A snowman revisited, birthday fun, and the cutest little hands.....

Hey!!!!! How are you????? Good to see you!!!! How ya been????

Any point to the previous stuff???? No of course not. Have we just met???? By now you must know me better than that.

Well, I have been meaning to get to the third and final snowman update as well as some birthday stuff....but I was away in Vancouver for work most of the week (got to have a couple of great meals with Don while I was there!!!). But....I have returned!!!

Mr. Snowman the final chapter

....he has moved on the bigger and better things....

Clarissa is now TWO YEARS OLD!!!!!!!! Ok, technically she is now TWO YEARS AND FIVE DAYS OLD!!!!!!!



Now.....for the star of the show.....



She got some wonderful gifts......


We had a great dinner with Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Joey....


Oh....and Uncle Don joined us too all the way from Vancouver....


Clarissa looooooooved her Dairy Queen ice cream birthday cake!!!



Lots of playing with her new mailbox!!!!


Yep.....two.........

A snowman downsized.....

Just thought that I would give an update as to how our friend the snowman is doing....




As you will notice he has lost some weight rather quickly....Jenny Craig eat your heart out. Jenny has nothing on a bit of sunshine.

Wait until you see my next update....maybe tomorrow....

Until then here are a couple of other picutures that I forgot to post:

Clarissa had fun picking pumpkins



She helped Daddy rake the leaves....




Well ok Daddy raked them into a big pile and she jumped into them....


Oh......and Sunday is Clarissa's birthday!!!! She will be TWO!!!!!!!!

I'm Rob, this is Carolyn, and this is Clarissa. And she is?.....She is our daughter of course....

Something interesting that happened recently. Sort of one of those moments....you know? Not a bad thing....just one of those "hmmmm that is kind of interesting" moments. One of those "wow that has never really crossed my mind" kind of moments.

But wait....before I get to that let me get to this......


Oh....and I like this too....


It was Halloween afterall....



Ok, back to my moment....

We were out on the weekend and met someone that we hadn't met before...it went something like this (I will do this "a la Adrian" if I may....)

Him: Hi! Welcome! My name is Mark.
Me: Hi Mark! I'm Rob!
Carolyn: Hi! I'm Carolyn!
Me: And this is Clarissa!
Him:slight pause....and she is?.......
Me: (thinking to myself...what is he asking????? Didn't he hear me???? I just told him that she is Clarissa....Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)Clarissa is our daughter.

Of course he then smiled with a look that said "I pretty much knew that, but I wanted to be sure before assuming...."

Now, it took me a few seconds to "get" what he meant. He looked at us, and looked at Clarissa, and wanted to be sure that she was in fact our daughter.

To be honest this caught me a bit off guard. Upon reflection I realized that perhaps at times I am not aware enough of the reality of our world. I realized that perhaps I am absolutely oblivious to the fact that our precious little girl doesn't look like us. I realized that perhaps others look at us and wonder. I realized that perhaps when I am at the grocery store with my amazingly wonderful, special little girl that people say to themselves "I wonder where his Asian wife is. Oh, and his Asian wife must be beautiful because look at how beautiful his little girl is". I realized that perhaps people are thinking "What is that strange looking man doing with that incredibly beautiful little girl???".

Firstly, my wife, while not Asian, is incredibly beautiful, and amazingly wonderful, and special!

Then I am left asking myself "Self, am I wrong to be absolutely oblivious to all this????......or am I right?????".....and.... "Self, am I wrong to not be constantly aware of all this????.....or am I right?????".

It struck me how I truly don't think of her as being "different" than us in any way. I think of her only as my daughter. I think of her only as the amazingly wonderful, special, funny, brilliant, beautiful little girl that I love so very much.

Then I say to myself "Self, you can never forget these things because you always need to be aware of her needs.". Then I say to myself "Self, but even considering this whole conversation that I am having with myself, I am always still very aware of her needs. I will protect all of her needs from anyone, anything, anywhere, anytime.". Then I say to myself "Self, but does any of this really have anything to do with me seeing her as nothing other than my amazingly wonderful, special, funny, brilliant, beautiful daughter who I love so very much?????".

I don't think so.

Oh....before we got dressed up for Halloween we did this.......








Yep.....that's Clarissa. She's our daughter!!!!! We love her very, very much!!!!

Gatineau Park, a budding musician???, Contributors????

As I type on this Saturday night the Sens are tied 3-3 with the Habs (boooooo Habs!!!!!!!) in the third period. Go Sens!!!!!

Soooooo what's been goin' on???? Well lots of this.....


and this.....


Uncle Joey came to visit and I don't think that I need to say whether Clarissa enjoyed seeing him or not...I'll just show you this.....

Ahhhhh crap.....Habs scored with lest than 4 minutes left....

We made a trip to Gatineau Park to see the fall leaves.


What???? Forget the leaves???? Show us Clarissa???? Oh....ok...let's see....





Hmmmmm is it just me or does it seem like I loooooooove Gatineau Parc???? Yep, I sure do. Probably because Mom used to bring me there every fall when I was a kid (not to be confused with the "big kid" that I still am....). Miss my Mother. I was lucky to have her.

