Overload...

Who knew 8 days could contain so much? Honestly I have been on overload for the past two weeks, and yeah, phew, I need like a major debrief session! So to my blog I turn...

*Not mention its just a faster way to tell the tale, rather than type up 30 separate e-mails.

First thing, we got a guinea pig. I know, shocking right? Holly with a rodent? Yeah, um, not so much my idea, but Abbi and Rob are quite thrilled about Pig, as I so lovingly call it. No, we did actually pick a name, thanks to a suggestion from a friend on facebook...Winnie the Guinea. Or Winnie. Or Miss Winnie for short. I just have to get out of the Pig habit...

The only condition? I do nothing for the Pig. Its Rob's Pig. Its cute and all, but I have no desire to clean Pig poo, Pig cages, feed Pig, etc, etc. So thus far, Rob has kept up his end of the deal and Pig is living happily in our kitchen.

Behold Pig...ahem, I mean, Winnie the Guinea (who is female).

Abbi's in love
Has my husband ever looked so adorable? I mean seriously, adorable!
Then on that Saturday I wrote my History final. Phew. Believe me. I am sooo glad to be done that little number. Still waiting on the results, although I am fully anticipating a 75% as that seemed to be my teacher's favorite number throughout the course.

After I wrote my exam, my lovely friend Trish stopped by with a little post-exam lovin'! A beautiful bouquet of flowers as a congrats! Gerber daisies, my favorites!
She also brought me a Cappucino Skor Blizzard (which there is no picture of because it was promptly placed in my tummy!), because she knew the completion of my exam meant the end of my chocolate fast. I survived 10 weeks without chocolate. I actually wasn't sure it was possible prior to the "fast" but yeah, I survived! Incredible really. I've had chocolate twice since my exam (the blizzard and some chocolate cheesecake). Both were good, and delicious, and all that chocolate should be, but it just doesn't have the same effect anymore. Fingers crossed this lasts!

On the following Monday night, I wrote a midterm in my Sociology class. I had almost zero time to study for it, but I still came out with 90%. I'm fairly pleased with my mark. Its those darn bonus questions. Definitely worth it...especially if you didn't get much studying in!

Abbi had a "penguin show" at her preschool on Tuesday. Which actually turned out to be only one penguin, but cool nonetheless. They combined two of the classes to make it happen, so it was a packed house. The presentation was probably slightly advanced for this age group, but I think best of all, they got to see a real penguin up close. But yeah, words like endangered, predator, and mating just aren't in a 3 year old's vocabulary yet, and hopefully we can keep "mating" into the far, far future!

Some pictures from the show...
Everyone waiting for the show to begin.
Tweeblix & her trainer (who I think is a dead ringer for my friend Katrina...)
Uber cute.
Although they do poo every 10 minutes...so maybe not so cute...
Abbi clutching the class hippo, perhaps for moral support?
Gabe with his face stuffed of granola bar. The only way I could keep him quiet.
*Might I just add, Abbi gave Gabe the hippo, which he proceeded to sneeze his most delicious granola bar all over. Yup, you bet that came home with Mommy so it could get washed.
Abbi got bored of sitting in the chair. So she sat down beside this boy and started making moves on him. It was rather hilarious. He drew the line when she started stroking his hair...
Everyone walking like a penguin. I like how even the penguin got involved...
They actually got a group shot with the penguin trainer, the penguin, and the class. I thought it was fairly brave of the teachers. As you can see in the background, they've been learning about Antarctica.
Next on the busy Nepper schedule was my knitting lessons. It was through our local community league. I know, I know, I said I'd start knitting and quilting when I got old, but hey, to a 3 year old I'm old, and well, the opportunity came up. Unfortunately, it was very bad timing with the madness that is my life, but I did what I could to squeeze it in.

The amazing part? The instructor is the Grandma of one of the girls who was in Abbi's Rhythm, Rhyme, and Story time class that we attended in the Fall. I walked in, and we were both like, "I know you..." Took a few minutes to figure it out, but when she said she cares for her 3 year old Granddaughter I picked it up right away.

She was terribly nice, and so understanding of my complete lack of knitting knowledge. Like she fed me the basics. Seriously, I've never even touched knitting needles so I am green as they get! She slowly walked me through it and by the end she was convinced I have knitting in my blood. I'm not entirely convinced of that, but I did catch on fairly fast. Well, at least to this one part. There is so much more to learn, but in my brief hour, I enjoyed what I did do.

My knitting masterpiece...
OK, OK, well maybe not a masterpiece, because when you get closer you start to see the funk, but I'm OK with that!
This side's much prettier...
I left the class after only an hour for a coffee date with my birth Mom's sister, Charlene.

