFUL blanket she made for Pumpkin!! How great is that!! Thank you so much Kathy for the wonderful and thoughtful gift!!
Mark and I are so lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives. Pumpkin is going to be lucky to have these fantastic and thoughtful people in her life!! She is going to have so many 'aunties'. I can't wait for her to be able to share that.