Friday we headed out to the Capital EX festival here in Edmonton. We were told this was the biggest festival in Alberta. It was pretty cool. Here are some photos...



Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

Today is my mom's birthday!! This is also a really awesome day as today 4 years ago, was the day we found out that we were going to be adopting Tessa!! Mom have a wonderful day and I will see you in a week

The Zoo and a little dance video

This weekend was pretty busy.... Friday Chris Golfed allday... Saturday we woke up had some breakfast and headed to the zoo only to find out the zoo is very small. It took us a total of about 1 hour to walk thru the whole thing, but it was enough for a 3 yr old!! Here are a few photos:

























Then on Sunday, we woke up and did our normal routine...Starbucks for our coffee and Tessa's pumpkin bread. Then off to church. We checked out a church that we really think is going to be a great chuch. Unfortunatly they are going thru some changes with loosing their pastor after 14 years. But things seemed great and everyone was very nice. After that we headed home to work on unpacking MORE boxes, I don't think it's ever going to end. And I caught this video of Tessa. She stands on our coffee table where she can see herself in a mirror and sings. At this particualar moment she is intermixing 2 songs...Santa Claus is coming to town and some song from Snow White. I will let the video speak for itself

Celebrating Forever Families

As most of you know Adoption is very close to our hearts. Tessa has been the greatest blessing to Chris and I. I get so many questions from people about the adoption I just thought I would share our thoughts with you...

1. Do you talk to Tessa about it?
Defiantly YES. We have purchased several children's books that we read quite often. I understand some of the folks out there that think it should be a private thing, but I don't want to hit that point in Tessa's life where she starts asking me questions about her grandparents and why she doesn't look like us(I know she looks identical to me now, but that could change;)). I don't want her history to be a lie. Chris and I were really concerned about this at one point but after talking to our social worker he said it is best for everyone to not keep it as a secret. She is only 3.5 but she understands that she didn't grow in my belly.

2. Will you allow her to see her biological mother and father?
ABSOLUTELY. She is more than welcome to visit with them. They are apart of her life, after all they are the ones who gave us the greatest gift anyone could ever give. We thank them everyday.

3. Do you feel like she is your child since you were not the one who gave birth?
Yes, I actually get this question... 150% feel like she is our child. Only a adopted mother or father can understand. From the time we saw Tessa in the birthing room we have bonded the same way a bio mother/father and child does. It's a awesome feeling knowing you were able to give this child a home, love, and support.

Those are the main questions Chris and I get anytime someone finds out that we have an adopted child. I was browsing the books store and I of course always look at the parenting books. Not that any parenting book can tell me how to raise my child, or tell me what to do when she is throwing a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store because I won't buy her that sugar filled cereal! I found the new book "Chicken Soup for the Adopted Soul." I read a few stories standing there and had to stop if I actually can get thru this book without crying it will be a miracle. It's a very cute book and I'm looking forward to reading it! It's filled with inspirational stories about all aspects of adoption. Includes stories from birth parents, adopted people, and adoptive parents. You should pick it up!!


I also just finished another book that may peek your intrest...
"Another Place at the Table" by Kathy Harrison. GREAT BOOK if you have ever thought about doing foster care, this book will make you want to start tomorrow. It's about a family who has almost a hundred children thru her home.

FINALLY!!!

Oh, how I am so HAPPY!! This is a long time coming.
First it was when we were getting married "I will stop", didn't happen. Second when we were trying to get pregnant...didn't happen then either. Many time's I heard him say "When this starts costing me $4.00 a can I will quit", that came and went. Then when we adopted Tessa he was going to quit, that lasted about 3 weeks. Needless to say we have been together for 12 years and there have been many occasions that he says I think I'm going to quit chewing. But it hasn't happened. I do have to admit that when he is in the middle of another attempt, he gets so cranky that its almost unbearable.
Well today it happened again..."I have got to stop buying this stuff." The real reason behind all this is because as you know the cost of living in Canada is a little bit more expensive than the US. Chris for the past 2 weeks hasn't said much about the can's he has been buying, but I have noticed that the can's are about half the size of the cans they sell in the states. So out of curiosity I asked how much that cost, thinking he was going to tell me a few bucks...no he said $7.36. Can you believe that? That is outrageous. Now I have never been a smoker, so I really don't have a clue how expensive this habit is but now that I know...



Yes, my friend this is his breaking point(I hope). I figure he goes thru at least 4 of these a week at a total cost of $29.44. That's almost $1500.00 a year on this crap that may cause CANCER!! So keep your fingers crossed that he will FINALLY quit!!!

Feilds of Yellow flowers

I don't know what these flowers are but there are fields and fields of these flowers around the city of Edmonton. It's really beautiful...

Canada...

Well where do I begin...We decided that Chris should take a job transfer with his current employer this past May and we have now made our journey to EDMONTON, Alberta Canada. We thought this was going to be a great adventure, what we didn't know was all the trouble we would run into.

So let's start with our move it all went good we were packed and ready to go by Friday night(June 6th). Spent the night down at Casey's and then left the following day and headed to Colorado to see Nathan and Meghan and the kids. We arrived in Denver on Sunday around noon, hung out with them. It was lots of fun, kids played, we went to dinner and drank a few beers.

