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.

It is Family Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On August 31, 2009 we met this amazing little girl named Yan Hai Fu.


Yep in many ways we were in a different world one year ago. We have such special memories of China.

Fast forward to one year later.....Miss Clarissa Yanhai Lauzon has taken over!!!! She even drives!!!!




Ok...she doesn't drive, but she does just about everything else. We are so blessed, and we love this wonderful person so much. It has been a fantastic year watching Clarissa grow, learn, and change.



Last week my beautiful wife and I celebrated our 7th Anniversary and took a quick trip to Toronto with Clarissa for a couple of days. She was great during the flights. We stopped by the CNE:



Clarissa had her first swim in a pool and looooooooooooved it hugely!!!!!!!!!!!!



She was very happy to find out that Mommy brought Dolly and Mr. Bunny for her to sleep with in the hotel room.




The hotel had some super long spaghetti that she had lots of fun eating with Mommy.



We went to the Royal Ontario Museum to see the Terracotta Army exhibit which was very cool. I have a follow up on this....but I will save it.



We also took Clarissa's first subway ride. Other than the big loud noise, the smell, and the strange looking people....she loved it!!! Ok...didn't smell too bad. That was just me throwing it in for comedic value......




Much more has gone on also, such as having a special group of people over for dinner....I'll post more about that later...maybe tomorrow.

More to come....



Hmmm maybe I have given you too many images of cuteness for one post.....perhaps I should be spreading them out more......should I maybe take a few out and save them????? What?????? I better not????? Or else?????? Oh....ok.......

Wait....who said that???? Is someone there???? Is someone really there?????

Garlic, words, driving, vacation, almost a whole year as a family...and......a pony ride!!!!!!

Ahhhh yes....it has been a busy couple of weeks.....but I am (therefore "we are") on vacation!!!! We have a busy couple of weeks ahead. On Thursday I will celebrate 7 years of being married to the most wonderful, incredible, beautiful person in the world. She....well she will celebrate something....probably something more like celebrating enduring 7 years of marriage to a bozo like me ;-)

Then on the 31st we will celebrate one full year of being a family of three. A FULL FREAKIN' YEAR ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!! It is beyond words to try to explain how blessed and fortunate we feel to be able to share our life with this amazing, incredible little girl. To watch her change and grow with the passing of eacha and every day. To watch her personality develop and show itself. It is lots and lots of fun. It is actually quite remarkable that when we first received our referral it included a document that was written when she was 4 1/2 months old which had information about her including some of her "character traits"...and many of them are bang on. One thing is for sure....she knows very much what she wants...and what she doesn't want....and how to very clearly express it (most of the time). We are so thankful that this wonderful, special person is part of our family.

August would not be August without a visit to the Perth Garlic Festival. We headed out with Uncle Don and I loaded up on a great supply of fresh garlic.




I also want to throw a huge congrats and way to go to ARB on their "not such a secret secret". We have flirted with the idea. You guys are awesome and inspiring.

Clarissa had her first pony ride today!!!! She wasn't sure what to make of it all at first, but once it started moving she loved it.

Just some pictures....

Ok.....too tired to write, but have some pictures that I must share. But wait....you will be competely shattered if I don't add some of my brilliant observational quips. Won't you????? What???? You won't??????? "Shut up Rob and just show us the pictures!!!!!"....??????......wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Errrrrr.....ok.......here you go........





Huh?????? That wasn't Clarissa????? Ohhhh.....wait....let me check....hmmmmmm.....you're right....that's not Clarissa.....but that's Rush. Yep...that is Rush.....Rush is freakin' awesome baby!!!!!

Ok.....back to Clarissa.....she made her first trip to Cosmic Adventures. Daddy can't wait to get his turn at climbing through the tunnels and stuff....



She visited Grandma and Grandpa's place...


Clarissa and Daddy made a visit to the park.....



Uncle Joey came to visit and Clarissa had a lot of fun....



This is just how much fun....


Actually both of them seemed to have fun.....



That's it for now......more soon....ummmm....define soon......we'll see....

Oh....did I ever mention that if you click on the pictures they get bigger???? Hmmmmm now do you have to go back to day one and check them all out?????

Time flies when you are having fun....

Clarissa turned 20 months old recently. Now, that means that in less than four months she will turn two years old....but more than that it means that she has now been with us longer than she wasn't!!! That is awesome to Mommy and Daddy. It may not seem like much, but it means very much to us. It means that nobody has loved and cared for her as long as we have. We feel so blessed to have this priceless little girl part of our family. We had four years of waiting for her to think about what it would be like and imagine the whole experience, and as wonderful as I thought it would be....it is a million times better. Probably a million times more exhausting than I figured on also...but so worth it. Watching her change and grow each day, doing new things, coming up with new ways to trick Daddy, new dances, new words (well sort of words...), louder crying, bigger fits.....errrrrr where was I going with this again????? Anyhow, when I think back to the tiny little girl that we first saw across the room sitting on her Nanny's lap, just looking around wondering what was going on when pretty much all the other babies were crying away. She had no idea how much her world was about to change. However, she is doing so well. She is such a happy little girl (well...most of the time...except when mean ole Daddy is trying to get her to do something that she doesn't particularly want to do at that moment), and so smart....and so ours!!!!! Life is grand!


My girls on day one:


My girls now:



Yep.....I am blessed. Life is grand.

A couple days late, but here are some pictures.....

Ok...where to begin????

Well last night (exactly 10 months since we got home from China...) was our first "date"!!!!! We left Clarissa with Grandma and Grandpa while we went to see the Rush concert at Bluesfest! It was a fantastic show...and we even managed to resist call home to check on how things were going.















What's that???? You don't care about my stupid Rush pictures????? You want pictures of Clarissa????? Oh! Does this link back to the whole "it's not about me" thing???? Oh....ok. Let's see what I can do about that....

Soooo what has been going on with Clarissa? Oh I know...we had a great dinner with some friends that we travelled to China with. It was so wonderful to see all of them and the girls.















We went to the Papanack Zoo and Clarissa loved the animals















Grandma and Grandpa came for dinner on Father's Day, and Clarissa loooooooved it.













She has grown so much that we could finally turn her car seat around to face the front. She was very, very happy about it.

















It has been so hot that we have been having lots of freezies.














I am growing some herbs...well sort of....















No need to say anything about this