FOREVER FAMILY

The pictures say it all.

We a nice dinner a LongHorn Steakhouse. The table next to us even complemented on how well four children behaved in a restaurant. They about flipped when we told them we just brought them back from Taiwan.

After an hour of Kai screaming and crying about being in a car seat. They all fell fast asleep.

Coming Home

It has been a long journey but we have finally made it home. The flights home with the kids went better than we expected. Naveia had a meltdown in Taiwan because we had to leave Hello Kitty play area. I am sure that she felt anxious about leaving and that is what really set her off. I asked a nice man to speak to her. He explained what we were about to do and told us he would be available any time through the flight. If you are adopting an older child never be afraid to ask strangers in Taiwan to talk to your children for you. We used this method quite often. Most of the time the people were always surprised that she spoke Mandarin and not English. John and I did not sleep much of flight but the kids slept through the night. We left Taiwan on Thursday at 7pm and because of the time change landed in LAX on Thursday at 4 pm. We had a 20 hour layover in LA so we stayed the night in a hotel. A shuttle bus took us to the wrong Embassy Suite and we had to wait almost an hour for another shuttle bus to take us to the correct hotel. John and I were exhausted so we ordered delivery and chose not to take the kids swimming like we had planned. We all got a very good nights rest in our 3rd hotel.

Cathwel

Wednesday, our sixth day with the kids. This morning I was hoping that Naveia would be in a better mood than last night but she was a little on the grouchy side. We were play with the toys and Kai made her mad about something So she hit him very hard in the face. That one earned her, her first time out sitting in a corner. It went over well, she actually stayed there the whole time. When it was over she let John comfort her and did not push him away. Today we took the MRT system to AIT to pick up the finished visas. Then we walked awhile over to Din Tai Fung for famous dumplings. It was packed so we moved on to the ice monster but it was closed. We ended up eating Chinese fried rice, sesame buns, and seafood dumplings. Then we headed back to the hotel for a quick nap. Next we were going to visit Cathwel. They are the Taiwan agency that we adopted through. They have a nice orphanage called Jonah house. Two days before we left for Taiwan I felt lead to do something for the waiting children while I was in Taiwan. It came to me to share my talent of dance with them. The dance studio where I teach donated 15 pairs of tap shoes. So today I got to go there and dance with the children. They all had a blast and it was better than I could have imagined. There were lots of smiling and laughing. I was able to see some of my Internet friends kids and take picture of them for there parents. I also got to talk with Penny. She said they looked for a family for Naveia for a long time and were so happy when we accepted her referral. Next we traveled by taxi, mrt, and walking to meet another adoptive family. They just got her today to pick up their baby girl in the morning. They also have a two year old boy and five year old girl, like us. There daughter is from China. Naveia thought she could speak Chinese and kept trying. The other little girl wanted Naveia to be able to speak English. It was a learning experience for both. In the end they got to share ice cream dessert together and gave hugs goodbye. It was so cute. It was a busy but good day.

