New Beginning with Gracie

Hello again

2009-09-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hello to all. Just wanted to catch everyone up on the happening in the Allsup Family. We are all doing great. Logan is growing everyday. He is 5’4” tall and weighs 125 pounds. He is playing tackle football against my better judgement, but I am still enjoying it. He is a 5th grader and is the tallest in his class. He is attending the brand new building and loves it. He is busy teasing his sister when he in not playing with his friends, playing football, or playing Wii or playstation.

Gracie is not growing as fast of Logan. She is 34” tall and weighs 26 pounds. Her personality is growing daily. She is very determined and knows what she wants. Her imagination is large. She loves to play “short order cook.” She will ask us “what you want guys?” We will respond with a food or drink item. She includes anyone who is talking or standing with us. They are surprised when she remembers what they ordered.
We are also amazed with the words and sentences that come out of her mouth. She is speaking in 5-7 word sentences and we have to remind ourselves she is only 2.

We were able to take a few trips this summer. We went to Santa Claus,IN to camp and go to Holiday World amusement park. Gracie was able to ride a few rides and enjoy the water park as long as water did not get in her eyes(good luck on that one.) Logan brought a friend (Levi) and managed to ride a few roller coasters. This is the first year Logan was away from us for an extended time. He went to 4-H camp for 4 nights and 5 days. He really enjoyed it and is ready for next year. I did better than I thought I would, Gracie kept me busy. He only lost 3 shirts, 1 pair of shorts and a towel. We saw a St. Louis Cardinal game and a Cincinnati Reds game. We went canoeing and visited Andy and Sandra Reynolds in Kentucky. Andy is an old Marine Corps buddy of Jeff’s. We had a blast. The kids were introduced to country living. They sat on one of Andy’s horses and saw a horse show. We can’t wait to visit again. We are keeping busy now watching Logan’s football games and the local High School football games. Gracie is enjoying watching the cheerleaders and has decided to be a cheerleader for Halloween. We hope everyone enjoyed the summer and look forward to the fall.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

2009-04-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

Jeff and Logan coming
to the end of the
marathon

I can't believe it has been over 3 months since our last post. Alot has been happening in the Allsup family. There has been two birthdays, first haircut, Easter and a half Marathon. We celebrated Logan and Gracie's birthday together since they are so close in date. Logan did not seem to care and Gracie had no idea. One side of the decorations was Barney and the other side was Maroa-Forsyth Trojans(Logan's school.) The party was fun and most of the family was able to attend. Gracie is still a Barney fan and we are trying to expand her choices but she seems to revert back to Barney every time. Her personality is growing everyday. She does not meet a stranger. She will run into any ones arms, including the grocery store clerk. Her speech is improving and we are able to understand most of what she says. Some of her favorite sayings are:
"nose yucking" "mommy happy?" "mommy sad?" "La La funning" "I fin it" "nack"

Gracie got her first haircut on Feb 27. She did not enjoy it. In fact, she cried the whole time. The haircut turned out cute. I am having fun styling it. She actually lets me curl it. Easter was exciting this year since Gracie was able to participate in the Easter egg hunt at home and at Aunt Susie and Uncle Kevin's house. She loved to color the eggs with big brother and big brother loved to help her find the eggs. She also learned how to hop like a bunny, which she demonstrates any chance she gets. She looked so adorable in her Easter dress. Logan was able to make the coolest looking eggs this year.

Gracie is showing very little interest in potty training. We first offered her M&Ms and stickers, but that has gone by the way side. She seems to be afraid of the potty chair especially when she has to go poop. But we have Barney potty trained thanks to Gracie. She still is loving to read lots of books. She can count to 20 with some help and can recognize her ABCs. She has trouble saying her ABCs. She stops at letter D and goes straight to the end of the song. She knows all her colors and shapes. It has been so easy to teach her. She only needs to be shown or told a couple of times and then she seems to know it. We have so enjoyed watching her learn and grow and still have to pinch ourselves to make sure we are not dreaming.

Logan is doing fantastic in 4th grade. He only has less than 4 weeks of school left. He had alot of different projects to do this year in school and enjoyed each one. He has started baseball practice and games start May 11. He is pitching and going to try catching. Logan's heart is in baseball and it shows as he plays. We are looking forward to seeing him play. Jeff is Logan's assistance coach and Logan loves it.

Jeff completed a half marathon this year on April 11 in Champaign. He finished at 1:59. Logan jumped in at mile 10 and finished the marathon with Jeff at the 50 yard line in University of Illinois football stadium. Logan was so excited and did real well.

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Make a Smilebox slideshow

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2009-01-14T12:21:00.000-08:00

We hope everyone had great holidays and 2009 is treating you well so far. The holidays here were fast and lots of fun for the kids. We had 2 gatherings at our house between Jeff's family and Becky's family. We also had an invitation from Jeff's cousin's family. So Christmas lasted for over a week. Gracie had fun opening all her gifts and other's gifts too. She was very good around the Christmas tree. We just told her it was a pretty and for the most case she left it alone. She loved getting her picture taken in front of the tree. Every time I pulled out the camera she told me to wait and she would run in front of the tree and say "Cheese." She did not take to Santa like I thought she would. We took Logan and her to visit Santa and she would not sit on his lap. So being the good big brother Logan is, he sat on Santa's lap (mind you he requested not to sit on his lap when we told him we were visiting Santa) and Gracie sat on Logan's lap. The visit was a success. Logan is on the fence about Santa. We think he does not believe but he may feel he may not get as many presents if he tells us. This is probably his last year of (sorta) believing. My little boy is growing up.

Logan's birthday is tomorrow Jan. 15. He will be 10 years old. He made it to the double digits. He stills seems to like us and obeys us for the most part. I believe we only have a few more years of that. I keep hearing all my friends who have teenagers that their child has become obnoxiuos and act like the parents are the stupidest people in the world. God help us!!!! He is on a basketball team now. He practices every Sunday for 2 hours and comes home very tired and sore. He starts playing games at the end of this month. We are very excited to watch him play to see how well the 2 hour practices have helped his skills. He really enjoys it and his coach is a great guy who is tough on the boys. School for Logan is busy. He is getting A's and B's and tries very hard. He is still growing and loves to hear people tell him he is tall.

Gracie amazes us daily. She learns things very fast. We have not worked real hard with her on numbers but she can tell you what numbers 1-10 are when you point them out. We are working on letters which are not so easy for her. She can recognize approximately 8-10 letters. She knows several colors and shapes and continues to adore Barney. She has a great memory. When I introduce her to a friend we see often she is able to tell me her/his name the next time we see them. She is a charmer. Everyone seems to enjoy being with her. We are going through a tough time getting her to sleep right now. We started putting apple cider vinager on her thumb at bedtime so she would stop sucking her thumb. Well it worked too good. She has stopped but we believe she has a problem soothing herself to sleep without the thumb. So we have had some long nights. We are hoping this is a short phase. She still has only the one tooth missing and looks so onry without it. Potty training is slow process for her. She would rather put Elmo on her potty instead of herself. In due time I believe the light will turn on for her to go potty. It is hard to believe she will be 2 years old in 3 weeks. She is still my little baby and always will be.

What Not To Do At Walmart

2008-12-02T12:42:00.001-08:00

Gracie had her first accident at Walmart yesterday. Mommy wanted to make a quick trip into walmart and let Gracie walk instead of ride in a shopping cart. Gracie has a tendency to wonder away from mommy. When mommy tried to make Gracie walk the same way mommy was going Gracie decided differently. The pictures below will show you what happened with the decision Gracie made.

The dentist had to pull out her front left tooth because the nerve was exposed and he stated she would be miserable if we left it in. And the other two front teeth are loose and she may loose them too. So you are wondering what we will do next. Well this little girl is not going around the next 5-6 years without any front teeth. Thank goodness for prosthesis. She will be fitted for a prosthesis when her back molars are in better which should be in a couple of months. These couple months will also allow time to determine if the other two front teeth will need to be pulled.

She is doing great and only complains when she bumps her mouth. As you notice in the picture this has not stopped her from eating.

Giving Thanks

2008-11-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

ENJOYING THE CHRISTMAS PARADE

A GOOD TIME AT THE DENTIST

POTTY TIME!!!!

TWO OF THE BEST KIDS!!!

Well it is the day before Thanksgiving and we believe we have alot to be thankful for. Everyone is doing well, besides having alittle sickness over the weekend, and we are getting ready for the holidays. Logan begins his 4 day break from school tomorrow and can't wait. He started basketball practice two weeks ago and loves it. He will be starting playing games in Jan. Flag football ended at the beginning of Nov. and his team won 7 games and tied one game. Logan was thrilled and enjoyed the season. He is getting taller by the day. He is close to 5'2" tall and weighs close to 100 pounds. Our little boy will outgrow mom is no time. School is going good and he is starting to enjoy reading, which he previously thought was a chore. One of his favorite authors is Matt Christopher. He writes sport books. Logan is all about sports.

Gracie is also growing but not as fast as Logan. She is 30" tall and weighs 23pounds. We looked at Logan's baby book to see where he was at her age and he was 5 inches taller and weighed 5 pounds more. Her vocabulary is more advanced than Logan's was at this age. She is almost 22 months and can repeat any word you say to her. It may not sound the same but she gives it her best effort. There are several new accomplishments she as conquered. We will list them below.
We hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and enjoys the Holiday season.

-First trip to the dentist 11/18/08(informed to give up the thumb, Ya right)

-Recognizing letters and numbers(S,P,1-5)

-Counting 1-5

-Pooped on potty 11/08

-Finally said "I love you"

-Has her first boyfriend(BARNEY the purple dinosaur)

-Now has 11 teeth(4 molars, 4 front, 2 lower and 1 left canine tooth)

-Using utensils to eat

Halloween 2008

2008-11-03T19:43:00.000-08:00

Gracie and Logan had a great Halloween. This is the first year that Logan did not have Jeff and I trailing behind him. He went with some neighborhood friends and their dads. Jeff and I took Gracie to a few selective houses because we knew she would not last long. She did very well. We ended that evening at a neighbor's house eating Gumbo and letting the kids play. The weather was fantastic. Hope all had a good Halloween.

Make a Smilebox scrap pages

Changing and Learning Daily

2008-09-24T12:29:00.001-07:00

We thought we would try this new way to show as many pictures as possible. Seems to work out well. Everything is going great. Gracie has developed a large vocabulary. She will attempt to repeat anything, has trouble with the letter "G" so her name sounds like "Sissy" and forget trying to say Grandma because she just looks at you and says "PaPa". Grandma doesn't seem to mind. Logan is moving along in the 4th grade. This is the year to gain alittle more responsibility and it is coming along slowly, but we will get there. I ran my first and LAST 1/2 marathon Sept. 14 in Chicago. I know I should think positive but the pain afterwards is hard to get over. I am just happy I finished at 2 hours and 14 minutes. Jeff was there and was a great supporter and crutch(I do mean crutch)he practically carried me to the train station.

Here is more accomplishments Gracie has done:

First boat ride 8/30/08
Learning to run(actually it is a fast walk)9/08
First molar bottom right 9/17/08
Saying 2-3 word sentences(Read Dada, All done, I blah,blah,blah, and Give me five)
Went down slide by herself 9/23/08
Still sitting on potty with clothes on, no interest yet
Very social, she says Hi and Bye to everyone in restaurants

Make a Smilebox photobook

What a difference a year makes

2008-08-21T19:55:00.000-07:00

We wanted to let everyone see how much our angel had changed since the first time we laid eyes on her. The first picture is the one our agency sent to us on April 14, 2007 about a baby girl who is available for adoption. The next pictures are the ones we received each month(May and June 2007) before we went to get Gracie. The final pictures are how adorable she is today.

Where has time gone?????

2008-08-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in posting but we developed a virus in our old computer and finally decided to purchase a new laptop. We have also been busy doing FUN summer stuff. July went by like a firecracker and it is already the middle of August. We were able to enjoy a few getaways this summer. We went to Santa Claus, IN in early June(yes, there is such a place.) We camped and went to an amusement and water park. We were joined by the Kupferschmids(Corbin, Steph, Audrey, Lydia and Harlan.) In early July we met with the Horger family(friends we met in VN)and vacationed in Charleston, SC. In the middle of July we went to St. Louis for the weekend to see a Cardinal baseball game with my extended family(24 of them to be exact.) In early August Jeff, Logan, Gracie and myself went to Chicago to see a Cub baseball game. That was Logan's first time in Wrigley field. He is a Cub fan like his father, I myself choose the Cardinals since they have won more world series games than the Cubs. Trying to convince Logan to convert over has not been easy. As for Gracie I believe she will root for whoever is winning.

Speaking of Gracie, she is doing great. We had our 1st year adoption anniversary celebration while we were in St. Louis on July 19, 2008. She was the life of the party. On that date we gave her a gift we purchased for her in VN. It was a toy mouse. We plan to give her a gift every year for the first 18 years. We purchased 18 gifts while we were in VN. I hope she will plan to cherish these gifts.

There are several new accomplishments Gracie has learned and experienced over the past few months:

Amusement park rides

Eating hamburgers and hotdogs

Watching Logan play baseball

Going Camping

Going to the beach(not too crazy about the water, liked the sand)

Traveling long distances in the car(thought we had a great traveler)

Developed a scream when she wants something(very loud in the car)

Saw the Atlantic Ocean

Spent time with Gracie Horger(our Gracie was a bully at first then warmed up to her)

Experienced two major league baseball games(I believe she likes the Cards best)

Repeating lots of new words

Knows where her hair, ears, eyes, nose, tongue, teeth, elbow, fingers, toes and knees are.

Knows what her potty chair is but not how to use it yet

Last doctor visit in May 2008 she weighed 20.5 pds and 28 1/4 inches tall

I am sure there is plenty more she has learned but it is hard for me to remember. She is still enjoying her big brother. I think she will miss him when he returns to school next week (Aug 19.) Logan is also growing and changing everyday. He is 5 feet tall and weighs about 95 pds. He finished baseball with a great season and is now looking forward to his dad coaching his flag football team this fall.

Hope everyones summer went well and hope to continue to post more often.

How cute are they!!!!!!

2008-08-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

16 Month Update

2008-06-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

Well, we are looking at 10 1/2 months since Gracie has been with our family. The year is right in front of us and boy has it gone fast. She is growing physically and emotionally with us daily. I will jump right to the accomplishments she has done since our last posting.

