Finally another update

Okay, we have been pretty bad at updating our blog thus far this year but I am here now so prepare to be updated!

Let’s see.  In March we went to Disney for a week.  One of the families from our adoption travel group was there at the same time.  It was a fabulous vacation!  Katrine and her “sister” had a blast running around and playing together and it was nice for us grown-ups to have someone to chat with.  Plus, our friend Jennifer T. knows Disney like the back of her hand and really went out of her way to make the experience special for us.(Thank you 😀 )

April was eventful for a number of reasons…some good and others not so great.  Let’s start with the good shall we.  Katrine skated in another figure skating competition this month.  She worked really hard, had fun and won two medals – a first and third.  She also celebrated her 6th birthday with a China themed birthday party (her idea).   We worked for about two weeks before the party to create a dragon so that the girls could do a dragon dance.  Unfortunately it was a windy day and the dragon was unusable once they had finished with it.  That said, they had a lot of fun parading around the driveway with it.  Oh yes, and chasing me around with it.  Katrine actually got two cakes for her birthday this year (as you can see below).  The first was for a family get together so it was gluten free while the cupcakes were for her friend party.  They actually say her name in Chinese characters, which I am quite proud of.

The dragon before the dance.

The not so good part of April was a trip to the ER for me.  A slight-ish, epipen treated allergic reaction that started on the way to school and involved an ambulance ride as well as a stay in the ER for a wee while.  Lots of fun.  It also resulted in a very restricted diet.  I never expected my allergies to get to quite this level but here I am.  It has forced me to cute a lot of foods and has increased our grocery bill substantially but sometimes you just have to suck it up.  The funny part of the story though is that I discovered my “happy place”.  When I had a minor trip to the ER at the end of January which resulted in my acquiring the epipen, the doctor told me that I should always stay calm if I ever had another reaction.  So, when my reaction started to intensify I mentally went to my happy place -a field of yellow flowers.  Yes, the girl who is allergic to everything that grows has a happy place full of yellow flowers and green grass. Odd isn’t it?  I always expected it to be full of glistening snow.  Boy was I wrong.

May saw Katrine pulling a ligament in her ankle by simply walking.  This caused us to miss Scott’s 40th birthday part (yes, my big brother is the big  4 – 0) much to our dismay.  She was pretty miserable though because she had to sit still with her foot raised for three days; aka torture.  We watched about two seasons of Kim Possible that weekend.

May also marked the 5th anniversary reunion of our adoption travel group.  Half of us met in Niagara and the other half in Ottawa.  We are planning to head out Ottawa way at the beginning of the summer to try and see some of the Ottawa faction.  Anyways, we all had a fabulous time at Great Wolf Lodge.  We even managed to get Katrine to go on some of the slides with us.  More important though, she got to spend time with her “sisters” and build a stronger bond with them while we relaxed and got caught up with this extended family of ours.  It is hard to believe that five years ago in February we held these girls for the very first time and here they were splashing about and running around the halls of the hotel with their rainbow ribbons.  It was a wonderful start to the long weekend.

We also planted our garden. Trying to grow some pumpkins this year.

This weekend has been busy.  It was the AGM of the RHFSC this afternoon and they also had an awards ceremony/pizza party for the skaters.  Well, we thought that that Katrine would get the pizza and play with friends while we got the information.  We were in for a surprise though.  She got an award for being the most congenial Canskate skater.  It is quite a nice award.  I mean, it is framed and everything.  She was pretty excited.  That is her coach with her.  She also got an award which doesn’t surprise me because she is a fabulous coach and Katrine adores her.

Plus, right now we are in the midst of Katrine’s very first sleepover.  She has been looking forward to this all week.  Right now the girls are wide awake in bed.  I know they are still awake because I can just hear their whispering.  Ahh, the days of sleepovers…I remember them fondly.  I wonder when she will feel brave enough to sleep over at someone else’s house and drive those parents batty.

Glenn has been working hard this month to replace the deck on the back of our house.  All of us managed to get splinters last summer and at least one was bad enough to require medical attention (try to avoid getting a splinter under your nail).  Anyways, we decided that a new deck was a necessity before school was out.  Well, it is looking good so far.  Glenn thinks that he might get the better part of it finished tomorrow.  I am so excited.  Not only will we not be looking at more splinters this summer but also a beautiful deck!

All the deck boards are on and the stairs go in tomorrow.

I think that has brought you more or less up to date.  It is report card season, so I should really sign off and try to get some of them done.  I will try really hard to get around to updating this more often.