At the Sandy Beach

We made it to Danang. The flight was very short and sweet. We get to travel First Class for all of our in country flights and it was very nice. We are in our room at the resort. It is dark, so we can't see the beach or anything until tomorrow. We got to meet the 3 other families in our travel group. It looks like we have a wonderful group of people to take this journey with. Everyone is adopting an infant and they are all around 4-5 months old. We saw all of the pictures today, and they are so cute. Lucy has the most hair!!

In very exciting news, we leave at 8:30 am to go to visit the orphanage tomorrow morning. I just pray that I can get some sleep tonight to pass the time quickly. Can you believe that in about 16 hours we will be holding our girl?!?! I can't. This is all still a little surreal to me.

Also, while we were waiting at the airport, Quoc, our in-country facilititor, started showing everyone the pictures that he had on his computer of our babies. There was a whole set of Lucy that we never even got to see. It was from the time between her referral pictures and the second set of pictures that we received. She is smiling in several of them and clearly laughing in one. They are so adorable!! She has some big ole dimples!!!!! He forwarded the good ones to us, so luckily we have them now. Once we have our G&R, I will post her referral pictures on Flickr.

I am about to upload some of our trip pictures from thus far. Be sure and check out the purple noodles. Just in case you have never used Flickr, click on the link on the right. I think that the easiest way to see the pictures is by clicking on my name. Then it will pull up all of the pictures.

Wish us luck in meeting Lucy tomorrow. We are soooooooooooo excited. The moment we have waited for for so long is finally here. We miss you all.

Feeling More Human Again

Well, I think that we have officially gotten ourselves turned around sleep wise. We crashed last night at about 7 p.m. We tried to stay awake as late as possible, but since our day started at 3 a.m., it was not easy. I woke up a few times during the night, but only for short periods of time. Justin woke up around 3 am, but was able to fall back asleep after an hour or so. We slept until about 6 am. That means I got at least 10 hours of very much needed sleep. I feel much better.

We ate at the breakfast buffet today at our hotel. It was actually pretty good. Food is going to really be an issue here, especially for Justin. I cried I was laughing so hard at him on the flight from Tokyo to Vietnam. You should have seen the meal they brought us. It was so gross. There were acutally purple spaghetti type noodles included - they were called pickled plum noodles. The sight of it was almost too much for Justin. We both ate a few bites of rice and some of our bread. Then we had to look at our trays for about 45 minutes until they finally came back around to pick it up. Justin was gagging. I have some hilarious pictures. I can't post pictures yet since I am not on our computer. We should have access from our room in Danang, so we will be back in business later this afternoon.

We did get to watch the Cowboys/Eagles game this morning. It was pretty great to be able to see it. Justin was so excited he could barely stand it. Too bad we lost, but it was great to see the game.

We cannot wait to get settled in Danang for 5 nights. We have been lugging around our enormous amount of crap for several days now, and can't wait to just get unpacked for a few days. By the way, here is what we ended up travelling with - 3 checked bags, 2 of them are as big as me. 1 rolling carry on, 1 diaper bag as a carryon, Justin's computer bag as a carry on and our camera bag. Yes, you heard right, we have been travelling with all of that stuff. It actually hasn't been too bad. We have gotten a luggage cart at all of the airports so it hasn't been a big deal.

What did everyone get for Christmas???? I hope you all had a merry day!!! Our hotel has a huge Christmas tree set up so it feels a little bit like home. Love and miss you all.

We should meet Lucy tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I still won't be able to post pictures of her until after the G&R, but you all will get to see us together soon. Please pray for her as she goes through this enormous adjustment with us.

More from Danang...........

We Made It!!!

Hi guys. This is going to be quick. We don't have internet access in our room, so we are in the business center. We made it to HCMC!! The flight from Tokyo to here was 6 hours and it seemed longer than the 13.5 hour flight yesterday. I have to say, we have had the easiest time with our travel though. We have gotten our bags and flown through customs both in Tokyo and HCMC. Both of our flights were on time or early, so we have really lucked out.

When our in-country facilitator picked us up at the airport today, he commented that our baby was very nice and cute. He is the one who has taken all of her pictures. We can't wait to get her in 3 short days.

We fly to Danang tomorrow afternoon. I think we will get there around 5:30 our time. Then the next day, we should be able to visit Lucy. YEAH!!!!!

It will be Christmas in the US when you all read this, so Merry Christmas. I can't believe that we are in Vietnam for Christmas. This is the first time in my life I haven't been with my family for Christmas morning, and I am going to miss it so much. But, this is worth it!!! Talk to you all tomorrow from Danang.

Hello from Tokyo

Well, we made it safe to Tokyo. We are very tired. The flight was no where near as miserable as I thought it would be. It went relatively quickly until the last hour or so. It is 6 pm Japan time and we are about to go to bed. Mom and Dad, we tried to call you but it said that your phone won't accept any unknown callers. So, now you know that we are here safely and will be off to Ho Chi Minh City in the morning.

I didn't sleep at all on the flight. I can't turn my mind off. I think that the enormity of what is happening is all sinking in. I just keep thinking about the first time we lay our eyes on Lucy. What an amazing moment it will be. Despite my lack of sleep, the man next to me on the flight took some sort of miracle sleeping pill and slept literally the entire flight. I was so jealous.

Okay, next time you here from me will be from Vietnam on Christmas Day!!!!! We are so blessed.

