Home, Wonderful Home!

Yes, as of Friday 4/18 at 7:00PM, we are home!! The Visa interview last Thursday (5 minutes and not even an "interview") was at 3:00 and Big C's visa was issued at 4:00! We were able to fly home on Friday, and since then we've been home recovering from jet lag (and flying home with a unhappy baby). We are all doing well and the trip to Vietnam was a success! Many of you know I was very concerned about how Miss A would do on the trip 1/2 way around the world, and as it turns out, she's doing better than we are now. She's soooooo happy to be home and has been playing with all her toys with a huge grin on her face. She's also doing remarkably well in her new role as a big sister! She's even sharing some of her toys. I'll try and post some pictures later today.

Visa medical exam

On Monday, Big C did great for his physical exam and came in at 19.04 lbs! No wonder why my back is killing me. The nice physician at the SOS Clinic was pleased with him , and other than having a mild case of scabies when we first picked him up (looks great now after one treatment w/ elimite), she gave him a clean bill of health.

Now that we have his passport (picked it up Monday morning) and he passed his physical, the next step is the US Embassy interview. Our interview is scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday) and if all goes well we should have his visa by the end of the week. We will try to get on a flight home early next week (unfortunately there is nothing over the weekend). We are really ready to start our life at home as a family of four. We are getting homesick (especially Miss A, even though she's hanging in there!)

Museum of Ethnology & Shopping at CraftLink

We spent a day last week visiting the Museum of Ethnology (http://www.vme.org.vn/aboutus_history.asp). The displays consisted of clothes, cultural implements, social rites, etc... Unfortunately our time was limited due to the fact we had two little ones in tow. We're finding it difficult to spend much time on this visit to get a good feel for the culture, as our out of the hotel activities have been limited. Big C's cultural backgound is Kinh (or Viet), which makes up 86 % of the population in Vietnam. There are 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam. We will definitely plan a trip back to this museum when we return when the kids are older. I wonder if I can find out what cultural group Miss A belongs to before our return.

After the finishing our trip through the museum, we entered a store called CraftLink. CraftLink is a not for profit store featuring goods from small Vietnamese craft producers, giving them market opportunities. We found several wonderful things to buy, and returned to the second CraftLink store that was closer to our hotel. The quality of the products (purses, scarves, hats, clothes, figurines, etc...) was excellent and the prices were very reasonable. Miss A kept busy while we were shopping stirring up some imaginary goodies with some of the special bowls and spoons.

Giving and Receiving Ceremony

Last Tuesday we had the Giving and Receiving (G & R) which finalizes the adoption on the Vietnamese side of things. We'll still need to apply for readoption in the states. He did great for the ceremony, it was short and sweet. Our new friends were also there with their daughter (she's from the same orphanage as C). She was C's buddy in the orphanage and luckily they live about 1 1/2 hours away from us, so we'll be able to get together and keep the friendship going.

The first two pictures are of us waiting for our ride to the G & R. I love the pic with daddy, he looks like such a little man.

Fun with Daddy & pink jammies

Just some pictures of our new son. We brought a lot of clothes with us for him, thinking he was avg in size, as we were told, lies ... We had to give away everything, and dress him in Amelia's PJ's (ref the pink jammy pics). We had to have an emergency clothes shopping day, just to get the man what he deserves!

Our Trip To Hoan Kiem Lake

With two little ones, it is a good day of we get out once, successfully (and actually blog something). Three days ago, we walked to Hoan Kiem lake, to visit the Huc Bridge and the Den Ngoc Son temple. This is a beautiful red bridge on a green lake. For those of you at eBay, ask Lambuu about the story of the sword and the turtle, it's a good one. We got up at 5 AM (not by choice), and started to get ready to leave the hotel; I think we successfully got out at 10:30 AM. It was an easy 20 min walk, but I think I sweat out 2 liters of water myself; and I had to promise one street vendor that the next time I saw him, I'd buy something.

The temple itself is beautiful, and many people came by to pray why we were there; the smell of incense was all over. I can see why folks meditate at these places, it is really peaceful. Even though we were able to walk to the lake, Amelia (and everyone else) were overheating, and we decided to be wussy westerners and take a taxi back to the hotel; it turned out to be a good idea.

more pics from monday

one handed typing here...big boy on my lap---here are some more pics from c's first day with us.....

