Coming Home!

Our visa interviews was a piece of cake! The US Embassy rep was very nice. The interviews only took about 5 minutes. We also learned that because of the Lunar New Year, also called Tet, which is widely celebrated in Vietnam, we need to pick up the boys' visas early tomorrow! This is such a blessing because our flight tomorrow leaves at 7 pm and we will now have plenty of time to get to the airport in Hanoi. We can't wait to be home and share the boys with everyone. We are excited about them being folded into our families and our Clifton family! Our flight is scheduled to arrive in Louisville at 8:45am on Saturday. We can't wait to see all of you. Please continue to pray for us. The most pressing request that we have now is that the boys would be able to get some sleep and be content as possible on the planes. We've loved our time in Vietnam and have enjoyed the culture here. We are thankful to God for all of his blessings during our travels. We can't wait to see everyone.

Well, we went to the Cathay Pacific office today and confirmed our flight changes. We plan on leaving Hanoi on Friday night and arriving in Louisville on Saturday morning! We can't wait to get home. Vietnam is great and we've enjoyed our time, but it will be much easier to deal with two little babies in our own home versus a hotel room. We've had the boys now for 1 week and we praise God for all of the changes and growth we've already seen in James and William. Here are some of the positive changes we've experienced so far:

- James is no longer severely constipated.

- James is drinking formula now and loving it. For the first 4 or 5 days all he wanted was rice cereal, which probably contributed to his condition!

- James smiles, laughs and makes eye contact much more frequently now.

- James is now sitting up on his own for long periods of time. A week ago he could not sit up on his own at all! He seems to be getting stronger every day.

- William has grown very attached to his Mommy!

- William no longer wakes up scared and sad, but happy and smiley.

- William is content to sit and play by himself for awhile.

- William is eating well.

- William often smiles unprovoked.

- Both the boys seem very relaxed and happy now!

Medical checks!

We just finished with the boys medical checks. This is part of the requirement from the US embassy...before you can get a visa interview you have to have a passport for the baby and a medical check. Everything went well. James is in the 3rd percentile in weight, William is in the 50th. They get a lot of comments about their sizes wherever we go. Today, while waiting for the doctor, a vietnamese woman looked at William and said, "He tougher than that one." We smiled and laughed and then I thought to myself, they are both pretty tough. They have been through so much in such a short amount of time and they are doing better than anyone could have expected. As I was putting them to bed last night, I was praising God for the love He has given me towards the boys.

The next step is the visa interview which is scheduled for Thursday at 2:00pm. If all goes well, we pick up their visas at 4:00pm Friday. Our flight is scheduled to leave Hanoi at 7:00pm. It will be cutting it extremely close because it is an hour drive to the airport. Thank you for all of your prayers and support. Your comments have meant so much to us and have really encouraged us.

Sorry it has been awhile since our last post. We have been busy getting to know the boys. William is doing great. He eats well and once he is asleep he is out. However, getting him to sleep is the problem. This kid is strong and will fight going to sleep until he wears himself out. I think he is doing great with attachment though. This morning, a waitress came to take him from me and he actually turned back and reached for me. This is the first time this has happened and it gave me such encouragement. James is doing so much better. He actually sat up in the bathtub last night all by himself. He screamed all the way through the bath, but he did sit up!! We're still trying to figure out his eating patterns. He will not eat much formula for us but he will eat bowls and bowls full of rice cereal. He gets so mad when we don't give him cereal. He was up most of the night crying. He would cry out in his sleep and straighten his legs real tight and clench his fist. We are starting to think he may need a soy formula. It is so hard to know. He is very constipated as well. Poor little guy. We are praying that we can figure out how and what to feed him and then he will be a different child. I can't wait for everyone to see his little smile, it will just melt your heart...I promise.

Randy is going to pick up the boys passports this afternoon. Then, tomorrow we will have their medical checks. After that, our agency rep will ask the US embassy for the boys visa interview. Once we have the interview, we will have to wait 1-2 days for their visas and then we can come home. Please pray that everything will run smoothly and quickly. We miss Chelsea, Corey and Claire so much and are ready to come home to them. We are thankful to the Lord for His faithfulness in carrying us through this experience and for answering so many of our prayers.