And We're Off

It is a zoo around our house right now. Of course, we have had a long list of things to do before we travel, and most of them have gotten done. But a few haven't. One very important thing was making sure that our video camera would download to our computer so that we could post videos on our blog. Well, guess what? This hasn't been done until now and we are missing some docking station that is required for our camera that is a couple of years old. Justin doesn't know where this station mysteriously disappeared to, so he is currently at the store getting us a camera that will work. So at 7:40 pm the night before we travel, this is getting taken care of.

Justin travels a lot, so packing is no issue to him. He has basically not even started packing. It is making me crazy, but he is cool as a cucumber. I have all of my clothes laid out and am waiting for him to get his ready so that we can try and get both of our stuff into one bag. It is never going to happen. Lucy's bag is packed. It contains all of the baby stuff and the gifts and her clothes. It weighs 65 lbs and 70 is the limit. We are going to have to pay the fine for it being over 50 lbs, but at this point, who cares?

I feel like our gifts for the nannies, directors, etc. are totally inadequate. We are trying to show our appreciation to these people for caring for our daughter for the first 5 months of her life. Does scented lotion and pen sets really show that?? It doesn't to me, but we are just trying to go off of the "suggested gift list". I just don't like our gifts. Did any of you who have already travelled feel this way???? Ugh.

I am going to miss my dogs so much it breaks my heart. I have been loving on them all day. They totally know that something major is going on. They are really needy and any time I have my shoes on they about kill themselves jumping on my leg trying to get me to pick them up. They are staying with my parents while we are gone and they will be very well cared for. I am just going to miss them so much.

Okay, the next time you hear from me will most likely be from Tokyo for our overnight layover. We leave Dallas tomorrow at noon and fly directly into Tokyo. We spend the night and then fly into HCMC the next morning. We spend the night in HCMC and then are off to Danang on the 26th. I can't wait to post pictures of us holding Lucy. Our G&R is scheduled for December 28th. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our little family of soon to be 3!!!!!!!!

Preparation and Sickness Don't Mix

I am sick again. I had a sinus infection a couple of weeks ago. I took antibiotics and felt fine and then wham, it is back and worse than before. Since Tuesday, I have felt awful. I have another antibiotic now and I sure better feel better by next Saturday. I know that I will. Justin is sick this time as well. I am very very thankful that I am sick now and not right as we are going to be travelling or in Vietnam. I had a lot of plans for this weekend to get us closer to being ready to travel, but I have only been able to do a few things and then I have to get back in bed. Not good. By the way, this time in exactly one week we will be more than halfway to Tokyo!!!! Isn't that fun! One week and we are on our way to get our girl!

Here is a problem we have - we will be in every part of Vietnam on our trip. Lucy is in central Vietnam, then we will have an appointment in Ho Chi Minh City (southern Vietnam), and we will finish in Hanoi, which is in the north. The temperature varies widely right now in the south and the north. So, in my mind, we have to pack so much more because we need clothes for warm weather and cool weather. I am getting concerned about the amount of stuff we are taking. Any suggestions on how much to take for each climate? It is inevitable we will have way too much stuff, I know that. My thinking on it is that I would rather be prepared because it gives me peace of mind knowing that we have everything we will need - with the exception of diapers and formula - those will have to be bought in Vietnam.

One more thing, to anyone with Beta Blogger, I can no longer comment on your blog. I hope they are fixing this, because I really like to comment, but it will not let me log on. So, don't think that I am not reading, because I am. Okay, I am editing this post because I can comment again, Yeah!!!

Big Happy Birthday to my other little sister, AMY!! Sorry I am a few days late on posting this. I have not been able to accomplish much the past couple of days. Love ya!

Sheer Craziness

Life at our household has been a bit out of control for the past week or so. First of all, a total surprise came when I was told that there is a new set of pictures of Lucy. I live for these pictures, so I was simply ecstatic to get them. I didn't even request any new pictures, they just surprised me!! Wonderful. She still looks so
healthy and chubby. I can tell that she is getting longer. She has on the same little Winnie the Pooh pants that she was wearing in her original referral photos. At the time of referral, they were pants, and now she has grown so much that they are shorts. In one of the pictures, she is looking up to the camera so innocently and sweet, and from this picture, I now call her my Baby Bird. In the picture, I think she is saying, "Are you my Mom?" It is taped up in my bathroom and melts my heart every single time that I see it. Her hair has gotten really long. I think that she had just had a bath because it was all fluffy and full on the sides. Honestly, she continues to amaze me each and every day. She is our Baby Bird!

The whole booking plane tickets has totally stressed me out in a way that I had no idea that they would. I was just convinced that there was going to be no way that we could get to Vietnam because all of the flights were booked. I was wrong and we got some AWESOME flights. We insisted upon flying American because we have a friend who is going to upgrage us to business class for free!!!!!!!!!! How awesome is that?!?! This will make the flights quite a bit more manageable and not so miserable. Also, we get to fly from DFW straight to Toyko and then to HCMC. One stop both ways!!!!!!!!!!! It all worked out perfectly. We are leaving on the 23rd and returning home on the morning of January 13th. We will be in HCMC for Christmas day!!!! We won't get Lucy until a couple of days after we have been there, but I think that the time to adjust to the time change will be great. Maybe we will be at least a little bit rested once we get her. Or maybe we could visit her a day early. I don't know. They are still warning us that things could change. Let's all pray that nothing changes!!!

This is my last week of work. I have so much to do before we travel and wish that I had this week off as well, but it will all get done in due time. I know that. We are leaving in less than 2 weeks!!!!

I want to give a big ole Birthday shout out to my baby sister, Katy!! She is 20 years old today, which is just nuts. Happy Birthday Girl!!!!!