Some great photos

Josh has been giving me lots of good blog material now that he is using our old digital camera. He takes the best photos, I swear. I don't know how he does it, but he does it.
We had a really nice time tonight. I invited him over for dinner and a movie tonight and we all had a great time. I made some sort of Macaroni casserole type thingie and the three of us made a little picnic on the bed and watched a movie called "Nanny McPhee" with Emma Thompson (kind of a modern day Mary Poppins). Is was stellar and Aloka loved it. It was also really special being together, the three of us, and just having some relaxing fun.

Beach weather is fast approaching us, and we're starting to spend more and more time outdoors. Nelson is spectacular in the spring and summer and I'm eagerly awaiting festival season. I've been really excited to get my truffle business going again, because it's something with very little overhead that I can start right now and be successful with. I'm working on packaging right now, and hopefully will be selling these delectables within a months time. I'll post a photo of my packaging once I get it going. Josh is so kindly helping me design my logo and stickers for us on the ballotin boxes. Can't wait!

In the meantime, here are some great photos of Aloka that Josh took over the weekend!
The captions are the ones Josh added. This last picture is one I'm definitely getting framed. Grandparents: you can expect one in the mail too!
It's proves challenging sometimes to get a genuine and relaxed smile from her like this one at the bottom. Her typical 'camera' smile is the "show me your teeth" smile she does. She is a girl of so many goofy expressions, and Josh has really captured her essence here in these.

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh......


Wild Child.....Grrrrrrrrrrr.....


Beautiful Smile

My amazing child

This is yet another post from Josh, and I'm completely floored at Aloka's art work! I'm kvelling; is that the right spelling? I'll have to look it up in my yiddish dictionary..... (a minute later, after a visit in 'google land') Ok, it's "kveln" or to "beam with pride", or "be delighted in" or "revel in" Yes, this is how I'm feeling!
Anyway, here's Josh's post:


Hello Friends & Family,

Another Aloka Art Session

Adult Paint

Aloka and I paint quite often with her paints, but she has been very curious about my paints and asking if she can paint with "adult paint".
I told her we could soon, and I guess tonight was the night, she even used a long handled brush.
Aloka painted every stroke of these painting without my help or prompting, the subjects and colors were her choice completely, hence the strong use of metallics.

At one point she said: "I have a recipe written down at home for painting ladybugs, first you paint a circle then you paint the head and dots and then the wings and then legs, and then you put the antenna on, and that is how you do it, theeeeee end!"

She is a natural! Here are her works with her description of contents.

When she was done she said: "Perfect, now I can sell them in the market!".
Too cute.

"Momma and baby deer eating berries on a starry night"



"Ladybug eating berries"


While I was busy keeping her and the floor paint free I somehow managed to make
"Frog"

Sidewalk art

This post is from Josh too. Aloka and Josh had some fun sidewalk art the other day, and Josh drew a couple funny ones too!

From Josh:

Hello Friends & Family,

Chalk Art

This morning Aloka and I spent some time in the sun making chalk art.
She is quite the little artist and we always enjoy our time together.

I love impermanent media like sidewalk chalk...all the neighbors were smiling and waving when they saw us.
If we'd been using something else, say spray painting the sidewalk, their reaction might have been different.
Nice to appreciate the quality of impermanence for a change since we struggle against it so much in life.

This is Aloka's "child" climbing a ladder, by Aloka


Aloka's children on the playground.


Aloka teaching me how to draw rainbows....that is us in the center :-)



Above and below: 2 "creatures" I did at Aloka's request.


And below, me:

A post from Josh

Aloka was over at Josh's tonight, and he just emailed me and others these photos. I'm including his captions. "Old Flint Gnome" is a character from a story he made up (a great story actually, I'll have to post it sometime!) His post is below:

Friends & Family,

Aloka has been curious about death and what happens to our bodies lately.
Tonight she was asking about our bones, so I was explaining to her and decided to turn it into a project.
We made a mostly correct gnome skeleton out of Sculpey and baked the "bones" in the oven.
When they were done, we strung it up with wire and talked about the parts and how they work and move.
She is so smart and fun, so curious to learn...




