Yay!!!! Callie meeting

Finally!  It feels like we've been here forever without Callie.  Today, we went to her orphanage in Taoyuan to meet her.  It went GREAT!!!!!  Best of all, she doesn't seem nervous at all.  We all went for lunch at the same restaurant I went with her the last time I was here.  Lily and Dad loved her, just as I knew they would.  Lily finally admitted that she actually does look like her.  I could also tell that Callie liked Lily.  Lily was able to understand Callie, if she spoke slowly, so we told Alice, the social worker with us, to tell her to speak slowly to Lily so she could understand. 

Callie took us on a tour of her room, which was hilarious, because she didn't want to, because she said her room was messy.  In the video I'm going to post, it shows her trying to tell us that the neatly made bed next to hers is her bed, not the messy unmaid one next to it.  It was soooo funny!!! 

Her main caregiver, whom I don't know her name, was with her.  She was visably not real happy, but I had a feeling it was only because will be taking Callie home with us and away from her.  This was confirmed later, when we returned from lunch, and Callie's social worker at the orphanage asked our social worker, Alice, if the caregiver could please meet us at the airport on Friday evening to say a final goodbye to Callie.  We told them to tell her we would love it if she came! 

Can't wait to pick her up tomorrow!  She's ready, we're ready! 

Our first family photo - A.C. (After Callie)

Feb. 24 - Pingxi Lantern Festival

What a fabulous day we had yesterday!  We met our friends here in Taiwan, Brandon and Lidia and also the two other families from the states that are also adopting.  Kyle and Beth already had their new 3 year old, Avalyn.  Trent and Lori had just arrived the evening before.  We all met at Grace Baptist Church at the English service. 

Church was good, their services are all very traditional services, no contemporary options, but we all noticed how direct and unapologetic the sermon was.  No political correctness, that seems to sometimes wiggle it's way into US churches.  Refreshing!

After church we went out for lunch - Dumplings!  They were really good - pork, veggie, curry, and fish dumplings.  We also had Kimchi, a Korean spicy cabbage.  Lily eats this at home with her aunt Mindee, but I had never dared to try it.  It was actually pretty good. :)

After lunch we had a stomach turning taxi ride for an hour into the mountains, headed to the Pingxi Lantern festival, which was actually in Shinfen this particular day.  They have three different days during Chinese New Year that they do the festival and they move it from little coal village to little coal village.  IT WAS AWESOME!  It was during the afternoon, but the weather was perfect, and it was actually just as much fun to do the lantern in the day light, as we could see well and get great pictures (below). 

Avalyn, the 3 year old, also did great!  She loved Lily's long hair and kept grabbing it.  Kyle and Beth and Trent and Lori were all so very nice!  Trent is a hoot and wants to try eating everything, while the rest of us are more reserved in food choices!  Haha

Enjoy the pictures, but our next pictures will show us meeting Callie!!!!!!!  We are leaving for breakfast now and then off to Taoyuan to meet her at the orphanage.  We won't be bringing her back with us today, as it's just "meetcha day" and not "gotcha day" today.  However, it really doesn't matter, I can't wait to see her again and Rick and Lily are super excited to get to meet her for the first time!  Thank you, Jesus!

No Callie today :(

Well, it appears that we misunderstood, no Callie today.  We met Alice at the Bureau of Ministry to get Callie's passport corrected.  I guess what happened is that her legal guardian, which was someone in the Taoyuan County government, thought that we could use her old passport, which they said we can't use.  So, today we applied for a new passport.  We found out when we got there that we were also supposed to have her new household registration paper, stating that she now will reside with us in America, but we won't have that until Monday.  Alice talked them into doing the passport without it, which is good, or we may have had trouble.  Alice was going to go back and pick up her passport later today, one day service.

We were only there for about 1/2 hour, so we had a nice day to ourselves, which turned into an afternoon of napping.  Then we got up and went to a night market not too far from our hotel, but Lily didn't like the looks of the food there.  It appears she's more American now than Taiwanese, because the idea of eating something that was touching pig intestine was more than she could bare.  Funny, I know it wouldn't have bothered her when we picked her up 5 years ago.  Night markets are so interesting.  We saw crabs about 3 ft. in lenght and skinned frogs for sale.  They have a lot of fresh sea food, which you can choose and then they'll cook it for you while you wait. 

Tomorrow off to church and Pingxi lantern festival.  We are supposed to be meeting two other families from the states at church.  Kyle and Beth, who are adopting a 3 yr. old with downs, from Texas and then Trent and Lori Baines adopting a 14 yr. old from Callie's orphanage.  They are from Colorado Springs.  I'm very excited to meet these ladies, as we've been talking through email for the last couple of months.  Very cool Christian ladies who are here for the same reason we are - God called and we listened.  :)

 

Have a wonderful day at home.  We miss everyone and our Neeko and Jeter! 

