Canadian Ghana Referrals Are Happening!

Good news today - one of the Canadian couples in an online forum in which we participate received their referral today - for twin girls!! They've been officially waiting for a referral for just under two months, so this is very exciting indeed. We know that other referrals have been given as well, although we have not had contact with any of those folks.

Our dossier should be arriving in Ghana almost any time now, so it's great to know the process is going well :)

Off It Goes!

We just received word that our dossier leaves for Ghana tomorrow (February 20)!

This means that the dossier arrived back at the agency almost exactly three weeks after it was sent to Ottawa for authentication - right on time! I was going to start being impatient if it hadn't arrived by the end of next week.

It will take about a week to get there and get settled in. From this point on, we simply wait...while keeping up with any news from other families about their referrals and timelines. Could be just a few short months, or many long ones, but we're essentially in the official "waiting for a referral stage"!!!

Doing it Ourselves

Well, here we are - renovating and restoring once again! After a long pause in the reno department, we're back at it with our first stab at floor refinishing. Starting with the nursery and front bedroom. We're really hoping to get the nursery totally finished soon - just keep working away at trim and the closet as soon as the floor is out of the way. Feels good to be getting one more thing checked off the "to do" list, although as usual a "quick" little job will be at least two weeks behind schedule, and ended up being more complicated than necessary. If the home repair tool rental guy ever tells you to use the less powerful sander because you don't have experience with the drum sander, get the drum sander anyway. Geoff ended up doing a lot of work AFTER returning the big push model sander - using a 6" hand sander. Painstaking...and time consuming...

But, the floors are looking great! He literally just came downstairs, after putting on the second coat of varnish (only 1 or 2 more coats after this). By the end of the week we plan to move everything back into the space, at which point we'll actually be able to walk through the upstairs without turning sideways to get past furniture. And we can clean the house again, which is not in the best shape after two weeks of neglect. No point yet, though.

It's going to be very fun putting together the nursery for real once it's all ready!

Remembering Phineas

I haven't been thinking of this at all, but just minutes ago some sad, sad news of a colleague put me in a reflective mood, and then I remembered that this Sunday (Family Day weekend) last year we realized that Phineas needed us to let him go the next day - his cancer had simply taken over his life throughout the preceding week and particularly over that weekend. So, that Sunday we cozied up in the living room with blankets and pillows and movies, and slept there through the night with our little guy. Such a mixture of sadness and peace and thankfulness, knowing that he had hung in there into the new year and hadn't felt sick for very long at all, and that the decision was clear - much easier in some ways than I had anticipated. So hard, though, waiting for the next day, knowing what it would bring. I like this picture of him, on his second-last walk, before Christmas and while showing no significant effects from the tumours. He was so camera-shy the last few years that getting this shot (by sneaking the camera out quickly while he walked) was a treat!