Baby Pictures

We are flying out of Hanoi and headed home tomorrow, Saturday. We had our US Embassy Appointment this morning and everything looked good and so we went to change our plane tickets and sight see for the afternoon. For those of you traveling behind us you will experience how things are really different in the South compared to the North. Landscape being one, but all that wonderful fresh fruit is really only easily available in the South so eat up it is soooo good!

Marcia and Angela, I spent some time tonight sending you each emails with attached pictures of your children and for some reason I cannot send them :( So I have saved them and will try again once I am home. But, Angela since you asked I will upload two of my favorite pictures of your little guy now. (I wasn't sure if you wanted me to post them or not so I hadn't)

Love to you all and we 3 shall see you soon!

Reading help

Hello--just wanted you to know that I posted several times tonight trying to bring you up to date. If you are wanting to keep things in chronological order, to better understand where we are and what we are doing read the last post listed under the date 29th first and work your way up. :)

Ha Long Bay Pictures

Ha Long Bay is one of the most photographed places in Vietnam. Its famous rising rocks come up out of the ocean waters and the Vietnamese story for the rocks is that they look like the back of a Dragon arching out of the waters. I think that parts of Pirates of The Caribean were filmed in Ha Long Bay. It truly is gorgeous!!

Typical fishermans boat out on the Bay. They cook, work and sleep on board this boat.

Ha Long (HOT!!!) Bay

Our experience at Ha Long was in the end good, but it is a riot of a story to tell and will take too long to blog, so here are some pictures. We are once again in Hanoi. Tomorrow (Friday) at 8am we have our last appointment with the US Embassy!! Pray it all goes smoothly and then we are done!!!
Our travels have taught us that we are not world travelers and we miss our kids and home very much!! Cambria have a wonderful time on your last day of school, smile pretty and sing loud for your graduation performance. I can't wait to see it on video (thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Rich and Lois) Carisa daddy didn't forget that you are his special girl!! We will try to call you again. Maybe on Thursday night or Friday Morning (for you).
Have to go now--Love to you all, thanks for your comments and prayers. They are working, Caleb is such a good boy and things are moving amazingly quickly for us!

Bringing you up to date

After Caleb's Medical exam and filing his application for his passport we spent one night in HCMC. On Tuesday we finished up paperwork and went shopping at the famous Ben Tahn Market. (I think that I might have spelled it wrong) Anyhow, I can't find the pictures of it to upload for you to see, but it is an experience none the less. People go the market daily to buy their food for the day. They do not have the luxury of large refridgerators and pantrys to stock up on items so if they want eggs and fish for dinner then they go to the market and buy it fresh. So fresh in fact that the fish are still swimming. The butcher pulls it out of a bowl whacks it with a board to kill it and then throws it on the table top to clean the scales off. Some Vietnamese eat frog, snails, and some even eat dog. We didn't see any dog at the market for sale but we did see a mo-ped carrying a cage full of about 6-8 small fox sized dogs headed to sell them for eating! Willow should be very thankful that she lives in America!! Anyhow, we spent that rest of the day waiting for all of our documents to be completed and gathered. By 4:30pm we had them and so Henry took Mark to the local airlines office so that we could purchase a ticket for Hanoi that night! We flew north and arrived at about 9:30pm. Henry did not come, he needed to stay back to meet another family. We were met by his assistant and she took us to our hotel. We were all settled in by midnight! By Wednesday morning we were feeling a little bit better and headed down for breakfast at the hotel, Caleb loves soup for breakfast, actually for most meals! So we loaded him up with a bowl of egg drop soup and I thought wow looks good until I noticed that the "mushrooms" were not really mushrooms but snail! Aagh!! Mark thought it was good and had a bowlful, I ate toast. After that we looked into tours of the famous Ha Long Bay. We were able to get in on a two day one night trip last minute and rushed up to our room and pack a bag to leave right away.

Couple of Pictures in Vietnam

From our Hotel Room window, the Duxton. Looking out towards the Saigon River at night.

Mark's favorite picture! These guys are painting this store front but they don't have a ladder to stand on. So they have stacked up some paint buckets on top of a stool and the guy is on his tip toes stretching to paint the top!! Talk about persistence.

Medical Exam back in HCMC

Meeting with the Doctor to discuss Caleb's medical health required for entry to US. Caleb weighed in at approx 10-12kg (He didn't want to stand on the scale) He wears a size 12 mo. in clothes and a size 4/5 in shoes and a size 3 diaper. The Dr. informed me that Caleb has a large forehead (this is a wives tale in Vietnam, big foreheads mean big brains = smart) and that with his outgoing personality he would be a very smart boy and do well in school! Very medically sound diagnosis!! But as his mommy I will have to agree he is very smart. He catches onto things very quickly.

MOJ Signing of Adoption Papers

okay here are half of the pictures

Finally some pictures!