1. Eating more real food

2. First tooth lower left on 4/8/08

3. Second tooth upper left eye tooth 5/01/08(weird, I know)

4. Took first steps Mother's day 5/11/08(she now only walks no crawling)

5. Third tooth upper right tooth 5/16/08

6. Forth tooth upper left tooth 5/ 19/08

7. Spent quality time with dad while mom took a girl's trip to FL for 5 days.

8. Hair is growing, mommy is able to put into pigtails.

9. Have noticed she does not like sand.

10. Talks up a storm, will attempt to say anything you ask her to.

11. Feeds herself finger foods.

12. Loves her swing, bike seat and stroller rides.

13. Becoming more active in church(I mean moving around alot)

14. Loves music, will move her body to any music she hears.

15. She is an outdoor girl.

I am sure there are plenty on others accomplishments I am forgetting. She still enjoys her big bother La La. They both love to tease each other. She loves to wake him in the morning and he loves it when she does(most cases). We are planning some vacations this summer and hope she adapts to them. Logan is also growing up a storm, he is 5'1'' and we know will outgrow mom before he is 12, if not sooner. He is enjoying his summer vacation by playing baseball and playing around the neighborhood with friends. He is on a kid pitch team this year and he has gotten to pitch a couple of innings this year. We think he is pretty good, but we are alittle bias too.

Pleae keep enjoying the blog as we try to keep it updated as best as we can.

New shots of the Allsup Family

2008-05-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

Gracie first time in her bikeseat Hanging out with big brother on Sunday morning
First time in her swing(she loved it)

First time standing up by herself
Wanted to post of few pictures since it has been awhile. Will try to post some updates on the Allsup family soon. Enjoy.

Hello All!!

2008-04-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

Here we are starting the beginning of spring and much has happened in Gracie's life. She has grown to become very attached to her Mommy, Daddy and brother. It is hard to believe she has only been with us for 81/2 months, it seems a lifetime. She still has that great personality we have all enjoyed. She does have a tendency to be alittle lazy. She will try to have us hold her cup while she drinks and will not( I repeat) will NOT stand up when we let go of her hands. That big booty of hers plops down right on the ground. She will walk around furniture and use her toys to push around but as for walking or standing on her own, NO WAY!!! We are happy she does not weigh a ton since we have to carry her alot. She loves her stroller and her new bike seat we bought her and used over the past weekend for the first time. The helmet could go in the garbage if it was up to Gracie, but she knows it must be worn if the bike ride is going to happen. Logan always finds new ways to torment his sister. He shows his love in different ways. There are moments when a hug and kiss is used and othere moments when he picks her up and tries to gentle wrestle with her until she starts to throw her fit. That is right Gracie is now throwing fits when she does like what is happening to her, weather it be when Logan is bothering her or when Mommy or Daddy are telling her NO!! She has picked up the "point your finger" and say NO gesture from Mommy and Daddy. It is so funny to see her use it on her bother. We are looking forward to getting her outside this summer and showing her new things. We put her on the slid and she loved it, wanting to do it over and over. Logan only has 30 more school days left and is looking forward to beginning her summer vacation. Baseball season starts soon and we can't wait to watch him play this year. This is the first year he will be pitched to by another player and not his coach, alittle scary. He is going to attempt to be one of the pitchers on his team, I hope he does not hit too many players.

Here are more accomplishments, adventures and milestones for Gracie

--Completed Baby Sign Language class(hope to use it soon)

--One year old immunizations 3/03/08

--One year old picture taken 3/6/08 (one month late, bad mommy)

--Easter egg hunt at Forsyth Park, met the Easter Bunny 3/22/08

-- Easter egg hunt at home and dinner at Aunt Susie's and Uncle Kevin's house3/23/08

--Saying Da,Da, Ma,Ma, No, night, night,

--Knows where her nose and ears are

--Still eating baby food due to NO TEETH!! Where are they????

--Possible spotted one tooth coming in, bottom left.(she hates to have us check her mouth)4/08/08

Views of the Allsup Family

2008-04-08T11:30:00.001-07:00

2008-02-20T11:35:00.000-08:00

Where Have We Been????
Sorry for the long delay in posting. Several obstacles have happened to us to prevent us from making time to post. To make a long story short we have had two floods in our home and hope that number three will not come soon. Logan and Gracie are both keeping us busy. Logan is playing basketball for two different organizations. One is for the local YMCA, which has games on Sat. and the other is for the local school which is conducting a clinic every Sat. Mind you our Saturdays are filled. Gracie is enjoying watching her big brother play. She is his number ONE fan. Logan is busy with 3rd grade homework too. He seems to enjoy school but does complain about homework. He is almost 5 feet tall and weighs 85 pounds. I think we have a bruiser on our hands. As for Gracie she is busy learning, learning and learning. You can just see the wheels turning in her head when she see something new. She will examine anything that comes her way by feeling and staring. She still is a very friendly baby. She will let anyone hold her. Here is a list of some new adventures and accomplishments:

First Christmas. Loved the wrapping paper and bows. Loved sitting on Santa's Lap

Spent New Year's Eve at home with Mommy, Daddy, Logan, Kupferschmid family, England family and Wisler family.

Celebrated Logan's 9th birthday at skateland

Crawling to other parts of the house(Logan's room, our bathroom...)

Starting to have a small temper. She will arch her back when we pick her up to move her away from something she is not supposed to have.

Went to her first Baby Talk section 1/31/08. She enjoyed it.

Spent the night with Aunt Julie while Mommy and Daddy had a night out 2/2/08

FIRST BIRTHDAY 2/4/08. Had her first cupcake. Had no problems eating it even without any teeth.

One-year-old checkup with new doctor(Dr. K Gowdar) She did well. Weight 19lbs6ozsHeight 27 inches 2/6/08

First Birthday party with family 2/8/08. Once again the cupcake was a hit with her.

Started baby sign language class 2/19/08.

Noticed she loves music. She will start to move her body when she hears music.

Eating yogurt, cottage cheese, cheese, mashed potatoes, eggs and oatmeal.

Switching to vitamin D milk 2/1/08
Posted by waitingfor#2 at 7:12 PM

2008-02-19T20:04:00.000-08:00

Gracie Pulling Herself Up

2008-01-20T21:50:00.001-08:00

Gracie learning to walk

2008-01-20T20:45:00.000-08:00

2008-01-07T20:15:00.000-08:00

2007-12-23T17:06:00.000-08:00

We Are Alive

2007-12-23T16:09:00.000-08:00

Hello all. Sorry for the long period between posting, but of course having a baby and a 8 year old can take up alot of your time. We are all doing great and preparing for Gracie's first Christmas. She is loving the Christmas tree, Christmas cards and all the other decorations she can reach. She has no idea what "NO" means. She just turns around looks at you and carries on doing what she is not supposed to be doing. I just hope consistency will work. Logan still continues to help with Gracie. He will entertain her while we are out of the room for a small amount of time, if we stay away too long he lets us know by yelling for us to come back. He is now on Christmas break so I am sure he will have his fair share of Gracie before he returns to school Jan 3, 2008. We have no big plans during the break so I hope Logan does not get too bored and drive me crazy. Here are some more adventures and accomplishments Gracie has done over the past month and a half.

Took road trip to Paducha, KY to spend weekend with the Horger Family. We met them in Vietnam when they were adopting their daughter Gracie. 11/16/07

Celebrated Gracie's first Thanksgiving with Mommy's family. 11/22/07

Received the last immunizations to get Gracie updated until her 1st birthday. Also had a lead screen and TB skin test performed and both were negative. Got flu shot 11/28/07

Took another road trip to Chicago to vist cousins Chris, Cara, Cleo, Cassidy, Uncle Kevin and Aunt Susie. We took her into the city on a train and she did well. 12/07/07

Has officially started the typical crawl using her arms and knees. 11/26/07

Visited Santa with big brother. 12/13/07

Does Pat-A-Cake. 12/17/07

Starting to talk more. Favorite word "ABBA" What does that mean??? Loved the Group.

We will continue to add to the blog and try not to have such a long wait for you to enjoy our adventures with Logan and Gracie.

Enjoy the Holidays!!!!!

Time flies when you are having FUN

2007-11-09T19:15:00.000-08:00

Well, what can I say but WE ARE HAVING FUN. Gracie is now 9 months old and has been with our family for over 16 weeks. She has progressed so much and makes us smile everyday by the funny faces she makes, the new moves she does and the way we see her shine. She has became a big part of our lives and we can't remember what life was like before her. Logan still enjoys her daily and is a big helper. Logan loves to show her off at school when we pick him up and has also taken her to school for show and tell(of course Mom was there too.) Alot has happened and here is a small list of her accomplishments and adventures.

1. Received 2nd set of immunizations 10/12/07

2. Mom returned to work;first day at babysitter's 10/17/07(Debbie Hoffman)

3. First time to see Logan perform at his fall concert 10/30/07

4. First Halloween, dressed up like a ladybug

5. Second visit to Dr. Rojan weight 18 lbs. height 27 inches 11/01/

6. Had name official changed and adoption approved 11/06/07

7. Getting up on hands and knees rocking back and forth 10/07

8. Starting commando crawl 11/09/07

Pictures

2007-10-09T13:09:00.000-07:00

More Happy Days with Gracie

2007-10-09T12:15:00.000-07:00

We are looking at having Gracie in our family for 12 weeks on Oct. 11, 2007. These 12 weeks have flown and we have gotten to know Gracie very well. We believe she knows us pretty well too. We have her eating and sleeping schedule figured out which makes life easier for all. She does fantastic in both. Logan brings such wonderful smiles to Gracie's face. She loves to see him in the morning before he goes to school and in the afternoon when he gets out of school. It is such a joy to see Logan and Gracie together.

Here are a few accomplishments and adventures:

9/07 Started the process to readopt and legally change Gracie's name
9/20/07 Took her to Derm. He believes she has eczema(not sure about that???)
9/27/07 Gracie's lawyer came to meet family about adoption
9/30/07 Gracie's baptism and party(slept through her party)
10/01/07 Gracie is now saying "MaMa" esp. when she is tired
10/05/07 First camping trip for two nights at Weldon springs in Clinton. Gracie did very well.

Still no teeth, loves all her baby food, teaching her to get on her knees to start crawling and she is starting to laugh out loud at silly things Logan does.

2007-09-18T12:32:00.000-07:00

Happy, Happy Gracie My Harley Girl
Love my bottle
Peas they are so good for me(YUCK)
Dig the shades

Two Month Anniversary

2007-09-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

September 18,2007

Hard to believe that it will be 2 months tomorrow since we received our precious daughter Gracie. She will be 71/2 months old and getting bigger by the day. We have begun to get her schedule figured out. She is sleeping through the night, which she has done since we received her, and loves her afternoon nap. Logan continues to adore her and is learning what makes her smile and laugh. She is still meeting new people everyday, and continues to enjoy their company. Myself and others do notice that she keeps an eye out for mom when she is not in my arms. She will not cry but assures herself that Mom is near. She also looks out for Dad too.

She acquired a cold 2 weeks ago but it did not seem to get her down. We were constantly sucking and wiping her nose, which she HATES with a passion. She also has breakouts of some sort of rash on her head, hands, arms, and feet. It does not seem to bother her and she has no other symptoms. We will probably get her to a dermatologists soon. We are enjoying getting to know her everyday and thank God for the opportunity to have such a special family.

Here are a few new accomplishments and adventures

Ate her first baby food meats(1st stage, hated them, switched to 2nd stage)9/3/07
Breakfast: Rice cereal, fruit(bananas are her favorite) and bottle
Lunch: Vegetable, meat and bottle
Mid afternoon: bottle(6 oz)
Supper: Rice cereal, meat and vegetable
Bedtime: bottle(6oz)
More professional pictures taken JCPenney9/6/07
Babysat by Uncle John and Aunt Dana 9/8/07
Sitting up by herself 9/12/07
Invited to Reya’s Corley High School Musical B-day Party 9/15/07
Loves to stand up
Weighed 15lbs 13ozs 9/18/07

Gracie seems to amaze us everyday and we are excited about how advanced she has become since the first day we set our eyes on her. She is growing everyday in our hearts and we love her more and more each day.

More Days With Gracie

2007-08-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

August 28, 2007

We have now had Gracie in our family for 1 month and 9 days and it feels like she has been with us always. She still continues to learn and experience new things everyday. She has been greeted by many people since her arrival in the US. Everyone comments how cute and content she is. We definitely agree with them. Logan is still expressing lots of love for her. He always wants to hold and play with her. He has made the best big brother just as we figured.

We were given another open house party to welcome Gracie. Our friends Dena Corley and Jenny Lambdin arranged to have members of Club Fitness(gym we go to) join our family at Panera Bread on Sat. 8/25 from 8:00 am to 10:00 am to meet Gracie. It was very informal and turned out quite nice. We were able to visit with everyone and Gracie enjoyed meeting new faces. Gracie received several new outfits for her fall/winter collection. It is great to know we have such great friends who care about us and want to help celebrate the arrival of our newest addition.

Here are a few new accomplishments and adventures Gracie has experienced:

Walking big brother Logan to school on the first day 8/21/07

Getting her first professional picture taken by Shooting Stars(thanks Kathy
and Kris) 8/23/07

Rolls from front to back 8/23/07

First doctor appointment with Dr. Rojan 8/24/07
STATS: 14lbs 9.5 ozs; 23 ¼ inches long(I measured her at 25 inches); 14
inch head
Dr. Rojan said she is a GOOD baby, I do agree. We are going to do blood
work when she turns 1(HIV, Hep B and C)She got her first Rotavirus Vaccine
(oral)
She was a great patient.

Church directory picture taken with the family 8/24/07

Ate her first baby food vegetable (peas) seemed to like them 8/24/07

Got her first USPS letter in the mail(thanks Uncle Kevin)

Meet Thomas(10 mns old) a friend adopted from Vietnam 8/25/07

Received her first set of Immunizations at the Health Dept.8/27/07
DPT, Hep B, Polio, Hib, Pneumococcal
3 shots (2 in lt leg, 1 in rt leg)
Her lt leg was sore that evening and she developed a 102.2 fever the next
morning and still complained about her lt leg.

Many Faces Of Gracie

2007-08-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

Another Day With Gracie

2007-08-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

August 18, 2007
Gracie has been the talk of our family and friends and yesterday Stephanie Kupferschmid and Jennifer England gave Gracie and us an Open House party at Forsyth Park. We were greeted by many people who are special in our lives. Gracie was such a good girl during the 3 hour party. She took a 30 minute nap at 8:15pm and got a second wind after waking up. The party started at 6:00pm and was to end at 9:00pm. There were decorations of ladybug balloons and red and black styrofoam ladybugs. Two large sheet cakes decorated with a tree and ladybugs and water and lemonade was to be had for all to eat and drink. The tables were draped with pink and green table clothes just like the colors in Gracie’s room. Everything looked great.

