What colour is your belt?

Today Ben had his first karate test. He now has a yellow stripe on his white belt, way to go Ben! He only had to do two moves to get the stripe but it was cute watching him practice his moves. The other two kids have been working hard on answering the questions in their karate workbook and their test for their yellow belts will be in December.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American bloggy friends! Ian saw that the calendar said Thanksgiving and thought we should have another holiday...nope sorry, that one is done and we are headed for Christmas full steam ahead.

Well, I was so looking forward to watching Survivor tonight, I even traded my chocolate brownie to Alan in exchange for him doing the bedtime routine so I could watch it only to find out it was the recap episode. Oh well, I didn't need the brownie anyway.

Medical appointments and nasty emails

Today Alan took Ben to Victoria for his visit with the cleft team. It ends up being a long day but it sounds like he did great. He went to kindergarten first and Alan picked him up when it finished at 11 then they headed off to Victoria. The appointment was from 2:30-5:30. He sees about 6 specialists during that time and you do a lot of waiting around in between. Usually they have a ton of toys in a great waiting room for the kids but because of H1N1 they have taken all the toys away. They seemed to survive well enough and Ben even got a nice new teddy bear in the deal so he is happy. They finally returned home at about 8:00. Anyway, all seems to be well with Ben and they don't expect that he needs any surgery any time soon so that is that until next years visit I suppose.

Coco and I talked about whether we should send a letter and she felt it would be worth a try so I sent an email this morning. I did receive a reply tonight (very fast) but it was not a pleasant email. Apparently certain government workers tend to think of themselves in the same likeness as the Holy one that many worship on Sundays and wait for His second coming. I guess that is what power does to people.

On a more positive note, Lin has been playing at school with a girl who has recently moved here from China. She also has a twin brother and I believe they are in grade 5. Anyway, I told Lin to ask this girl, lets call her C, if she wants to come over and C does want to come over so today we wrote a note with our address and phone number on it for C to give to her parents. I just hope they speak enough English to get by on the phone, at least we have someone who can translate a bit. Anyway, I hope it works out and they can be friends.

Thinking

I am still trying to process what this mornings news means. It changes a lot of the plans I had and I guess I should have been more prepared for it but it really has caught me a bit off guard. My most immediate problem is what am I going to do with the kids over the long Christmas break. Here I have loaded up with clients so that I had something close to full time work but over Christmas I will have no kid free time, I'm thinking it isn't going to work out that well. Mind you one of my larger clients seems to be imploding so that one is a question mark.

Anyway, I am thinking of sending a letter to the the Canadian Embassy in Beijing and seeing if grovelling and begging has any effect on the process. I just haven't decided yet if its the best plan of attack or even if I want to attack.

To make myself feel better I went out and bought my new monitor that will go with my new computer. I found a good deal on a nice monitor in a flyer from the store that starts with an F and in ends in the word shop. Anyway, you will be SHOCKED to find out that although they had one on display they didn't have any in stock nor did they have any on order so I couldn't buy that one. The next one I chose was a comparable one for a bit more money but that one was also NOT in stock. At this point I should have walked out but I didn't of course, probably because I was expecting this to happen. I even told Alan before we went that this was going to happen. Anyway, I ended up buying one for 100 dollars more than I had planned on when I went in. It is bigger and has better quality so I guess that is worth something and has a good warranty BUT I still hate it when they do that.

I even learned a new trick today on the internet. If you hold down the ctrl key on your keyboard and roll the little wheel on your mouse you will zoom in and out of whatever page you are on. That might come in handy once in awhile!

The news from China is not good

Today we got the bad news that I was hoping I would not hear. Coco has to have a visa interview. Her interview is scheduled for June 2010. This changes everything and we will need to think about what will happen then. I am disappointed because I was so hoping she would be here for Christmas, I feel sad for her as well, I can imagine how disappointed she must feel.

