Our Day At The Beach

Today mom and dad took me to the beach. You cannot believe how much I loved it! I had never even seen a bathtub until a couple of days ago - let alone the South China Sea! It was definitely my favorite day so far. I had so much fun that I have hardly been able to sleep since! The sand was really fun to play in, I just wanted to lay in it. It felt so good I even waited about 10 min before putting it in my mouth. I wasn't too sure about the beach at first so we went to sit down under an umbrella and mommy and I fell right through the chair! She couldn't get up because she was holding me and daddy was too busy laughing to help her. It was a good chuckle and after that I wasn't quite so nervous. When they took me down to the water I was a little scared of the big waves but I did love the cool breaze in my hair. They sat me down in the shallow water and they couldn't get over how happy I was and how much fun I was having. I just splashed in the water and laughed at every wave that crashed against us. Finally after daddy took a thousand pictures he and mommy played with me. We had such a blast and I hope we get to go many more times. Since daddy spent so much time taking pictures I told him he could share a few with everyone. Well mommy and daddy are waking up so I better crawl back in my crib and pretend to be sleeping. I can't wait to meet all of you!

Cole Thai

Our Afternoon at the Market

Here are some pictures of our shopping at the market yesterday and today. It is fun to run down there in the early afternoon to shop and just look around. There are so many beautiful things to just look at! Joey is sick :( so Kerrie and Zak went with us. We definitely spent some money today and had a good lunch - Dusty had chicken fried steak! Ha ha. Who would have thought you could get that in Vietnam?...well...besides Dusty of course. Dusty also tried on a pair of jeans at the market. It was so funny to see his dressing room - check it out below. He was telling that lady "No Peeking!" and she thought that was very funny. Cole is doing great. He is a really good baby. He is teething, right now he has two little teeth on the bottom, so some moments he is hurting but he always manages to smile right though it.

Last night Dusty and I had a date! Just the two of us and a Choco-pie (kind of like a mallomar cookie) in the bathroom. We swore we would never be parents that would tip toe around thier children while they slept...well, it took Cole an hour to fall asleep last night so where were we? In the bathroom sitting on the edge of the tub laughing and sharing a cookie. Oh the memories we alreay have! ha ha! We are going on a day trip to the beach tomorrow so it may be a day or two before we post again, but hopefully we will have some good pictures! Well, we gotta get back to staring at a sleeping baby...

This Is SO FUN!

We have just been having the best time! There are no words to describe it! The sights, sounds, and smells (yea...that's fish sauce) have been unbelievable. We got Cole Thai's passport today and it is so funny to see his little face all serious on an official document. It is Friday night and we do not have any more appointments until Wednesday so we are looking into taking a two day beach trip over the weekend. Yea! We went to a market today and talk about sensory overload not for our son, but for ME! The ladies would grab your arms (very firmly for tiny ladies I might add) and try to pull you into their booths all while Dusty is just hanging back holding Cole surrounded by beautiful Vietnamese women talking about how cute he is...and the baby too! Ha ha! We had a great time laughing about all of it on the way back. Here are some more fun pictures of random events - my first soccer ball (they have Goal TV here which shows non-stop soccer so Dusty is loving it), first bath in a tub, watching baby Einstein with mom (uh oh, I LOVE the TV!), etc. We love you guys and although we are having a great time - we can't wait to see you!!

Sleepy Babies

Finally - our Internet is working in our room so we can update more often! It has been out so when we use the internet in the lobby it has been mostly for making calls to family - sorry! : ) This little guy sure does keep us busy, in the best way. We are so head over heels. I wanted to share these pictures of our sweet sleeping babies. This was on their first bus ride out after the G&R. It was pretty overwhelming for them since virtually all of their time has been on the second floor of their orphanage. They all love their mommies (and daddies) so much and have just bonded so well. Don't they look comfy in their mom's lap? Cole cracks us up with how he sleeps!