Finally, an X-Ray of our little buddy...guess old flint gnome shouldn't have been such a grump!

Wahoo! My camera lives!

Now I can finally put my photos and movies back online, yay!








I'm slowly but surely getting more unpacked, and Aloka is loving this house! There is a really great yard (front, side and back) with a rope swing. Also, the yard is more conducive to playing in. She didn't really play much in the yard at our old house, but at this one she just loves to run out and play all the time.
She was pretending to be a fairy of some kind, of course.

We also attended the May Day celebration at her Waldorf preschool last weekend. Josh and I were both there and we all had so much fun. Aloka (and all the other children) made all the Mama's beautiful hand dyed silk scarves. You can see mine in this photo, she picked pink, yellow and orange for the colors on mine. They dyed them with tissue paper, and they all turned out so pretty!




We made flower crowns, and the children also played many games. They all pretended they were caterpillars, soon to be butterflies dancing around. Here they are metamorphisizing (is that a word?) next to the may pole! The children had so much fun, there was lots of yummy potluck food, and then at the end we all had fresh strawberry shortcake. The children served the mama's first in honor of Mother's Day. It was a beautiful and awesome day!


Here's Aloka and her classmate and friend Estelle making the whipped cream for the strawberry shortcake.

Here is the class photo! Dena's two children are on the far right and far left.

And I couldn't resist this last photo. Aloka got her first ever (and hopefully last) Dairy Queen ice cream cone, complete with sprinkles! She devoured the whole thing. Later that day we went to the beach.

Still no pictures

I love my new computer. It's the best computer I've had yet. What took me so long to switch to a Mac?? I still haven't gotten the camera thing figured out yet, or shall I say, I don't know where my cable is to hook my camera up to my computer. But once I find that thingy, I'm in business. I have many more photos to post!
Aloka and I have moved into the most beautiful house! It's in uphill, with beautiful views, wood floors, tile in the kitchen with radiant heat, and wonderful gardens and yard. It has a great kitchen and I am in paradise! It's 3 blocks to Aloka's preschool, 2 blocks to a playground (they're installing a water spray park there this summer!) and 5 blocks to my friend Melissa's house. It's a beautiful, sunny house and I have an extra room that I'm going to rent out to help with my rent.

I'm making salads for a popular cafe, and soon I'm going to launch my truffle business. There are so many places I can sell them here. I made some samples and have gotten lots of really great feedback. I'm also going to hit the festivals this summer. There're also outdoor markets twice a week that I can do also.

Aloka is doing really well, and growing SO fast! I can't believe she's going to be 4 this summer. She's chunking out now, which is great to see. She usually does this right before she's sprouts up again. I'm hopefully going to have some pictures of her soon. She's been playing outdoors a ton, now that we're in the full throws of spring. It's so beautiful here, with a nice blend of spring rain, and flowers and green everywhere. Today was so warm and sunny! We can't wait for the beach weather!!

Since I've moved into this new house, Josh and I are now able to go through all our stuff from storage (which we've been storing in his basement). It's really weird. It's quite shocking to see how much "stuff" we had, and how it's such a burden really. I thought my things would make me so happy to have again, and in some ways it's nice to have the familiar belongings back, but in other ways it's a huge burden. We are going to have the hugest most spectacular garage sale i think! There are just so many things I couldn't care less about now. The life we lived in the States was so much more excessive than here. It's so easy to buy 'things' in the US compared to Nelson. Even when I go down to Spokane it's a bit of culture shock seeing how many stores there are, and how each store is just filled with tons and tons of 'stuff' to buy, and places to spend money.
That isn't to say Nelson isn't without it's 'stores full of stuff' either, but it's less consuming somehow. Well, and there's not as many stores. And it's prettier. And Canadian's are wonderful.
Can you tell I like it here?
Speaking of Canadians, my Dad is on his way to becoming one. He just got his "landed immigrant" status, which is incredibly good news and very exciting for all of us. His status helps Josh and I get in a little bit easier too. We get more points now, 72 and you need 67 to get in, woo hoo! It will still be about 1 1/2 years before we get in, but it's still good news nonetheless.