The night went very fast and it was hard to speak to everyone. So we apologize to anyone who we did not get a chance to speak to but appreciate you coming to meet the new addition to our family. Logan had a blast. He was surrounded by many of his friends and was able to run, run, run…. He deserves it since he was so good during our adventure in Vietnam and had little chance to be a kid.

The gifts were abundant and so thoughtful. We have not had a chance to open them since we would like to do it as a family. It is trying to get us all together but hope to do it some time today. Logan also received gifts from some considerate family and friends. He has been so wonderful during this transition in our family. He shows no jealousy toward Gracie and seems grateful she is in our lives. One evening when he was ready to say his prayers with Jeff he stated that his prayers were answered and he did not need to pray. Jeff immediately explained that there are many other people who need his prayers and he should continue to pray. We too believe our prayers have been answered and want to thank everyone who also prayed for us during this period in our lives.

Gracie still seems to be adjusting well in her new family. She brings us joy everyday and is a very happy baby. She is learning everyday and shows us why we took the long journey to add her to our family.

Day 11 And Read What I Have Done

2007-08-16T20:12:00.000-07:00

August 16, 2007
Gracie has been home 11 days and she has met many new faces, done several new adventures and accomplished new milestones. Here is a list of the few adventures and milestones:

Ate rice cereal Aug 7 did very well
Met some of Daddy’s co-workers Aug 7
Went to big brother’s school to register him Aug 8
Ate baby food fruit Aug 8(bananas) did very well
Went to Walmart Aug 8
First time in a Pool Aug 8(Lambdins)
Went to Church Aug 12
Went to Mommy’s work place to meet some co-workers Aug 12
Went to first birthday party Aug 12(cousin Morgan)
Slept from 9:00pm to 7:00am Aug 12
Went to Gym Aug 13(sleep most of the time)
Grandma and Grandpa babysat when Mommy went to dentist Aug 15
Can roll from back to front(could do this when we received her)
Attempting to sit up, needs some assistance Aug 16

Gracie is learning everyday and loves to watch her new big brother. She does not meet a stranger. She lets anyone hold her without crying. She flashes them a smile and buries her head in their chest. She has adjusted so well to her new surroundings. She wines and sucks her thumb when she is tired or hungry. When we lie her down for nap and bedtime she puts thumb in mouth grabs her new blanket(compliments of Darlene Jones) and goes off to dreamland.

We Are Home

2007-08-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

Day 22 & 23 Aug 5th – 6th Sunday & Monday
Written Aug 10th

Homecoming

This was the day we had been waiting for. We are finally going home as a family. This was probably the longest day we experienced here because we were so excited to leave. We weren’t scheduled to leave the hotel until 4:00pm so we tried to occupy our day with a trip to the tourist center for one last look at the comments on our blog. Between breakfast and running to the tourist center we still had about six hours to go before our departure. The rest of the afternoon we past the time by finishing our packing and watched the clock, played with Gracie and watched the clock, and watched TV and watched the clock. Needless to say the afternoon was a long one.

About 3:30pm, Logan and I started moving our luggage down to the lobby. Gracie was just finishing her bottle after her afternoon nap. She was in a good mood and ready to travel. Logan was in a very good mood. Although he finally got used to the cultural change in Hanoi, he was more than ready to get back home. The four of us headed to the lobby a couple of minutes early to say goodbye to the staff. I can’t say enough about the staff at the Hong Ngoc hotel. They provided a service that can’t be found in the States. We especially wanted to personally thank Mr. Tong for everything he had done to make our stay enjoyable. When we arrived at the lobby, the staff was busy with new guests but we were able to have a short conversation with Mr. Tong, who had his son with him, and took some photos with Mr. Tong and the boys. We said our goodbyes and told him we would see him in about 18 years. Then we exited to the car waiting for us on the street.

As we drove to the airport I told Becky I felt a little sad about leaving Vietnam since this is Gracie’s home in which Becky agreed. Becky and I will make sure Gracie knows where she came from and what proud heritage she is apart of.

On the ride to the airport we were pretty quiet. We had gotten used to the traffic during our stay so we just sat and took in our last views of this beautiful country. This is in sharp contrast to the ride to Hanoi when we first arrived and were very chatty with the driver and amazed at everything we saw. Gracie was very content in the backseat in Becky’s arms. As we approached the airport, the terminal building looked more modern than when we arrived in Hanoi several weeks earlier. The departures must be in a different location than the arrivals because this terminal was completely up-to-date.

Hanoi Airport

The driver unloaded our bags and I gave him the last of the Vietnam currency in my pockets since I couldn’t convert them back in the states, but we were able to save a few coins and some paper money as souvenirs. We entered the terminal and was immediately confused on where to go. We walked from one side of the terminal back to the other finally someone looked at our tickets and pointed us to the side where we initially entered the terminal. There was a long line to the ticket counter but since I was carrying Gracie, the airline staff took us to the counter ahead of everyone else. Strike one up for Gracie; she’s already paying dividends. We finished getting checked in and headed for the gates to wait for our flight. As we left the main terminal and headed for the gates, we had to pass through immigration. Becky and Logan went to one booth and Gracie and I went to another booth beside them. Becky and Logan were quickly approved to leave but for some reason the agent took Gracie’s passport and left the booth. I could see Becky’s expression from the other side and we both looked at each other like “what the heck now”. The gentleman returned a couple of minutes later with Gracie’s passport in hand and gave me back all my papers and waved Gracie and I through. That was probably the longest two minutes of the entire trip. The four of us proceeded through security and made our way to our gate. We couldn’t believe this was the same airport we flew into. This part of the airport was very modern with many shops and lounges for the business class flyers similar to the airports back home. I kept thinking why would Vietnam want your first impression of this place to be that it’s run down since the arrival terminal looks something out of the 1950’s while the departure terminal is much more appealing.

We found our gate and unloaded our carry on baggage and got ready for the hour and a half wait. Gracie was doing great but we did have to take her for a walk from time to time because she got bored of just sitting. Logan loved the open space in this part of the terminal and he would run short distances whenever he could. I told him not to run too much because I didn’t want security to get too nervous. When we had about 30 minutes before we were to start boarding, they announced our flight would be delayed for 30 minutes. We weren’t happy to hear this since we only had a 2 hour layover at Hong Kong. Gracie was also starting to get tired and hungry. We were trying to plan her feeding during takeoff so it would help to depressurize her little ears but because of the delay this would not be the case. We went ahead and fed Gracie and changed her into her sleeper because we figured the aircraft could be a little cool. The one place we hoped the Vietnamese would have air conditioning would be on the aircraft. The plane wasn’t delayed any further so we boarded the plane and took our seats. I scouted out the plane before takeoff and noticed a row completely empty just a few rows up so I asked the attendant if we could use that row to lay Gracie down when we get to cruising altitude. She said that wouldn’t be a problem. Gracie cried during takeoff because she was getting very tired and she was required to be belted to the front of Becky during this time. Once the fasten safety belt sign was turned off, Becky and Gracie headed for the empty row were Gracie slept for the first leg of our trip. The attendants served a hot meal with two choices on this two hour flight. This is something you don’t get on domestic flights back home. The attendant asked me what my choice was but I couldn’t understand a word she said so by this time I was tired of trying to piece sentences together and simply shook my head and said I don’t understand. She gave me one of each of the choices and I gave Logan the one I thought he would like. Logan liked what he got so it all worked out. The flight went by pretty quick but Becky and I were very concerned about making our next flight from Hong Kong to L.A. because of the delay.

We landed at Hong Kong airport with only about 50 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave. By the time we exited the plane and they bused us to the main terminal, Becky and I were starting to worry we wouldn’t make our connection. As we entered the bottom level of the terminal, there was a representative from Cathay Pacific Airlines waiting with a sign that had several flight numbers listed on it; one of which was our flight to L.A. They pulled us, and several others, aside and checked our tickets and put small round stickers on the front of us so they could identify us. The leader had a 2-way radio and was in communication with a person at the gate. Our guide took us up escalators, down elevators, on a tram, and back up another elevator, rushed us through security and checked us through to our plane and made sure we boarded the plane. Logan loved the run through the airport and Gracie had woke up since the flight and seemed to marvel at the large building we were running through. Becky and I would have never made the fight if it wasn’t for the persons at Cathay Pacific and this made a huge impression on us. The 747 was already loaded and ready to go so it didn’t take long before we were taxing down the runway. Becky and I hoped that only our luggage got the same treatment as we did in finding the flight.

Flight from Hong Kong to L.A.

We took our seats and the flight attendants assured us we would have the bassinet we had reserved weeks ago, but they couldn’t set it up until after we were in the air. Because we had the bassinet, we had to sit with the bulkhead (wall) in front of us. Logan expressed his concern that we didn’t have TV screens at our seats because he didn’t see them on the bulkhead in front of him. He was quickly relived to find they were under the front of his seat and all he had to do was pull it up and lock it into place.

It was my turn to hold Gracie during takeoff. She sat quietly buckled in my lap but she was tired. Since we sat in the middle of the plane, there was a gentleman sitting beside me in the fourth seat. I tuned to him and apologized in advance for the noise that will come out of Gracie. He said she was very pretty seemed to be a very good girl. There’s a sucker born every minute. As we started to taxi, Gracie got very tired and started crying very loud. The guy sitting next to me was a little early with his “good girl” comment. As soon as we got in the air, Gracie fell asleep on me. Shortly after takeoff, the flight attendant set up Gracie’s bassinet and we quickly put her in it. She slept 13 out of the 14 hours we were in the air. Logan also got much more sleep on this flight than he did going over. I noticed he still managed to watch Spiderman III about three times during the flight. The kids did great and Becky and I even seemed to get several hours of sleep. The service on this airline is spectacular. They bring you a menu at the beginning of the flight for the two meals they serve and also provide snacks during the flights. They even know they have young passengers on board and bring them kid’s meals in advance of serving all meals. They are very polite and friendly and I can’t say enough about the quality of service. This was the flight that Becky and I were dreading the most and it turned out to be extremely comfortable for a 14 hour trip.

Flight from L.A. to Chicago

Although the flight from Hong Kong was on time, we only had two hours to go through immigration, get our luggage, go through customs and head to the domestic side of LAX. This is where the nightmare started.

We entered LAX and after some direction from one of the workers we were able to quickly proceed through immigration. We dropped off the folder containing Gracie’s paperwork so she is now a U.S. citizen. We were too tired and worried about our luggage to celebrate so we headed to the baggage claim carousel to retrieve our luggage. This place was getting very busy with all the incoming international flights. The idea here is to claim your baggage, go thru customs, drop our checked luggage off in the “checked luggage area” and walk over to the American Airlines terminal.

Everyone from our flight huddled around the baggage carousel waiting for the machine to start. After about 15 minutes, they announced on the load speaker that our flight’s baggage was moved to another carousel. We figured it was because of mechanical problems since there were workers wondering around our carousel with confused looks on their faces. We quickly moved to the new carousel and waited for our baggage. We waited and waited and waited. We finally got our luggage with only 25 minutes to make it thru customs and drop off our luggage and proceed to the domestic terminal. We quickly made it thru customs while Gracie was yelling because she was hungry at this time. The girl knows when to turn it on at the right time. We only had twenty minutes to get to the American Airlines terminal so we rushed to the luggage drop area at the exit. When we got there the workers said that area was closed and that we had to take our luggage to the American Airlines terminal next door. Becky and I couldn’t believe this. The baggage area closed at 11:30pm and it was now 11:35pm so we missed it. We didn’t have time to complain so we ran out of the international building and headed towards the building next door. Logan had one cart full of luggage, Becky had another cart full of luggage and I had Gracie in my arms running to the next terminal. We got to the next terminal with 15 minutes to go before our flight left. There was no easy way to get the luggage up a flight of stairs to the departure counter so Gracie and I took the steps while Logan and Becky looked for a way to get the luggage upstairs. Becky and Logan made it to the counter with 10 minutes to go but it was too late. We told the woman at the American Airlines area we had to make the flight to Chicago in ten minutes and she quickly said “you’re too late so you missed the flight”. We could tell by the level of customer service that we were back in the States. The woman is very lucky I had Gracie in my arms. She didn’t realize how long of a day we have had and the lack of sleep I was operating on. I could have easily ended up in the airport security from beating that woman. Becky commented that she had never seen me so mad. I took Gracie and walked away and paced for several minutes. Becky just started laughing or else she was going to start crying. Logan didn’t understand what was going on and thought we were still going to make the flight. After we calmed down, we stood in line to talk to the representative at the counter. She said the next available flight would be at 9:00am the next morning but she would put us on standby on a 6:00am flight. Logan was pretty upset by this news and buried he face into my side. The lady said we could go back over to the international terminal because the shops stayed open all night there. Becky said she couldn’t believe Gracie first night in the States and we going to spend it in the airport. Luckily the representative next to ours said there was a delayed flight to Chicago that might have some openings. Our rep checked and there were three seats available in the last row so we jumped on them. The flight was going to leave in one hour. This gave all of us a second wind. Logan was extremely happy again and was back to pestering his little sister. The time was 2:00am so I called Kevin to tell him of our new flight plans since he is going to pick us up at the airport. I didn’t realize until after I called him that it was 4:00am his time. I hoped he didn’t have trouble getting back to sleep after my call. This flight was going to get us into Chicago by 7:15am instead of 6:00am from our missed flight. The flight was uneventful and both kids slept for most of the flight.

As soon as we landed and entered the terminal we walked past a restaurant. Logan said “Dad, you smell that…………it’s American food”. He seemed to walk with a little more pep in his step. Gracie was awake and alert and ready to see what Illinois was all about. On our way to the baggage claim, Becky’s cell phone was all lit up with people calling. We quickly made it to the baggage claim and grabbed our luggage and headed for the exits. Kevin had called and said he was stuck in traffic and would be about fifteen minutes late. We didn’t mind because it was good to stand there and stretch our legs. It was suppose to be the start of a hot and humid week in the Midwest but to those of us returning from Vietnam, this seemed like it was going to be a cool day.

Kevin arrived about the time he said he would and we loaded up his van and were off to his house to visit before heading for home. Kevin and Sue had things ready for us back at their house. Sue had to work so she wasn’t able to greet us. They had bagels from the Great American Bagel Shop, cereal, and cold milk. This was the best. Logan didn’t have any problem getting enough to eat this morning. Kevin and Sue had planned for us to spend the night, if we so desired, so they had dinners ready and everything. We felt bad about them going though all that trouble for us but we traveled 10 thousand miles and all we had left was 150 miles to get to our home so we just visited Kevin until noon then headed for Forsyth. It was great to get a chance to take a shower and freshen up at their house after the long trip. Sue called from work and said she would have some open time so we stopped by to see her before we left Chicago. When we got to Sue’s office, she quickly took Gracie in her arms and toured the building showing off the new addition to the family. Everybody there was excited to meet Gracie and her brother Logan. They had heard of our trip and were happy to meet us. After about an hour visit, it was time to get on the road for home. We appreciate everything Kevin and Sue had done for us.

