This summer our church decided that instead of doing a week long VBS, they would host weekly field trips for the kids. The theme was "Creation Care" and they went to a managed woodlot, the beach, had a presentation (and live owl) come from the bird rescue society, visited our farm and went horseback riding. For the final week a visit to the hatchery run by the local salmon enhancement society was planned.

As someone who did 2 years of fisheries biology in university before switching majors, I was pretty stoked to tag along.

Waiting for the action to start (when did she start looking so grown up?)



The River was netted and the net reeled in

Then the guys with nets moved in and began gathering up the fish

The fish were then transported by truck to holding pens.

The actual egg-take/sperm harvesting will happen a few days later. Initially I was told that we would be seeing the egg-take. I've helped with one before and I am quite glad that was not the case. Somehow I don't think watching fish get clubbed, cut open and their eggs spilled out (females) and milked for their sperm (males) would leave the same impression with the kids.


We then took a tour around the area and saw all the natural looking enhanced habitat that has been constructed.

There were so many fry in the water, all different types of salmon. Some that had hatched naturally in the streams and some that were fry from previous hatches.

We finished up with a devotional and a snack.

The tour guide mentioned that he had never, in 20 years, had a group of kids who were able to answer all the questions that this group did, to which Linda modestly replied "well, these are homeschooled kids." lol.

What really impressed me was that except for one person, everyone involved in the operation was a volunteer. I think that the Salmon Enhancement Society would be a great thing to get involved with once the kids are a bit older. I would love to do some of the educational stuff with schoolkids and it would a hands on way to teach our kids about stewardship of the environment.

(I think I had way more fun than any of the kids )

Plan B

I'm not big into birth plans. My reasoning is that there are so many combinations of variables and situations that can come into play during a birth, that each is so unique, that trying to script the event is impossible. If (when) things don't go as planned it can be a serious source of stress, even leading to feelings of failure because things "didn't go as planned."

Obviously I didn't make a strict plan for either of my births, thank goodness considering the unforeseen circumstances that came up with both. Turns out, we make huge babies, who like to turn over during labour and plug up my smallish pelvis. I had my mental lists: episiotomy - no, breastfeeding - yes, drugs - we'll see. We had our option A's, but were open to B and C.

Turns out being paper pregnant is following the same trend as my physical ones. We just found out that Option A (Taiwan) is off the table. Our agency was unable to sign a satisfactory agreement with the agency in country. It also turns out that living in BC there aren't really too many other options to explore. Our contact at the agency (JW) really surprised me by suggesting that we apply for the domestic program. This hadn't really occurred to me before, given that we are willing to adopt from out of country and are already parenting two young children. Apparently their que of waiting families is really low at the moment, maybe because of the bad rap the program has for long wait times and nonmatches. But at this stage it would only cost us $3500 more than what we have already paid, (the rest is due at placement) so we are going to go for it.

We are also going to apply for the Florida program. We had seriously considered this last year before deciding to go with Taiwan. Shepherd's Care has a bit of a wait list right now and I'm waiting to hear back how long it will take. Also don't know much about the $$ aspect of it.

Ahh, changing gears. No longer pondering how our language challenged, small town family can learn Mandarin, or wondering how old the child would be, or if we should take the kids with us (actually still pondering this). Now I'm daydreaming about parenting a newborn (why again did I give away all of our newborn stuff?) and trying to figure out how to best write a Dear Birth Mother letter and sell our family in pictures.

I have the feeling the ride is only just beginning.

Excuse for Sleeping at my Desk Tomorrow

I feel as though I haven't sat down all this BC Day long weekend.

On Saturday we had 40 some odd people in our backyard for a retirement/birthday party for Brad's Dad, Glen. It always amazes me how many days of preparation and how much clean up goes into a 4 hour event.

We were all set for the heat. Ice baths for the salads, Brad made big timber benches for the shady side of the yard, shade tent and umbrella. It was a good thing we had the shade tent up because just as the guests were arriving it began to rain and it rained pretty much all evening. You know you're at a party on the west coast when it is raining and everyone is pretending that it isn't. Just carrying on, standing outside, sans jacket, as though it was a beautiful sunny day.

There were speeches and toasts and cakes.

My father in law is a pretty amazing person. He certainly deserved all the accolades, although he hates being the center of attention. He is very well known on the coast for his work with forestry bridges and he may just be the only truly humble engineer I've ever met. I work with a lot of engineers so I would know:o)

On Sunday we had a 30th birthday party for Brad's brother, Don.

I was up until 3am on Saturday morning putting together salads and prepped all day Saturday for the retirement party. I took a few hours off after the party to visit my Dad who was spending the night and then cleaned up until 1am. Sunday while I was cleaning up from Don's party, Brad meekly admitted that he had invited people over for lunch the next day. I must be getting better at this marriage thing because I didn't even hit him!

Then (there is always a "then") a friend called and asked if I could watch her daughter all day while she worked...shortly after which our social worker phoned asking for copies of paper work which she had lost....ummm, what? We were under the impression that our home study had been submitted weeks ago?????

Then (seriously) while I was trying to get caught up on chores this morning before the lunch company arrived, a group of folks showed up to U-pick blueberries. They also wanted to buy raspberries. The raspberries are in my garden and the patch is at that stage were next years canes are taking over but you have to be careful not to break them off while they attack you. Also, I'm not so keen on letting strange people tramp all over my garden, call me crazy. So I was desperately trying to get raspberries picked and while watching the kids, but not letting them into the berries because 2 of the 3 will eat themselves sick, guaranteed.

We had a nice visit with the folks and thankfully had lots of leftovers to serve them. By the time they left I was done. D.O.N.E. done. So we decided to make the most of the 2 hours that were left of the long weekend.

We quickly packed up the 3 kids and hit the beach.

Then walked over to the nature house

Looped around to the playground.

Before heading home so I could clean the house and be ready to host Bible study by 7:30pm. No body better ask where all the left over chocolate cake and wine got to because I'm not telling.