Hopefully I'll be posting soon with pictures!

Gosh, so much time has passed!

And it feels like ages since I've posted. So sorry to all the fans of the "Aloka Rain" fan club! An insane amount of change has been happening for all of us, and most of you all know now. Josh and I have decided to separate, though we remain quite close. We have a great friendship and truly love eachother. Aloka is doing very well despite it all. It's been such a stressful previous year of trying to get work permits, work, Josh being sick, and getting settled here without all our stuff, that this isn't really too dramatic for her considering what she's had to go through already. In fact, she's getting some really great quality one on one time with Josh that is really feeding her spirit. Whenever she comes back from being with him, she always seems very relaxed and happy. And on a side note, Josh is doing really well too. He has been able to eat almost anything now, including soy! Amazing, isn't it?
The thing that's been the most stressful for her is moving, which we're currently doing right now. Everything is packed in boxes, and she has some fear of boxes now, after everything of hers (and ours) went into storage for almost a year and a half. So when she sees me pack her books, she is worried she won't be seeing them again. We're trying to have some sort of rhythm in her day, she really seems to thrive with that. It's hard but we're both really working on it. Regular meal times, regular bed times, it all seems to contribute to a happier Aloka.
We are also really placing a lot of value on family time, and are trying to incorporate that into our schedules as well.
So, I just had to write this because it was so cute this morning; Aloka woke up bright and early. She started telling me this huge long story about how ice cream cones are made. It took her about 5 minutes to describe and explain it to me. When she finally finished, she said "Wasn't that a lot of talking? I'm really getting much older!"
I have my new computer, but it's not set up yet, but once it is, I'll be able to send pictures again. We're moving out of this house this weekend, and Josh moved out a few weeks ago into his place, which is a beautiful little house in the greatest location. I'll try and send photos of everyone once we're all settled!

My little gymnast

Ta Da!!

Aloka loves gymnastics! She has so much fun and does the class with 3 other little girls. It's the perfect class size, and the girls are all so attentive. One of her friends is in the class too, Sophie, which makes it all the more fun!
I've got some vidoes too but haven't uploaded them to the net yet. Life has been very busy. This week I'm starting to sell salads (rice and pasta) and cake to a couple cafes in town. It's a good way to earn a little extra cash, and I'm also venturing into the travel agent world again. I've got an interview with a local agency here in Nelson next week, so exciting!





Here are also some fun photos of Nile's 2 year birthday. Yes, that's Aloka whaking on a pinata!
Melissa made a beautiful cake, and she has some great pics on her blog as well, so check it out.

Oh, and Aloka says "Happy Fools Day!"

I have a story to tell

This is a lot of words, and not a ton of photos (if any in fact) but our weekend was crazy and bizarre and hilarious and exhausting.
It all started with me needing to go down to Spokane to get my chocolate tempering machine. I was going to go down with my friend Melissa on Saturday morning. Come Friday night, Josh had found a really great looking car to buy for himself on the internet. It was a 1982 Audi sedan with a diesel engine and only 69K miles, for $1995 a la Craigslist in Tacoma. It sounded too good to be true (which it was), and we called the dealer about it. Josh decided to go down with me to Spokane, and catch a flight to Seattle, pick up the car in Tacoma (half hour cab ride from Seattle), and drive it back to Spokane all in a days time.
Ok, so when we relayed this plan to our parents, you can imagine the groans and warnings that came with it. Josh knew it was completely dangerous to buy a car sight-unseen but we were hopeful. Sadly, we didn't realize about CarFax until it was too late, but that will come later.
SO, we drove down to Spokane. We had a brief delay at the border crossing where we learned that it's absolutely NOT OK to bring kiwi's bought in Canada to the US even if there IS a huge "grown in California" sticker on them. So, there we were, Aloka and I hoovering 4 kiwis as fast as possible, while the border guard waited for us. She was kind enough to let us eat them and not report them as a 'confiscation' which would go on our record. "Note To Self, never bring fruit across border".
We then continued on our way and got to Spokane with not much time to spare, and by the time we got to the airport, Josh's flight was due to leave in 10 minutes and we practically had to throw him out of the moving vehicle. He was off on his adventure, and I had no idea if he'd even make the flight. Our cell phones weren't working so we couldn't stay in contact.