Gracie makes it Home

As we pulled up to the house, we saw our house decorated with a big welcome sign with lots of balloons that Jennifer Voorhees put up. That was just the start of the great welcoming we got from friends and family. As we entered our house we noticed the big bouquet of flowers from Becky’s gym buddies(Dena, Kelly, Jenny and Wendy) on the counter. There was a large bag of Del’s popcorn for us, a Lady bug necklace for Gracie and a game called “Find it” for Logan from the Lamdins on the table. There was a note from the Kupferschmids that read “dinner was in the refrigerator and all we had to do was place it in the oven.” Audrey Kupferschmid made a great little notepad for Gracie. The house was already clean because Dena, Kelly, Jenny and Wendy had the house cleaned for us while we were gone. We hope we have not forgotten anyone who provided us with a special gift. If so please forgive us. We told Gracie there was going to be a lot of people that care about us when we got home and everyone proved us right. Over the next couple of days, other people brought gifts for Gracie and food for us to eat. The love and support from everyone here has just been remarkable and we know we are truly blessed.

Logan wasn’t in the house longer than 2 minutes and he was ready to run the neighborhood. Becky and I brought Gracie in the house and then started to unload the car and unpack. This task took about two days to complete because shortly after we arrived home many people stopped by. It was great to see everybody and Gracie took all the new faces in stride. The Allsup family was running on adrenaline by now. I thought I could stay awake until 9:00pm but this proved to be a challenge. I hit a wall by 8:00pm and actually fell asleep talking to Dee and Tim from down the street. I hope they didn’t take it personal.

Becky and Logan were quick to recover from our long trip but it took me a couple of days to get my energy back. I called my supervisor on Wed to see if I could take the rest of the week off and return on Monday since we thought we would be ready for Gracie at home before we left but we didn’t have the little things from the store. My supervisor, Ralph Smith, has been very supportive and I can’t express my gratitude enough. It makes me feel great knowing that my management and company really care about my family first and the job second.

We will continue to post to our blog as events occur. We have so enjoyed sharing our joyous time with our family and friends and will present this journal to Gracie when she will appreciate it and understand her heritage and her birthplace.

Farewell To Hanoi

2007-08-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

Day 19-21 Aug 2nd – 4th Thurs-Sat
Written Aug 4th and submitted Aug 4th

The last couple of days have all blended together. One by one the other adoptive parents have left Hanoi each day since we have received the children’s visas last Wed. The Allsup family is more than ready for the long flight home. Logan has been great but he needs more space than what the hotel has to offer. He needs to spend some time with people his own age because he is bouncing off the walls.

We are trying to find things to make the days go faster but we’re done shopping and we’ve seen every museum and local sight seeing thing there is close by. I noticed some day trips in the tourist center that we could take but they are all a 2 hour van ride from Hanoi and that doesn’t sound appealing nowadays. Our last few days have pretty much gone like the following schedule:

Go to breakfast
Walk to the tourist center to check the comments on our blog
Walk around the lake
Walk back to the hotel
Put Gracie down for her nap
Read
Play with Gracie
Go somewhere for a late lunch
Back to the hotel room to play with Gracie
Order room service
Watch the wonderful B movies on the one channel we have in the hotel room

Saturday we did the same schedule but when we put Gracie down for her nap, we started packing. This was a good feeling but when we finished our packing it was only 1:00pm so we still had a lot of day left. We are really trying to rush this last full day.

We received an email from Becky’s brother Kevin asking what we planned to do when we get to Chicago. We replied that as long as it included drinking COLD cow’s milk and eating cereal and bagels we didn’t have any set plans. We have been three weeks without milk so we have been all going threw withdraws.

Gracie first came to us just over two weeks and since then she has made some remarkable improvements physically. When we got her she didn’t grab for anything and she could barely lift her head up for more that 10 seconds at a time. Even when she was sitting up her head would hang forward. Gracie had rashes on her head, under her neck in the front and rear in which some of these were open and oozing, and a different type of rash altogether under her feet. Within one week the rashes were almost completely gone and the only rash that was still obvious was the one on the bottom of her feet. It’s amazing what a little air conditioning and a nightly bath can do to clear up the skin. After ample “tummy time”, Gracie has no problem keeping her head up and she can even start from a lying position on her back and we can pull her up (holding onto our hands of course) to a standing position. She grabs for everything that comes within reach of her and the rash under Gracie’s feet is almost gone. I think she really started to get comfortable with us after one week because that’s when she started talking to us. She sounds a lot like the cat that Logan always wanted but can’t have at home(due to allergies.) So we now get a great voice to go with her open-mouthed smiling face.

Although we are anxious to leave Hanoi, these last few days have been very important because they have enabled us to get to know Gracie better. I can’t think of an easier way for a family to spend quality time together than being sequestered to a hotel room with absolutely nothing to do. If Gracie is happy in this hotel, then I can’t wait to see her face when she gets home and is surrounded by all the people that love her.

We would like to thank everyone who has taken time out of their busy schedules to read our blog and follow our travels the last several weeks. It really means a lot to us to read the encouraging words from the people back home. Those persons that have left comments and sent personal emails have allowed us to stay connected back home during this time away and it’s proof that we have many caring and loving friends and family. Again, we are very thankful.

Precious Moments

2007-08-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

On The Home Stretch

2007-08-01T23:45:00.000-07:00

Day 17 & 18 July 31th & Aug 1st Tues/Wed
Written Aug 1st and submitted Aug 2nd

Visa Interview at the US Embassy (Tue)

On Tuesday we tried to pass the day playing with Gracie and reading or watching movies while she was taking her nap. Later that afternoon was the last trip to the US embassy for the second interview. We have been waiting what feels like an eternity for this stage since we have arrived here in Hanoi.

We received a call from Martin in the morning that everyone must meet at the hotel lobby at 2:00pm Tues to get cabs to the US embassy. There was Alison, Nancy, Christy, Amy, Becky, Logan and I and all with our new additions. Everyone was very excited. Most of these mothers have been here one week longer than us so they were also tasked with getting standby flights as well. Gracie was in good spirits and seemed like she was ready for the process to end too. We entered the building, climbed the stairs to the second floor, we went through security and into the same room as the previous visit. We weren’t sure exactly what was supposed to happen, but as always we expected the worst and hoped for the best. Although we all had heard this was the easy part. We didn’t have to go to the interview room as before. During this visit we were called one-by-one to a widow in the main room to show our passport and pay the $380 US for the visa. After we sat for a few minutes we were called to a second window where an officer conducted a short interview with Becky. Gracie, without warning, decided she was very hungry and started to let me know rather loudly so I quickly made her a bottle while Becky finished the short 3 minute interview. Gracie finished her bottle and she was happy again. We took our seats and waited for the other to finish their turn. Logan and I decided to go across the hall and buy some hats as souvenirs of our travels to the embassy. There was a woman across the hall in another office that was selling the items so Logan and I went there. While I bought some hats, Logan thought it would be a good idea to go in the hall and run up and down the flight of stairs. As I walked out of the office after buying the hats, the security personnel were on their way to tell Logan to stop going up and down the steps. I smiled at the woman and said I was sorry and told Logan they would probably throw him in irons if she got to him first. Logan is just dying to just run around and play. We’re almost home buddy. All the interviews were complete within an hour and we were on our way back to the hotel. In twenty-four hours (Wed) we will have Gracie’s visa and the only thing stopping us from coming home is our flight doesn’t leave until Sunday.

The rest of the night we walked the Old Quarter to do some shopping. We dropped by the tourist center to read the comments on the blog. We sure appreciate all the comments from the special folks back home. Gracie just doesn’t realize how much she will be loved by her extended family and friends, but she will soon find out. We stopped by an outside shoe store to see about getting Logan some tennis shoes. Becky found a good deal for $15 US. Logan doesn’t mind walking the streets if we are buying for him. As Becky and Logan looked at the shoes, a merchant selling books approached Gracie and I. He started by asking if she was Vietnamese and how old she was and that he had a daughter at home the same age. This guy didn’t realize that I have been here over two weeks so I knew the drill but he was good. He finally asked my to buy some paperback books on the Vietnam War or some DVD’s so I quickly told him I have bought everything I wanted in the last two weeks and the only thing left to buy was my son’s tennis shoes so “NO THANKS.”. This night for some reason the merchants were especially pesky because he wouldn’t leave and was soon joined by the cigarette lighter salesman. I kept telling him I didn’t smoke but I don’t think he understood because he kept asking me to buy. Gracie seemed to take it in stride. Becky and Logan finished so I just left the two peddlers standing there and we headed for the hotel.

Gracie was very tired. She had sort of a mad cry so we got her ready for bed and fed her a bottle in which she practically cried through the whole thing then we put her to bed. This was the first night since she had been with us that she acted this way. She was screaming bloody murder. At first we thought she might be hurting. We did everything the baby manual(did we tell you she came with a manual, just kidding) said to do but nothing worked so we just put her in her crib and within minutes she calmed down and went to bed. The rest of us watched the movie Ice Princess on TV (remember, we only have one channel) then went to sleep.

The Day We Received the Visa (Wed)

This was a long day. The days seem to get longer the closer we get to leaving. After breakfast we went to check on some items that Becky had ordered. We met Christy and Grace at the lobby and went to a few shops not far from the hotel. Becky needed to pickup the diaper bag she had made and check to see how the painting of Logan and Gracie was coming along. If it was being painted in that studio then we were hoping to take a picture of it being worked on. The sales woman said the artist was working on it at another studio or at home. I didn’t quite understand where but just not there, but they said it will be done on Thursday. We stopped by another store to buy a decorative plate made of bamboo and then headed back to the hotel. We went to the room to let Gracie get a two hour nap and then headed to the VinCom Plaza with Christy and Grace to get smoothies and coffee at Gloria Jeans so we could get a break from the Old Quarter. Logan got his opportunity to play on the escalators again so he was happy. Poor kid is starting to get delirious. Both babies were very good on the trip. We had to meet Martin back at the hotel around 5:00pm because he was going to drop off the final paperwork. We didn’t want to be late for this meeting so we jumped into a cab about 4:30pm and sped towards the Old Quarter. We all went to our rooms to wait for the call but by 6:00pm Martin hadn’t called yet so we made up our minds to eat downstairs in the hotel restaurant. Before we left to eat, Christy called and said that she talked to Alison (quite the network here) and she said Martin had everyone’s visas but Nancy’s was not correct so they were trying to fix it for her. Nancy is supposed to fly out tonight so if they can’t fix it by 6:00 tonight, then she will miss her flight again because she will have to wait until tomorrow to get her son’s visa. Nancy has already been here a week longer than us so she was more than ready to go home.

We had to wake Gracie to go to dinner or she wouldn’t sleep tonight. Even though she only had about 30 minutes of sleep, she seems to always be happy when she wakes. We went down to dinner and soon after Christy and Grace joined us. While we were eating Nancy stopped by our table and said everything had been taken care of and she was on schedule to leave tonight. We were all very relieved for her. We eventually met Martin at our table so Becky went upstairs with him to go over the paperwork and give them their gifts we brought from the states. She was only gone about 10 minutes. We have all Gracie’s papers and passport and all we have to do is step on US soil and she will be a United States citizen. Wow!

After dinner we all retired to our rooms. Amy had to run to the store because she was leaving at 8:00am the next morning so we sat her Collett while she gone. She and Gracie played on the bed together then they both started to get hungry and tired. About that time, Amy returned to get Collett and Becky got Gracie ready for bed. Gracie gave me a run for my money tonight trying to take her bottle. She was throwing another fit like the night before. She was fed, burped, clean diaper, and everything else we could thinkof and she still cried so we put her to bed and she cried herself to sleep. She was out in less than 5 minutes.

Logan watched one of his DVD’s, I typed my journal (2 days worth) and watched some TV while the rest of the Allsup family went to sleep.

LIfe Is Good

2007-07-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

Day 16 July 30th Monday
Written July 31st and submitted July 31st

Today starts the week of waiting for the magical phone call. We are waiting for a call from our caseworker that says the investigation has been completed and Gracie’s visa has been approved. Several people here at our hotel have been waiting a little longer than they have expected so everyone is on pins and need. We hope to get the approval before our flight this Sunday.

The four of us awoke from our sleep and everyone seemed healthy. Logan is much better now except for being a little plugged up and Becky is running about 90 percent, which for everything she went through the night before that sounds pretty good. Gracie is always so smiley in the morning and always happy to see us. She has her classic open mouth smile that always reminds us why we made the trip.

Once we got ready, we went downstairs for breakfast. This wasn’t a good breakfast day for Logan because there wasn’t much on the menu he wanted. He managed to find a couple of items that he would eat and then he grabbed the room key from Becky and headed to the room to get on the computer. Becky and I sat with Alison, who has been here a week longer than us and is still waiting for her baby’s visa to be approved by the US embassy. We really hope she gets approved soon because like everyone else she’s ready to go home. After a quick meal, Becky, Gracie, and I headed back to the room to begin our wait by the phone like everyone else.

About an hour later, Becky called Christy to see if she was going to some shop a couple of blocks away and that she would like to join Christy. So the two of them left for some shopping and Logan, Gracie, and I settled in for the morning. It was about an hour later that I heard the phone ring from the bedroom. I yelled at Logan to answer the phone because the phone in the bedroom doesn’t work that well. By the time I got in the front room to see who was on the phone, Logan had the phone in his hand but said nobody was on it. I picked up the phone and said hello. Martin, our caseworker, was on the other end. He must not have known what to say when Logan greeted him. Martin told me that our visa had been approved and that the interview will be sometime Tue afternoon and that he would call us tomorrow when he gets the appointment from the embassy. He said he was trying to call Christy’s room because her baby’s visa had been approved as well so if I could let her know, then that would be great. Matter of fact all the visas had been approved for the parents in our hotel and the Melia. I told Martin that was excellent news and when I got off the phone Logan was looking at me funny because he has never seen his dad dance like that before. I haven’t been that relieved in a long time and I couldn’t wait to tell the girls when they returned from the shopping trip. Logan was happy but he’s a man with little emotion unless he just bought a gameboy game and can’t figure out how to advance to the next level. Then his emotions really come out of him.

About 30 minutes after Martin’s phone call, I heard the girls in the hallway so I opened the door and told Christy to step inside because I had some news. The girls were ecstatic. Christy and Grace have a flight early Thursday morning so getting our visas on Wed means she can make her flight. We decided to meet for dinner for a little celebration meal.