Pajama Day

Today was Pajama Day at school. Here is a picture of the kids all ready to go to, complete with their favorite stuffies. Personally I think it is a little weird but the kids all wanted to participate this year and I think they all had fun with it. Even some of the teachers wore their pajamas to school. Well at least some of the female ones, I didn't see Lin's teacher today but somehow I doubt he wore his pajamas. I couldn't stop laughing when I got a mental image of this in my head though. Lin just couldn't understand what I was laughing about and I just couldn't explain it. Anyway, I'm sure any of the older neighbours who don't have kids in school anymore where probably wondering why my kids forgot to get dressed this morning before they went to school. We only passed one couple walking their dog and they didn't seem to notice. It did save a bit of time this morning though so that was handy. I see though that Ian has grown quite a bit since the last time he wore his housecoat so it looks like he could use a slightly larger size for Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, one of the gifts I ordered online arrived today so I am just waiting for one more. I would expect it to arrive next week. I am really hoping to get the last of the Christmas shopping done this weekend but I think the stores will be packed with lots more rain forecast for the weekend. Today was actually pretty nice, some rain but also some sun and it was nice and mild, like a spring day so that was a nice break.

Coco and I have been anxiously counting the days since she submitted all her paperwork to the embassy in Beijing. If the timeline that she has been told holds true than we should be hearing something next week. She is ready to start packing but she needs that visa interview exemption!

Where is Noah?

The rains have definitely set in and life on the wet coast has been rather soggy lately. With more rain in the forecast we might as well accept the fact that it is November and at least it is NOT the white stuff. Hopefully we are done with the high winds, at least for awhile anyway.

Today Ian had an audition for the school talent show in December. I think this is in place of the former Christmas concert. They split the auditions into two days and we didn't stay for all of it but we saw a few dancers and a couple of kids playing piano. Ian played a duet with a girl in his class and he played a solo piece as well. I guess now we need to wait to hear if he made the cut or not.

I finally ordered my new computer today, I got another quote but I didn't feel the support offered by this second Company was what I was looking for so I went with the original quote with a couple of negotiated upgrades. I just hope I won't be without a computer for very long because I am way behind with work and not having a computer isn't going to help that problem at all. The kids are excited to get this one since their computer can't run some of the stuff they want to play.

The kids are busy preparing for their first testing in karate. Lin and Ian need to do a written section in their workbooks as well as the karate testing so they are busy working on that. Ben doesn't have any written part so he has it easy, for now.

School meeting

Today we had a meeting at the school with Lin's "team". Alan and I both attended along with our social worker who came with us at our request. The principal was there but she never said one word so I am not sure exactly why she was there. Ben's kindergarten teacher was there I assume in her role as assistant principal. She actually had some valuable input so she was of more assistance than the principal, maybe the principal will be "retiring" soon? (Don't let the door hit you in the behind on your way out). Anyway, Lin's teacher was there as well as a few support people from the school that don't actually work with Lin at all, not sure why they were there except to make the "team" look bigger I suppose. The meeting was chaired by the district psychologist who knows all the jargon but also does not work with Lin at all. Lin's ESL teacher was also in attendance. They spent a lot of time congratulating each other on what a great job they were all doing with Lin and telling me that testing won't do any good because she doesn't have enough English skills. They also said that she can't have an IEP because she doesn't have a diagnosed learning disability and we can't get that without testing.

Anyway, I suppose we accomplished something in that they are at least talking and they at least have an ESL plan. That is what they are concentrating on, even if that is 40 minutes a week, otherwise I think there is not much else I can do at this point. We will meet again in March/April to evaluate Lin's progress. In the mean time we will continue to work with her at home and do what we can and muddle our way through.

I have also added this years school pictures. Funny how my computer didn't have any trouble reading the CD's these photos were on. I have no idea why it would read some CD's but not others. Anyway, I have a quote for my new computer but I am trying to get a bit of a better deal out of the guy before I place my order, not sure if I will accomplish it but it is worth a try.