AIT Day

Today was our appointment to apply for the kids visa. We did our normal morning routine, up and out of the room, down to breakfast. Thankfully both of the kids so far are happy little sunshine's in morning. We leisurely ate our breakfast thinking we had plenty of time. Well when we got back to the room it was later than we thought we had only 15 minutes until our appointment so we rushed grabbing our things and down to a taxi. We made it with not a minute to spare. At AIT it took 2 1/2 hours. I signed a few papers and answered a few questions, to a person through a glass window. It was nothing like I expected. I had a whole stack of papers I had filled out and the only one they wanted was the I-600. There was one other adoptive family there, with a 5 year old little girl. So we got an opportunity to practice our sharing. Our social worker from Cathwel could not believe how well our kids had adjusted to us. She said they thought Kai would be crying everyday. Thanks for those prayers out there they are working. Naveia told her that I did not give her, her medicine this morning. In our rush out the door I did forget, but for her to remember and tell on me. Too funny. We needed to get back to the hotel to give it to her. We had a quick lunch and grabbed a taxi back to the hotel. We play and napped a few hours. Then we headed out to do some touristy stuff. I wanted to see the C.K. Shek memorial and the Longshan temple. The weather today was on the chilly side today, so we put on the warm coats that the foster families had sent with them. This night we decided to try out the MRT subway system. We bought some easy card passes for $15 each. Which we will be able to refund on what we don't use when we are through. It was fun there were so many people and Kai loved see the trains. We made it to the C.K. Shek memorial. This was the beginning of the end of the night. They were so excited at the open area and seeing the temples. Naveia put her hands together and was bowing down. They did not want to hold our hands and would not stop running off. We made it up all the stairs to the memorial but now Kai was screaming crying because he did not want to hold my hand or be held. We decided that we had enough for the night and we would just have to skip the Longshan temple. The MRT connect directly to a basement level with our hotel. We sat down to eat there but Kai was throwing a fit because he wanted to see the trains, so we left for our room. I stayed in with Kai comforting him as he cried for an hour. I he was tried and has been so good, he just needed this moment to let it out. John and Naveia went out together. She came back with some hair pretties and had somehow got her daddy to take her to McDonald's again. Naveia was cracking us up tonight. After there baths and p.j.s she had control of the remote. She picked the soap drama that it said she watch with her foster ma in the reports. Then she was flipping through and a music video was on. Guess what, my daughter can DANCE! You should see those hips move. It was adorable, I was literally on the floor laughing. She new every move and continued to do it over and over even after the video was done. That was the happy times then the switch to sad times happened when she slapped her brother in the face and John got disciplined her. She was mad, than turned to sad for over an hour. She will not let you comfort her when she is in this mood. It is so hard for both of us to see them like that. We just let her know we are here for her and stay calm. Finally she gave up and let John hold her. So after this evening we decided to cancel our zoo trip tomorrow. I just know they would go crazy there. And with the language barrier it is to hard to get them to stop out in public. We can take all of our kids to the Brookfield zoo near Chicago this summer. What do you think about that Zane and Zarra? I miss you and love you.

Taipei

Monday was our 1st full day in Taipei. We started the day with our hotels yummy breakfast buffet. The kids do a great job of eating a sitting still in restaurants. The only thing is Kai spits his food out sometimes and out of the blue will let out a squeal scream. This hot morning we took a walk to 228 Memorial Park. There the kids got to let out some energy at a playground. They are crazy, busy kids, running from one thing to another. Both of them are accident prone and seem not to have much fear. It made us nervous but they were having fun. Next we walked to the Taipei Main Station. On the second floor there is a food court, we ended up just going in a sit down restaurant not knowing what we were about to eat. It ended up being Japanese food. I had 3 whole sardines come with my meal I gave one to Kai and he ate the head off. For dessert we got donuts on Mister Donuts. They are not at all as sweet as American donuts, much better in my opinion. Then back to the hotel for our afternoon nap. On this day my Taiwanese friends brother picked us up for a personal tour of the area. He and his friend took us to up in the mountains to a quaint little place in a valley. There we picked lily flowers and had afternoon tea and steamed buns. Next we drove up a little higher and saw the oldest active volcano here on the island. It was all the most beautiful landscape I have ever personal seen. We headed back down the mountain on the other side, which brought us to see the most northern tip Taiwan. Our evening was spent in Danshui, a fisherman's wharf. It is like a night market along the water. Our friends took us to eat at the oldest restaurant along the water strip. It is a very small dining area and if it is full you just climb the steps to the next level we ended up at the top level 3. We had some noodle and fish ball things. Along the streets I tried something that looked like hot dogs but was octopus and tuna with fish eggs. We only bought two things some fancy Chinese slippers for Naveia and a CNY decorations of a boy and girl. Naveia is not shy to talk to strangers. When we are with are Taiwanese friends she talks there ears off. In the elevator or where ever we are she is always telling Kai something and people laugh and smile at whatever it is she is saying. She is an entertainer.

