Hello from Taipei!

Hi, All!
We made it to Taipei and are just waiting to board our flight to Saigon--We are at the Hello K*tty gate-it is pretty adorable. Hello Ki*tty everywhere and complete with a store and a playground. This is the first airport we have found a good internet connection. We are doing well--our flight was very long, but the service was great and coach wasn't too terrible! That is about as long as I ever want to stay on a plane, though! We are still wondering how it will be with a baby on our laps though--very different, I'm sure. I don't think any of this has quite fully set in yet--I think it is beginning to......We are with most of our travel group, so that is really nice. Well, better get back to the Hello K*tty gate and get ready to board for our last flight for the day! We are almost there! One more three hour flight and we land in the long awaited Vietnam....Till then, love to all!

The one where we have GREAT news...

Well, did you wonder where I went??? Well, it kinda started because of the new I600 policy--I was so devastated by the news of more delay and red-tape that it was kinda like "if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything". Well, I haven't had a lot of nice things to say about this wait since then.......and then I just got superstitious--I just decided to myself that my next post was going to be the absolute best news.....

AND WE FINALLY GOT IT!!! Yes, that darn coveted and longed for I600 approval was in our email box on Tues night!!! I had convinced myself that our paperwork was lost or fell off some one's desk. We never got the email from USCIS confirming receipt, and my email to inquire had gone unanswered-we knew our agency had submitted it on Dec 3, but after that, nothing-and well, I am that glass half-empty type of person who assumes the worst--I was just at the point that day to beg anyone to help me get information, and lo and behold, M runs up the stairs to ask me if I have seen the email (he had it open on our other computer)--what?? the email that I just checked for the 2000th time 10 minutes ago? Perhaps not--so I open our email (again!) and there IT is. We stared at it for a second, and M asked, "is that what we are looking for?" There is was--we were so floored. I can't believe with how long we have been waiting, we continue to be surprised when these things actually happen. It is a wild ride, this adoption thing......

Now we continue to be shocked and amazed, as our agency has been able to pull off a miracle and get us all travel arrangements to get this completed before the Tet holiday--YES, we are leaving THIS SATURDAY!!!!!!!!

We are still just overwhelmed and making lists and trying to figure out how we will be ready in time, but we can do it! We are having to make pet accommodations, pack, set up for the renovations to our house to keep rolling along in our absence, etc...... all with 3 days notice!!

Please send good thoughts our way that we can pull it off--I don't think I will believe it until we are actually in the air, or maybe even when we land! But we are almost on our way!! I will do my best to be a good blogger while we are traveling and keep you all updated on our adventures. (I know I don't have a good track record--sorry!)

We'll keep you posted! Buttercup, we are coming to get you!!!! Sorry it took us so long! :)

Hi ho, hi ho--it's off to fingerprinting (AGAIN) we go...

Well, we are off in the morning to drive the 3 hours to Charlotte and 3 hours back to get our fingerprints renewed so we will be good for another 15 mos! Hopefully nothing in our fingers has changed in the last 13 mos and it will be quick and painless. Before we leave in the morning we have the HVAC guy coming to take a look and give us another estimate to put in A/C downstairs and the roof guy to fix a leak in our slate roof before we close everything up in sheetrock (hopefully very soon). Busy times, as usual.

Glad to know there are still a few of you out there still checking in--thanks for the comments! The new word on travel (not much) is that they predict that our travel date could be sometime between Thanksgiving and the first weeks of Dec.-keeps pushing out a bit with every check in-Sounding an awful lot like we may be spending the holiday in VN--I have a feeling. As these things always seem to take longer than predicted in the first place, I'd say it's pretty likely. As long as we get to VN before Christmas, I can deal. We still have so much to do on the house and our "Christmas haul" from house to house (We have 4 sets of parents alone) can reach 5 stops in a day and is exhausting and we actually dread it every year as it draws closer, so it could be a good thing. But I sure would like to meet our girl sooner than that and I would rather spend it at home instead of a hotel--that is the down side. The last couple of days have had me extremely down in the dumps for some reason--ya know, the ole' adoption roller coaster with it's ups and downs! My college buddies and I are getting together for a baby shower for me on Sunday, so something to look forward to!

if eyes are the windows to the soul....

Our girl's got great big windows!!!

We got a few more pics of our little buttercup! She is really changing (and getting a little more hair!) and we finally got a picture of her looking right at the camera. It is so precious- She has the biggest, beautiful eyes and the cutest little mouth with the most perfect lips.

No more news yet on travel at all--word is that our agency will be trying to get our referral group all to travel by the end of the year (fingers crossed) so that would mean several travel groups in Nov/Dec. Since our fingerprints expire at the end of Dec, we are going to have to get them renewed---we sent in our renewal request and got our appt. letter pretty quickly and have our new appt. for this coming Thurs. We will again have to take a day off work and drive 3 hours each way to get our fingerprints redone. I think it is pretty ridiculous that our fingerprints "expire" in the first place, but we will do what we gotta do!

Happy Friday!!

A Shower of congrats for us

Wow, has it almost been a month?? Time really has flown in a way since that happy referral day--I realize this is mainly due to the fact that I am working a full 40 hour+ week at work in my usual 4 day work week, while desperately trying to get farther along on the house renov. on the weekends before the little buttercup comes home, and then all the preparations and lists to do for the new little one....(come on people, somethings gotta take a back seat!:) BUT, we have managed to slip in some fun celebration in the mix as well--We had our very first baby shower at my parents' lake house this past weekend--(You may remember it from this post from my stepsister's wedding). The patio by the lake continues to be the setting for more of our families happy occasions, and we hope to be able to spend more time there with buttercup in the very near future. All 4 sets of our parents were there to celebrate our little one's impending arrival as well as our good friends who love us enough to drive over an hour to attend. We love and thank you guys!!! I told my dad that it really wouldn't have mattered to us if all the beautiful bags and boxes were empty (yet filled with love and good wishes), the real gift was the fact that *WE* were having a shower because we are actually going to be parents and everyone wants to celebrate with us!! After all the sweet babies we have helped celebrate and love, we finally have our turn too. It really made us giddy! It was beautiful and we appreciate all my family's hard work to make it so nice. We got to debut our Vietnamese "mom" and "dad" shirts for the first time (even though some of our dear friends thought I was announcing the day was all about "ME"--they finally got a clue after a little explanation. :) And yes, that cake tasted as good as it looked!

No travel news yet, other than a "rough" estimate that it could be around the Thanksgiving holiday--the countdown is really on and we have lots of work to do yet. Bear with me and stay tuned....