An Incredible Experience

Hello everyone. It has been such an amazing week! Here are a couple pictures from us at the orphanage meeting our son for the first time. Words cannot describe just how wonderful it was to turn the corner on C's room and see him holding himself up next to his room mates looking right at me when I walked in.

I just wanted to get some pictures up, we'll try to post more details later. Enjoy!

BTW...we are all doing great (sleep deprived, but on cloud 9 with both my kids). However, I don't know what we'd do without my mom. Miss A is enjoying being a BIG sister. There are definitely some issues with C taking her stuff as he's scootching across the floor and so interested in anything she has and is totally fascinated with watching her. It's so awesome!

Way too excited to sleep!

So it's around 4am here in Hanoi and I'm to jazzed to sleep anymore. I slept around 4 hours, then Little Miss A woke up and wanted to come into bed with. I couldn't get to sleep after she woke up and now we're both eating yogurt and watching Signing Time (don't know what we'd do without DVDs). I had trouble posting some pictures yesterday from the trip here so here they are. Miss A was truly delightful on the flights here. She was so excited to get here and walked up to many people asking them their name. If the person understood English she would get a response, but she never could really hear the name well so she would look at us and shrug her shoulders. She got so many smiles from the people in the Hanoi airport, it was really cute. The first picture is from SFO before we checked in (our flight left at 1am). She fell asleep just before we pulled up to the airport, through TSA security (thank goodness, that was a story in itself) and she woke up just before take-off, was so happy and loved take off and being on the plane. She fell back asleep about a half hour later. The thumbs up picture is from just before take off on the flight from Taiwan to Hanoi, she fell asleep 10 minutes later. We dream that the trip home will be as easy.

Tomorrow's the day!!

We're getting everything ready for tomorrow. If all goes as planned we go first thing tomorrow to file the paperwork for C's passport, then we're off to the orphanage to finally meet him and bring him into our little family. Also, we hope to have the Giving and Receiving ceremony (official ceremony to finalize the adoption of the Vietnamese side). If all goes as planned, we may be able to finish up in two weeks...we're keeping our fingers crossed.

These last couple of days have just flown by. I posted a picture here of A from last Thursday, she pointing to the airplane on the calendar, she was very excited that morning to go on our BIG trip.

I'm going to try and get some sleep now, we'll need it for tomorrow.

We made it to Hanoi!

We had a great trip and we're safe and sound (and exhausted), but doing well. Miss A did amazingly well and slept for more than half of the 14 flight from SF to Taipai. She then slept for the entire 3 hour trip from Taipai to Hanoi. We'll post some pictures tomorrow from our journey. We go to C's orphanage on Monday and it looks like we'll be able to have his Giving & Receiving ceremony on the same day.

I'll leave you with this picture of C taken yesterday. We are so excited for Monday!!! It's been great meeting a couple of families that are also here to get their babies! We look forward to getting to know some our new friends in the days to come.

Packing, packing and more packing...

We leave late tomorrow night on a 14-hour flight to Taiwan. After an hour and a half, we board our second flight to Hanoi. The layover is short, thank goodness...just enough time to stretch our legs and board the 3 hour flight to VN.

I totally overwhelmed right now with the packing. For the past 4+ months I've been shopping for all the things we need for the baby (he'll be known as C on this blog), our 3-year-old A, and misc odds and ends for us. Now that I've brought all the bags down to my dining room, I can't believe the amount of crap I've accumulated. I must have 15 or so little bottles of Purell hand sanitizer, way too many toys,/activities for A to take on the plane, way too many bottles (the agency told us to take several different kinds), about 10 little bottles of shampoo/conditioner/lotion, etc.....and so many other things. I need to spend tonight weeding through things. I haven't even begun to pack clothes....Oye, it's going to be a long night.

We hope to be able to post every other day or so. We are really so excited to hold our son in our arms and we're ready to have our family of four. Thank you to everyone who has sent us good wishes and offered support, we feel very fortunate to have such wonderful family and friends who have been there for us during this long wait.

We hope to hear good news soon of all the families waiting for their approvals, and those waiting for referrals.