Day 3

Sunday was our 3rd day with the kids. This was moving day. We had to pack up our room which took an hour and a half. We tried to fit it all into 4 suitcases but ended up having to take the 5th one Kai foster family gave us. We had to hire a van shuttle from our hotel because there was no way we were going to fit into a taxi. At the airport our driver saw that we had our hands full and helped us carry our luggage all the way through the train station. It was about a two hour ride back up to Taipei. The kids did well until the end of the trip Naveia was feeling uncomfortable because she needed to go to the bathroom but was refusing. John ended up taking her anyways and that was the beginning of a meltdown. So here we were arriving in Taipei with a not so happy child. Once again the helpful Taiwanese people helped us with our luggage all the way to our hotel which was like a 4-5 blocks. The lady helping us talked to Naveia through her tears and all she had to say was she wanted some ice cream. We could not check into our room right away so I asked them where we could get some ice cream. We went up to the 2nd floor and Naveia got her ice cream she wanted. She liked chocolate. We were all very exhausted by the time we got to our room. We laid down to take a nap and woke up 5 hours later at 8:30 pm. Then we hurried ourselves down to the hotel restaurant to catch dinner before they closed at 9. Naveia ordered pizza with shrimp and bacon. Kai so far only likes noodles, rice and fish. He has a weird texture issue and will often spit out food he has chewed for while. It was a hard day for all of us. Naveia started showing her preference for John over me. While I knew from our classes that an adopted child chooses to bond with one parent in the beginning, it hit me harder than I expected from the exhaustion. At least it is not both of them, Kai has chosen me first. He is a good baby.

Kaohsiung

It was a great day here in Kaohsiung. We got the kids up and ready early in the morning. Breakfast was a wonderful buffet at our hotel. At 8:30 we met this friend of a my friend. My friend is a Taiwanese woman I met last summer through the dance studio where I teach. She has taught me Mandarin, translated writing and then hooked me up with people she knows here in Taiwan. God directed our paths to met and she has been a blessing. So this friend Fang-Xie took us for the entire day to get a real feel of her country. First we took a 45 min drive to her small home town of Kaohsiung County. Driving around in Taiwan is interesting as there are not many rules and vehicles (mostly mopeds) weave in and out from each other. At the town she and her family are well known there because they own a cultural center. Her brother is a congressman or something like that, so we got the royal treatment. The cultural center is horseshoe shaped with stores all around and open in the ccenter. First we made hand painted umbrellas. Then we shopped. I found some zodiac figurines I wanted and when I went to buy them they just stamped them and I figured out then anything we asked for that day was going to be given to us. Next we went to the restaurant, we told her what kinds of food the kids liked and she ordered for us all. This was a totally authentic Taiwanese meal. There were four dishes of food we all shared family style. One platter was the whole fish head and all. And guess what Naveia likes to eat, fish eyeballs! I guess it is a treat to the children to get to eat them. Jan what do you think about that one? It was all so delicious and fresh. After that we made pottery. The kids did not want to touch it so me and John did it. They are going to write the kids given names in characters on them and Fang-Xie is going to bring them to us next year when she visits her friend in the states. Next we had afternoon tea. We had to work for it though. The ingredients come in a big bowl and you grind it down with a stick. We headed back to the city of Kaohsiung. The kids took a nap in the back seat, they looked so cute and peaceful. There she took us to the beach. We were just going to look but all ended up taking off our shoes to put just our feet in. That turned into the kids both wet and sandy from the neck down. They loved it! So we had to head back to the hotel to clean ourselves up. Then we went to the Dream Mall. It is biggest mall in Taiwan. This place was huge. I think like 9 floors of stores. The only shopping we did was to buy Kai some shoes that fit him. Then we went on the roof and rode a tall ferriswheel and some robot animal things. Dinner was at the food court. Fang-Xie had been translating what the kids were saying for us all day. I told her to ask Naveia if she wanted pizza, she said Naveia asked for McDonald's. What! We go from fish eyeballs to Micky D's. I agreed, but told Fang-Xie she will be disappointed when we get home because our family does not eat McD. So the kids got that and we had Japanese. It was a fun filled long day. The kids were exhausted and have been sleeping well again tonight. I also did better and got up a 5 am this morning. It was such a gift to have Fang-Xie interprete what the kids were saying all day. I will give you a few good lines we heard. On the way to the county Naveia was getting deep, she was telling Kai that us American ma and ba don't understand what they are saying. She was talking about the first day when they came with us that she cried less then him and the daddy will like her better for that. She kept going on and on about him needing to pretty much get over wanting his foster parents and be a good boy. She brought him to tears and we had to assure him we loved him too. She is a tough cookie. She likes to boss him around and he is a lot like Zane easy going and sensitive. By the end of the night he finally called me mama and wanted me to hold him. Overall they are both doing great with the transition so far. Thank you for your prayers they are working.