Becky soon got on the computer to email Todd, our travel agent, to see if we can get us a sooner flight. Our current flight has us leaving Sunday so we are going to try to leave Thursday or Friday. The worst case is that we would have to wait until Sunday. We will fly into Chicago Monday 8/6 at 6:00 am. Just knowing the paperwork is complete and all we have to do is wait is good enough for me at this point.

We didn’t do much the rest of the afternoon. I ran down to the tourist center to read the comments on the blog. I copied the comments to an email and then mailed it to ourselves so Becky could read them in the hotel room. Logan got his fill of movies and video games that afternoon. We could tell Logan was feeling much better now because he was having fun pestering his little sister. As soon as we told him it was time to read for 30 minutes, all of a sudden he was hungry or tired or something else was wrong with him. We knew then that he was back to his old self.

Late in the afternoon, Gracie was sleeping so Logan and I went down to happy hour for some snacks. Every day between 2:30-4:30pm the hotel has snacks laid out for the guests. They usually include about five different types of pastries or baked goods and Logan usually likes them. We took our seat at the front window to watch the people on the street. I explained to Logan the events that will be taking place this week so we would definitely be home on Monday. I asked him what’s the first thing he’s going to do when we get back home and he said PLAY! I don’t blame him because he’s been cooped up with nothing but mom and dad and other adults for the past two weeks but he’s done an excellent job. I told him it was important that he came on this trip because Gracie’s going to have many questions about the place where she was born and she is going to be asking him questions. It will mean a lot to her when she gets older that her brother was there when we received her from the orphanage and that we spent the time in the hotel room getting to know her. Logan seemed to take it in.

As usual when sitting at the front table next to the window, street merchants still like to come up to the window and show you their goods. The cyclo drivers will stop in front of the window as well and wave at you to take a ride with them. Even sitting behind the glass in the security of the hotel, Logan has a hard time with this. He will slouch down in his chair to try to get out of their line of sight. I told him they can’t come in the hotel but he just doesn’t like people standing there looking at him. I just smile and wave back and eventually they move on. About an hour later Becky and Gracie joined us at the front window. Gracie just woke from her nap and she was happy as usual. After a short while, we went to the room to call Christy to see if they were ready to go to our celebration dinner.

We all headed out to dinner about 5:30 to a new place that Becky and Christy found earlier in the day. It was a small place that served Western food but this was the first place that was a little smoky. As soon as the waitress brought our food, Gracie decided she wanted to eat NOW! She is pretty good about letting you know she is hungry but this time we received no type of warning. So we quickly made her a bottle and she was happy again. On our way back to the hotel we stopped by a shop that Logan had spotted earlier that sold gameboy games and purchase a game for Logan. They’re only $6.50 US per game so it’s hard not to buy them while we are over here.

We went back to the room and Becky got on the computer and Logan played his new game. Becky and I got Gracie ready for bed and she went fast asleep. Logan and I watched a terrible movie because there was only one channel then we went to sleep

Halong Bay Pics

2007-07-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

Halong Bay Pictures

2007-07-30T14:19:00.001-07:00

Halong Bay Trip

2007-07-30T02:15:00.000-07:00

Day 14 & 15 July 28th & 29th Friday
Written July 30th and submitted July 28th

This weekend we decided to leave the hotel and venture out to a place called Halong Bay.

We were a little concerned about the trip because Logan developed a slight fever and his sinuses were a little plugged. We gave him some Motrin and that seemed to bring his fever down. Becky and I thought he could have a fever and sit in the hotel or have a fever and sit on the boat in Halong Bay so we decided to go.

The bus was going to pick us at the hotel lobby at 7:30am so we had to get up early and downstairs to breakfast early. Logan and I went to breakfast ahead of Becky while she finished up on a few things and when we returned I started getting Gracie ready while Becky took her turn at breakfast. We made it to the lobby right on time. Christy and her daughter Grace were already waiting for us. I was surprised to see them already in the lobby since Christy is by herself because her husband David had to go back to the States a couple days ago.

We sat in the lobby for about 15 minutes before the van arrived. During this time, Tracy, Amy, and Max entered the lobby door from the Melia hotel to meet their transportation from our hotel. While we sat there some of the local people were looking across the street with concerned looks on their faces and they were speaking in their native tongue. Apparently an old woman got her foot ran over by a truck in front of our hotel. So far I have seen quite a few accidents while we have been here.

The van pulled in front of the hotel and the tour director (Phuong) entered the hotel to get our tickets and check our names on the list. She was a young woman who spoke good enough English to understand things normally on the first try. We grabbed our bags and threw them in the back of the van then took our seats up front. Phuong announced that there would be 14 people traveling with us today. We all looked in back of the van and tried to imagine how we were all going to fit. We made our rounds to other hotels in the Old Quarter to collect the other riders. Every square in the van was occupied. There was a couple from Holland. The young woman was originally from Vietnam but her parents moved to Thailand after the war then eventually moved to Holland. Her boyfriend had studied in America so he was very familiar with our country. One family with two boys about the same age as Logan was from the Philippines and the last group was from Korea. The Koreans were only traveling to Halong with us because they were staying at a hotel on land.

The ride to Halong Bay was about three and a half hours. They do give you a break about half way at a tourist trap. The prices here are jacked up pretty high for even US levels so we didn’t get much. We got the babies out of the van to get them a change of scenery. After buying Logan a couple of cans of Pringles and Becky an ice cream cone, we loaded back into the van to finish the journey. During the trip, the babies did great. Becky and I passed Gracie back and forth so she could see some different faces and this seemed to appease her. She seems like she is going to be a good traveler just like her brother was when he was her age. As we left the busy streets of Hanoi, the landscape started to turn more rural. When we crossed the Red River, the director was standing at the front of the van and started asking us Vietnamese trivia to see if anyone has learned anything from our stay here. We were able to get a few of the questions correct. Some of the people were starting to drift from the trivia test and you could get a sense that the director (Phuong) was starting to get annoyed at this. Especially when Becky and Christy were joking and laughing directly seating in front of her. Phuong eventually sat back down so we could watch the landscape in peace and quiet. The highway took us pass many manufacturing plants, long stretches of rice fields, and through several small towns with many small buildings with shopping and eateries that all looked the same from the road. We could see some large steep mountains in the far off distance but the highway was relatively flat. As we started to get closer to Halong Bay, we started driving past large rocks. These were the size of small mountains and were sitting in areas by themselves. It looked as though something has just placed them randomly in their positions. These landmasses were anywhere from 1/8 to a 1/4 kilometer in diameter to 1/8 to a 1/4 kilometer in height. They were really fascinating to look at and their numbers began to increase as we got closer to our destination.

Halong Bay

We passed over a large modern suspension bridge as we entered the bay area. The city of Halong Bay has a population of 9,000 residents but it’s a typical tourist town filled with many hotels and restaurants. We stopped at the docks that were located in the heart of the city. There were many other tourists eagerly waiting to get to the boats. We unloaded the van and followed Phuong towards the main building that was the entrance to the docks. We could see many junkets tied to the docks. The junkets were all basically the same style of boat. They were made of what look like mahogany wood and had two levels. The bottom level is the cabins and the second level is the dinner room with a sundeck on top. All the boats had slight variations to them. Ours had a shorter dining room but had an area on the front of the boat with a table under a roof. This was excellent because we sat outside in the shade while cruising the bay. After a short wait at the entrance we followed our guide to the end of the pier. There had to be 50 or 60 boats all along the pier parked side to side. Our boat was on the other side of another boat so we had to step on to one boat then walk across it and step on to our boat on the other side with our luggage and Gracie in our arms. There weren’t any handrails so you had to be very careful not to drop anything into the water.

The dock was very busy and we had to wait about an hour on the boat before the captain finished his paperwork. Our group boarded the boat and climbed the flight of steps to the dining area were we grabbed a table for our small group (Becky, Logan, Gracie, myself, Christy, and Grace). Everyone had to show their passports in order to spend the night on the boat; compliments of a communist country. These boats can produce of lot of black smoke from their diesel engines so every time a boat went to leave a portion of it would drift into our boat. The dining area had many large windows which were open and every table had a fan mounted on the bulkhead (wall) so it was quite pleasant even though the sun was very hot. The benches were make of wicker and had plenty of padding and there was plenty of space for three people. The paperwork was finalized and the passports were given back to us so we were ready to set sail. It was fun to watch the other boats pull into the dock because they didn’t worry about docking these boats without bumping into one another. It was kind of like watching bumper cars but not quite so bad. We left the dock and cruised for only about twenty minutes. The guide told us we were going to have lunch out in the bay. There was a nice breeze coming through the windows and Gracie was asleep on the bench between Logan and I. The crew started to bring the food to the table plate by plate. Eventually we have about 7 different plates of food to share among us. There was chicken, fish, tofu, rice, sprouts (grass), and a few other things we tried but we had no idea what is was, but it appeared safe. Becky and I shared a bottle of white wine with our meal. Logan wasn’t crazy about much of the lunch but he was able to find a few items he liked with one of them being squid.

Cave Tour

Our guide went through the itinerary when we boarded the boat and she seemed very determined for us all to acknowledge that we understood it. She repeated herself many times so I got confused and it seemed like we were cramming four days of activities into two short days. Anyway I think we were supposed to eat lunch in the bay, cruise to the cave for a walking tour and then cruise some place to go kayaking in another cave before finally anchoring in the cove for dinner.

We finished our meal then the boat headed for the cave. We left the area by the city and headed out in the bay. In the bay, several kilometers away from the dock are all the tiny islands that stretch all the way to China. These rock formations are just beautiful. The guide, who by this time has been nicknamed the “tour guide nazi” after the “soup nazi” from the Sienfield show, said that there were two thousand of these islands. The name Halong means deep dragon because the rocks look like humps on dragon coming out of the water. This place is just spectacular with its natural beauty. I can see why it’s on the list for voting of the new natural wonders of the world. It truly has my vote. We cruised for about an hour before we got to the cave located in one of these tiny islands. The small dock had about ten junkets tied up to each other side by side so our boat just bumped right up into the boat at end and dock. We grabbed the babies and followed our guide to the entrance of the cave. Our guide said to stay close to her because there would be many people in the cave. The steps to the cave were many and steep. We probably climbed about 80 feet to the opening of the cave and by this time we all had a pretty good sweat going. I figured the cave would cool us down since it is under ground. Not in Vietnam. Even the underground caves are hot and humid. The cavern inside was plenty spacious. The height from floor to ceiling was about 40 feet in some areas. It was easy getting around in the cave because they had cut tiled steps into the rock floor. This is where the guide got her nickname. She pointed out many rock formations and told us to use our imaginations to see if we could guess what they were suppose to be. If we didn’t agree with her, then she seemed to get upset. If people started to not pay attention to her, then she again got very annoyed with this. This of course made Becky and Christy crack more jokes. On about the sixth rock formation our guide pointed to, I finally got tired of agreeing with her and I said it looked like a triple scoop ice cream cone and Christy agreed with me. The rest of our group then smiled and agreed so I think you could chalk one up for our team. We finally get to the exit and we were all ready to get back to the boat. As we descended the steps from the cave, we passed by little areas with refreshments and souvenirs for sale. Becky and Christy stopped to look while Logan and I continued to the boat. We all eventually made it back to the boat where we continued our cruise. The boat cruised through the tiny islands on our way to the place to get kayaks. During this part of the cruise Logan was sitting at one of the diner tables playing his gameboy while we were sitting at the table on the front of the boat talking to the couple from Holland. Logan went to leave the table and he accidentally pulled the tablecloth with him and broke a small vase sitting on the table. He then placed it back on the table and went about his business. We then approached this little manmade floating island. It was a cluster of short walkways with little huts on it. Our boat docked and we mustered onto the front of the boat to get off to get our kayak to go to another cave they kept talking about. The guide said if we looked closely at the island, we might be able to see monkeys on the sides. At this time one of the shipmates came to the front with the broken vase and talked to the guide and was pointing at Logan. She looked at me with a concerned look on her face and said he would like to be paid for the vase. I quickly asked how much and he said 50,000 Dong (about 3 dollars). I said no problem and that I would pay him when I get back from the kayak trip. We then all proceeded to the kayaks while Becky and Christy stayed back with the babies. As Logan and I walked to the kayaks on the side of the floating island, we passed some holding areas with different types of fish in them. You must be able to purchase seafood here because you sure could smell it. The walkways were made of bamboo and loose boards for it was pretty flimsy. We made our way to the launching area for the kayaks and there was a big pile of lifejackets. All the lifejackets were the same and they were for a 300 lbs man. Some were missing zippers and other the latches were broken but we were able to find a couple that would stay on us in case we flipped. The Coast Guard would definitely shut this place down for sure. Logan and I took the next available kayak and headed for the cave. We had about a half a mile to get to the cave. It was a nice peaceful and quiet and Logan and I seemed to get a handle on the kayaking part. The water was very warm (go figure) and seemed very deep. We went past a couple of junkets anchored with people swimming from them. We eventually made it to the cave in about 20 minutes. The cave was a lot smaller than we thought it would be but it was neat to kayak through. It gets dark here at 6:30pm and it was about 6:00pm when we reached the cave so I told Logan we needed to start heading back because we didn’t want to get caught out there in the dark with the larger boats cruising around. We made our way back to the boat where we boarded our junket and waited for the others to join us. When the others were back on the boat, we headed for a calm cove to set anchor for the night.

Nighttime on the Boat

It was approximately about a 30 minute cruise to our night destination. There were already about 30 other boats in the cove surround by the rock formations. It was like being in the party cove on Shelbyville but only better.

The power to the cabins didn’t get turned on until 6:00pm so I went below to get the air conditioners started so the rooms would be cooled for bedtime. Logan had been feeling pretty good for most of the day, but we had also given him Motrin earlier in the day. The guide announced that it was time to eat dinner so we all took our seats. We chose a table that didn’t have a vase on it this time. Again they brought out about seven or eight plates of food. It was getting dark so you could see the lights from the other boats in the large cove. It was quite scenic. The food was good and I was very surprised to see Logan eating the squid again. He thought the tentacles were pretty cool. I also thought it was cool that nobody at our table was eating it except him. Shortly after we ate the babies were getting cranky and Logan’s temperature went up a little and he looked very tired so we called it a night and went below to our cabins.

The cabins were clean and spacious for a boat. They all had their own bathrooms and the air conditioners were new and worked great. Logan and I shared a double bed in one cabin and Becky and Christy shared another cabin and each had a single bed that was up against the wall so the babies would not roll off. The walls and floors of the restroom were all white tile because the room was the shower itself. The restroom contained a toilet, a sink, and a shower nozzle overhead so you just showered standing in the middle of the room (very efficient). Like Becky commented you can actually shit, shower, and shave at the same time. Becky and I gave Gracie a sponge bath in the sink and then put her to bed. Both babies were very tired and quickly went to sleep. Logan and I said good night to the girls and headed to our cabin for the night. Logan played with his gameboy for a while then we went to sleep.

