Packing Up

Today we are packing!! Leaving on a late flight to head home. Cannot believe how the time here has flown by. We are so thankful for the time we have had here in Thailand. What an amazing country. From laid back Phuket to busy Bangkok the people are beautiful and friendly, food is out of this world, incredible mix of modern and new with ancient tradition in the same place. We are happy to forever be linked to to this place as part of our American/Vietnamese/Korean/Thai family :) Dusty joked that we are now outnumbered in our family - there are more asians than not so now WE are the different ones. Love that! ha
One last picture of our family dinner last night. Oh, how perfect the ambiance. The best table they had...the only table they had...and some amazing Pad Thai. Good bye Thailand. We will be here again someday.

One last prayer request - Miss Kaiya has a cold and is getting an infection. Please pray this heals quickly and does not make our trip too uncomfortable and for safety over our travels. We love you and will see you soon.

Busy Days

We have been very busy the last few days seeing Thailand and bonding with our daughter. We spent some more time at the park and yesterday we went to the Grand Palace. Today we went to a large shopping area with one of the other couples who are here adopting a little boy. We had a great time and it was nice to have some company. For dinner we went down and had some street food which was delicious and very inexpensive. Every corner you turn in this country there is amazing food and smiling people. We are having a lot of fun and every day Kaiya gets more comfortable with us. We have two more nights before we head back and we are missing our boys a lot. We have talked to them several times and they have been doing great and getting great care from our families. It has been two weeks since we got hugs and kisses from those little guys and we are in dire need. We are enjoying the one on one time with Kaiya as well and know how important this time is for our relationship. We will try and post again before we leave but for now these pictures will have to hold you over.

More Pics

We have a million pictures that we would love to share so we decided to just post pics this morning. She's even cuter in person.

She loves to have her hair up and out of her face and brings me these bows to put in her hair every day. I need practice!

She likes to take planned pictures about as much as Jae - ha ha. You can tell here she is getting a little more comfortable with the family pic compared to the first one :)

Green Fanta out of stemware - that's how we roll in Thailand. Hey, if foster mother gave it to her this momma is too...for now. What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand (until that pout comes back and daddy caves).

Sorry It Took So Long!

Sorry this post is long over due! Kaiya is fast asleep upstairs with daddy this time so I had a chance to run down and post. What an amazing couple days. We went to our adoption board meeting Wednesday which was a great experience getting to talk about our motivation to adopt and to say thank you to "Thailand" for allowing us to adopt our beautiful daughter. Then we went to the zoo for a fun day. It was very hot but we enjoyed looking at the animals and watching an elephant show. At the show Dusty told her "no" for the first time regarding her desire to hold FULL water bottle to take a drink. That went over well! HA She sat in my lap and pouted until they compromised to him helping her hold it...SUCKER!

Yesterday we were at the US Embassy for about 4 hours waiting for her visa appointment. All of the kids did amazing and she was a trooper. It was a long day so just dinner after that and home for bed. Today was our first free day without any appointments so we took a water taxi over to see Wat Pho which is the Temple of the Reclining Buddah. It was beautiful and we are glad we got to see it. Kaiya definitely steals a lot of attention with her sweet smile and readiness to "Wai" give the traditional Thai greeting with her hands pressed together near her face.

After Wat Pho she had a good nap while Dusty went and picked up her visa. When she woke up we sat and I just observed her play a while. She really opened up a lot by going to get her favorite stuffed animal from her foster home (which she had been ignoring) and laid on it like they told us she liked to do and had her bottle. This was a BIG step in showing that she was feeling more comfortable. Is she not the cutest thing??

After Dusty got home we went down to the pool for a swim. Kaiya was really not sure about the pool. She LOVES the water, but has only bathed in a little bucket like tub. She did NOT get why she had to keep a suit on for that big bath and was getting upset that we made her at least keep the suit bottoms on. She was too afraid to get totally in but enjoyed playing on the side and playing a little with her sweet friend Samorn

Dusty brought back dinner to our room tonight and we sat at the table, but once again we were not whole. I hated the feeling of sitting around a dinner table without Cole and Jae...can't write about it...tears...miss my boys. I could post so much more, but this will have to do for now. Love you and miss you all. Each day Kaiya has shown MASSIVE steps of feeling more connected and secure in our arms and I cannot tell you how great that feels. Our daughter is becoming ours and we are becoming hers.

