Road Trip!

We have had such an amazing summer.  Not only has the weather at home been fantastic, but we took an almost 2 week road trip.

Our first stop was to Panorama Mountain Resort just out of Invermere, BC.  We rented an awesome 2 bedroom condo with room for up to 6 people so we had tons of space to hang out in, cook meals, watch the Olympics, etc.  The weather was just right and we had lots of fun enjoying the heat of the pool during the heat of the afternoon, and going running or for long walks.

On our way to the pool...something we did every day.

It's so nice now that the kids can take pictures...we actually make it in some shots for a change.  :-)  We were fortunate enough to find chairs around the pool each day.  The kids sat out and read sometimes, but mostly played in the pool.  Arvid was a great dad and swam with them a lot...and I was happy to sit on the lounge chairs and soak up some sun!

The extra time that Arvid was around really made a difference in his relationship with Mebira.  She is good with him, but not overly affectionate.  On this trip, however, she started to really be more affectionate with him and it was so cute to see them bond.  That's me working in the background...I had to work a bit on our trip...I didn't totally mind it because I was able to just do a bit every day and I conveniently did it when it was time to cook supper.  :-)

Panorama has a gondola you can ride on for free to get from the lower to upper village.  We were already in the upper village and didn't need to ride it, but E&M had so much fun riding it that we would go up and down at least once a day.  It was like a free Disneyworld ride!  :-)

On one of our evening walks.  This was one of my favourite memories of the whole trip.  We went for a super long walk and the kids didn't complain once.  E&M talked and walked the whole time together, and Arvid and I had a nice long conversation with G.  She has matured so much this summer...it's like having another mini adult around.

Mmmmmm....there's nothing like BC fruit.  We stopped at a fruit stand and loaded up.

On a "cooler" day we went shopping in Invermere.  Of course we stopped at the candy store and found some treasures.    We also had to stop at the German bakery and enjoy some whole wheat cinnamon buns and freshly baked pretzels.  YUM!

This was another highlight for me.  I didn't start drinking coffee until a few years ago, but I'm into it with a vengeance now...into lattes, that is.  I am quite particular, though, and nothing beats a Second Cup skinny vanilla bean latte in my opinion.  However, this vanilla latte from Kicking Horse cafe tasted sooooo good.  Mmmmm...I crave another one!

G started a new hobby - cross stitch!  She did such a great job and worked so hard on this.

Our next stop was to drive down to Sandpoint, Idaho.  It's only another 3 or 4 hours south of Panorama, and it was so beautiful.  It's like a mini Kelowna - super hot...and it had a WALMART!  :-)  We came to the beach on the first day at about 9:30 in the morning because it was so hot by the afternoon.  The beach was almost deserted that early.

Is this the life or what??

We walked to town one day and nearly melted in the heat so we stopped for ice cream on the way back.  Yikes those American sized portions are HUGE!

We did a bit of shopping...OK a lot of shopping.  We managed to convince Arvid to go to WalMart 3 of the 4 days we were there.  Seriously, Walmart in the states is so fun - so many different flavours of chips and candy, and everything is so cheap!  The day we didn't go to WalMart we went to Spokane and spent a whole day shopping - TJ Maxx, Ross, Burlington Coat Factory, Payless, Sally Beauty, Target (which carries Mebira's Kinky Curly Hair produts...yah!), and a mall.  The girls had their own money to spend and were totally into it...poor Arvid wasn't so into it, though but he was a good trooper.

Ahhh...one of my favourite stops in Sandpoint.  Starbucks!

My beautiful GEMs

Wow...do they look like sisters or what?

G, who is NOT a lover of dogs, was thrilled to find this sign at the park we went to.

The evenings there were so warm...still 28 or 29 at 9 at night.  We played bocce a few evenings - such a fun game to play with the kids.

Good thing it was evening...I could imagine that slide getting quite hot during the day!

We spelled something....can you read what it is?

no comment...

Arvid payed us back for all that shopping and made us go on a hike.  Normally I like hiking, but when it's nearing 30 and we took our life in our hands to make it down the road to the trailhead (seriously, the road was worse than any I had seen in Ethiopia) it wasn't quite as fun.  The girls were great sports, though.

The pictures don't quite do it justice...that's the lake in the background below with mountains surrounding the lake.  Truly beautiful!