Day 2 of the Boat Trip

We had to get up early to transfer boats. I don’t understand why they did this but we had to be up and ready to move to another boat by 7:00am the next morning. This is not a problem because they turned off the power and water to your room at 6:30am. Thank goodness we took our showers that night before going to bed. You have to shower at night here just to get the layer of sweat off of you. Becky already had things ready to go. We grabbed our bags and headed for the second deck. A boat pulled along side of us and tied up. The guide said it was time to board the other boat. Instead of climbing down to the bottom level and loading on to the boat we stepped onto the roof of our boat and then stepped onto the roof of the new boat. It was very strange. There is a three foot overhang that runs around the second deck that matched up with overhang on the new boat. This is what we used to board the new boat. It just didn’t seem that safe but we made it. After I crossed to the new boat, I grabbed my camera because I had to get a picture of Christy making this crossing with Grace in hers arms. She said her husband David will crap when he sees this.

We made it onto the other boat successfully and the boat we spent the first day on sped away. This boat was very similar without the seating area in front of the dining area so I’m glad we spent most of our time on the first boat. We made our way to an island that had a swimming beach. We had a hour of free time on this island were you could do more kayaking, swim on the beach, or climb to the top for the view. Christy, with her daughter Grace strapped to her, and Becky climbed the stairs to the top while Logan, Gracie, and I went to the beach were Logan swam. The water was clear and you could see small schools of small fish swimming by. The stairs to the top of the island looked very steep and to reach the top was about a couple of hundred feet. It actually took Becky and Christy ten minutes to climb all the steps to the tops. When the girls returned, Logan and I took our turn climbing to the top of the stairs. This was very exhausting. Thank goodness they scheduled this part of the tour at 8:00am because it was already hot. Logan started to poop out on me so I kept telling him just around the corner but after the fifth or sixth time, he stopped believing me. I could eventually see the top so this motivated him. At the top was just breathtaking. You could see for miles and in all direction were these little islands. It was worth the climb to the top. I can’t believe Christy climbed it with her daughter strapped to the front of her. Logan hit the water again as soon as we descended to the bottom where he cooled off before loading back on the boat. It was time to cruise back to the dock at HaLong city. We cruised another two hours back to the dock where we grabbed our bags and followed our guide through the mob of tourist and to the restaurant for our last meal. The restaurant was located within a short walk of the dock. We entered and quickly realized we were in trouble because it was noon and this place was not air conditioned. We took our table in the back and under the slowest ceiling fan in the entire place when the servers started bringing all the plates of food. They eventually filled the entire table with all different types of dishes. It’s hard to eat when its 90 plus with tons of humidity in the air, but we managed to eat a little because we knew we had a three and a half hour drive ahead of us. The guide said we had an hour a half for lunch. We looked at ourselves in horror at the fact that we were going to be there for that long. We ran into Amy in front of the restaurant and she said the hotel across the street had air conditioning in the lobby so after we ate we headed for this place to wait out the rest of our time there.

The Van Ride back to Hanoi

With just ten minutes before the van was scheduled to leave, we made our way back to the front of the restaurant to meet the others for our ride back. We couldn’t wait to get in the air conditioned van. The signal was finally given by the guide to go to the van. Everyone loaded into the van and off we went back to Hanoi. The only problem was I kept waiting for the air conditioner to get cold and it never did. Logan and I were in the front seat and the sun was beating through the front window. I fanned myself the whole time back to Hanoi; it was just miserable. Becky and Christy were seated just behind us and Becky said she could just feel very little cool air. Poor Christy had the guide fall asleep next to her and had her head resting on her along with her daughter Grace on her. We finally made our way to a resting place that was just like the tourist trap we stopped at on the way to HaLong Bay. We grabbed some ice cream and stretched our legs for about 15 minutes before loading back into the oven for the remainder of the trip. We finally made it back to Hanoi where they dropped us off first. It may have helped that the babies were crying and everyone wanted us out. We quickly went to our room and cranked up the air conditioning.

The Intestinal Attack

A couple of hours later I started to get hungry and asked if Becky and Logan wanted to go get something to eat. Becky hadn’t felt to good since we got back from the trip so she said she wasn’t interested. When Logan and I finally got ready to go, Becky wasn’t doing well at all so Logan, Gracie, and I went to get something to eat and let her lie down and rest. We were gone about 45 minutes and when we returned, Becky looked terrible. She had the chills but no fever so that was good but she knew things were stirring inside her. After I gave Gracie her bath, I laid her next to Becky on the bed to put get her dressed for bed. Becky quickly got up and headed for the bathroom. I think it was this time that she was about to explode. I could hear her moan and call my name but I had to tell her I was busy with Gracie. Luckily Logan was feeling much better. We could tell this because he was pestering his sister. When Becky yelled for a cold towel to put on her face, I told Logan if he ever wanted to breathe again he would follow his mother’s instructions to the T. I couldn’t believe it but he did what he was supposed to do. He must have felt his mother’s urgency in her voice. Gracie took her bottle and quickly went to sleep. Becky eventually made it out of the restroom and took a couple of pills to firm things up a bit and went to bed. Logan and I watched the movie Narnia then went to bed.

It was good to get away for the weekend to get our minds off the adoption process. Sometimes sitting around the hotel we have time to speculate what is going or not going to happen so this was a great break. I’m also glad to go to HaLong Bay to see a different side to Vietnam. Hanoi has been a good experience but it’s great to see it’s natural beauty as well.

Gracie & Logan

2007-07-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

Amazing Gracie

2007-07-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

Second Hurdle Jumped

2007-07-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

Day 13 July 27th Friday
Written July 27th and submitted July 28th

We were looking forward to this day all week. Today we are going to get Gracie’s passport and medical exam completed.

Pickup Passports at the Police Station

Gracie slept through the night! She stirred and cried a couple times very little, but it was a legitimate all night sleep. We were very happy with our Gracie. We were in a hurry this morning because Kim was going to meet us at the lobby at 8:15am to go to the police station to get the passport for Gracie. Becky and I woke before the kids so I went ahead and went down for breakfast. I was back up in about 10 minutes and then we woke Logan and him and Becky went down to eat together. When Logan woke up, he complained of a headache so we gave him some Motrin and this seemed to help. While they were gone, I woke Gracie and got her dressed then gave her a bottle. She’s always so happy to see you in the morning. Kim phoned the room at 8:12am to say they were waiting at the lobby for us. Don’t they know we parents have babies to get ready and we need the extra 3 minutes. We all headed to the lobby to join Christy and Grace for the ride to the police station. We arrived at the police station about 8:30am and headed to the same room when we applied for the passports the week before. This place is always crowded. It seems like everyone in Hanoi is there to get a passport. I know a lot of people in the States that go their whole lives without a passport so I don’t understand the demand over here. Kim told me to listen for my name being announced so I could go to the counter and sign my receipt and get Gracie’s passport. There was no way the person behind the counter was going to even come close to using the correct pronunciation for my name let alone be heard over this crowd. Luckily Martin stood with Kim (both World Child folks) to listen for the names while we parents sat in the waiting seats. It took two and a half hours before they finally called the names. During these long waits, we really get to see what makes Gracie keep from fussing. We will know her well before we get back to the States.

We were supposed to get our passports and go directly to the SOS clinic just a couple of blocks away for our scheduled appointment, but it took us so long at the police station to get the passports that Kim and Martin had to reschedule the clinic visit for 2:30pm this afternoon. The other parents took cabs back to their hotels while we decided to walk a short distance to a mall for Becky to get something to wear on the sun deck of the boat for this weekend. The walk wasn’t too bad because this had to be the coolest day since we arrived here. If I had to guess, it was only in the high 80’s but the humidity is still very high. We stopped at the mall and Becky was able to find something so we grabbed a cab and headed back to the hotel.

Dinner at KITI

We sat around the hotel room for about an hour before we started to get hungry and decided to get something to eat at a restaurant called KITI before our appointment at the clinic. This place is just one street over from the hotel so we were there in a matter of minutes. It’s a very small place that has Vietnamese or European style food. The front of the place was full so they took us to a room in the back where there was about four tables. Just as we sat down and got our menus, the power went out. The young woman tending the tables apologized for the inconvenience and we understood. It wasn’t as though it was completely dark. There was plenty of light coming through the front windows of the restaurant. It seemed as though it happens quite frequently so they just flipped the breaker and we were back in business. This place had great food. Becky took a big chance with a tuna sandwich, Logan had an excellent club sandwich, and I followed up with some sort of tomato, lettuce, basil pesto something, and fancy cheese sandwich that was quite tasty. It was only about $11 US. I can get used to these prices. We gave the woman the bill with our money and went to leave. She stopped up and said we gave her too much money and Becky told her that was her tip. The tip was only about a dollar. They are very appreciative here. We exited the place and rounded the corner to our hotel so we could make our clinic appointment.

SOS Clinic

We met Christy and her baby Grace in the lobby and Kim was already there getting us a cab. The clinic is only a couple minutes drive from the hotel (along with everything else). The building is 4 stories tall and takes up one whole corner of a city block. The clinic provides not only outpatient services but also emergency services. They will even make house calls. The doctors on staff are all from countries around the globe. We only had to wait about 15 minutes before we took Gracie in a room to have a nurse take her weight 13.5 lbs, length 23.5 inch, head circumference(nurse commented “big head”) along with a few vitals that Becky can explain better. Gracie started to exercise her lungs at this point. She hadn’t napped much today so she was pretty easy to set off so we loaded up a bottle and fed her while the nurse looked her over. Gracie settled down just fine. We went back to the waiting room until the other two babies (Grace and Max) were finished. We then were taken to another room to wait to be seen by a physician. We waited about 30 minutes before they called our name. The doctor introduced himself and said he was from Holland and asked where we originated. He was pretty friendly and asked if we were enjoying our stay in Hanoi. We said yes but we are ready to go home because you can only have too much fun.

The doctor seemed to be very pleased with Gracie’s condition. She was keeping her head up quite well and could prop herself up in a half pushup. Apparently that’s a test she must pass. We asked the doctor about the bumps on the bottom of her feet and a few other places. He said it wasn’t scabies but to put some anti itch cream on it and it should clear up. Her other rash that she had on the side of her head and in her folds around her neck are pretty much all gone. The overall assessment of Gracie was great so she cleared another hurdle. One more embassy interview and we are all done.

Logan had been complaining about his throat so we asked the doctor if he could take a quick glance at it. (Logan never complains so we thought it was worth asking) The nice doctor hesitated at first then grabbed the light and looked at his throat. The nice doctor seemed slightly disgruntled that we asked him to take 5 seconds to help us out. It turned out to be nothing so Becky and I said thank you and we were on our way. The doctor said he would see us next year when we come back for a son. He almost needed a doctor,lol.

We waited out front on the steps for Christy and Grace so we could share a cab back to the hotel. Logan didn’t look so good. I could tell because he started resting his head on me. He was complaining of a headache again and he didn’t look well. He looked up at me and asked if we were going to get a cab instead of walk. Gracie was passed out in my arms. She hadn’t had a good nap all day and it was about 4:00pm. As soon as Christy came out of the clinic we all took a cab back to the hotel

Back at the Hotel for the Night

Logan didn’t look good at all when we reached the room. He headed straight for the bed; not normal. He had a 100.4 temperature so we gave him some Motrin and he took his place in front of the TV. Gracie was still a sleep so I put her on the bed to finish her nap. It was easy to tell that Logan didn’t feel good because he wasn’t pestering his sister. He didn’t want anything to eat. Not even any pizza or spaghetti. After about an hour, the Motrin kicked in and Logan was up messing with Gracie (but not too close) and eating peanut butter and crackers and oreos as well. I hope he feels good tomorrow because we leave for our trip to the bay in the morning at 7:00am.

We spent the rest of the evening packing for our 2 day boat trip. Dawn and her daughter Eva were leaving for the states at 9:00pm tonight so she asked if Becky could help watch Eva while she finished packing. Becky was happy to help out. When Becky returned from Dawn’s room, we gave Gracie her bath, bottle, and put her to bed. Logan watched half of Jurassic Park before he went to sleep.

A Not So Exciting Day In Vietnam

2007-07-27T04:18:00.000-07:00

Day 12 July 26th Thursday
Written and submitted July 27th

We are just one day away from our second hurdle in the process. We have more down time today because we are just waiting to get Gracie’s passport and medical check tomorrow.

We made our daily trip to the restaurant down stairs for a visit with the other parents and some breakfast. There weren’t many people there today so we quickly finished our meals and headed to the tourism center to read the comments on our blog. We get such a kick out of some of the comments from the folks back home. We left the tourism center and went straight back to the hotel to meet David and Christy and their little girl Grace to go to the VITCOM (pronounced vincom by the Vietnamese). The place is a five story modern shopping mall. We met them in the lobby and jumped in a cab for the mall. Becky was looking for something to swim in on our trip to Halong Bay. She hardly gets in swimming pools back home so I don’t know how she thinks she will jump in the bay. The mall is typical of any mall back home. It’s just good to take a walk without someone trying to sell you something every 10 feet. We made it up a couple of floors before both babies (Grace & Gracie) started to stir and needed to be fed so David, Logan, and I took the babies to the coffee shop at the front of the mall to feed them. Logan was having a ball riding the escalators up and down between floors. It’s not taking much to keep him entertained these days. The coffee shop was called Gloria Bean and it had large windows that faced the busy street outside. We picked a table next to the window and setup camp and started feeding the babies. When the babies were fed, I orders some black coffee and David and Logan had strawberry smoothies. I sampled Logan’s and it was excellent. The girls eventually arrived with their bags and sat down to join us. We sat there for a couple of hours. It is nice to sit on some cushioned seats. The furniture at the hotel is beautiful but it is all wood so my tailbone is a little sensitive by now. We started to get hungry and the only thing I could see at the food court was more Asian food so we opted for a cab back to the hotel. Once at the hotel, we walked a couple of blocks to a restaurant called the Little Hanoi. This is the third time we have eaten there but we seem to find many items on the menu we like and we thought David and Christy would enjoy it also. If you want to be on the safe side, then this is the place to eat. It’s geared more for Westerners. After lunch, Logan and I took Gracie back to the room for a nap and David did the same with his Grace while the girls went shopping.

Gracie hit the bed for a three-hour nap. Logan watched some TV and I did some tying on my journal.