April 24-25, 2007

See pictures below....This is Daddy's first attempt to post so hopefully you will be able to see this. The last two days have been amazing. We have just been soaking in our new family. It is awesome to watch Kathryn's motherly instincts take over. She already knows exactly what he needs. As most of you know from our friend’s blogs the boys all got dressed up in their traditional outfits for the big day. They all looked soooo cute! I have to admit that I always thought it was a little cheezy dressing little kids up like that but he looked adorable and I'm so glad they had them for the boys. We went on a big journey around Ho Chi Minh yesterday with the Sala family. The boys both did great even though it was one thousand and seventy four degrees outside. We ate Pizza Hut and it was awesome!!!! They kept asking us if it was as good as in America. . . yesterday it was was better. Then we ate ice cream, the scoops weren’t a size that my dad would be proud of but it still hit the spot. The food here has actually been really good but after a week we need something from home and that definitely did the trick.

Today 3 of the dads took clothes to the laundry. We decided on the way back we would ride on a motorbike instead of a taxi. It was pretty sweet and actually I felt safer on one of those things then I have in any car. The only scary part was that we had to show the drivers cards from the hotel so they would know where we wanted to go. They got us there and it was well worth it.

Cole is doing great. He only wakes up a couple of times in the night and Kathryn is able to calm him very easily. I’m sure he is on sensory overload. He hasn’t been off the second floor of the orphanage since he got there and yesterday we walked him through an Arcade/disco-tech/bowling alley that might have been the noisiest flashiest place I have ever been. He just gripped a little tighter to his momma and soaked it all in.

4-24-07 & 4-25-07

The Fam

Can you tell how much we are in love with this little guy? You were right...our lives will never be the same. Yesterday Cole laughed at us for the first time while we were playing with him. Dusty and I both said that at that moment we had never felt anything like that before. It was a whole new level of joy - like your heart could just burst! We have gone back and watched the video about 12 times already! HA HA I woke up at 3 am this morning wide awake - today at 7:30 we will be picking him up and will have him with us for good! Next time I write it will be with a baby boy on my lap!

Play Time With Daddy

Cole enjoyed playing with daddy on our second visit. I think he wore him out! It was so fun for me to see the "boys" together. I am now out numbered, but I LOVE it!

Our First Family Picture

Scott and Stacy took this picture of all three of us yesterday and just sent it to us. We are so happy to see all 3 of us together at last. As you can imagine we are SO excited to go see him again today - and cannot wait until tomorrow morning when he will be with us forever!

Meeting Our Son!!

Today was the day we met our sweet baby boy Cole Thai. He was amazing and smiled right away at us. We got to spend two hours with him at the orphanage and will spend two more tomorrow. He is just so beautiful and sweet, not to mention laid back just like his daddy! He played with us for a long time and then just fell asleep in our arms. We are exhausted! It is only 10:30 pm here, but we are still on OK time (10:30 am previous day) and we have been awake since 2 am!! Our internet has been pretty spotty - we will write more later and post more pictures. Love you guys!

Almost There!!

We cannot believe that we are almost to Vietnam! We are sitting in the airport in Hong Kong right now and it is beautiful! We just got off the plane from our LONG 15 hour flight! Everyone struggled a little bit, but of course Dusty and I had no problem sleeping - we both slept about 7 hours. I am sure the way home with Cole Thai will be a LOT different! Dusty and I are just in shock that we are going to see or son for the first time tomorrow - needless to say we are giddy. Every time we look over at eachother we don't have to say anything, we just start smiling.

We have only had one freak out moment...just now when we arrived and were getting ready to go through the secure area we could not find Dusty's passport. All of our sweet friends stood around us as we were dumping everything out of our carry-ons and it was no where. Scott (Howie's dad) picked up one of our magazines and opened it and there it was. It had slipped in among the pages. When he said "here it is!" I was on my hands and knees on the floor among all our stuff and just started balling. In that short time my mind had already imagined that we were marooned in Hong Kong and would not be able to get to our baby! Ha ha...I am sill trying to laugh it off! We will update you soon on our ongoing adventures! Love to you all!!

Sweetest Baby In The World!!

New Pictures of Cole Thai - 8 mos.

He is just so beautiful - I cannot wait to be holding him in 2 weeks and 5 days!!

WE HAVE A TRAVEL DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dusty and I are beyond excited! This morning we got an email from our agency with our travel date! We will be leaving the 19th of April - YES THAT IS ONLY 2 WEEKS AWAY!! Our Giving and Receiving ceremony (GNR) is on April 24th and Cole Thai will be ours and we will be his! We are busy starting to pack things up and just cannot believe that we now know when we will be holding our son after five LONG months of looking at his sweet pictures. I could cry just talking about it! Well...I will post more later...I have to start packing!! : )