I LOVE my girls!  I am truly blessed to be able to be a mother to my three amazing girls!

Mmmmm....post hike reward.  I could have stayed there all afternoon!  On the deck of Starbucks, overlooking the lake, in +33 degree weather, sipping an icy frappucino.  Mmmmm...

The city beach has a beautiful park as well.  On our last day we came to play bocce and frisbee.

Another use for bocce balls...hmmm...maybe I should have thought of that!  :-)

Beautiful Sandpoint beach...our last night.

Married for 12 years and still so in love.  I'm blessed to have such an amazing husband!

Well, that sums up our trip.  We had a wonderful time and were a bit sad to come home, but very thankful to come home to a great house, good jobs, amazing family, friends and church.  And now the countdown is on until we can do it again!  :-)

One year without him

It's hard to believe that Arvid's dad passed away one year ago.  In some ways it feels like it has been way longer, yet in other ways it still feels fresh.  I'm glad that we've made it to this one year mark...usually the "firsts" (Christmas, birthdays, Father's Day, etc.) are hardest to go through the first time around.

As an in-law who has only been in the family for a little over 12 years, I don't feel like I have a right to even garner sympathy when I say that I miss him...Arvid and his sister, Lynelle, feel the void so much more.  However, I definitely do miss him and tear up even now as I'm writing this and thinking of him.  We recently upgraded our tent trailer to a "new" bigger trailer, and I kept thinking of him during that process.  He was always so supportive and interested in our purchases or decisions.  Last spring we had to get a bigger vehicle in light of the fact that we were adopting Mebira and now had "all" these kids.  Arvid had kept his dad posted on our vehicle search, and let him know about one that we were interested in from out of town.  His dad decided to call the owner and ask a bunch of questions...his plan was to stay anonymous and just ask questions...but he ended up recognizing the last name of the owner and found some strange connection to them.  Somehow he had connections to so many people - he was so well-known and well-liked.

One of the hardest parts is to have no parents on Arvid's side of the family.  There is still something about a mother or father who glue the family together, organize and host special occasions, or are there for you when you need advice, or just even give that comfortable feel of home. We are so blessed to have such a great relationship with Lynelle, Eric and the girls and we have been able to continue on the Schimke traditions with them.  We are also blessed to have a great extended family on the Manske side - they are all amazing people, and specifically Auntie Bev and Uncle Lyle who have been able to help fill the role of grandparents.

I am continually amazed at how well Arvid and Lynelle have handled everything - especially some of the messy parts of last year and the conflict there.  My respect for both of them has gone even higher - they have handled themselves in godly, unselfish ways, and have been able to push past hurt and a lot of grief and live emotionally and spiritually healthy lives.  I think they have been amazing examples to others and especially to the girls on accepting situations and not growing bitter.

To Lynelle, Eric, Arvid and anyone else missing your dad (and mom!) today...may you experience God's comfort and love in a special way.  How amazing that day will be when we are all united again in heaven!!

Summer fun

Wow, I sure have been slacking in the blog department, haven't I?  I have been fully embracing this summer...and sitting inside facing a computer hasn't been on my top 100 things to do. Seriously, I LOVE summer.  We've had amazing heat which is awesome, and I've been able to sleep in until 8:30ish most days which makes any day a good day, and things have just been really fun!

I should probably have a separate post for a lot of these, but that would probably take me until Christmas at this rate...I'll give you the coles notes version instead.

What have we been up to in the last month?  Here are some pics...

We celebrated "Family/Mother's/Father's Day"  Mebira had been home with us for a year, and it happened to fall right in between Mother's Day and Father's Day.  We wanted to celebrate being a family of 5 for a year, and celebrate her birth parents as well...but the timing of everything was crazy so we thought we'd wrap them into one and call it "Family Day".  We put out one candle to signify that we had been a family of 5 for one year, and we said some special thoughts to acknowledge appreciation for Mebira's birth parents.

We visited with an online friend of mine.  We "met" online through the adoption process and were able to officially meet in Ethiopia when we attended court.  Her two children were in the transition home at the same time as Mebira, and Mebira was thrilled that they were making a road trip and would be able to come see us.  It was such a nice visit - I could have chatted with her for days, and it was so great to see the kids reunite here in Canada.

The three friends, reunited again in Canada.

We went camping in Radium with 4 other families.  We had some heat, and some rain and overall a ton of fun!