*Now might I just add I'm fairly convinced I got a speeding ticket on my way there. It will definitely be the most expensive piece of cheesecake I've ever eaten, but in a weird way, it was worth it! Although I do feel the need to point out the speed limit was 90 km/h and it went down to 70 km/h for a construction zone, so I wasn't going crazy fast, and I'm actually not entirely convinced I was photographed within the construction zone. We'll see if and when the ticket comes...

So we met at the Cheesecake Cafe. She and her family are just coming back from a Spring Break vacation in Cancun and were flying in and out of Edmonton, although they do live in the NWT. It was so wonderful! I do have to say though, not only has facebook revolutionized the world, but probably also adoption reunions. We have been able to send a number of letters back and forth, exchange pictures, etc. So it didn't feel super awkward because in a way, we already knew each other.

My Aunt Charlene and I. She's making me laugh, hence the super keen grin. Naughty woman!
She was able to give me so much information about my birth family, and yeah, this is where the whole overload thing comes in. Information overload to be exact. Not necessarily bad information, but just so much of it, so fast. I felt the same way I feel today, after the first time I talked with Sheri. There is just so much to learn and know and discover. And then once you have all of that information, what do you do with it? Does it change anything for you?

Two things I learned that change some things for me. Not sure how exactly yet, but that will take time to figure out. Firstly, I am no longer an Eskimo. I grew up thinking I was an Eskimo. Not like its a huge deal, but the Dene are not Eskimo (the politically correct term is Inuit), they are Indian. So Rob can no longer tease me about my poor igloo building skills or my lack of cold weather endurance.

Secondly, I already knew this, but I'm just amazed...my maternal Grandma has 10 siblings. Amazing right? So what I learned was that all of my maternal Grandma's siblings and her were in the residential school system. Wow. Now if you don't know what the residential school system is, you owe it to yourself to get on Wikipedia right now and learn. A huge tragedy inflicted upon the First Nation's peoples of Canada. I didn't learn about this until I was in a First Nations Studies class in University. I was shocked. Appalled. Disgusted. And while it is shocking no matter how you look at it, I never knew just how closely I was connected to this very thing.

*Prepare thyself, dear reader, for excessive ranting below...

My heart is terribly grieved at all the pain it was inflicted upon my family through this system. I think its one thing to sit in a class and learn about it in a very brief, overview kind of way, but when you can learn about it from a specific family's perspective and see the impact it has had on at least three generations is incredible. The even sadder part is that the majority of First Nation's people in Canada are still suffering and really, there is no end in sight. A few years ago the Canadian government issued an apology to all the people affected by the residential school system, and even awarded money to the people who were forced to attend.
Lovely...yet, not enough.

Can sorry really change the loss of generations? The loss of a culture? The loss of innocence? The breakdown of families? How will "sorry" change the life of someone who has been numbing all of their pain in drugs and alcohol? How will sorry make up for the loss of a child? Or the loss of a parent?

It won't.

Some might say its a start, but I think the current mindset is that its the end. "Well, Canada's done their part, now its up to the Indians to clean up their act." Where are these people supposed to begin? Their lives are rife with substance abuse. Many live in poverty. Many are in jail or in the penal system in some way. Many never got to watch their parents be parents, therefore they have no idea how to parent. So now their children's children are filling our foster care systems. Really they are likely the only thing that keeps the funding coming. You know, that "Indian problem."

We'll just say sorry and then they can clean up their act. Its just that simple. They'll just revive their dead culture. With a simple sorry they'll just give up the crack and the alcohol. They'll just magically become excellent parents. The FAS will just disappear.

Right...

My other grievance? (Forgive me, I'm almost done ranting...). It was all done in God's name. My God. The God that I love. It in no way changes my opinion of God, because I know who he is. But how can you ever explain that to the child who was sexually molested that it was about the people and not the God, even though all of it was done in the name of God? How can you explain to the young girl when she was struck for speaking her native tongue that its not about the God, but the people? Yet, it was all done in the name of God.

So in addition to all the other damage that the residential school system did to our First Nation's peoples, it has also created a huge distrust amongst the future generations against God. And the white man. A huge gap. These children were forced to worship a foreign God. There was no freedom in it. No love. Just we're right, you're wrong. That grieves my heart, because I know that my God is love, and sadly, entire generations have had their perceptions changed because they were given a counterfeit.

So yeah. Big questions. Of course I'm not the first to ask them. But I just never knew how close these issues were to me, until last night. It has rocked my world. Forcing me to change my perspective. Think differently.

So yeah, wow. 8 days of incredibleness. 8 days of wow.