Birthday visit

Robin took the young kids to Yarmouth to visit his mom and celebrate her birthday. They had a great time visiting with family and seeing Grammy again.



Everbody is loving the cake.



Peter was excited to meet the other Peter... his uncle.



Robin also took the kids out to see Aunt Floris. It's always good to spend time in Sandford, even if it's just for a short visit.

Reptile show

Last Saturday Emily took her younger brother to see Little Ray's Reptile Show. It looks like the traveling show was very well done. They listened to the experts as they showed all kinds of reptiles and told interesting facts.



Gable went with them and brought his younger brother.



I didn't get a lot of details from them but I did catch the pride in Peter's voice as he told us he was the only one to hold the tarantula. Way to go.

C'est la vie

CBC radio has an interesting show about the French language. They take common phrases and ask French people on the street how they use it in every day speech. Today the show featured a professor in Quebec who teaches a Haitian Creole course and Haitian history. Robin said he learned quite a bit just in the short time he listened. One thing we've noticed with Gaelle is that she throws in Creole words with her English. Just a few words and today Robin got some insight into that.

One of the words Gaelle has kept is "lee". In Creole it is used for "it" or "he" or "she". So Gaelle might say, "Where lee going?" It just sounds like she's not pronouncing her words correctly. Another one she uses and this is familiar to us because of French, is the word "sul". I'm typing it as she pronounces it. This means "just" or "only", at least that's how it's used in French. So Gaelle might say, "Lee's sul tired." She means, "He's just tired."

Anyway, here's the link to the radio show. Very interesting.

CIC

We were contacted by Citizenship and Immigration to be a part of a small video they were putting together to show the updates of some of the families that brought kids home from Haiti after the earthquake. So we agreed to participate. They sent a photographer to our house and he took about 200 pictures all pretty much the same. Here are just a few.

Snow Days

We've had 2 days with no school. The kids have all spent a bit of time outside playing in the snow.



Kaylin and Emily watched the younger ones and had a bit of fun telling them how much fun they used to have outside playing in the snow.



There's not only sledding but also building snow caves and snow animals. It didn't take much to get them outside enjoying the white fluffy stuff. I did see a giant hole when I got home from work, but no giraffes. Maybe next time.



Needless to say,there's also the joy of eating snow. Yum...

Happy PG Day

One year ago today, an AirTransat plane landed in Ottawa with all of the kids from GLA headed to Canadian families. It was an intense month and we weren't the ones who lived through an earthquake with all of the aftershocks.

Whenever we talk about going back to Haiti, the only people Peter and Gaelle want to see are Molly and Joyce. It's as tho their life before GLA never happened. They do miss their friends but they are very aware that none of their friends live at Kay B anymore. I look back at these pictures and am just struck by how scared the kids look. I can't even imagine what must have been going through their minds. What an intense time.



We celebrated our day with a snow day from school (more like a freezing slush day) and a fried chicken and potato wedges meal.



Peter requested the chicken and Gaelle requested "shicos". One of the few Creole words that has remained. We call them cheesies or those yellow puffed corn chips. Gaelle also wanted pop, after all, it was a party.



We couldn't agree on a special dessert, so we chose a variety of cakes from the store. Yum...



We finished our day in the typical way. Wii bowling. Bedtime stories. And loving and huggings.

And what does PG Day stand for? Well, we couldn't agree on a name for our 1 year anniversary, and we had some crazy suggestions. So it just became PeterGaelle Day, or PG Day.

Operation Stork: One Year Later

Citizenship and Immigration contacted some of the families that adopted children from Haiti for a 1 year update. They sent out a photographer and took some pictures. All 3 of the families at the end of this clip adopted from GLA, including us.

Snow fun

We've had a couple of snow storms this week and a friend of ours drives a plow in our neighborhood. Sunday night he stopped off and invited Peter to go out for a ride. We basically pushed him out the door.



Feel the power.



I think his smile says it all. It's so funny to see our Haitian son thriving in the Canadian winters. He loves it.

Adoption completed

This morning all 7 of us trooped into Family Court and with a few simple words, our adoption was official and complete. It was a little anti-climatic because we didn't even say anything. Our lawyer made a point of thanking the NS Department of Justice and NS Community Services for their efforts in completing our adoption. Most people assumed that after the earthquake and the kids left Haiti, everything was done.

Not the case!!!

And yet it's true that the NS authorities have done everything they could to expedite this adoption. But there is a process in place and nothing about our process matched the established process. Every step took time as the authorities decided how to proceed.

But today we have finality. And we're so grateful for the start of 2011 and the "adoption order granted".



So, what's next?

1) apply for NS Birth Certificates (Especially important as the kids don't have their original birth certificates. Maybe some day we can obtain those for them.)

2) Continue the process of obtaining Canadian Citizenship (Especially important because the kids don't have passports from Haiti and can't enter any other country without special permission/VISAs/etc)

3) Apply for Canadian passports (See #2)

4) Apply for American Citizenship (Not looking forward to that process, but we'll give it a shot even with the lack of our original documents.)

5) Submit an application to Citizenship & Immigration to amend Gaelle's Document of Landing to refelct the correct spelling of her name. (Through no fault of ours, her name is incorrect on this document that she needs to hold onto for the rest of her life.)

Whew! But we'll keep plugging away and hopefully we'll be able to cross out all of those items from our list except for #4. Stay tuned.

Soup Joumou and the Canada Games Oval

Halifax is hosting the Canada Games in February and one of the new attractions is an outdoor skating oval. On New Years Day we decided to give it a try.



With all of the rollar blading Peter has been doing, he's an old pro at skating. This was only his 2nd time on the ice and he is doing great.



Gaelle asked for skates for Christmas which was a bit of a surprise. I wanted skates to be Peter's main present from us, but wasn't sure how Gaelle would like that. But then she went and asked for them. Perfect!!! I tried to prep Gaelle for the difficulties of ice skating. Sure enough, her first time on the ice she said, "This is hard!!!" But with her determination, I know she will catch on very fast.



Wow, look at my 5 handsome kids!!!! I love this picture.





January 1 is also Independence Day for Haiti. It's tradition to celebrate with pumpkin soup. There are so many recipes on the internet so I just chose one and reminded Peter that it probably wouldn't taste like anything he remembered.

Basically the soup is like a beef stew with some rice or noodles and pumpkin thrown in. Several of the sites mention using butternut squash in place of pumpkin so that's what I did. We had some friends over to help us celebrate and fortunately the soup was a hit. Carol brought a meat pie and that was also a hit. The day was a great start to the new year.