Thanks for joining in on our journey towards creating our forever family...

This is the place you can come to witness the adventures we experience as we adopt our child from the beautiful country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We hope you will come back often to learn about where we're at in the process, the culture of our child, our hopes and dreams, and to leave comments of encouragement.

Also, be sure to check out older posts by clicking on the link at the bottom of each page titled "older posts".

HOW OLD IS OUR PRECIOUS ASHA NOW???

Lilypie Third Birthday tickers

Sunday, March 22, 2009

UPDATES FROM THE TROPICS...

We called and talked to the Ottley's today and of course to Asha! And Lynda - Asha's foster mother - told us that Asha was asleep but as soon as she heard the phone ring, she got up like she knew it was her Momma and Dadda calling!

She is doing really well this week and seems very happy. Our little "bumble" has two little teeth trying to poke their way through on the bottom, but although she is teething she is still feeling well and it hasn't really effected her yet. Lynda always says, "yes, I can see da prints of da teef on her mouf." So cute!

We also found out that Asha tried a new food this week - yams - and she loved them! Not really a big surprise to us though being that she seems to love all kinds of food. The Ottley's female goat just gave birth to six babies this week, one female and five males. This is wonderful for them as they eat goat as their primary meat, but I am not sure what Asha will think of eating her friends. We are still a little concerned about eating the goat when we go...what I say about that is "meeehhhhh". Okay, that was lame.

We have all of her closet stocked full of little dresses, pant suits and onesies...her drawers are filled with socks and underwear. The only thing we are missing is shoes - we have only a few pairs of shoes and they all happen to be mine when I was a baby. The reason we have not bought shoes yet is because we never knew the size of her feet until today. Her feet are only 4 inches long and are very narrow! Got that? Only 4 inches! Now we can't wait to finally go shopping.

At Christmas time my parents had a CD made with nursery rhymes that were sung with Asha's name throughout it. Today the Ottley's told us that whenever Asha listens to the music, she dances. Then she tries to say her own name!!! Now if that isn't smart, then I don't know what is!

We are so blessed to get weekly updates like this one. Pretty soon we will be sending all of you the updates from St. Vincent! What a glorious day that will be.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

GOOFY GIRL...

OUR LITTLE "BUMBLE"...

BEEN TIRED...

Well it has felt like such a very long time since I posted last on our blog. A lot has been going on and has kept us extremely busy.

We leave officially May 1st and have already booked our plane tickets. We will be travelling over night on the red eye; we first leave from Saskatoon at around 9:00 pm, then go to Calgary, then Calgary to Toronto and then Toronto to Barbados...there is a lay over in each city. Once we arrive in Barbados, we will need to switch airlines to LIAT which is the Caribbean airline. A not-so-quick-50-minute-ride-in-a-scary-small-turbulent-plane and we'll land in St. Vincent and the Grenadines at approximately 3:00 pm the next day. It will be a long day for us but so worth the wait. We will be arriving officially on May 2nd which just so happens to be Asha's nine month birthday! Yahhhh!!!! This means that we will be able to finally celebrate a birthday with our little angel - we are so excited for that. I cannot even imagine what it is going to be feel like that day as Godrick - Asha's foster father - drives us to their home to meet Asha. I know I will be so excited and overwhelmed and I am pretty certain that I will cry. Some of you may say, "Desiree, you never cry!", pfffffff, very funny...in the dictionary under cry baby you will find my name in big BOLD LETTERS! That is going to be the best day of our lives and I can hardly wait!

We have both still been working full time at SaskTel but Scott has also been working like a mad man in the basement. He has finished tapping and mudding, has painted all of the rooms, has installed the laminate flooring and all of the doors and door frames. Asha's room is all painted and airbrushed just special from her Dadda and it is absolutely perfect. Now all that needs to be done is that the base boards need to go on and final touch ups with paint. Once this is all done I promise we will put pictures of her room on the blog, so be sure to check back for that!

We are both also very actively involved in the Saskatoon Caribbean Association and have planned an event for this Friday night to celebrate the Elimination of Racism Day which is officially on March 21st. We are also celebrating Obama who is the first African American President - this is a huge triumph for not only the black population but for anyone who has ever faced diversity in any way, shape or form. There will be a ton of different entertainers from many diverse cultures from within our city and we have hired Darian Durant from the Saskatchewan Roughriders as the guest speaker. Scott is doing all of the media aspects of the evening, so this has kept him busy. We are hoping that this event will be a huge success and that many end up leaving the event remembering our theme which is, "Yes We Can ~ Celebrate A Dream".

Last week, Scott and I went shopping to buy many of the essential travel items for our trip which included medication for Asha, bottles, some cool clothes for her, some snacks for on the plane ride home and diapers!!! I almost started crying in the diaper aisle at Walmart because I never thought I would be blessed with having children; being able to buy Asha diapers made it all seem so real and I couldn't believe that my dream to be a Mommy was finally coming true. It was such a good feeling! When we got home we put all that we had purchased for Asha into one of our suitcases - there was so many things that we could barely close the zipper. Something tells me that we are going to have to downsize!

This weekend my mom came over and we went through all of Asha's outfits. We got rid of clothes that probably will not fit her by the time we bring her home. We then washed everything and hung it all up on hangers. The outfits are so small - it's cute to see them hanging from the closet rod and for them to not even come partially close to reachign the floor. I had saved all of my toys from when I was a little girl in the hopes that I would end up having a girl myself. Me and my mom went through all of that and organized it in bins that will go into her closet. Finally, it is all starting to come together.

So, as I said earlier, we have been really busy. Please continue to pray for us. Pray that we may get all that we need to get done before we go; that we may persevere and work through the tiredness that we are feeling; that things continue to move along quickly for us in the country so that when we go to SVG that almost everything can already be completed; pray for the foster family, the Ottley's as well as Asha's birth family. Thank you for your continued love and support.

Monday, March 2, 2009

WHAT A BEAUTY...

Our friends who went to SVG are back! Not only did they bring back wonderful memories of their trip, but they also brought us back a glimpse of who and what Asha is really like. Asha must have felt like a movie star because they were all flashing pictures of this precious baby. We have yet to get their pictures as they just got back yesterday, but they did bring back something even better - A HALF AN HOUR VIDEO OF OUR DAUGHTER!!! No words can express what we felt when we really got to "see" our daughter for the first time. It was then that we realized that this is really happening, that she is "real" and that we are going to finally be parents. Thank you so much to the Craig family...you will never know how much it means to us that you brought a little piece of our daughter back to Canada for us.

As you all know we mailed a digital camera to the Ottley's (Asha's foster parents). They ended up giving the camera's memory card to the Craig's to take back to us and it was full of pictures and video clips of Asha. Here are some of the pictures that they took:

SEVEN MONTHS!

Happy birthday Asha! Today you are seven months old and Daddy and Mommy thought about you ALL day long. We even sang happy birthday to you in hopes that you could hear us. We can't wait to be with you on your nine month birthday sweet girl! See you soon. We love you honey!

Dad and Mom