Still here

Sorry we haven't posted for awhile. We moved hotels yesterday. We loved the Somerset but we found one that is a lot less expensive. It was quite an ordeal. Packing a hotel room with two babies and moving across town was an adventure. We can't wait until we have to run through the airports!! Things seem to be getting better each day. William woke up for the first time without crying when he saw me this morning. He smiled and it made my heart melt. James is getting stronger every day. He is beginning to sit up by himself and is showing us more of his personality. James loves Randy's gotee. He just looks at him and strokes it over and over. We are really enjoying being here. The vietnamese love babies. Whenever we go out to eat, the waitresses(and waiters) come and take the boys right out of our hands. I didn't know what to think of this at first. They take them back in the kitchen where we can't see them. Now, I'm thinking I'm really going to miss eating out when we get home. It's nice to eat dinner without having little hands pulling at your plate. People see all five of us and say "you have big family, but very happy!" & we think "you have no idea"! Sometimes we tell them we have three more at home if there is time - then they show us their expression of unbelief. Thanks again for all your encouragement and prayers. We miss all our family and friends and also really miss our Clifton family and the fellowship.

First full day with James and Will

We had a good first day with the boys. We took them to the Intl SOS clinic because they seem to be a bit sick with tugging at ears, runny noses & raspy throats. The doctor said they probably have some viral infection, but no bacterial. She suggested we just give them childrens tylenol & keep an eye on them. We're still getting to know the boys. Because we haven't been with them we don't know about their nap schedule, sleep schedule, eating schedule/amounts or anything so it's just trial and error right now. This morning we discovered that James really, really loves rice cereal. On our first attemt to feed him some he ate 3 bowls full! No wonder he didn't seem satisfied with the milk. They both slept really well last night. Both boys seem to be warming up to us and realizing that we're not going anywhere. We're seeing more smiles from them so this is a blessing.
We are thankful for all the encouragement and support that we've received from all of you. We are also so very grateful to the Lord for the way He continues to strengthen us and provide for us. I'll post some more pics a little later today or tonight.

We have the boys!!

Everything went great yesterday. The drive to Lang Son is beautiful. The orphanage is an old building and very cold but it was very clean. The nannies love the children. They were all in tears when we left. The boys are great. It was unbelievable when they started bringing them into the room. Here were these two babies we saw in pictures and prayed for for so long. James came right to us but William had a harder time leaving his nanny. William is so big!! He has the greatest cheeks. He can crawl and pull himslf up already. James is a little guy just like we suspected. He is more like an infant. He can roll over to one side but he can't sit up or anything yet. He is definitely behind but we are sure that with a little love and practice he will catch right up to William. I will post pics as soon as I can. It takes forever to download and as soon as the boys fell asleep last night, we crashed as well. William is really grieving his nanny. Please pray he will feel adjusted and comfortable with us soon. They fell asleep at 9:00 last night, it is 3:00 in the morning now and they are stil sleeping. I'm thinking today will be a better day for them. They are both too sweet for words. Randy is going to apply for their passports at 8:30am. We have heard that they have been taking 8-10 days to process. That would possibly extend our time here so please be praying they will be processed quickly. I will post pics as soon as I can!!!!!

We just heard from our agency. We are supposed to meet in the lobby at 5:30 tomorrow morning . It will take 4 hours to travel to Langson, so we should have the boys in our arms by 9:30 or 10:00(that's Monday night for everyone at home). Hopefully, the next post will be pictures of us with James and William.

One more day!

