 |
|||||||||
|
Canada - visiting Anik 2003 marked our first trip to Canada. We had a very enjoyable trip, visiting the states of Ontario and Quebec, lots of warm, sunny weather and friendly Canadians. One of the absolute highlights of the trip was our meeting with the Boulineau family - Tony, Mary, Stefan, Keegan and Anik from Windsor in Ontario.
It is really the wonder of the Internet that it is possible to develop and maintain such a friendship across 6 time zones. When in June 2003 we made the decision to visit Quebec, somewhere we'd always wanted to visit following our years in France, Mary and Tony invited us to visit them. We travelled from Niagara Falls to Windsor on Friday July 26th and stayed in Windsor for 3 days. We had a wonderful time in Windsor.
It was nice to visit a Canadian family, it was great for Thomas to practice his
French on Tony, Keegan and Stefan; for Daji to climb in their wonderful tree
house, for Yanmei to play with Anik and for us all just to get to know each Anik gave Yanmei a charm bracelet with the first charm, in the shape of China. The 13 girls in Anik's group will get a charm each year from their parents - Yanmei was over the moon and is looking forward to the day her arm is big enough to wear the bracelet. Mary and Tony made us feel very welcome and we thank them for their hospitality - both while we were in Windsor, and afterwards - Thomas forgot his bag in Windsor, and they sent it on to our hotel in Quebec.
|
|||||||||
Our
first contact with the Boulineau's was via an e-mail in June 2002. Mary and Tony
had just received their referral papers for a little girl from Jinchang, China -
from the same SWI that Yanmei spent her early years. We e-mailed together and
shared our experiences prior to their trip to China. Thirteen families adopted
children from Jinchang at the same time. After Tony and Mary had brought Anik
home to Canada, we continued to correspond via mail, and have exchanged regular
mails ever since - sharing the many ups and occasional downs of parenting and
life in general. 
other.
Yanmei swam for the first time without the belt, just the wings, and Daji also
enjoyed time splashing around in the pool.
