Switching to wordpress

I have been meaning to switch the blog to word press so I can have the password option for when I want to add pictures.  If you have been following and are interested in continuing to follow I will be posting to this blog from now on: http://ingodstimenotmyown.wordpress.com/  Sorry for the inconvience

Who is this really hard for?

This weekend we have had to make the tough decision that we will probably have to make 2 trips to Korea.  Time frames have just been too unpredictable lately and many judges seem to be doing public postings so we just can't risk the one trip.    This has been stressful for me in many ways apart from my fear of flying. 

School starts in less than a month so now we have the complication of taking the kids out of school for an extended period, my daycare will be open again and I will have to close two separate times, I tried to sit down and attempt to plan out and get prices for these upcoming two trips in it is practically impossible, randomly checking recommended hotels for prices one to two months out (which is about how much notice we will have to go) there is not availability.   I feel scared to pick some random hotel half way across the world.  

I have been frustrated, annoyed, a little angry at these delays, judges month long vacations, 6 week hold up getting submitted to court, and all these extra thousands of dollars that we did not anticipate with this adoption..... AND IT seems like no one on the other end cares about how hard and costly this is on us adoptive families....then yesterday sitting in church singing the a Vacation Bible School song we sang a verse, "I want to be Your hands and Feet", and I remembered a phrase I heard once - "If you think the process of adoption is hard, try being an orphan".

God laid adoption on my heart as a means of growing our family and HE will figure this all out. 

I have a little boy half a world away who is about to experience loss AGAIN for the 3rd time in his short life.  He felt the loss of his birth mother, then the loss of the nanny who cared for him the first few months, now is about to be separated from his foster mother.  The woman he spends 24/7 with for the past 7 plus months who has cared for him like a mother.  He is about to loose his birth country, his language, familiar foods, sounds and smells.  My frustration is nothing compared to that. 

My baby boys first birthday celbration

We received our sweet boys original photos and video in the mail.  In korea this ceremony is called Doljanchi. 

 This celebration stems back from year past when the medical knowledge is not what it is today.  Many children would die before their first birthday from childhood illnesses, so if this milestone was reached it was a joyous occasion and celebrated in a big way.  This tradition still holds true today with a big celebration for the first birthday.  

The children are dressed in traditional Korean clothing.  Part of their clothing includes  a long belt with a pouch at the end.  The belt represents longevity and the pouch represents luck.

The baby is placed in front of a table with various objects and encouraged to pick something up. The item that is chosen is believed to tell the child's future. There are several items on the table.  If a child picks books or calligraphy pens it is said they will be a good scholar.  If they pick money it is said they will be wealthy.  If they choose a ruler or scissors it is said they will have great skill.  If they choose a knife they will become a good chef.  

Our sweet boy choose MONEY....should make his banker daddy proud.

Bittersweet II

Can you title your blog post the same thing twice!!!!  Today we got confirmation that our paperwork is submitted to court.  This is exciting and I should be super happy.  The sad part is it took 43 days and should have taken like 10.  I also had thought that this was submitted last week.  I know a week seems silly but when you are waiting for your baby a week is a big deal.

I do feel relieved to have this confirmed and that we are done with this step.  Our paperwork is out of our agencies hands and now in the hands of the court.

So what next.  Well your guess is as good as mine really.  The average person hears about their court date in about a month.  Some as lucky as a week later and some wait months.  Each judge is different and moves at different speeds.

Hoping for an early September date though :)

Bittersweet

Today we received birthday pictures!!!!!.  I haven't gotten a recent picture for months and it was a shock to see how much our little man has grown.  I opened the file and didn't recognize him at first he had changed so much.  I can't even describe how much it hurt at that moment.  I was overjoyed to get new pictures but I couldn't keep the tears out of my eyes at the same time.

  I loved to see those new pictures but there is an  indescribable pain that came yesterday with the realization that I have missed so much and that I have a sweet baby half way across the world and if I didn't see those pictures yesterday I would not recognize him on the street if I passed him.

 I guess there are only a handful of people out there that can understand this pain, that I guess, only comes with this beautiful gut wrenching process called adoption.  I have been keeping busy and doing so well with this last part of the wait but yesterday opened this empty feeling that I'm having a hard time overcoming.  I am going to be the mother to a sweet boy who is growing up so fast and I need to get there and there is just nothing I can do to get there faster.

Dear daddy

Dear daddy, we wish you could be here with us. This is what we have done on our first day. 

Love, carrot 

Boat Trip Day 5

Day 5 we were off to the maritime museum.  We thought the day was suppose to be overcast with thunderstorms in the afternoon so we were pleasantly surprised with  he nice weather.

Jeff and the kids at the top of the lighthouse

views from the lighthouse

Banana pretending to be the lighthouse keeper

Life in the lighthouse

Ancient Indian caneo

Hand at harvesting oysters the old fashion way

She got some

Nasty little water snake we saw

Off to the irish pub for lunch 

Choosing some beads for her necklace

Great view for our dinner

All tired out but had a fun day

We walked back through the town after dinner 

We decided that the dessert at the hotel was so good the night before we needed to enjoy that delicious chocolate cake that Carrot had gotten the night before and as we walked out to the restaurant we saw the new boat on the block (insert chuckle)  It was huge.  It made the boat we had admired all week seem small. 

Happy Birthday sweet boy

Our little guy turned one this past weekend.  It was hard to not be able to celebrate with him.  I hope that his day was made special.  We sent him a birthday package and wrapped a small gift in the package with Sofie the giraffe.  Hope he liked!

Boat Trip Day 3

Day 3 we awoke to what a beautiful June day is all about.  We had out breakfast and enjoyed a relaxing morning of reading and laying around the boat.  

We headed off to visit a old growth forest around lunch and enjoyed a hike among some beautiful trees

There were toads and frogs EVERYWHERE.  In fact we I think we counted 64 after we stared counting.  And one poor soul hopped into my flip flog and got squished....GROSS

Then back to swimming in the late afternoon

Love these pictures