Becky finally made it back to the room around 6:00pm and Gracie started to awake shortly after. The phone rang and it was Joe who is flying out tomorrow. He asked if we wanted to join him and Amy downstairs for a couple of farewell drinks. The Allsup crew gathered ourselves and headed to the restaurant to meet Joe, Amy, and Collett. Joe has to get back because he must start seeing patients while Amy and Collett should be leaving sometime the beginning of next week. They have had some long nights trying to change their flight plans. There are now more single mothers here because the husbands have had to leave so you can sense the imbalance of testesterone vs estrogen. We had a few drinks and a good visit. Joe’s an easy going person for someone who was a Lt. Colonel in the Army and was also Chief of surgery in Baghdad. He’s very concerned about leaving Amy and Collett in Hanoi by themselves, but I get the sense that Amy can take care of herself. After a couple of hours, we said our goodbyes and we all retired to our rooms. Logan watched part of the Relic (not age appropriate I know) and went to bed. I hope Logan doesn’t have scary dreams from the movie.

Another Unusual Day In Vietnam

2007-07-26T05:06:00.000-07:00

Day 11 July 25th Wednesday
Written and submitted July 26th

Today we had a lot of down time. Everyone slept in and as usual we went down for breakfast. After some conversation with the parents, we went to the information desk to inquire about the trip to HaLong Bay for this weekend.

The hotel has a two-day trip that is similar to what the tourism center offered us yesterday. They can give us an air condition cabin (extra cost) with the meals and transportation included for $55 US per person. We were waiting to hear from Christy to see if she wanted to join us. Christy and her husband David and little girl Grace is switching from the Melia hotel to our hotel today so we will hear from her later before we confirm the trip.

After checking on the travel plans, we went up to the room to settle in for a long day. We thought we were starting to figure Gracie out when it came to her cries, but she proved us wrong today. She normally cries a little and sucks her thumb before she takes a nap during the day, but today she whaled away like something was moving through her system. She had eaten 5 oz of formula only a couple of hours before so we thought it couldn’t be that she was hungry. We couldn’t do anything to help calm her down so we gave in and made another 5 oz bottle. She sucked it right down and was happy as a clam. She didn’t get to be called “chunky monkey” for nothing. The girl can eat. She then proceeded to take a long nap.

This afternoon Becky wasn’t feeling her best so she lied down for a couple of hours. Logan and I played pinball on the computer. Logan is now in my realm so I put it to him while I had the opportunity. He’s impressed with how ol’dad can handle the flippers. He has been kicking my rear in game boy since we had been here so it’s nice to see him get challenged.

Sometime around noon, we called Christy and David’s room to see if they had checked in. They were there so we explained to her the deal we got and she said she was interested in joining us to HaLong Bay. David has to get back to his practice by next week so he is leaving for the states Friday night. He really feels terrible about leaving Christy and baby Grace. Unfortunately they’re not the only couple were the husband has had to return before the final paperwork has been completed. I am very fortunate that I work for Caterpillar. It is comforting to know my immediate supervisor told me to take as long as I needed to complete the adoption. I couldn’t imagine flying 36 plus hours alone with a new child with carryon bags and everything else. Becky told me not to get any ideas. Anyhow, I went down to book the trip with two cabins for Becky, Logan, Gracie, myself, Christy and Grace. It’s going to be a blast minus the 3 hour bus ride to get there.

While I was down stairs, I inquired about Asian Cup tickets for tonight’s game. Team Japan was taking on Saudi Arabia at the stadium in Hanoi and David had mentioned he would like to go. The crowd at the game shouldn’t be that large so getting tickets won’t be a problem. I ran into Tong (hotel manager) and asked him if he could get me three tickets for tonight’s game for David, Logan and myself. He said he could get me zone one and immediately jumped to his feet, pulled out his cell phone and said to give him a little time and I could pick up the tickets at the front desk. This man has too much energy. I returned to the room to finish Logan off in pinball.

Dinner at KOTO

David called the room a couple hours later and said he ran into Tong in the lobby. Tong had the tickets and had already charged them to our rooms so we were all set. We then all decided to meet at 5:00pm in the lobby to go to dinner before the three of us guys headed to the stadium.

We met in the lobby at 5:00pm and loaded into a larger cab that the front desk had called for us. Becky and I told David and Christy about a place called KOTO that was a non-for-profit restaurant that was run by culinary students that were previously homeless children. It is supposed to be a very good place to eat. It was located next to the Temple of Literature that is about a 10 minute cab ride. Every place we go seems to be a 10 minute cab ride from the hotel. When we pulled up in front of KOTO, it looked as though it was closed, but sometimes the shops/restaurants look as though they need are being renovated. As soon as we got out of the cab and he drove off we realized this wasn’t the case. The place was under renovation and it was closed. We all decided to walk around the wall surrounding the Temple and see if there was any place to eat close by. We walked completely around the temple and saw no place good to eat so we headed for the front of the temple to catch a cab. On the way across one of the busy streets (people were starting to go home from work) an older gentleman on the opposite side of the street saw that I had Gracie in my arms so when I was about half way across the street he stepped into the street and put his hands out to stop the traffic behind him. I told him thank you very much. He asked if the child was Vietnamese and then asked were I was from. I was kind of hesitant at first but I told him she was Vietnamese and that I was an American. He was so happy. He repeated it out loud (she Vietnamese and you American) and gave me a thumbs up; I just smiled and returned his thumbs up. I often wondered what the Vietnamese people thought of us adopting babies from here. Becky told me she heard they are very pleased with it. There are many poor families with the children working at too early of age and finding themselves on the street. We finally got back in a cab and headed for a restaurant closer to the hotel called the Paris Deli. We took a table on the second floor where there was more room. They have many selections on the menu but I’ve learned to not get too exotic. Logan had more spaghetti, I stayed with the vegetable fried rice, and Becky had a cheese sandwich (she was starting to feel better and didn’t want to blow it). It seems like the four restaurants on this street that we have patronized are geared more to foreigners and the prices are just a little higher but still not too high. I think we got out of there for around $20 US. The added bonus was as we were walking down the stairs as we left we heard Christmas music over the sound system. There’s nothing like Christmas in Hanoi in the summer time to make you feel cooler. We walked the two blocks back to the hotel were us boys got ready for the game.

Soccer Game – Japan vs Saudi Arabia

Logan and I went up to the room to get ready for the game. My shirt was soaked with sweat from the walk from the restaurant so I changed shirts and we headed back to the lobby to meet David. David had the tickets that Tong reserved for us. The tickets were for zone 1 and the price was $200,000 Dong which is approx $12.50 US. The three of us jumped in the cab and headed to the stadium for an 8:20pm game. It’s going to be a late one for Logan. The traffic wasn’t as bad as the other game Logan and I went to because Vietnam was not playing. It cost about $100,000 dong to get there by cab. We arrived with about 20 minutes to the start of the game so we were able to get something to drink and head to the seats. The seats that Tong got us were first row at center field. These were great seats. The stadium was only about one third capacity so there was room to move about. For not being a big soccer fan, the game was actually very entertaining. It was a close match with Japan, the favorite, losing 2 to 3. I wasn’t rooting for Saudi Arabia because of the higher gas prices back home. At half time the three of us went to the concession area to get something to drink. If you order something in a can or a bottle, then you have to pour it in a plastic cup in order to take it back to your seat. When you are finished pouring your drink into your cup, kids are wondering from person to person with large bags to get the recyclables. After David and I finished pouring our glasses, we gave the cans to the kids. By this time, there was probably four kids around us waiting for Logan to finish pouring his. The kids were pretty competitive about getting the can from Logan. One girl had her hand on Logan’s soda can before he was finished emptying it. As soon as Logan was done, a couple of other kids went to grab it as well. Logan’s eye’s got pretty big at this. Logan told me he should have turned around and threw it behind him because it would have been cool to watch the kids dive after it. I told him that wouldn’t have been nice but what do you expect from an eight year old. We returned to our seats to watch the remainder of the game.

When the game ended, we headed for the exits. We only had to walk a short distance before we grabbed a cab and made our way home. It seemed like the cab driver understood where we needed to go. We showed him our hotel business card and he shook is head yes. We asked how much to get there and he responded $200,000 Dong. We said it only took $100,000 to get there and then he pointed to the traffic. We said no thanks and turned to walk away so he said $180,000 and again we went to walk away and then he said $160,000 dong and this time we factored in a little traffic and agreed. Sometimes I have to realize I am only squabbling over one dollar or so. He started down the road but David and I both realized on the first turn that he went the wrong way. So I looked back at David and said I think the cabby is going the wrong way and David confirmed this so we announced this to the cabby. About this time, the cab pulled to the side of the road as he approached a street sign that had arrows with locations on it. The cabby stopped and asked someone walking down the street which way to go. We couldn’t understand the words spoken between the two, but there is a universal “Oh crap, I’m lost” language shared by all. He quickly turned the cab around and headed towards our hotel. He eventually made it to the Old Quarter and stopped at this dark corner and the cabby pointed up the road and said something like “your hotel”. It didn’t look familiar to me, so because of getting lost the previous night I told him to drive around the block and come from the other side of the hotel. This direction to the hotel now looked familiar. At night when the shops are closed everything looks different than during the day and it’s hard to find your way around. I haven’t walked through the hotel this late at night (11:00pm) since we have been here. The lobby was very dark but the doorman was still there and the lobby was half filled with the employee’s scooters. Logan and I went up to the room to unwind so we watched a little Terminator III before going to bed. Becky and Gracie were already asleep.

One Down, One To Go

2007-07-25T05:12:00.000-07:00

Day 10 July 24th Tuesday
Written and submitted July 25th

Today is the day we have been waiting impatiently for since we have arrived here. Today we are scheduled for our first interview with the INS department at the US embassy. The majority of the paperwork will now take place.

We are all starting to get into a normal routine. Gracie is getting up only once during the night for feeding then she quickly goes down for another several hours of sleep. Logan is getting his needed 10 hours of sleep with makes the days go a little shorter since they begin at 8:00am instead of 3 or 4 am like we had been doing the last week.

We all dressed and went down to see if there was going to be something to eat for Logan. Thank goodness he’s not a picky eater but sometimes it can be a challenge for him to get something he likes here besides pizza and spaghetti. We sat and chatted with the other parents as usual but this morning we were a little nervous because of the interview. Becky especially had several questions she wanted to ask the parents that already went through the interview. Becky had heard some horror stories of the interviewer asking some pretty particular questions about our life back home or how the adoption agency has conducted itself. I think you always get yourself worked up about the unknowns. I wasn’t quite so concerned because I didn’t know about some of the horror stories. Ignorance is bliss.

After breakfast, Gracie was getting tire so we went to the room for her to take her nap. After a while, Becky and I were getting a little anxious about the interview that was scheduled at 2:00pm Tues so we decided to get out of the hotel room and head down to the tourism center a couple blocks away to check our blog for everyone’s comments. It’s a real treat to read all the comments from everyone back home. All the comments and the emails have been great.

Planning a Weekend Trip

We loaded Gracie in her carrier that is similar to a backpack but she is on the front of the person carrying her. She seems to really like the carrier because she fell asleep in it on the way to the tourist center. We reached the center without any problems. We are starting to cross even the widest, busiest roads now with no problems. The trick is you have to just keep walking in the same direction very slowly and the cars and scooters will move around you. I don’t think we will try this at home. The tourist center is a modern building with glass windows that has good air conditioning and the computer connection allows us to view the comments on our blog. After we viewed the comments, we took a look around the room to see if they had any trips we would be interested in. Some people we have met have made the trip to HaLong Bay. It has over 3,000 separate little islands with boat trips that take you through the islands. We inquired on a two day trip that starts by picking us up at our hotel at 8:30am Sat and busing us to the HaLong port to board a junket (boat) and cruise the bay stopping at a cave and a place to swim. We will spend the night on the boat in a calm cove (I hope) that has eight cabin rooms (lower level), restaurant/bar (middle level), and a sun deck on the top. We will cruise the bay the next day back to the port where we will have lunch and board buses back to the hotel. The bus ride I was told is a 3 hour ride so I don’t think that will be much fun but it will be worth the ride. All the meals are included for $55 US per person. This will give us something to do for the weekend and should provide some really good photo opportunities.

It was getting hot and we needed to get back to the hotel to get ready for the interview at the Embassy. When we got back to the room, Logan was getting a little hungry so I attempted to order room service again from the kitchen. The first time I tried I wasn’t very successful. As usual, the first guy didn’t understand me so he had to pass me to another person. I told him that I would like to order a cheese pizza. He told me that just a cheese pizza wasn’t on the menu. I told him I would like a ham and cheese pizza without the ham. He sounded a little confused so I said to order a ham and cheese pizza and just thought when it arrived we could pick the ham off. The pizza arrived with ham cheese, green and red peppers, and onions. I see that I still need to work on my room service ordering skills. The pizza here at the hotel is very good but Logan had to pick the stuff off the top.

We got dressed for the interview and headed down to meet Martin in the hotel lobby. At all the interviews we have to wear long pants. I hate this because it is very hot so I prefer to stay in shorts. The Vietnamese wear long pants all the time. Only Americans and Europeans wear shorts here. We met Martin at the lobby and all loaded in the cab and headed for the US Embassy.

1st Embassy Interview

This interview is the first of two interviews with the US Embassy. The first is with the INS department. They take your paperwork and start the process of checking to make sure all the paperwork is complete and determine whether or not there are issues that are questionable about our adoption. They look to see if the child was abandoned, such as in Gracie’s case, that all the proper notification had taken place in our hometown. If any of the paper seems a little questionable, then they will call us back for more information. At this point in the process the Vietnamese government considers us to be the legal parents of Gracie. It’s now time for the US government to determine that everything is legitimate and that they approve the adoption so we can proceed to the second interview. The worst-case scenario would be that the US does not approve the adoption and she would have to stay in Vietnam, which then would force us to stay in Vietnam until the approval went through. We are positive that the process will take only a week so we should have the approval and move to our second interview. Pray we don’t get any phone calls from the Embassy for further inquiries. The second interview is to get her Visa and then to wait 24 hours for the Visa approval. After the approval of the second interview, we can then fly home.

