Happy St. Patrick's Day!

TO ALL !

Yet Another Celebration!

Once again, we celebrated Chinese New Year but this time with some of our dearest friends. Every year, we host a dinner at a Chinese restaurant (of course!) and we invite everyone that plays a part in our daughters' lives. We have our old friends that supported us through all the highs and low during both of our adoptions processes, we have the 7 year old girl (who is now 17!) and her family that played a huge part in us deciding to adopt from China and then there are the families we have met over the years who have also adopted. What a great bunch of people and we are blessed to have each and every one of you take part in our lives and most especially in the lives of our daughters. Thank you!

Gung Hay Fat Choy

Happy Chinese New Year to all!

May this new year, the Year in the Tiger, year 4708,

bring you all lots of joy & happiness!

From our family to yours!

Last night, we had the pleasure of ringing in the new year with 144 other people who are members of Adoptive Families of Quebec. We had a lovely (but chaotic!) dinner followed by a show that was put on by a local Chonese school. It was great and it was fantastic to see all the kids interact with one another. After all, this is why we do this. So that the children can spend some time together and have a little fun. I know Cara-Li has formed some friendships from these gatherings and it is nice to see them pick up from where they left off the time before! As you can see from the photos below of only Alexia, Cara-Li was too busy with her friends to pose for some pictures.

Holiday Activities

One final post about the different things we did during the holidays. I found some of these pictures in my little camera which I hadn't downloaded in a while.

Cara-Li and Alexia went to a Christmas Wreath workshop here at our local library. They got to decorate a gingerbread wreath with icing and candy. I then put a red pillar candle in the middle of each wreath and used them as my table centerpiece for the holidays.

That same day, they headed off to the university arena to skate with Buzz the Bee, the university mascot. This is a yearly event that we have been attending she Cara-Li was little. It is so much fun for the girls to skate around with Buzz and Santa Claus too. Since this event is always held two Saturdays before Christmas, I am usually never there as I am working at the store. So this is a Dad and daughters event. The girls had to wear their cycling helmets since Dad couldn't find their skate helmets :)

This year we went for Christmas Eve dinner at Gord's brother, G, and sister-in-law, B. We had a lovely dinner with them and our nephews before coming home before Santa's arrival. The girls had to go straight to bed if they wanted Santa to come.

Mom and Dad stayed up to make sure that Santa did come to deliver all the goodies and to make sure that he ate his cookies and drank his milk. The reindeers nibbled on their carrots too.

Christmas day was spent at my parents' house as usual. No turkey to be found there however. Only ravioli and roasted veal. Like good Italians :) Good thing we had our friends over at the cottage a few days later. That's when we had our turkey fill!

Boxing Day was spent doing a whole lotta nothin'. All that was planned was dinner across the lake with J, C and J. And that was enough for me!

At was our turn to host this year's New Year' Eve dinner with J, C and J again. On the menu, lobsters, prime rib and all the fixings. Yummy! Here are the boys playing with their dinner just before intruding him to a pot of boiling water. Just prior, they were holding lobster races in the snow. God help us!

And finally, a day of just playing in the snow. I love watching kids just have a grand old time just jumping around in snow banks. It doesn,T take much sometimes.

And here is Alexia actually enjoying skiing for the first time this season. There is hope for her yet as she was really quite good. Let's see what this winter brings us.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you all!

Happy Halloween!

UPDATE: My babies' Halloween pictures are up on the RumourQueen web site! Go check them and the other cuties out!




Happy Halloween to one and all! Hope that you had a grand old time on this wonderful night. We had a blast with our 'Thing 1' and 'Thing 2' costumes. Our friend J was the 'Cat in the Hat'. Everyone on the streets loved the trio most especially the fellow trick or treaters. They looked great!


I forgot to take pictures of our twenty pumpkins. Must check with the neighbor to see if he got any. Check in later for some of these shots. They were pretty cool!

Happy Canada Day!

First off, I would like to wish all my fellow Canadians a very Happy Canada Day! This is a day that we should be thankful that we are Canadians and truly be proud of who we are.

This is what we did on this day to commemorate it:

Since Canada Day fell on a Wednesday this year, we decided to spend it in town. Montreal-West always hold a parade through town followed by a party in the park complete with BBQ, bouncy games, cotton candy, band and fireworks.