Here are some pictures of when we first got Caleb at the orphanage. Then the next morning when we all went to the Ministry of Justice to sign the paperwork. The man in the picture with us is the orphanage director.

Back in HCMC

We are back in HoChiMinh City. It is the end of the day on Monday, May 26th. Caleb is such a good baby! He slept the whole night through last night and I hope will so the same tonight. Today we went to the Ministry of Justice and signed our papers making him ours. Then we drove 4 hours back to HCMC applied for his passport, and went to the required medical exam. What a full day. Caleb napped for an hour and a half in the van and later we all napped when we checked into out room in HCMC. Henry has been taking good care of us and treating us to us to some amazing fruits. It is peak season for mangos, pineapple, papaya, another fruit called april starfruit? And Henry’s favorite, Stinky fruit! Its smell matches its name perfectly!! Tonight we found a market that was like an American mall and had nice shopping. We finally got our computer connected but now the battery is low so we will have to try pictures tomorrow—sorry. You will love him, he is so smiley and cuddly. We are enjoying him so much.

Cambria and Carisa we hope that you have a wonderful time with Aunt Becky and Grandma Gail. Have a good day in school on Tuesday. Carisa give good smiles for Gretchen!

We got Him!!!!!!!!!!

Hello Everyone,

After a total of 35 hours of traveling to be here in Vietnam we got HIM!!! Henry met us at the airport at 9:50 this morning and asked if we would like to travel out to Can Tho today! We of course said YES!! So Henry and the other two FAITH Staff traveled with us an additional 4 hours to Caleb's orphanage. Caleb is HANDSOME and smiley. We spent about 30 minutes at the orphanage and we took pictures of some of the beautiful children whose families are waiting for them. The bummer thing is that our lap top is not working properly and so we are having to use the hotel computer. We will try to get our computer figured out tonight and see if we can't then upload the pictures.

Hi Cambria and Carisa. Mommy and Daddy miss you and we cannot wait for you to meet your new little brother! He already loves to push buttons and throw things!! He kept pointing at your pictures. I think he is going to really love you!!

Mandy, Noah's friend is no longer at the orphanage. But we passed on that your family is doing well. They were all glad to hear it!

Marcia, your daughter is beautiful!!! What a sweet spirit and lots of spunk. She was so cute and shy in front of the camera. She has a contagious smile. Henry is hard at work for you right now!

Angela, We got several photos of your baby and I got to hold him. He is really solid and strong. He was being fed a bottle and he turned his head and grinned for me when I first snapped his picture. He has a very good disposition and he has the absolute cutest cheeks!!

The babies rooms are a lot brighter and cheerier than I pictured. Henry said that they want to eventually replace all of the painted cribs with stainless ones. Then the rooms will look really new. They are very clean and the nannies that we met had a very pleasant disposition and manner with the children.

We are leaving tomorrow!

We are finishing packing the last little bit. Writing our one hundreth sticky note message to my sister and mom with instructions of what I didn't get done. Oh well! and looking forward to sleeping hard!! Thanks for checking in, we'll post again soon!

Little Boy Blue

Here is one of the most recent pictures of Caleb! This was taken about two weeks ago. He is currently 18 mos. old.

Travelin' Soon

Tuesday, May 13th, we got "the call." Henry (our in-country Coordinator in Vietnam) called Faith (our partner adoption agency) to say that he had a confirmed date for our Giving and Recieving Ceremony. Monday, May 26th! Woo-hoo! Pack those bags were going to Nam! (Oh, wait we already packed them four weeks ago, ha, ha!!) Anyhow we are now free to move about the country, errr a WORLD.

Today, Thursday, May 15th we bought plane tickets and sent for our travel Visas. Squeezed in a pedicure, my toes need to look cute for the trip : ) Mark continues to dash like a mad-man pulling late evenings and early mornings trying to get jobs finished before we leave for 14 days! The girls just keep talking about spending time with all of our awesome family who are helping to take care of them while we are gone. They don't really understand how long 14 days really is. Come to think of it I don't either : ( But no worries they are in GREAT CARE while we go to get their BROTHER!! Woo-hoo, a boy, a boy were getting our BOY!!!

Plans are to fly out on Friday, May 23rd and return on Wednesday, June 4th. We will not be in HoChiMihn City until Sunday morning (which is technically Sat. night here in the states, we are 14 hours behind Vietnam here in the US). Evenings here will be our best time to email and blog. Then Monday, the 26th we will drive the 4-5hr. drive that it takes to get out to Can Tho and pick-up Caleb for our Ministry of Justice (court) appointment/G&R!

We hope to spend extra time at the orphanage, visiting and playing with the children. There are several families whom we have been asked to take photos of thier waiting kiddos. We totally know what a gift these update photos can be and so we are glad to help out. We have gifts to share with the children and we are looking forward to sharing a little of God's Love with them, even if it is only a hug and a smile.

Well, that's all for now. Keep checking the best is yet to come!