Day4 with kuo susu

Hi this is Lily doing the post today. Yesterday we met with ku susu, he was my mentor when i lived in Taiwan. he was so excited to see me again. he took us to hooters for lunch thinking we would like western food. i had 10 piece buffalo shrimp, it was really good and spicy. then we went to National Palace museum. it was really cool but my parents and i w,ere really tierd because in America we should be sleeping right now.after that he took us to the food court in he bottom of taipie 101. i finally had my hot pot, hot pot is a taiwaness troditional meal where you put different items into a pot in front of you, and cook them yourself, it was awesome! Then he took us to the top of Taipei 101, and the view is unbelievable! By the way the elevator is the fastest in the world, ground level to the top in 45 seconds, and it is smooooth!

In about 2 hours we will be meeting Callie for the first time. Unfortunately, or should we say fortunatley, they messed-up her passport, so we get to meet her 2 days early!

We're Here!

Man, that's a long flight!  13 hrs. 20 mins. to be exact, but just glad to be at our hotel.  It's almost midnight here, we are 13 hours ahead of EST, if you're curious. 

Tomorrow we don't have a lot planned, other than doing some investigating around our neighborhood and watching Lily eat everything in sight.  She already wanted to go to the night market, but I told her we could wait until tomorrow, we're all tired.

We may be meeting Callie on the 23rd in the morning, instead of the 25th.  We should hear by tomorrow.  We won't be able to take her, yet, but getting to meet her early would be awesome!  I can't wait to see her again, and Rick and Lily are excited to meet her for the first time. 

Thanks for all the prayers to get us here :)

Yes, we got out of Grand Rapids!

Well, what an interesting morning it turned out to be!  After passing multiple slide-offs, and accidents, we made it to the airport, with about 10  minutes to spare, to board our plane.  Then, once boarded, we sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes while we were de-iced.  I've never been through a de-icing before, so while it was cool, I knew that our lay-over in Denver was only 50 minutes.  OK, so we might be spending the rest of our day in the Denver airport, trying to get to San Francisco.  We got into Denver with about 20 mins. and had to book in down the terminal, which was incredibly long!  We were all winded and tired after basically almost jogging at least 1/2 mile.  I couldn't believe it when we got there, that flight had been delayed... by 40 minutes.  Wow, we had time to grab boxed pizzas from Pizza Hut and board the plane.  Fabulous!  We also had a great view of the Rockies on the way out of Denver.  I've never seen the Rockies from the air.  What a beautiful site!

San Francisco is nice, but rather cold,  a bit rainy and windy.  Whatever, we had a great time walking around and taking the cable car down to Union Square and back to Fisherman's wharf where we are staying.  We'll be headed out to dinner at Pier 23, shortly.  Lily wanted to specifically go to this restaurant for crab, as seen with Guy Fieri on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.  We make it a habit to visit the restaurants he's featured and have yet to be disappointed!    Here's some pictures of the day, which I managed to stay out of ;)

We're Going to Taiwan!

We were notified on Jan. 11th at 4:45 pm that we had our final ruling!  I was in the middle of a meeting and couldn't quite wait the entire 15 mins until the day was done to let Rick know, so at 4:55 I stood up and walked out of the board meeting.  I decided they would understand!

Rick was obviously ecstatic!  The only thing that didn't come with the final ruling, was travel dates.  Now, the problem with this being our second adoption is, I know this isn't normal.  Usually, they tell you the ruling is in and these are your dates.  Not so, this time, so we were told the dates would be coming soon. :)

I waited, as long as I could emotionally stand to wait, and emailed our agency on the Jan. 16th - where are our dates?  Our agency contact said that she didn't know why they weren't there, but she thought they might be having email trouble.  So, I asked if it was OK for our friends in Taiwan to call Chung Yi (the orphanage doing the paperwork) to let them know that no emails were being received on this end.  She said that was fine to have them call, so I emailed Brandon and he called right away.  He responded with good news that the email had been resent and our agency would have the email on Thursday.

Thursday came and at noon, we were told our pick up date:  Feb. 26th, 2013.  Calie's Gotcha Day had been set!  Yipee!!!!!!   So excited!!!!!

Travel dates are now set for Feb. 19th - March 2nd.  We will be spending a day in San Fran. because Lily has always wanted to visit that city.  I think I've told her 100 times how much I love SanFran,, and she saw a restaurant on Pier 23 on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives that she wants to eat at.  Lily lives for seafood and most food in general, so no surprise she wants to travel across the U.S. and ocean for FOOD!

Now to travel planning, preparing the girls new room and wondering how Calie is doing with the news.  Adoption is soooo wonderful, but I always have in the back of mind that our gain is other people's loss.  Calie's loss, mostly.  Loss of country, cultural, language and identity.  We are hopeful that we will be good parents that will help her know her identity is actually in God and not here on earth, but the rest of it, we can only pray she's able to handle the loss.  Calie is not Lily.  She may or may not react the same, I don't know.  But, I do know that God doesn't leave his children high and dry.  He will give Rick and I the words and tools we need to help her adjust and to love her the best we can.

So, now we will rejoice and pray that Calie is close to God's heart and he's already whispering reassurance into her ear and into her heart.