Here we are enjoying the Canada Day parade in Invermere.  The kids love it, because they throw out candy to the kids!  :-)

We took in some Canada Day crafts down at the beach.

Pretty cute craft idea!  Pretty cute kids, too.  :-)

There's nothing like a pancake breakfast when you're camping!

And what could be better than having the kids wash up after?

Mebira had our family birthday (just the 5 of us) and she picked her favourite supper - tortellini.  We then had a family supper with my side of the family, followed by her friend party.  Seriously...these birthday parties take their toll on me.  I'm not a party planner type of girl...with 3 kids, and 3 parties each that's 9 parties a year.  Does anyone else feel my pain?.....On another note, you may notice her bracelet.  When we were in Ethiopia I bought a whole bunch of special things from there. Each year on her birthday I give her one or two special items from Ethiopia.  This year she got a pretty Ethiopian scarf, and this bracelet and she really seemed to appreciate both...and the Barbie RV we got her.  :-)

Her gymnastics party with friends.

We soaked up the heat.  This is seriously one of the nicest summers I remember.  Even Mebira is complaining it is too hot! 

The girls decided to have a crazy dress-up day.  Clearly they get this from the other side of the family.  :-)

We took out her hair extensions.  Oh, this deserves a post to itself but I might cry.  The braids didn't take too long to get out...only about 2 hours.  However, you may or may not remember that when I took her yarn braids out the last time I had huge matting issues at the base of each braid.  Well, that was nothing compared to this time.  I had left these braids in for 8.5 weeks, and absolutely loved how cute it looked when the braids were out.  HOWEVER, I had HUGE, I mean HUUUUUGE matting issues again.  It's like I had an impossibly twisted knot of shed hair at the base of each braid.  So I took the braids out and left it for a few days like in this picture.  Then I decided to bite the bullet and fully detangle and it took me over FIVE hours straight!  It was so bad I actually had to cut some knots out, and the shed hair (although I think it's normal) totally stressed me out when you get gobs of it in your comb.  Anyway, I have no idea if I'll do it again.  I LOVED the low maintenance of extensions, but maybe I just need to take them out sooner?  If you have any tips I would love to hear them.

Mebira has a thing for bangs.  She loves bangs on people and has told me so many times that she wants bangs when she is a mom.  We were very happy to take her braids out and realize that she could actually have bangs for a bit.  :-)  We are such strange beings, aren't we?  We always want what we can't have! 

Anyway, that will do it for today.  I hope you're having an equally fun summer!

How far we have come

We have been home for one year now and life is going great.  At the time, we were prepared for the worst and things actually were going pretty well when we first came home.  However, even with the relative ease in the transition, the family dynamics had changed a lot and we were still trying to get to know each other, plus we had the stress of Arvid's dad in the hospital. Looking back, I realize that it actually was quite difficult but we were able to find much joy in it. Now that we are one year in I am so glad to be over all of that.  Mebira has blossomed into an even more amazing kid - super smart, athletic, helpful and fearless.

These are two of my favourite videos from a year ago.  Hard to believe how much she has changed so quickly!  (The second one may not work on an iphone...it is quite large so I had to upload it a backwards way...hopefully you can view it on your computer because it is so cute!)

Both of these are from June 26/11

Weekend away - Beth Moore conference

Last weekend I had the privilege of attending a Beth Moore conference in Calgary.  It was such a good weekend.  I drove down with two absolutely wonderful friends and spent the weekend with them and a bunch of other amazing ladies.

We dropped the kids off at school on Friday morning and hit the road by 9.  Our plan was to have some fun shopping before the conference started so we went to Cross Iron Mills and shopped from 11ish until about 5:15.  It was so much fun to have a whole day to browse and get coffee and visit with friends while shopping.  After a bit of a crazy drive downtown (what on earth is it with the Saddledome?  I've never seen a place that's harder to get into...one lane for thousands of people...really?).  Anyway, we made it to the conference safe and sound.   A band came out and sang some amazing worship songs - I was moved to tears at numerous times and truly felt in absolute awe of the amazing God we can call Father.  Beth Moore came out next and led us through the "theology of walking" as she called it.