Here is a photo of the Farrell Family on this day. Do you think we are proud Canadians?

There was a bunch of special guests at the parade such as clowns, RCMP officers and the SQ (provincial police).

The girls had such a great time with all their friends and most espedcially Cara-Li who got to stay out until 11:30PM to see the fireworks with her Dad!

Recap

Whew! Time is certainly flying by and it's not because we're spending all our waking moments enjoying the summer. The weather has not been great but yet we are still busy with everything!

Here's what we've been up to:

Cara-Li finished school almost 2 weeks ago with rave reviews from her wonderful teacher, Mme. V, who mentionned to me that Cara-Li was the student that showed the greatest improved throughout the year. She started off hardly speaking any French and being very reserved and quiet to a a young girl who is no longer shy to speak French. As Mme. V put it, 'Cara-Li blossomed into a beautiful rose right before everyone's eyes.' It is soooo nice to hear this and after my 5 minute telephone conversation with Mme. V, I was certainly the proudest Mom on earth! Congratulations Cara-Li on your success in 1st grade!

For Father's Day, we went to Granby Zoo. Every year we go to a park of sorts with the girls on this day. It is a great way to spend the day. This year we packed a lunch as I didn't want to eat the usual junk available at these places. It was great fun! Granby Zoo has been totally renovated adding a waterpark which is always welcomed at the end of the day when it is really hot out. To end the day, we then had dinner at my parents' house.

These bats were NOT part of the zoo animals. They were just these wild things hanging up side down for a nap! They were HUGE!

Next... since Cara-Li finished school a week before most, we sent her to the Day Camp at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with a neignbour of ours, S. There she discovered that a girl from her class was also attending. The day always started off with a visit to the museum, sketching what they saw and then followed by reproducing their interpretion of the art. They did some painting, sculpting, stain glass painting and watercolour. It all ended with a vernissage where we got to visit the museum and their art work. It was extremely fabulous and Cara-Li really enjoyed her week there. After the exhibit, we had 30 minutes to kill before picking up a frien, we decided to stop off at Pub Alexandre and I had a wonderful Kir Royale on the terrace just like in Paris! A great start to the weekend!

Cara-Li is now in the Mo-West Day Camp for 4 weeks and in swimming for 9 weeks. She seems to be having fun with the other 10 boys in her group. Yup... they assign 1 girl with 10 boys! Who was the planner here? I was going to ask to have her moved but apparently she likes her group and doesn't want to change. Should I start worrying yet???

A couple of weeks ago, I, along with some friends from the neighbourhood, started power walking in the evening. We do this twice a week and for one hour. We are a group of eight and although not everyone comes each time, you are always guaranteed to have someone to walk with. We meet at 8:30PM at a particular corner and whoever is there is there. It has been great and my legs are starting to feel it. This is part of my get fit and lose weight program that I am on. So I go to the gym 3 times a week and power walk for 2. I rest on weekends. Also, in two weeks I will be starting the South Beach diet. With this, I should be able to lose the extra pounds that i didn't lose in the crazy diet from a few weeks ago. I am proud to say that I have not gained any of that weight back either!

Last weekend was our first weekend at the cottage. Luckily, there were no surprises. Gord was with us which explains the lack of surprise! Gord mysteriously is never around when stuff goes wrong at the cottage ;) Well, we did have one surprise. M, who is the 7 year old granddaughter of our cottage neighbour, was up visiting. Cara-Li and M. have not seen each other in 2 years but did not miss a stride. They kept going back and forth from one house to the other the entire weekend. M. is 2 days older than Cara-Li and is also adopted but from Georgia (not USA but Russia) so they have a very special connection. Here are some pictures of the girls fishing. Too cute!

That is all for now. Will try to post more frequently instead of one huge one every 2 weeks.

Happy Father's Day!

Dear Daddy,

We wish you, our Daddy, the bestest in the world, a very Happy Daddy's Day. We will have fun today going to the zoo to see all the animals. Thank you for all the things that you do for us like kissing our booboos and brushing our hair and playing with us.

We love you lots!!!

Your daughters,

Cara-Li and Alexia