When we woke up on Monday morning and headed out...we knew we were heading to Jackson Hole, WY. It was a great drive thru the mountains. Went out to dinner and had a wonderful meal. Went to the resort and we all crashed. We were so tired.


On Tuesday morning woke up rode a gondola to the top of the mountain. Funny story here...a few weeks ago Tessa told Casey that she was going to poop at the top of a mountain. By this time I had totally forgot about the whole story. And when we got to the top of the mountain sure enough she had to go to the bathroom!! NICE right!!!

We drove to Ol' Faithful and Monmouth Hot Springs. But it was snowing so bad that we really didn't get out.


Wednesday we drove to the boarder and spent the night at a hotel because we didn't realize the boarder was open 24 hours. We had to get our working Visa's. Which we did the following day. It was amazing to me how easy it is to cross a boarder. I don't know why but I envisioned that they would search our car and so forth. But they didn't do anything. Basically Thursday was a driving day. We only had about 8 hours to Edmonton so we wanted to get it over with. We were excited to get our new place. And go have some fun in the new city...little did we know.

So here it goes...
We met our realtor on Friday at noon...oh wait he didn't show up til 2. Chris was FURIOUS!! We all know his patience. All was well we got our keys moved what we had with us in and everything was good. Our stuff was to arrive on Wednesday so that's fine we can sleep on the floor...well we ended up going and buying a blow up mattress. Hardwood floors suck to camp on.
Saturday...opened a checking account, got a cell phone...and that's about it.
Sunday...just hung out, drove around
Monday Chris went to work, Tessa and I had a few errands to run and so forth. So about 1ish Harley made a growl like someone was at the door. I go to the door and there are 2 people in our little yard. I was like, very nicely I will add, asked may I help you. Yes, I am in a foreign country and it makes me nervous that someone is in the yard...what the hell, in any American city the cops would have been called. HAHAHA
Well needless to say they didn't say anything to me so I just locked the door...weirdos I thought.
So that night when Chris got home the lady came back and was pulling the weeds in our yard. Strange right. Well I guess the HOA(home owners association) takes care of the yards and we don't have to PERFECT I thought right. NO...she was not a very nice lady questioned us about our dog and who told us we could have him here and so forth. People are not really that pet friendly here...I have gathered over the past week. So Chris and I were just blown away at how rude this lady was and really didn't think much. Of course I went straight in the house and was sure to look at our lease agreement to make sure I did tell them we had a dog.

Tuesday morning...
Chris goes to work, comes home at like 10:30am because we have to get our SIN # which is similar to SS# in the US. Well we were having some problems with our toilets so we called the landlords. And they were like we actually we are glad you called. We are really sorry but your going to have to find another place to live you can't have your dog there. WHAT THE HECK. They knew we had a dog, it was on our application. How can you kick us out when you told us it was ok. Well sorry it was an over site. OVER SITE my ASS. Nobody would take any blame and we didn't know what we were going to do.

Tuesday afternoon....we scramble to find somewhere to live....where do we go...we don't know a sole in this town. We searched all day TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, and THURSDAY...and finally about when we were ready to give up a very nice man called about a condo he has and he doesn't mind us having Harley there. Perfect we will take it. Only bad thing is that they have gutted the place so its in the process of being redone and wont be ready til the 1st of July. Ok we can deal with that. Surely we can stay where we are until we can move in...Nope another slap in the face. The home association wants us out immediately. So we have less than 24 hours to get out. Where the hell are we going to go...how can they do that? Don't they have to give us 30 day's or so? It just doesn't make sense.

Friday...we head to a hotel. Fine if that's what we have to do that is what we have to do right. Well we were graciously invited to a work function with Chris' work. We went had a great time, rode a quad, played on the trampoline and so forth. We get back to our hotel at 10:30p. Chris goes to bed and is fast asleep til about 11:45 when the FIRE ALARMS in hotel are going off. At first I was like what is that noise? It wasn't a normal fire alarm. But having gone thru a house fire with my parents we don't take ANY chances when an alarm goes off. And that smell stays with you for the rest of your life. I woke Chris up he looked out in the hall and sure enough it was a REAL fire, on our FLOOR!! Could this get any worse. Grabbed our child thru on a coat and shoes, grabbed the dog and well the cat just had to stay behind he was hiding under the bed and I couldn't get him. At this point we didn't know how bad the fire was we could just see the smoke. So down the stairs we went. Now you can only imagine a 3 year old wanting to know what the hell is going on...poor thing has been traumatized. Every time a firetruck goes by she asks us if its going to our home. Long story short, it was a fairly small fire but they did move our whole floor to another area of the hotel and we ended up in a GREAT suite. We sleep like a king,queen, and little princess.
Well we really couldn't stay at this hotel because it was too expensive so we are now staying at a hotel 20 mins outside of the city still spending 80 dollars a night(2 queen beds, 2 adults, 1 3yr old, a cat and a dog.
Good news is we did sign our new lease today and will hopefully be moving in by the 1st. This has been a move from HELL. If anyone can top this one I would like them to try.

I can't even tell you if I like this city...we haven't had time to do anything but stress out like you wouldn't believe. I bet my blood pressure is out of this orbit. I'm starting to wonder is god punishing us for all the crap I did as a kid. My god please give us some good luck this week...it can't get any worse right?!?