For those of you who don't know who she is, Beth Moore is a hard core bible teacher who is very interesting to listen to - she's very knowledgeable and always very good at sharing something applicable and not just theology.  She teaches huge bible studies on various topics and records them so that you can watch them at home or with a small group and follow along with a study guide with homework five days a week.  I've had the privilege of doing some - Believing God (at the start of our adoption journey), Stepping Up, Fruits of the Spirit, Daniel - and am looking forward to even more.

Anyway, it's hard to sum up the weekend in a few sentences.  I can't say I walked away with something concrete to work on, but it was a very uplifting conference and I would for sure go again.  Friday night we went to the hotel, had some snacks in the restaurant and went to bed.  I felt a bit out of sorts...I'm not away from Arvid or the kids very often and I definitely missed them.  I didn't have the best night (but who does, the first night in a new place?), but still enjoyed the conference on Saturday morning.

After the session we shopped a few more hours at Chinook Mall...so many more fun stores.  I was looking for a few things for myself and had worked a bit extra that week to compensate but wouldn't you know it...I barely found anything for myself and spent more on every other person in my family than I bought for myself!  Oh well...I made up for it this week.  :-)

Anyway, the highlight of my weekend (as fun as it was to be away) was definitely coming home.  I so rarely leave the girls with Arvid alone...usually the two of us will leave for a date but weekends with Dad don't happen very often.  They definitely had fun with him but it was such a treat to come home because they just couldn't stop hugging me and telling me how much they loved me.  They had a nice dinner set up with flowers and wine and I was so happy to be together again...all five of us.  Absence definitely made the heart grow fonder with all of us and I'm so thankful to have such an amazing family to come home to!

Here's a picture from the conference courtesy of my husband's cousin - thanks M!

Tae Kwon Do

A few months ago I was noticing that Mebira was having some behavioural issues.  I found that she was very easily distracted, often lacking focus when listening to something in a group setting, or that she would crash into things a lot because something would catch her eye so she'd look over there while walking in a different direction.  One time I took the girls shopping and within the span of about 1.5 hours she crashed into one person, a shopping cart, table, chair, and, had we not stopped her, she would have crashed into a glass wall, clothing racks, numerous other people, etc.  I also noticed that she was very impulsive...if she found a pen in front of her she would immediately pick it up and start drawing with it - on anything...her clothes, the tablecloth, important paperwork...it didn't seem to register.  She also did everything full speed...instead of just getting up and walking to the bathroom she'd jump up and run so fast she'd fall, crashing into more things on her way, or she would drop things, etc.

I mentioned this to a good friend of mine (thanks, B!) and our international adoption doctor, and they both recommended that I let her try Tae Kwon Do to help with her self discipline.  We had put G&E in piano for numerous reasons and self discipline was one of them.  I was looking for something similar, but knew that sitting still in piano would be just a bit much for her.  Tae Kwon Do sounded interesting, but coming from a Christian background I've never been too sure about some of those things...acupuncture, yoga, Tae Kwon Do...they had something mystical surrounding them and I wasn't totally sure what I felt.  Anyway, after talking more to my friends and watching a class I felt much more comfortable and signed Mebira up.

I'd like to say that all of the issues we were experiencing just magically went away.  They did get better for awhile but in the few weeks (perhaps due to her one year anniversary of being home - a time when many children find difficult and act out? or because routines will be changing soon with summer coming?) I have noticed similar behaviour happening again.  However, regardless of whether that is changing or not, TKD has been awesome for her.  It is a way for her to expend some energy as well as learn to focus, sit still and act respectfully.

TKD is a lot harder than it looks - there are so many sequences and "routines" to memorize...punching, kicking, turning, blocking.  The people who break boards always make it look easy but there is quite a technique involved with that, too.  I was starting to get a bit nervous because we had been in it for a few months and she just wasn't getting some of the technique right.  However, something seemed to click a few weeks ago and then she was flying after that.  Her instructor (who is totally fantastic!) recommended her for testing the following Saturday.

The world of TKD is totally new to me...and even moreso to Mebira.  To make matters worse, she was the only person going for her belt level and therefore went first in front of a packed house.  I would have been terrified, but she just took it in stride like everything else. She completed her sequences well, performed the tasks the instructor gave her without issue and broke through her board (dare I say demolished it?) on the first try.  I was (and am) so incredibly proud of her!!

Here are a few pics:

Practicing her kicks

Getting her acknowledgment from her instructor

New yellow-stripe belt.  Way to go, Mebira!!