I had to get to the Dept. Of Licensing by 2:30pm and I got there at 2:20pm. No, wait, I actually got there earlier but then realized I needed US cash to pay for my records I was requesting. So I had to shove Aloka back in the car seat and make a mad dash for an ATM, getting back to the DOL 10 minutes before they closed. I made it. Aloka meanwhile is miserable with a cold and so sick of being in the car for hours on end, and she's still hanging in there. I perked her up by telling her she could get some gum at the grocery store. She was very excited. They have the good kind with no chemicals so I was content with that.
The grocery store was a strange culture shock for me. I haven't been in the States for almost a year and a half, and I'd forgotten what a consumer society it is compared to Canada. You can get anything your heart desires practically. They had a million kinds of Annies mac and cheese, a million kinds of chocolate bars, and a zillion kinds of cheeses. And don't even get me started on the deli section! Even the juice bar was HUGE! I had a mixture of euphoria and revulsion. It was weird.
Ok, so we're off on our adventures with gum in hand. Aloka and I took a few photos of ourselves in the car out front of the grocery store which I'll post tomorrow, and then we headed to REI. My dad and stepmom had given me an awesome REI gift card that I had never gotten around to using and I finally ended up with a great pair of new xcountry skiis. I'm beside myself with excitment! Those of you who know me well, I worked it, getting an insane deal! They were having a mega clearance, and I got them to knock an additional 10% off, plus 20% off my ski pants too. I left there pleased. I love getting deals!
By now, we're completely exhausted. Aloka has now been asking to go to the hotel for the past 3 hours and we finally do. We check in, I have no idea how I manage to carry all my bags and my exhausted and sick child at once, but I do. We get to the room, watch a $10 pay-per-view movie and snack on odds and ends. I still have no idea what's happening with Josh. For all I know, he could be stuck in Tacoma with a car that doesn't run.
Around 11pm Josh gets to the hotel and crashes. Apparently he didn't miss his flight because it was delayed 40 minutes, but he did get interrogated for having "liquid" in his carry-on. He had no idea what they were talking about until they told him it was his roll-on deodorant, and that he should know better than to pack that.
He tells me that the dealer was pretty sleazy and the car isn't quite what he thought it would be, but nonetheless, has a good strong engine and got him to Spokane, even though it was pouring rain and there was no defrost in the car, so the windows were cloudy the whole time, and Josh could only drive 60mph at his fastest. It took what should've been 4 1/2 hours, about 6. He was exhausted.
Our hotel room had some kind of banging pipe situation every 3 minutes or so the whole night. So that kinda sucked as far as sleep was concerned.
Then in the morning, Josh told me the rest of his story. The car no way felt like it only had 69k on it and our fathers warnings were of course, correct. Two of the door handles are broken (one of them being the drivers side), the other in the back. Apparently, this car had been abandoned, had a window broken (which has since been fixed) and rain poured into it for weeks on end, resulting in half the car being covered in a layer of mold. According to CarFax, the car had 89k miles in 1999, so it had definitely been tampered with.
But, the flip side is that it still runs well, and gets over 50mpg. We're just not sure how many miles is on this car.
The next morning we went to our storage locker, got as much stuff out that could fit into two cars and headed off to Nelson.
I missed an exit. We ended up 2 hours off course. Josh is following behind us, and every time I stop and need to talk to him or he needs to get out, he has to climb out of his window because the passenger side is full of boxes and his door is broken. So, finally a kind woman tells us how to get back onto the correct highway and we finally get to the border crossing a couple hours later.
Josh was supposed to have had an appointment with a woman at 4pm, and we got to the border at 3:30pm so he was pretty stressed. He called the woman on the phone in the border patrols office and could only get her voicemail, so he leaves her this message saying he's so sorry he's supposed to be there in a half hour and he's still at the border. Meanwhile, I'm looking at the clock which is reading 5pm. Crap! Daylight savings! So, he's actually already an hour late and she's been waiting for him in a cafe for god knows how long.
Oh well. The border people ask us a million questions and have us fill out too much paperwork. At this point, we are declaring all our earthly possesions. We also found out that we're supposed to put a dollar amount of everything we own, ha!! Luckily the ever-so-very-cool border officer lets us just put a dollar amount per box. As opposed to the not-very-cool-at-all superior border officer who didn't even let us get a temporary vehicle permit for longer than 30 days, and barely let us use our vehicles, lame. They have SO much power by the way, those border guys. It's kind of scary.
The cool border officer (we don't know his name except by Officer 11204 or something) actually took Aloka into the office (where normal people are so not allowed to go!) and set her in front of a little hidden TV under a desk and played "Zooboomafu" for her. What he is doing with that movie, I have no idea, except that he has 3 kids himself and maybe he needs to entertain them every now and then, or maybe he's just an insanely cool border dude that has a "kids corner", which by the way, was complete with a red fish and a blue fish.
So by the time we had finished all this insane paperwork, we finally got home around 7pm. I can't believe we had only left the morning before. It feels like I've been gone a week.
I've got some pictures but if you could see the house right now, you would understand why I currently can't find the camera. Besides the very many boxes everywhere, Aloka was VERY excited about her two boxes of books, and there are now approximately 40 kids books strewn across the living room. Pictures will follow!

