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Gresiks Rule the World

Get this: my little brother is going to be on CBC Radio this Saturday! This month Ben did a project called The RPM Challenge, where he recorded an album in 29 days. This impresses the heck out of me. And now he's been interviewed for the show Bandwidth, and if all goes well, you'll hear his interview, intercut with one of his recorded tracks, on CBC Radio 1 sometime between 5 and 6 pm on Saturday, March 1. You can listen live here:

CBC Radio 1 Live Streams (pick an Ontario station)

Also, my little sister (sorry guys, you're more than a decade younger than me, so you'll always be my little sibs!) Joanna just got back from her class trip to Spain. Girlfriend got to see the Guggenheim in Bilbao! Then she had an interview for a co-op job with a design company in Kingston.

And furthermore, Melody and Ben are proud new parents to Charlotte Beth, a perfect storm of cuteness if I ever saw one. Lately they've weathered the flu--not fun anytime but even harder with a toddler and a newborn! Their double-duty parenting is inspiring.

In other news, my dad recently fulfilled a lifelong dream--skiing for a week at Whistler (with his son in tow). Plus, it's the dead of winter and my mother is happy. Definitely cause for celebration.

Oh, and me? Why, I just finished the third draft of my novel!

2008 is treating the Gresik clan very kindly, I must say.

Conversation with New Canadians

(You can hear Lia say her own name at the end of the video! She's trying to see herself on the computer ... For the longest time we thought she was saying "yeah" but she was actually saying "ee-ah.")

Family Day

One year ago today ...



Lia Na Fei joined our family.

Tonight we watched video of our first days together in Nanchang. It is dizzying to see how much she has changed.

From a baby to a toddler.

From weeping to laughter.

From stillness to constant motion.

From supported sitting to joyous dancing.

From passive to demanding.

From a Chinese citizen to a Canadian.

From her first family, to her caregivers, to our family.

Our heads spin at how far we've all come.

"It's a long way down,
It's a long way down,
It's a long way down to the place where we started from." -- Sarah McLachlan

A & S

As a postscript, our thoughts and prayers are with the people of South China, and especially the children and workers of the Social Welfare Institutes, as they struggle with disastrous winter weather. Half the Sky has updates on the needs of various orphanages, and you can donate through them to help keep the children warm and fed.