Gotcha Day!

We have our babies in our arms! Here I am again at 4 am, my body is just not switching over to Taiwan time yet. I did get a full 5 hours rest though. The last 24 hours have been exciting and exhausting. We left our hotel in a taxi Friday morning going to a children's Government agency to be united with our kids. We arrived in my typical late fashion, 10 minutes past our appointment. They had just finished up with their going away party. We followed our social worker up to the party. In we walked and there was everybody. I saw Kai first and then Naveia whizzed past me. There were Kai's foster mother, father, a new little brother, Naveia's foster mother, and about 6 Government social workers. We first went into a toy room and sat on the floor. Naveia came right in and started showing us the gifts she had received from the party. Kai was checking us out but keeping his distance. We gave them their backpacks we had filled with a few toys and candy. That was our bait to lure them in. Naveia started going through it all and playing with everything. Kai was still held back and then finally we caught him with the toy airplane. We talked and asked questions with Naveia's fosterma first. She was very nice, energetic woman. She said Naveia is an easy child to care for. We got to take video and pictures our meetings. Naveia is so sweet, we had given her a purse with some play jewelry and she wanted to no if it was o.k. to send the ring with her fosterma to give to an older sister at their house. Of course I said yes and told her that was very nice of her. I was also able to share my adoption testimony with everyone there. I would tell some and then our social worker would translate to them all. I wanted them all to know that this was God's work at hand knitting our family together. Naveia showed her emotions when the foster mother was leaving and the three of us hugged and where all crying. And then she was fine and ready to go with us. She started packing her things up. We had to tell her we still needed to talk with Kai's family. Kai's fosterma and ba where very attentive and quiet. They have been doing this for 17 years so it is not the first time they had to say goodbye to a baby they had given their love to. That made me feel better. They said goodbye and Kai was kinda busy playing so he didn't pay much attention And THEN he realized they were gone and fell totally out. He cried so hard that it gave him a nose bleed. The meeting was three hours and very nice and a relaxed atmosphere. We got a whole entire suitcase of Kai's belongings plus 2 cans of formula and a whole package of diapers. Naveia also came with a lot of stuff. So we pack into one taxi the luggage, kids, us, and our social worker. Our social worker came in our hotel lobby and gave us some more official documents. And Jessie just so you know, I asked her and we do not have to pay the Visa fee. This was great news! Our afternoon was spent in our hotel room they would not take nap as we had planned they wanted to explore and play with everything. So after a few hours we realized a nap just wasn't going to happen. We took a outing around the hotel. This outing was interesting and we are now having second thoughts if we should even leave our room. First we went to a kids indoor play area they had fun but Naveia already got hurt. She jumped on a slide half way down it and it boomeranged her to the floor on her face. She is very active and and jumpy kid. Always trying to jump off the bed ect... Never had a kid like this one. So anyway she now has a red mark on her cheek to go with the bruise on the other cheek she came with. Do you get the picture, this kid is busy. Then we went outside, walk a little ways to the 7-11 and they each picked something. I should also add the kids don't want to walk they both want John to be holding them at the same time. Finally we walked to an open field to eat our snacks. We found out there that Naveia is a fast runner. She took off fast, laughing as I chase her in my dress and high sandals. Just picture it. It was not funny to me because there are roads on both sides of the field. After that John said it was time to go back to our room for the night. This is when Kai had his sad moment he cried for his fosterma we just comforted him and after an hour he fell asleep with John. Naviea and I spent time together. We took a bath, painted her nails and did her hair. For dinner we decided to ordered room service instead of going out. Finally we did a web chat with my parents, Zarra, and Zane. They could see us but we could not see them. Bedtime was late like 10:30 pm but Praise God they went to sleep without a fuss. They are all sleeping right now. Naveia got up once and told me she needed to pee(naio naio) and I just gave Kai his second bottle and right back to sleep he went. So that was it our first day with our little Asian angels.