Where have I been?

It feels like forever since I've been able to post! My computer is officially dead, my hard drive crapped out.
I'm on borrowed time so it might be another couple weeks until my next post, but I wanted to get out an update for all.
Life is extremely busy here for us all. I still haven't gotten anything out of storage, but planning on making a trip down to Spokane next week sometime to at least get my chocolate tempering machine so i can start making truffles and selling them at local cafe's here in town.
I'm thinking about taking a doula training workshop in the spring, which would also include postpartum doula, so in other words, taking care of mama's after childbirth. Flexible hours, decent pay, and I could do it while Aloka is at school.
Aloka just got over yet another stomach flu. I swear, this child gets every stomach flu that's going around, and then some. I'm not sure why she's so predisposed to it, but believe me, having only one set of bed sheets makes for a lot of laundry not to mention creativity when she gets sick. All too often I find myself sleeping on towels, dish towels, and once even clean clothes because she had thrown up in the bed so much one night.
Just around the time of my last post, Dena (Aloka's teacher) had a lovely tea party for the students and their families. The children made thumbprint heart shaped cookies, there was rose tea, and a little present for each parent and each child set at the table, which was also adorned with heart shaped and red accents. The parents got a little set of 3 heart cookie cutters and a nicely printed out shortbread recipe, and the children got a cute little hand felted heart shaped doll. It was wonderful!
Here also is a video and a couple pics of Aloka's new belly dancing costume, which is utterly adorable! And YES, that's Josh wearing a belly dancing costume as well! Something only a father would do, eh? Pure love!

The other day we went cross country skiing up at a friends house, and I got some cute footage of Aloka on her skiis. She really takes to physical activities, and seems to have great coordination. The day was gorgeous, and I'm always in awe at the beauty of the West Kootenay's, our home.


In further news I'm making the big switch over from PC to Mac, so next time I post it will probably be from my new iMac, so exciting!
oh, and one more thing... there's a sweet picture of Nile and Aloka on my friend Melissa's blog, so take a look; her blogs are always fun to read! And that huge awesome carousel she mentions in Spokane is going to get a visit by us next weekend. Can't wait!!
Until then....