So, it looks like Clarissa is following Daddy in the love for music...and especially the drums. We make regular trips downstairs so that she can play the keyboard, bongos, guitar, and of course the drums....


So I just happened to notice on the left side of the site there is a section that says "Contributors"....and it has me "Sensfanrob" (ya ya they lost tonight...don't bug me...;-)) and it has "Carolyn".....but I don't recall any posts from this "Carolyn" person.....do you????? Who is she????? Does she really exist???? These are all very, very good questions. So I say that we start a movement to find out. Send a comment asking this "Carolyn" person to post something. Let's see if she is real!!!!! I put it in your hands good readers....hmmmmmm do you exist???

We went to Carol's 40th birthday party last night at the Tartan Pub. We had a great time with the golf guys and the ladies!

I like this picture taken during a visit from Grandma and Grandpa....




Check this out and see why I feel like I am sooooooooo lucky........


Tell me.....do I need to say any more than that???????? I am blessed.

Fall, nightmares, and it is no longer a secret....

Well.....fall is here. Wahhhhhhhhhhh summer is over!!!!! I think that it hit me last week when we made a family trek (with Grandma and Grandpa)to the Byward Market and I had to wear a sweater (but it was a Sens sweater....GO SENS GO!!!!). I picked up a whack of tomatoes and made what is...if I do say so myself....a spectacular batch of sauce. Yep we will be eating fantastic pasta dinners well into the winter



Driving to work in the dark is another clear reminder that the days are getting much shorter. I would normally be sad that it means that end of the golf season is near, however this relentless back pain has me pretty much unable to play anyhow. Oh well....spring will be here soon enough. Huh??????

Enough about me....how about this.....


I think that in my last post I mentioned Clarissa's sleep troubles. Funny enough for 3 or 4 days after that post she slept right through the night. I thought to myself "Self, maybe writing about it did some magic and the sleepless nights are a thing of the past!!!"......then reality set in and we returned to the nightmares. Now some may say that it is no big deal and that all kids have bad dreams. While this may be true, our research tells us that in the case of internationally adoptioned children who were in an orphanage it "could" be a sign of adjustment/attachment issues. Now we are not hugely concerned because other than that she doesn't really display any other warning flags. In fact she seems to be a very happy, well adjusted little girl. However, we understand that in some cases all seems fine for sometimes years before signs appear. We will continue to watch carefully and do everything that can to help her.

Now that Adrian and Roberta have officially announced it, we would like to send a formal congratulations to them for beginning the process of a second adoption with FOI. We are really, really happy for you! It is something that we have thought about a fair bit lately. Our incredible experience of working with Yulin, Bob, and all of their fantastic people at FOI makes it very appealing.

I have lots more to say...I've been thinking quite a bit about a discussion on one of the yahoo groups about it not being ok to feel that we or our children are lucky as a result of the adoption process, but my glass of wine is empty and I am exhausted....off to bed I go.....I'll get back to that....

How about this bit of wonderful before I go....

Another special day, terrible twos (minus 3 months) attempt number two, sleep probs, Terracotta, Sparky.....and of course more cuteness....

So much to say and so little time. Let me start with the fact that Saturday will mark exactly one year since we first came home with Clarissa. Looking around at the disaster area surrounding me now that she is up in bed......for now...more on that later....anyhow...where was I??? Oh ya...looking around at the disaster area surrounding me one would think that it took the whole year to make this mess.....but noooooooooooo we actually clean this up each and every day, and just like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day it just keeps happening each and every day. I am tempted to post a picture, but all that would do is get me in huge trouble.....I love you Honey!!!!!!!!! -he says as he picks up toys, and cups, and puzzles, and boxes, and hmmmmmm there is my memory stick...how did that get under the stuffed panda in the pack n play?????....:-)

Anyhow...where was I????? Oh ya....it is hard to imagine that our precious girl has been here for a whole year. At the same time it is impossible to imagine her not being here.

I love this picture because it fittingly represents the blur that this year has been.


Up until this point I have pretty much written about all of the good stuff, mostly because it really has been pretty much all good stuff. We truly are blessed that this incredible little girl was brought to us. Well I have heard all these rumours, and stories about this thing apparently called "Terrible Twos".....baaaaaahhhhhhhh I scoffed at the notion of it. Tantrums, fits, stubborness, "NO!!!!"s....not our sweet little girl....not in MY house!!!! Hmmmmm.....errrrrr....ummmmmmm.......Adrian...how long does it last??????? Do you guys have room for one more???? I don't take much room and I don't eat much.....errrrrr...ummmmmm...ok I guess that I take up a fair bit of space, and well I do get kind of hungry. Arrrrrgghghhh I guess that I'm stayin' here. Ha ha of course it is not that bad, kind of cute actually, ummmmmm....ya.....cute......kind of. Now that she is sleeping it is pretty cute.

