Saturday 28th in Vietnam

Well it is another day in Vietnam. We are now on our 4 days of rest. It has been a good day so far. Howie and I got up this morning about 5:30am and had a bottle. It was than time to play. Well Daddy still wanted to sleep, so we went down to the lobby and walked around for a bit until about 7am. Daddy was ready to get up. We than called both the parents and they were all excited to hear from us. We got dressed and headed to breakfast at the Kim Do. Howie was a little fidgety so it was a quick breakfast. About 9am he was tired and cranky, but didn’t want to lie down so we decided to go for a walk and do a little shopping. We went back to the mall to see the rest of the vendors. We found some more really great things. While shopping Howie fell asleep. He slept for almost 2 hours, his usual time limit, I think he might have slept longer, but he woke up really hungry. We got him a bottle and changed him and he is good to go. He is currently playing with Daddy while I type this up. I was able to sleep for about an hour and take a shower while he was napping. I think that we are going to go and get some lunch and walk some more. We need to get more formula and diapers. By that time we are hoping that he will be ready for another nap and dinner than to bed. This is probably going to be our schedule for the next day or two. We are really enjoying seeing all the things that Vietnam has to offer and exploring HCMC. We are also enjoying just hanging out in the room and playing. We are still teething; everything is going into our mouth. He really likes the teether that I have for him. He wasn’t so interested in the baby food today mainly the bottles, which is ok, that gives me more one on one time with him. I love the cuddly time with him. Scott is enjoying playing with him. He has taken to being a dad like a duck to water. He has been so great about getting up and making the bottle in the middle of the night, which helps me so much. We have been really lucky with the sleeping; I hope that it keeps up that way. I am sure that we will have some problems along the way, but I think that Scott and I can handle it. This whole experience has brought us so much closer together. We are enjoying this time together. Well I best be going so we can get some lunch. I will post again tonight or tomorrow.

Road Trip "Can Tho" pickup Howie and Pic's from hotel room there

Pictures 4-28-07

Video of Howie Flying

Press link ->: VIDEO

Update 4-27-07

Well we left home over a week ago and we will be in Vietnam for at least another week and a half. It feels like we have been away from home for a month. This morning we went to a huge market. We barely covered any of it and I was so hot. I started not to feel well and Howie was so tired that we left early and came back to the hotel. Howie promptly went to sleep and has been a sleep for about 2 hours. Last night he slept good again. He went to sleep about 7 and woke up for his bottle about 3 and went right back to sleep until 5:15am this morning. He is a quiet baby, he doesn’t jabber much, but when he does it is the cutest thing. Each day we are learning more new things about our son…can you believe it we have a son. We just sit there are star at him and can’t believe that he is really ours. I have heard that many people feel like they are baby sitting, I think ours is a feeling of disbelief. Through the process there were a lot of painful times and the waiting seemed endless, but you are never for sure if it is worth it when you are going through it, but let me tell you….it is sooooooo worth it. Just one little smile makes your heart melt and one little giggle makes you smile. The funniest thing happened yesterday Howie was playing and I went to the bathroom Scott was watching him. I walk out and Scott says what is he doing. I promptly say well just standing and playing…..and then I smell it. I started laughing so hard. Scott and I were both laughing so hard because something so smelly came out of this sweet little boy. We both have been waiting for our first poopie diaper since we have gotten him. I made Scott look at it to see if he could handle changing one, but he told me no way really fast and about throw up. We were both laughing so hard. Howie looked at us like we are nuts. The joy of parenthood. Who would have thought that we would think that a poopie diaper or gas is funny. Ok so I am sure you all don’t want to hear about poopie diapers.

Scott goes today to get Howie’s passport and hopefully we should know what is going to happen next week. We are looking forward to some time to explore too. Well I will post more later and I am sure that Scott has more pictures to post.

Another great day with Howie

Howie's Passport Day

Howie's Officially ours!!!!