Buddhist temple worshiper

Woman scaling fish on street

Hoan Kiem Lake

Ho Chi Minh Museum

Thought I would post some random pics from our walking in Hanoi yesterday and today. The weather was a nice change from Ho Chi Minh. It's quite cool here. Yesterday we met a very nice couple who is adopting a little girl through our same agency. We will be making the 4 hour car ride to the orphanage together. It is a blessing to be able to go through this with them and to have other English speakers to talk with. We will likely meet up with our agency rep today to cover plans for our trip tomorrow. I keep thinking about the fact that these two boys have no idea we're coming. The closer we get, the more I realize how adoption reflects, to a degree, our own adoption into Gods family. These guys have not made any phone calls or pleaded with us to come get them, just as we performed no good work on our own in order to be adopted by our wonderful God (Ephesians 2:8-9). Its all by His grace through faith in Christ. And it's also His grace that gave us the love for these two boys we've yet to hold and the means to make it happen! Until next time...

Hello from Hanoi!

Buying Coffee

Yum!
Working to feed baby
Our Hotel in HCMC

We made it to Hanoi last night at about 8:00. It feels great to be closer to the boys. Seeing the 2 cribs set up in our bedroom was a real shot of reality. We visited a huge market in Ho Chi Minh city yesterday before we left there. It was amazing as you can see by the pictures. The plane ride from there to Hanoi was interesting. Vietnam Air doesn't play any games. Now I know why the pilots in the US descend very slowly from high altitude. We dropped from 30,000+ feet to landing within about 15 minutes! It was almost impossible to release the pressure from our ears - had to swallow constantly. We still plan on going to Lang Son province to get the boys on Wednesday. It will be about a four hour drive north. God bless til' next time.

Well it's 8:30 in the morning here and we've been up for 3 hours. Just like home - Not! I had the best sauteed vegetables of my life for breakfast this morning in the hotel buffet. Can't wait to dig into more Vietnamese food. Michele and Caitlin found something they like too!

They found our luggage!! We are so thankful. We went exploring a little today. HCMC is crazy. I've always heard about how crazy the drivers are here, but to BE in it redefines the word crazy! It was a blast to experience this culture for the first time today. Off to Hanoi tomorrow afternoon. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers. God is good.

Good Morning Vietnam!!

We made it safely to Ho Chi Min City. It was a long 29 hours of traveling. The flights were great and Caitlin loved it. She had a few problems with her ears while landing but nothing major. Everything went real smooth until we got to HCMC and 3 of our 5 bags are lost. There's nothing like being in a foreign country for the first time, being the minority, loosing your luggage, being hot, tired, hungry and not being able to go outside of the airport to find our agency staff person. But God gave us grace to get through it and these difficulties are nothing compared to the fact that we are closer to seeing the boys! We leave tomorrow for Hanoi where we will remain until we leave. We drive to the boys province on Wed. the 23rd. Please pray that our bags will be found before we fly to Hanoi tomorrow. They contain just about everything we need for this trip. I will post again once we have explored HCMC!!

Leavin' on a jet plane!

Today is the day. It's finally here. Our bags are packed and we are off to get James and William. It's hard to believe that after praying about this for so long, we are finally leaving. We are in LA now and heading for Hong Kong. Please pray for safe travel. We will try to post from Hong Kong. It's 11:00 here and 2:00am in Louisville and we are really exhausted. Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement.

Visas!!

We received our visas today!! So, we have plane tickets, hotel reservations and visas. Now all we have to do is finish packing and take care of all the last minute details and then we are off to get our boys. I can't believe we are actually leaving!

Here we go!

This is our first official blog post and it is great timing. In just 6 days, we will be leaving for Vietnam to pick up our two sweet boys. William and James are 7 months old and waiting for us in Langson province in northern Vietnam. We started the adoption process about a year and a half ago when we felt God leading us to provide a home for an orphan. This calling felt overwhelming and scary but we knew that God calls us to make choices that are sometimes very difficult and even painful, but at the same time are ultimately for His glory and our joy. So here we are a year and a half later after having requested one female toddler, then accepting an unofficial referral of an age 9 and 3 female sibling group (which later fell through) and now finally bringing home these two precious baby boys! We are humbled that the Lord chose us to parent these two little guys. After having four biological girls, Randy is looking forward to adding some tackle football in the living room and I'm look forward to having babies in the house again!