Oh ya speaking of sleeping.....or in this case more of not sleeping. The one thing that Clarissa struggles with is sleeping...both at night and napping during the day. Over the year we have gone through different manifestations of it, but I would say that we have yet to see a full week of solid sleeps....heck three nights in a row would be awesome. She has nights that she falls asleep around 9pm (after going to bed at 7:30pm or so) and doesn't wake up until around 7am, but far more often she wakes up crying multiple times during the night. Sometimes she cries while still asleep. It is hugely important to us do whatever we can to prevent her from feeling abondoned (again), so we bring her into our bed......where of course she takes over and Daddy gets a tiny sliver of the edge of the bed to "sleep" (read: wait for the alarm to go off) on. Daddy would sleep like that every night if it means that his little girl can sleep and feel safe.

So I mentioned that while we were in Toronto we went to see the Terracotta Army exhibit. It was really quite amazing to see. Mind boggling to think that some of these items are as old as 400 BC. We couldn't take any pictures in the exhibit so here is the best I could do.


Or this is pretty good.


So they were selling these cool Terracotta soldier statues in the gift shop. They came in sizes from 8 inches tall to 5 feet tall. Apparently they are made from terracotta in the area where the army was found (Quite a story if you haven't heard it...google it)...anyhow.....of course I wanted the 5 foot tall one, but we settled on the 2 feet tall one. Soooo, we debated...do we just have it boxed and carry it on the plane, or do we see if they will ship it to us. Carolyn says "Why don't we just carry it on the plane?". I say "Noooooo let's ship it. If we try to carry it we will probably break it.". Carolyn says "Ok, men know best, let's ship it." .....errrrrrr....ok...we all know that she said something more like "Ok ya bozo, it you want to pay for the shipping then let's do it.". Soooooooooooo a few short days later we got home from somewhere to find a Purolator tag on our door saying that they were sorry that they missed us and that we could pick up our package. "What the heck could we be getting from Purolator???" I wondered....so I hopped in the car to go and pick it up. The box had "fragile" stickered and written all over it, so I carefully placed it in the car and home I went. So I open the box, and there (hard to believe it was so quick) was our 2 foot tall Terracotta soldier statue..............in about 100 pieces!!!!!!
Here is his head....



So the next morning I called the ROM and told them that remembered seeing the actual soldiers in the exhibit had been glued together, but I didn't think that I would have to do that with my statue that I purchased in one piece. Sooooo they apologized and said they would send another to me right away. Two days later Mr. Purolator man arrived at our door with another box....a bigger one this time...and in it was a 2 foot tall Terracotta soldier.....in one piece!!!!

Now I was going to chuck the first one, but then I saw Adrian's post with the picture of "the special plate" and inspired I became.....I think that I will try to glue him together....when I get a chance.

Also while in Toronto, we made a trip to the CNE and it happened to be Firefighter's Day at the Ex. Sparky the Fire Dog was there!!! Now given that my job title is Emergency Planning Officer, Sparky is one of my heros....so I had to have my picture taken with him.



Ok, this took longer that I thought....time for bed (Clarissa will be up soon), not too much time for cuteness tonight. What?????? After making you read all my crap if I don't provide some cuteness you will hunt me down???? Arrrrrggggghhhhhh I think that I have heard that threat before...I had better give you something....







Ok....that should keep me safe for now.

A special dinner, terrible twos(minus 3 months)??????, and Parc Omega

I am two weeks into almost 3 weeks of vacation, and thoroughly enjoying the time with my girls. On Sunday we were very happy to have some special visitors. Four of the five 'Ottawa' families that we travelled to China with (we missed Francis and Kat), as well as our trip's Grandma and Grandpa joined us for dinner. We were also joined by Yulin and Bob which was excellent! It was really nice to celebrate the one year anniversary of becoming a family with our little girls with the people who we went through the process with. We may have been together as a group for a short period of time, but after going through something so huge together they feel like part of the family. We can't help but feel a special bond with them.

We were able to get set up for the 17 chairs that we needed at the table. Clarissa was anxious for everyone to arrive.


It really was wonderful to see everyone! Seeing the little girls looking so healthy and happy is really, really special. Kind of fitting that the weather was pretty much as hot as it was in China last year when we were there.



Debbie and Adrian brought this awesome cake that actually had the picture of all of our travel group on the stairs of the hotel in China.



It was kind of a good thing that Bob didn't come to China with us (as much as we all would have loved to have him there) because the cake would have never got cut. He was the only one of us at the dinner who wasn't in the picture :-)



Grandpa, Uncle Joey, Bill!!!!!!, and myself went out golfing with the Doc and Woody Show at the Canadian. Other than being a thousand degrees out, it was a great day. It was so hot that an apple that I brought was actually partially cooked when I went to eat it on the 16th hole. I had it sitting in one of the drink spots on the golf cart.



Yesterday we went to Parc Omega. Clarissa loved it. I will show some more pictures, but this one says it all.



These are for those of you who don't know what Parc Omega is.



Oh give me a home, where the......




roam, and the.....



and the antelope play


(ya ya ya I know...they're caribou....don't get picky on me here...I'm trying to work the song.......)

They had bunnies (not as cute as our bunnies of course....but still pretty cute).


I have more....but it has been a long day.....time for bed. Oh...I didn't even get to the whole terrible twos (three months early) thing. Next post.

C ya.