Let me start by saying that yesterday was one of the greatest days of my life. It was also one of the most exhausting and longest days. We met in the lobby of the hotel at 7:15am. We headed to the center after that. Once we got there we were taken upstairs to the boys. I was ready for a little more crying and the unsureness that was to follow, but he was handed right to me and didn't cry. That felt wonderful. We were there for about 15 minutes and the nannies took the boys from us and changed them into there traditional vietnamese clothing. They gave us the clothing for the boys it was a wonderful surprise. After this the nannies started saying good bye to the boys and there was a lot of tears from parents and nannies. It just goes to show how much the boys were loved and how well they were taken care of. We then got back on the bus and headed to the local justice department. All the boys were wide eyed and just taking in there surroundings. They had never even been downstairs of the center and here they are on a bus. We signed some papers at the local justice department and he was officially ours. My hands were shaking while I was signing everything. I was so scared that they were going to tell us that they were missing something or that we had to wait. The local justice department isn't anything like I expected. I thought that there would just be a few people there, but there were a lot of officials and alot of people waiting to do something else there. We headed back to the hotel for about 15 minutes while we were waiting for the paperwork to be processed. We all fed the boys while we were there and Howie ate his really well. At 9:45am we headed out to HCMC. It was a looooong ride. We had to wait a while for the ferry and we also had to wait for construction and a few other places the traffic was stop and go. We stopped about 1:00pm for lunch and headed right back out after that. We finally got to the hotel at 4:00pm. We were all so tired and ready to be in our rooms. Howie did great on the ride back. He took 2 naps each for a little over an hour. I was pleased given all the bumps in the road. The men headed to the grocery store last night and we all just stayed in our room. Howie slept great last night and is currently taking his morning nap. He is eating very well and he is smiling and enjoying playing. We had our passports and passport pictures today for Howie and now we get to rest until Friday. Friday we pick up the passports and I am not sure what else we will be doing, but after that we will be resting for the next 4 days. (Vietnamese Holidays fall tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday). I will post some more tomorrow.

Howie is officially ours!

Day 2 with Howie

Well it was another great day in Vietnam. This morning we went to a market pretty close to the hotel. It was a lot of fun. We bought Howie two authentic Vietnamese outfits. We are very excited to see him in it. We met at 1:00pm to put together our gifts and donations for the caregivers. We ended making sacks of gifts for specific people like the Director of Red Cross and the director of the center. Then we went to the Red Cross center and talked with the oficials there. We were able to express our gratitude to them and they got the reasurance that we are going to take care of the boys. It was a little intimidating at first, but by the end we had them laughing a joking with us. It was nice to be able to give them our gifts directly. We think that they appreciated the thought. We drove over to the center after this. We got to speak to the director and she was a very nice lady. She actually thanked us for taking the boys. By far it is us thanking her, no thanks are needed on her end. The best part of the day was seeing Howie again. We ended up spending about an hour and half with him again. He cried when we saw him again, but it was only for a few minutes. I ended up picking him up and being able to comfort him which was good. I am starting to learn what he likes to soothe himself. He likes to hold on to a wash clothe and also he likes a bottle. We started noticing small things like he would put his feet up to my mouth because he liked me playing with them and he would start to give me his washcloth and I would hand it back to him. He was able to give me his comfort item. He really started to relax. We thougt that we were doing great when we got a half smile. Then we played some more and we got a full smile and a few giggles. We are very excited to be able to sit with him a lone and have him concentrate on us with not distractions. We also got to feed him a bottle. He did really well and finished it right off, but it was only about 4-6oz. It was a great day. To see him smile was the greatest gift that he could have given us.

The plan for tomorrow...we leave for the center about 7:15am. We will be there for about a half an hour for us to get them settled with us again and to get formula and diapers. We will then take the boys to the local justice department and sign a few papers and it is official. The way we understand it the caregivers are not coming with us to the local justice department, but things can always change. Well that is about it for tonight, I will write again tomorrow. We need to get some sleep who knows when we will be able to sleep a full night again for a while.

Day 2 with Howie

Meeting Howie Pictures

Meeting Howie

The drive down to Can Tho took us about 5 hours, but it went pretty fast because of all the scenery there was to look at. It was pretty much city driving all the way down. We had to get on a ferry to get over to Can Tho and I have never experience anything like that before. We were put into a holding room with the scooters and then herded out. You had to really watch out not to get ran over by the scooters. Can Tho is a beautiful city set right on the river. Our hotel room looks out on the river and we watched a beautiful sunrise over the river this morning. The room is pretty nice too. On to the best part...Howie. The center is really beautiful set right on the river. It was sooooo clean and the staff was great. They are
really knowledgable and really helped the transition for the boys to get to know us. We walked upstairs to a room and we were the last couple in. Howie was already crying. He was pretty scared. He cried off and on for about 15 minutes and by 20-25 minutes he was on our laps for the rest of the time. He was so interested on what was going on around him. He would look
around and than turn and look at us. We didn't get a smile out of him, we were close, but I think in a couple days he will be smiling all the time for us. We had to write in a book for the center about the experience for them to keep. I wish that we would have had more time to prepare because there was so much that I wanted to say and had a hard time putting it into to
words. When it was time to go we had to put him back into his crib (his bedroom is air conditioned!!!!) and he started to cry. This made us feel pretty good because he would rather be with us than in his crib. All in all it went pretty well. We are excited to go see him again today and tomorrow morning he will be ours forever. The internet is pretty sporatic here, so we
will try and post again tonight, but it may not be until tomorrow in HCMC.

