Monday, September 27, 2010

23 Months

This month has been really busy...between canning, working on mom's kitchen, a birthday or two and voila... here we are at month 23.

At the end of August my friend and I drove out to a tomato farm. We bought 6 bushels of tomatoes (thats about 360 pounds of tomatoes!). We also bought all the other supplies we would need to make homemade salsa and spaghetti sauce. We spent the next three days canning. It was a lot of work, but it was so worth it in the end... we have yummy homemade sauce and salsa for the year! This was our second canning weekend, I think I forgot to mention that we canned beets one weekend in August.



We have been working on mom's kitchen, the cupboards are all installed. We decided to do a tile countertop and so we had to reinforce the cupboards to make sure that the weight of the counter would be supported. We ordered the tiles and the special moldings to finish up the tile... We've had a terrible time getting the supplies in. The company ordered the wrong kind of moldings not once, but twice! So once we get the moldings in, the kitchen will be done. I thought mom would have her kitchen for Thanksgiving, but, now I'm not so sure... we'll have to see!

This past weekend we went apple picking... well it rained so we picked one bag of apples and then we bought the rest (6 bushels of apples) to make apple sauce, apple butter and to can apple pie filling. Yum! I bought a shelf to hold all of the canning that we've done this year...I've done canning in the past, but never this much before! It's fun... especially when you have lots of helpers!

We were invited to an information session given by our adoption agency. The session was animated by a nurse, she shared information about the kinds of health issues you may encounter when you adopt. At the session we met Patricia face to face! I used to work with Patricia's brother and we both started the adoption process at the same time, however we've never met before... we read each other's blogs and have encouraged each other along the way, but it was nice to finally meet Patricia and her hubby Yan.

Oh and there were birthdays...

Eric's mom's birthday was at the beginning of the month... we went out for dinner to a lovely french restaurant...Auberge Handfield it's a family favorite! Rachelle came home from Belgium on the 8th of September...MSF sent her for epidemiology training (the study of epidemics). This will be her last trip for a little while, she starts work at the Jewish General Hospital at the end of the month.

I celebrated my 36th birthday this month... I spent the day with my friend and then came home to a lovely party planned by my hubby... there was good food and wine and lots of friends and family... it was wonderful!

For the past year we have volunteered at our church leading the youth group. It has been a wonderful experience. We are grateful that we had the opportunity to be a part of the teens' lives. However, with our upcoming adoption, we felt that we needed to step down and focus on things at home for now. It was a difficult decision, but we know that it was the right one for our family for right now.

So, here we are with 23 months completed...I must say that the 24 months is quickly approaching and there hasn't been a proposal since July. We have heard that our agency is annoucing that the delays are lining up to 30 months. Hearing the news that the wait is going to be officially extended has been difficult for us. We knew that it was possible, but you always hope that it won't happen. So, we're preparing ourselves to wait a little longer.