SHE IS OURS!

Today was another amazing day. Kaiya got to the hotel around 11:00 this morning. She was dressed in a little outfit that we had sent her and looked so cute. They gave us all her belongings including a giant stuffed animal that she sleeps with and a new giant hello kitty stuffed animal that her foster mother got for her. The day started out a little rough as you could imagine. She was very aware of what was going on and was not happy to be back in our hotel room. After a little while we went for a walk and over to a park. The park is the largest park in Bangkok and is similar to central park. She had a blast and loved leading us around. I gave her a flower that she kept with her the entire time which made me happy. We walked around for about an hour and then ducked into a small restaurant for lunch. Kaiya loves to flip through the menus and look at all the pictures. She doesn't love to sit still for very long which makes meals a little challenging. After lunch we went to the bank to exchange some money. While I was at the counter Kathryn asked Kaiya "where's daddy" and Kaiya pointed her little finger right at me:) Then we went back to our room and had a great afternoon. We played a ton and there was a lot of laughter and smiles. We got to give her a bath, which she loved, and see her use the little potty. We probably played for 3 and a half hours and she was very happy the whole time. Thank you so much for everyone who has prayed for a smooth transition into our family. Those prayers have definitely been answered. She already seems very attached to Kathryn. She likes to play bubbles with her and her favorite seat is in Kathryn's lap. As I type this she is upstairs sleeping on Kathryn in our bed. Please continue to pray as every new experience is a little bit scary for her and she is still getting used to her new family and her new environment.

We can't wait for her to meet everyone, especially the boys. I know she is going to have so much fun playing with them. They said she likes to play with cars and she liked to watch her foster brother pretend to be a superhero so I think she is going to enjoy her brothers.

Tomorrow we have a meeting that will last most of the morning. Hopefully Kaiya will be content and the meeting will go fast. We may try and go to the Bangkok zoo if time allows. We miss all of you but are also so thankful for this time we have to focus on bonding with our little girl. Now I'm going to go back upstairs and stare at my girls.

Day two with Kaiya

We cannot sleep-in here and wake up early and are too excited to sleep any longer. We wondered out to one of the main streets by our hotel and had an excellent street food breakfast for $1 and then went to Starbucks and spent $11 on coffee - HA HA! I will say it was worth it though as I would never have thought Starbucks would taste watered down until being here several days. Later that morning we were in the lobby getting in a little internet time and had a chance to talk to my parents on Skype. Meanwhile, Kaiya and the social worker came walking in earlier than expected and my parents got to see her walk up and say hello to her (lucky them!). Kaiya was definitely more aware of what was going on today. Sad for a while and does not like being in the hotel. Her foster home is open air to the outside so she is not used to window glass, doors, air conditioning. She is much happier outside so we spent some time walking in the garden around the pool. Dusty got to hold her for a bit which was nice for him...and my arms, but I was still jealous. They took us all to a shopping mall to buy some necessities (and some shoes from her daddy) and Kaiya enjoyed being out and about. By lunch she was the life of the party and making everyone laugh, except for Josh (one of the dads) when she pulled a Hercules and flipped the table so everything slid into his lap! Sorry! Dusty had her laughing again and then when all attention was off her she stood up in my lap, looked around at all of the patrons, and with a smile started to scream. She may give Sophie a run for her money Anna! We had so much fun with her there and then headed back to the hotel for a bit. Getting used to the new environment seems to be just as difficult as adjusting to us so specific prayers for that are appreciated!
Tonight we decided to go to Khao San road, a touristy, crazy, street food, backpackers area that in the evening was kind of like bourbon street meets bohemia meets Vegas and a must see - without a precious little girl in tow - so we enjoyed that and have a list of parks, zoo, temples, to see as we feel Kaiya will want to be outside a lot. We will just plan to be flexible to her needs so we'll see. Tomorrow is the big day!! She will arrive around 11:00 and will be ours!! We miss you all (nearly as much as our boys and own bed)!

Sweet smile

Shopping with Mommy

Khao San Road

Yummy street food