WE"RE HERE

Well we left Little Rock AR at 2:00pm Thursday and arrived in Vietnam at 10:20am, most of that time was spent in the air except about 7 hours, in other words we are all happy not to be on an airplane. It was really cool flying into Hong Kong because the airport is on a man made island. You fly in right over the water and you get really close to it. It was really cool seeing this part of China. Arriving in Vietnam was very different. I think that there was very few Americans going through immagration. For the families that are traveling soon, this is a piece of cake. I worried a little, but the officer didn't even ask me a questions. Same with customs. The Dillon employees are great here. They are so nice. We are leaving tomorrow at 7am and meet Howie at 3pm. We are exhausted but very excited.

Ok on the Vietnam....what you see here can not be put into words. Scott and I have never traveled out of the country before, but this is so different even when I already kind of knew what to expect. There are some really beautiful buildings here. The scooters and traffic are REALLY scary. We were in a bus and I think we almost hit a half dozen people, but it is normal. The hotel room is pretty big. Hard wood floors and a big bed (that is really close to the ground). I am going to try to post some pictures tonight. We are all excited to see more tonight and tomorrow. We are going to go and look around tonight and get dinner. I am pretty sure we all want to go to bed early since we are tired and need to get up early in the morning. I will post more later.

Vietnam Here We Come

Well this will be my last post until we are in Vietnam. I can't believe that it is actually happening. I still don't think it will really hit me until we are on the airplane or until we are actually in Vietnam. We are so excited. I am VERY nervous. I was all packed yesterday I just need to put a few things that we need today in the bag and we are ready to head off to the airport. It is going to be a long day and I am sure that I will be tired, so hopefully that will help me sleep on the flight from LA to Hong Kong. My hope is that I will be able to sleep a lot of that flight. Please pray that we all get there safe, on time and all our luggage arrives. Talk to you soon from Vietnam!!!

Travel Schedule

Here is the schedule for our trip:

Leave Little Rock @ 4:25pm Thursday April 19
Arrive in HCMC @ 10:20am Saturday April 21
We will stay in the Kim Do that night and leave early the next morning to meet our son. We will be spending the 22nd and 23rd in Can Tho getting to know our son. We are also excited about the extra time to explore Can Tho, Howie's place of birth. We will have our G&R on the 24th at 9:00am. We will be heading back to HCMC after the ceremony. There are three holidays that fall while we are there, so they are still trying to get us back in a reasonable amount of time. The holidays fall on the 26th, 30th and May 1st. It looks like we will have about 4 days of rest in the middle of the trip due to the holidays which is ok it will give us a chance to explore HCMC. We are hoping to have our interview with the US Consulate in Hanoi on the 7th, but it just depends on how busy they are. With the holidays it might push us back, we will have to wait and see.

We just can't believe that it is finally happening. We leave in 2 days!! The scary thing is that I still have to pack. I have been trying to wait to pack because I don't want to have nothing to do because than the nervousness will get to me. I already have butterflies what will I be like tomorrow and Thursday? Scott is going to work today and tomorrow and a little from home on Thursday. I will try to post every day and post lots on pictures.


WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU HOWIE!! WE WILL SEE YOU IN 5 DAYS!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOWIE!!

Today Howie turns 1 year old. I wish that we could be there to hold him in my arms. I wish that I could have that picture with the cake all over his face. We are going to have a little party here anyways. We are so close to getting him. We missed it by a little over two weeks. Happy Birthday Howie. Mommy and Daddy love you so much!!!

Howie

New Picture

We got a new picture and an updated weight for Howie. If you notice he is wearing the same outfit again. I can't wait to see him in something different. He still weights 16 pounds and he is 29.1 inches long. It looks like he is crawling now which is good. We are just so excited to see him in less than 3 weeks!!!

WE HAVE OUR G&R!!!

At about 9:30am this morning we got the most wonderful email from Katie stating that we have our Giving & Receiving Cermony Date. The magic date is April 24, 2007. We need to be in Vietnam on Saturday the 21st so we will be leaving some time around that date. I don't know the exact dates yet, they are currently being worked on. The time has finally come. Hopefully we will leave in a little over 2 weeks. No more paperwork that has to be completed or moved we are on the homestretch and I will be holding my beautiful baby boy soon. Scott and I are feeling so many emotions right now and my mind won't stop thinking of the hundreds of things that I need to get done before we leave. When I know more of an exact plan I will post again. Thank you to all of your prayers for our paperwork. Please continue to pray for safe travel for us when the time comes.