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

Worth the Wait

We had a great day today. We woke up at 4:30am in anticipation of meeting our baby girl. At 9:45 we met with the other four families in the lobby and went up to one of their rooms. After getting an overview of our schedules for the next day they brought up the children. There were two boys and two girls all between 18 months and two and a half. Kaiya was leading the pack with her hair in braided pigtails looking so confident. We spent about 20 minutes with the group and then were able to take her to our room with the social worker. She played ball with daddy and was laughing and smiling. Then she blew bubbles with mommy and was very entertained. After a while of playing and smiling I think she began to realize what was going on and started to get a little upset. We walked around the hotel for a while and then ate some lunch. We were able to get her warmed back up to us when we broke out the ice cream. The first time she let Kathryn hold here was when she was taking her over to fill up a big bowl of strawberry ice cream. She let daddy feed her a little bit and even fed me back. After lunch we walked around the gardens and looked at the Koi in the pond. She is very curious and loves the flowers and gardens. When she walked in to meet us she was holding a white flower in her hand. Then we made our way back up to our room without the social worker. She was a little timid but did pretty good. She mostly wanted to just be held by mommy on the balcony. She was very tired but was fighting sleep with all her might and managed to win the battle. At 2:00 we left the hotel and headed to her foster families home. The ride took about an hour and Kathryn held her the whole time. I asked to hold her several times but Kaiya wasn't too keen on that idea. Not yet at least. When we got to the foster home we were greeted by her Foster mother, foster sister, foster brother, and foster grandmother. They were all very friendly and had big smiles. We were able to spend about an hour their seeing their home and hearing stories about Kaiya and seeing her interact with her foster family. They were all very happy and friendly and allowed us to take pictures and video. We know that will be priceless for her to be able to see later in life. We got to see her take a bath in a little plastic tub and she loved it. This was probably the happiest we saw her all day. She was laughing and playing in the water and then ran around being silly and not wanting to put her clothes back on. Her foster grandfather was cooking dinner in a pot that was over a fire and talked to us about the flood and how it had effected their house. We got to take a picture with the foster family and they walked us back to the main road where a van was waiting for us. Leaving was difficult and while Kaiya stayed behind we could tell that it was going to be very sad for her foster family when Kaiya leaves on Tuesday. Even the neighbors who were sitting outside were waiving and saying "bye Luk-ped" and asking when her last day was. Kathryn and the foster mother both got teary eyed but managed to hold it together. This is definitely a day we will never forget and we're so grateful for every minute of it. Tomorrow we will see her again for several hours and then take her to the mall to get her a few things. We will be updating pictures as soon as we download them from our camera. Stay tuned.

Good job Dusty on filling in on all the details! Now my turn. :) Lukped is just beautiful. She walked in that door so confident in her pretty outfit and came right over to us. She does not speak very much (as we saw and the social worker told us) but you can tell she is very smart! She watched closely all of the other children with their families any time we were together and was always studying what was going on around her. It was very easy to tell if she did not like or want something and when she did she just pointed with the cutest tiny pointer finger. She did amazing. Prayers were answered as we got a few smiles (who can't laugh at Dusty and his funny daddy ways) and were able to hold her. Yes, we saw grieving. Her foster family is amazing, fun, happy, loving, etc. and our sweet daughter does know what is happening (she had the photo books we had sent and she knew the pictures). We are thankful that we were able to hold her during this time and make it to some happier times still holding her. She was so hilarious at her foster home that we were able to see some very fun times in our families future. Yes, she too can silly walk and we heard of her dancing that they all tried to get her to do for us. I think running around in underwear laughing was enough for her today. Tomorrow will be a new hurdle as day two comes and she gets more comfortable telling us how she really feels. We are so happy and exhausted (my arms are nearly broken from holding her - but there is no way I was going to put her down for a second). Dusty made me put her down to go to the bathroom before we left for the foster families but I really didn't want to. Thank you for praying for us and her. I cannot wait for you to see this incredible little girl...I'm telling you, she is a life changer.

Made it to Bangkok

Our last night in Phuket was so memorable. We went into a tiny local beach "restaurant" literally a hut on the beach, sand floor, no doors just open to beach and sat among two men watching cartoon network with a small boy while two tables of Thai women played intense card games. We kind of felt like we got to be a fly on the wall to a common evening in southern Thailand. After that we walked on the beach and it was the time between all of the tourist crowd leaving the beach and coming back for dinner so it was just us and many local shop and restaurant owners with their children playing soccer and taking swim before dinner crowd came. We laughed and watched and even were included in some of the fun. I got to try to teach a young boy how to whistle through his hands in the water and it was so sweet to be smiling and laughing and teaching without being able to understand each other's language.

Today we had a couple hours on the beach before catching our flight to Bangkok. The flight was very scary for me. We unexpectedly hit turbulence and the plane dropped so hard that everyone's drinks spilled everywhere and a woman screamed out loud. My heart was racing the rest of the flight. Dusty was his usual calm. He was just glad we had declined drink/snack service. We arrived in time to drop off our things and go have a nice dinner. Bangkok is definitely different than the slower laid back pace of Phuket. It is a huge city and busy, but we are ecstatic to be here because we know we will be meeting Kaiya tomorrow morning!! Will try to update you as soon as we can about our first meeting, but we unfortunately do not have internet in our room (no lan connection on our mac).
Good night!

Oh what a day!

We are here!

Beautiful! We are SO happy to be here after a crazy and LONG travel day(s) which included running as fast as we coul through the Bangkok airport last night to make our Phuket connection and then praying our bags made it. God is good! We made it, bags made it and we are in THAILAND! It is breathtaking. It is only 8:45 am but we have already had breakfast and I am writing this from Nai Yang beach. Today's plan: relax an think about how close we are to our little girl! Will post pictures later.
Sawadee Kha,
K&D

Leaving in the morning!!

We cannot believe this day has finally come! We are packed and ready to head out first thing in the morning. I am already sad to be leaving Cole and Jae for so long, but am beyond excited to be so close to looking into the eyes of our daughter-finally holding her- smelling her-kissing on her-speaking broken Thai with a southern twang to her-and seeing how God shapes our family yet again into what it was always meant to be. We love you "baby duck" and will be there soon!