Too excited to.....

sleep. Sorry I know this is not the next post of Gotcha day yet, but I am bored. O.k. so have tried to sleep tonight and it is not happening. Whenever I am really excited I have a hard time settling down. Still to this day I don't sleep much on Christmas Eve night. I laid there for four hours, slipping in and out of a very lite sleep. I can't turn my brain off, I am thinking of things like, what is the first thing I am going to say (in Chinese) to Naveia. I finally got up and looked at the clock hoping it was close to 6 am but it was only 4. So I made myself lay back down. Now here I am at 5:20 in the morning typing because there is nothing else I can do. John is having no problem in the sleep department, at least on of us will be well rested.

Over the Rainbow

Somewhere way up high there's a place that I heard of once in a lullaby. And finally we have landed in that place, Taiwan! Dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true. Our travels where thankfully uneventful. Only an hour an half take off delay from LA. It was the longest plane ride, you can't even imagine. I new it was a fifteen hour flight from LA but what I didn't realize was just how long fifteen hours really is. My ankles swelled and by the end of the flight I had no ankles. Total travel time was 32 hours. The airport in Taiwan was very easy and quick to go through. First we exchanged our money over to NT. Then we bought bus tickets to the high speed rail station. We made it to our train 1 minute before it arrived. The train ride was nice and relaxing. We sighted many rice fields along the way. At our train arrival we had a driver waiting for us holding a sign with our name. On our drive to the hotel we realized we were not in the US anymore from all the mopeds and dogs roaming the sidewalks. Then we checked in and got all settled. We laid down to take an hour rest and woke up five hours later. We got ready, explored around the hotel and ate kim-che noodles from 7-11 that you just add hot water to. All the restaurants were closed by the time we were ready so that was our romantic dinner. We can't get this laptop to read our SD card from our camera so we just have the web cam picture for now. We are going to try and figure this out so we can post some Gotcha Day picture tomorrow.

I think I have everything reading for tomorrow. I have gifts for the social workers and foster families. We have backpacks with a few toys and candy for each of the kids. We made a list of questions for each foster family. I hope to fill in a lot of blanks on the children's history and personality. It is 12:30 AM, I should probably try and get some rest now. 9 more hours! Next post will be our Gotcha Day with Naveia and Kai.

One More Day!

We got a surprise update today!

A picture of our handsome boy. I don't know the story behind this photo. It seems they took them to get a photoshoot before leaving their birth country. Naveia's photo does not do her justice. You will have to wait to see her when I get a hold of her and doll her up. We also got the kids daily care routine. Some new things I learned about the kids. Kai still drinks a bottle of formula. This is common for a toddler in their culture. I am kinda glad that he does, bottle feeding him will be good for bonding. Naveia likes dogs and sleeps with a stuffed animal dog. Ahh, Buddy has a new friend.

ONE more day! We are finishing up our to do list tonight and tomorrow morning. Our last evening will be spent taking the kids out to eat (they want chinese buffet), quality time playing, snuggling, whatever they want from us.

Seven more days....

Only seven more days! We will be leaving at this time next week. I am having so much fun making arrangements for this long awaited journey. I got our plane tickets in the mail yesterday. I love seeing the kids names on there ticket that will bring them forever home. I got all three hotels we needed reserved. Train tickets booked. Dr. appointments for the kids when we return are set. I have our itinerary all planned out. We are going to have so much FUN. Thankfully we finally found some luggage to borrow, so I can get packed. Thanks Hofmeister! I bought myself some new cute Skechers walking shoes. We will be doing a lot of walking. I told John he needs to lift some weights this week to get his arms ready for carrying about 40lbs of kids in each arm. Sorry I am just rambling on, I am just excited and in a hurry to get back to preparing to leave.

Things left on the to do list; get a car seat installed in van, find a friend that will lend us their laptop/notebook, pack, paint closets and install shelves (I know we are last minute), clean up around the house, I better just go get busy now. bye