Delivered to the Judge

I heard from my agency over the weekend that my documents were delivered to the Court on August 9th.  I was really excited to hear this!  No more thinking about where my documents are.  I was hoping that the Judge would now have everything and could move forward but I found out today that the report from IHNFA has not been done.  IHNFA needs to write a report summarizing the testing that I did during the first trip.  I believe the report also summarizes all the information submitted in the dossier.  It is not uncommon for this report to take between two and three months.  It has been 10 weeks since I did my testing at IHNFA so I hope this report is done soon.   Once the report goes to the Judge it is just a matter of weeks before you get your travel date to go back. 

Yesterday my friend Monica came over.  She was raised in Mexico so speaks prefect Spanish.  We called the foster mother and talked to my son!  The foster mother told us that my son asks everyday when I will come back for him.  Everyday they look at my picture and she tells him that I will be coming back.  While we were talking to the foster mother my son started to pack his clothes in anticipation of me coming. 

While it is hard for me to wait for my return to Honduras, it is so much harder on him.  I am sure that he does not understand why it is taking so long.   I tried to explain but I am not sure he understood.  The foster mother has had other foster children adopted so she understands that it takes time.

I really wish for us both that this wait will soon be over.  I am praying that this report will be done by next week.   

Almost last but not quite

My Mom and I ran the Log Train Trail Half Marathon on Sunday.  We have been planning to run this for months.  I was all keen to do another half a few months back.  I was convinced that I would run more and work harder to get into good shape.  Well, it didn't quiet work that way and I barely squeezed enough runs in to complete this event.  A few days before the run I was wishing I had never signed up for the event but since I was running it with my mother, I didn't want to let her down.  It was a good thing that we were running slow as I would have been toast otherwise. 

Before the start

The Log Train Trail Run is a non competitive fun event with no age group prizes, no timing and even the distance may not be completely accurate.  We got a sense of this out on the course when one person would say "It's only three kilometers to the finish" and the next person 10 minutes along would say "It's only four kilometers to the finish".  We saw a sign near the end that said 20k so we thought we were almost done so we ran and ran and finally came to a water stop where they told us we had just reached the 20k mark!  A little hard to take near the end but we weren't worried as we were just there to have fun. 

All done with our silver rail spikes and my door prize.

We finished in 2 hours and 35 minutes, the longest half marathon I have ever done by a long shot.  My mother said it was because it was a trail run and the uneven surface makes you run slower.  This is true but I put it down to lack of training on my part. Plus I had planned to just enjoy running with my Mother.  So we had fun and chatted the whole time.  We laughed at one point because we thought we were going to be last and we didn't care.  We each received a silver rail spike for finishing and I won a water bottle.  On the drive home we discussed doing this run again next year!

Camping Again

My Mom at our campsite

We went camping last weekend for the third time this year.  We stayed at Miracle Beach which is just over an hour away from us.  I can't believe that I haven't been camping here before.  It is such a lovely campground located just off the beach.  The best part is that 95% of the people camping there have kids.  There are over 200 camping sites here which means there are hundreds of kids.  It only takes Ali a few minutes to find a friend and off they go around the campground on their bikes.  I don't have to entertain her at all. 

My parents joined us last weekend and we spent many hours on the beach.  My parents were at a different site and each morning Ali would get up and hop on her bike to visit her grandparents.  This gave me a chance to lay in!  We spent Saturday relaxing in the morning before heading to the beach in the afternoon.  It was cloudy so Ali didn't want to swim so we built sandcastles instead.  We headed back to my parents site in the late afternoon.  Ali must have had too much fresh air as she said she wanted a nap, something that hasn't happened since she was three. We all enjoyed an afternoon snooze. 

Sunday was rainy but we still enjoyed ourselves.  We went to the beach in the rain and continued playing in the sand.    Next year I am going to do more camping especially when there is such a great site so close to home. 



Rainy day at the beach





Summer Sandcastles

Every year the town where I live has a sandcastle competion.  The castles are built up off the beach and are left standing for a month.  Close to 100,000 people visit during the month from all over the world.  Each year I wonder down to the beach to have a look and each year I am amazed with what is produced from sand.  Here are some photos from this year's event.

Nepali Camping Weekend

The view from our camper

A few weeks back Ali and I attended the Nepali Camping Weekend.  This is an annual event that takes place at the home of an adoptive parent.  It is a beautiful place located on the edge of a long bay. 

The event is organized by the Nepal Social Committee which is a group of parents who want to maintain contact with other families with Nepali children so they organize some events throughout the year.  The group started around the time that I adopted Ali and it consisted of five families who had recently completed adoptions from Nepal.  There were approximately three families who completed adoptions in the 90’s and then five families who completed in 04/05.  In 2006 Nepal became a major program for the agency and now there are several families on the island and in Vancouver that have Nepali children.  The events that are held throughout the year are a great way for the children to get to know each other and for the parents to connect also.  This weekend there were 12 families that camped for the weekend.  

Ali and I arrived at noon on Saturday and once we were set up with our little camper, we headed to the beach.  The beach here is one of the best I have been on for sea life.  When the tide goes out, it is sandy and warm.  It is a perfect home for sand dollars and moon snails.  I have never seen so many sand dollars in once place.  In fact in some areas instead of sand, there are just layers of sand dollars.   Out on the sand bars we dug up moon snails to have a look at.  They are big snails, their foot, or the soft part, when fully out is the size of a dinner plate.  They eat clams by drilling a hole in them and then sucking out the insides.  We found several live snails and lots of empty shells.  There were also oysters and starfish on the rocky shore.  Ali taught me how to tell the difference between a boy crab and a girl crab something she learned at camp this summer.  

Ali and a friend each holding a crab

A Beach made of Sand Dollars!

One of the Moon Snails we found (and buried again)



The days were filled with trips to the beach and the swimming hole and berry picking in the huge garden.  We had a potluck each night which gave everyone a chance to come together.   I didn’t see much of Ali the whole weekend (which is why I have only one picture of her).  The kids just ran off and played the whole day.  She spent most of her time with Maya and Nishma hunting gnomes.  A garden gnome kept moving around and hiding in new places.  The girls would also leave food for it and the gnome would eat it.  (Needless to say some of the parents spent some of their time moving a gnome around…but don’t tell the girls!). The weekend went by very fast and Ali thoroughly enjoyed herself.  I am sure we will be back next year.

View from the Beach

Ali hiding under the blanket in front of our little camper.