We entered the building and headed to the second floor. At the top of the stairs we went through security. We had to have our bags run through the x-ray machine and give them our electronic devices such as our camera, Logan’s game boy, and Becky’s Ipod. We then proceeded through the metal detector and was each issued a visitor’s badge. The office was just a short walk from security. By this time, Becky and I were both pretty anxious but we tried not to show it in front of Logan. The room sort of reminded me of the driver’s license office except the people at the counters were behind glass with microphones and speakers at the window. All of the parents that went to the orphanage to get our babies together last week were at the embassy together. Everyone seems a little on pins and needles. The gentleman from the Embassy appeared at one of the windows and called for us all. He wanted to explain the interview process to us in a group and not as individuals to speed things up a bit. He said he would call the families one at a time into the interview room starting with the Allsups. It pays to have your name start with an A every now and then. At least we will get it over with first. Shortly after the briefing, they called for Becky, Logan, Gracie, and I to enter the interview room. It was a small room with several chairs in front of a window of thick glass with the microphones and speakers. There was an opening at the bottom of the window to pass items to the other side. The gentleman from the embassy was very polite and professional. He had a list of standardized questions on a sheet of paper that he recorded our answers on. They were all very straight forward such as what health insurance I had to how many persons resided in our house. There weren’t any questions that we had to hesitate to answer. All in all it went rather smooth. Gracie might have helped speed things up a bit during the interview because she was starting to get hungry so she was getting restless. The interview took only about 10 minutes and we returned to the waiting area along side everyone else. We were relieved to get that over with. When the other two families were finished, we went through security and collected out electronic items (Logan was happy to get his game boy back). We headed for the front of the building for another cab ride to a place to get Gracie’s picture for her passport.

Passport Picture

This was the easy part. We took a cab back to the south of the lake close by our hotel. The place was a small shop that took only passport type photos. The parents took a seat on a stool then put a white sheet over them and placed the baby on their laps. The white sheet is to give the picture of the baby a white background. All the babies got their photo taken and we took a cab back to the hotel. We were ready to change into shorts and head to happy hour for a drink. We met several of the parents at happy hour to give them the download of our interview.

Dinner at Little Hanoi and the long way back to the Hotel

It was 6:30 and Gracie was getting sleepy so we thought we would get her out and Logan was getting hungry so we decided to walk a couple of blocks to a place called Little Hanoi. We have already eaten there so we knew Logan liked the spaghetti. For the benefit of the gals at the gym, I had a cheese and tomato sandwich with a Tiger beer and Becky had a baguette and water (I don’t think things are going well with her) and Logan had his usual spaghetti. Jenny, the meal cost only $12 US with tip. Lol. Gracie was getting fussy so we fed her a bottle and left for the hotel. When we crossed the street and headed for the hotel, Becky wanted to see some of the shops down a side street and asked me if we could find our way back. I thought since we were only a couple of blocks from the hotel that finding a way back should be easy. We walked down the street and took a left in the general direction of our hotel. We started down this second street and things didn’t seem as bright and lively. We quickly made our way down this street and turned another left thinking we would be getting close to our hotel. We were being followed by a small man for about half the block and he started to get us nervous. I had turned around a couple times and on the third time I was going to warn him to back off, but he was gone. We walked towards a street that looked busy and all lit up. This place didn’t look familiar. I couldn’t believe we only walked three blocks and we were completely lost. I usually have the hotel business card with me, or the map, but since we were only supposed to go to the restaurant and back, I didn’t bring them with me. It was about 9:00pm and I was starting to get worried. We asked a shop owner where the hotel was but he sent us down the wrong road. We then asked a cyclo driver for directions and he told us to count 1 2 left 1 2 right and then asked if we wanted a ride there. I was in no mood for a ride and I thought I could get there faster walking. Logan kept asking me if I was worried and I kept assuring him I was not. Little did he know I was very concerned. When I was younger and wondering the streets of Korea and Japan with my Marine Corps buddies, I didn’t care about were the streets took us but this time I was concerned. The directions the cyclo driver gave us were correct. I couldn’t believe we got lost that quick. Every street here looks the same with all the shops so close and all the stuff displayed out front on the sidewalks. Becky said it right when she said it reminded her of the Decatur Celebration every night. We were happy to make it back to the hotel. I learned to never leave the hotel without my map and hotel business card.

After an exciting adventure, we all got ready for bed.

Can It Get Any Better????????

2007-07-24T04:07:00.000-07:00

Day 9 July 23rd Monday
Written and submitted July 24 at 5:00pm

Gracie awoke about 3:00am ready for her bottle and a diaper change. I made a bottle while Becky freshened Gracie up a little. She is so happy after she wakes up. Becky sat in the front room so not to wake Logan in the bedroom. Gracie likes her thumb so you have to pull her thumb out of her mouth and quickly put the bottle in or else she will have her thumb back in her mouth in a heartbeat. Several minutes passed and Gracie got about half the bottle down when Gracie started coughing. It sounded more like a hacking cough as though she was trying to get something out of her throat. Becky yelled to me so I rushed to the front room. Gracie was breathing but she just couldn’t stop hacking. Then Becky said we must not have rinsed the nipples well enough so she had soap in her mouth. Poor Gracie, can’t even speak words yet, let alone bad words, and we have already put soap in her mouth. We quickly rinsed the nipple more thoroughly and Gracie was able to finish her bottle and go back to bed where she didn’t wake until about 7:00am.

Early morning exercises down at the lake

I had heard that many of the local people meet early in the morning at the nearby lake to exercise, so I got out of bed around 5:30 and headed for the lake. Logan would like the streets of Hanoi during this time because the shops are not open and the streets are very empty. There were people walking in the same direction as I was. I figured they must be going to the lake for their morning workouts. The lake is only a few blocks away so I made the trip within 10 minutes. The lake was alive with people. There is a park-like walkway around the lake and it was full of people. The first group of people I saw was about 30 or so older folks that were doing some form of Tai Chi with a boom box playing some traditional music. This group of people was doing the same motions together. They formed four lines of about ten persons then at one point they all changed formation to stand in a single file line and gave each other back massages. While they were performing this exercise, many people walked by them on their way around the lake. The lake area was filled with thousands of people, young and old, walking around the lake. I took a walk half way around the lake in order to get some pictures and film. I ran into several other groups that were performing the same type of exercise, but I also saw other people doing several other activities. There were some men lifting weights, doing pull-ups, and sit-ups. I might see if I can join them later in the week. I’ll ask Mr. Tong at our hotel if the local people don’t mind foreigners joining them. There were a couple of groups playing badminton without a net on the same path as the walkers. The walkway is about 25 feet wide so there is a little room but very crowded with the walkers. Another area had a couple of men playing a game that looked a cross between badminton, soccer, and hacky sack. They used a larger birdie than badminton and the net was about waist high. They would use their feet only to kick the birdie over the net. It was fun to watch. It didn’t matter where you looked around the lake, you could see people doing some form of activity. And it was not only a place to workout before the busy workday, but it seemed to be a social event. There were some younger people walking with the elderly folks. It was my guess that the grandkids were walking with their grand folks. Sometimes we in America might think we have it better because our quality of life is better, but these people seem to have some things figured out. They seem to care first about their mind, body, and family before their work. I have yet to see an overweight person here.

The time was about 7:00 and I thought the family might be getting up so I headed for the hotel. At this time in the morning, I could already feel that the heat and humidity was going to be elevated. I didn’t do anything except walk half way around the lake and I had a pretty good sweat on.

Life at the Hotel

Becky and the crew were starting to rise when I got back from the lake. We got the kids ready and headed for the chow line. We sat at the front table by the big picture window so we could watch the local people getting ready for the day. We happen to notice a small tree outside the window was a banana tree. Here among all this traffic and people was a banana tree growing on the side of the building. It had about 15 small green bananas on it. It doesn’t take much to excite us nowadays. We saw some of our friends and got caught up on how they were doing. This was another day with no scheduled events so we settled in for another day of playing with Gracie.

After breakfast, Logan wanted to buy a new video game from the store down the street. They’re pretty cheap here so we told him it would be all right. We went upstairs to get ready for our day. Logan and I were going to the video game store, so I asked Becky which street it was on and before she could start with her directions, Logan said he knew where it was so not to tell us. Logan and I headed for the street. It’s funny that Logan doesn’t like walking anywhere except when he wants a game boy game. We left the hotel and turned left with Logan in the lead. We snaked our way through scooters and people to the end of the street. Logan made a right turn then walked about forty feet and then stopped and turned around. He spun a 180 and headed in the opposite direction. He walked another forty feet then stopped and spun back around. This is when I saw the look of confusion on his face. I told him not to worry because it all looks the same so it’s easy to get confused. We then decided to head back to the hotel room and get the directions from Becky. Logan had the look of defeat. Becky told me that her and Gracie would go with us so we all headed to the street once again. We crossed the street and walked about thirty feet and there was this very narrow store with video games for sale. Logan and I had walked right by it previously and didn’t even see it. The people at the store let Logan play with the game for a while to see if the game worked. He seemed satisfied so we bought the game and went back to the hotel room.

We just hung around the room all afternoon. We get a little tired of sitting in the room but this is precious time spent getting to know Gracie. She seems to be adjusting to us more every day and all the face time with her is great. She seems to be getting used to Logan’s crazy antics. He loves to get in her face all day long. Logan was getting hungry so I ordered some French fries from the kitchen. I didn’t have any luck getting through to the first person I spoke to so he put on another fellow. This guy seemed to know what I wanted but after about 45 minutes it was apparent that the lunch order didn’t get translated. Becky called the kitchen and ordered the fries this time and it arrived about 15 minutes later. Lost in translation.

Dinner Date with the Gang

All the adoptive parents from both hotels had planned on meeting at Al Fresca’s at 5:00 for dinner. We met some of the people from our hotel at the lobby and loaded into cabs for the restaurant. We arrived at the place a little earlier than the folks from the Melia so we took a long table on the second floor. Becky, Logan, and I had already eaten here so we knew Logan would be eating pizza again. I’m trying to stay mainly vegetarian for personal plumbing reasons. I haven’t experienced anything bad but I don’t want to take any chances. I tried the vegetarian lasagna and Becky had a club sandwich (I know the girls at the gym like to hear my take on the menu items). The lasagna was a little bland so I had to add a lot of pepper on it. I would like to put hot sauce on it but that’s like putting gasoline on a fire so I opted for pepper. Becky seemed to like her sandwich and Logan devoured his whole pizza so I’m sure we will be back again before we leave Hanoi. We had about 12 people at dinner so it was great to hear what everyone has been doing. It was nice to hear many had been in their rooms just like us. After dinner, the four of us went across the street to the indoor mall to get some formula for Gracie. We can’t wait to get her home and get her started on cereal. Logan was happy we were taking a cab back to the hotel. The cabby said 3 dollars and I told him it only cost 2 dollars to get here so we agreed on 2 dollars. I don’t blame them for trying to get what they can.

It was getting late so we gave Gracie her bath and put her to bed. Logan and I started watch Speed II on the TV but I couldn’t keep my eyes open so we shut off the TV and went to sleep.

Gorgeous Gracie

2007-07-23T09:39:00.001-07:00

Logan & Gracie

2007-07-23T09:26:00.001-07:00

Lazy Sunday

2007-07-22T22:52:00.000-07:00

Day 8 July 22nd Sunday

The Allsup family is starting to get back to our normal sleep routines. I don’t think anyone except Gracie woke up before 6:00am and after a bottle, she quickly and quietly went back to sleep. We finally made our way down to breakfast for social hour. Several of our friends were there so we traded baby stories for a while. The hotel workers really like Logan. They are always giving him high fives and asking him what sports he likes. With Logan being so shy, he gets a little uncomfortable with it but it’s good for him to try to interact with people from other cultures. We sat at the same table as Dawn and her daughter Eva. The girls decided to go shopping for a while after breakfast and Logan and I agreed to watch Eva for her.

When Dawn and Eva got to the room, Gracie was already sleeping in her crib. Eva is a cute little gal that has a spike hairstyle. When Becky and Dawn left Eva calmed down and went to sleep. She was probably asleep 10 minutes when Gracie started crying because she made a mess in her pants. This woke Eva up and she started crying as well this had Logan starring at me and shaking his head. He didn’t think O’dad was up to the challenge. I quickly changed Gracie’s diaper and placed her on the bed surrounded by pillows. Gracie was good to go because she doesn’t like those dirty diapers on her. I picked up Eva and walked around the room bouncing her around and finally she went back to sleep. By this time Gracie was back out as well. Logan looked at me and said “Dad, mom owes us big time”.

There wasn’t much to do this afternoon. We just sat around the hotel did a lot more reading, games, playing with Gracie, and TV. About 4:00pm we left the hotel with Dawn and Eva to the Mediterranean restaurant to meet up with Tracy, Max, and Amy. We sat there for a couple of hours catching up on what we all have been doing the last day or so. We left the restaurant for the hotel. Very close by was St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and it was conducting Sunday night Mass. The inside of the church was filled with people and spilled out to the front of the church with people sitting on small plastic stools. The church had a large projector screen with the mass projected onto it so people from the street could view it. There were many people who parked their scooters, bikes, and cars to watch mass taking place. We would have stopped but the babies were ready to get back to the hotel. Gracie looked like she was ready to fall asleep again for about the fourth time today. The girl likes her sleep.

Becky and I gave Gracie her bath and then Becky gave her a bottle and put her down for the night. Logan and I watched a movie together and then we all passed out. We can’t wait for the work week to start so our paperwork will continue.

As The Asian World Turns

2007-07-22T00:41:00.000-07:00

Day 7 July 21, 2007
Wrote and submitted at 2:00pm on July 22

Gracie has proved to be a good sleeper. She slept from 8-3am before we could hear her sucking her thumb from her crib. After a quick diaper change and a bottle, she went back to sleep until around 7am. The rest of the family is starting to sleep in a little these days.

We all headed down to the restaurant to get something to eat and see if any of the parents were already down there. This is the time of day that all the parents seem to meet. Today several of us were going to the museum of Ethnology on the other side of Hanoi so we quickly ate and went up to the room to get ready for the trip.

Trip to the Museum of Ethnology

We were almost ready when the phone rang. It was Joe who said the taxi was waiting out front so we grabbed our stuff and headed for the lobby. They were just loading in the taxi when we reached the front door of the hotel. We successfully crossed the busy street and jumped in the cab ready to go. Joe had to call for a cab that would fit all of us since most cabs here are very small Toyotas. Within the group going to the museum was Joe & Amy with their girl Collett, Dawn and her daughter Eva, and Becky, Logan, Gracie, and I. The ride to the museum was a 20-minute drive through more traffic that’s similar everywhere in Hanoi. I’m starting to get familiar with some streets close by the hotel but for the most part it all looks the same. During the trip, we drove passed several parks with large tress that provide much shade. It’s good to see so many parks in the city and the people seem to make good use of them because there are always people sitting in the parks relaxing. We only experience one dramatic moment when Dawn spotted a bug from her seat in the back of the cab. She said she didn’t know were it went but it looked as though it headed my way. This got Becky pretty excited because Dawn said it looked like a roach. A couple of minutes later the bug appeared on the back of Becky’s seat (she was sitting in the middle of Logan and I and had Gracie on her lap). It appeared to be a roach so Becky went nuts. I was looking for something to smash it, but Dawn saved the day by swatting it with her fan. Becky thought it was dead. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was just scared off and that it was still lurking in the cab. The cab driver seemed to get a kick out of this. The remainder of the trip was pretty calm. We reached the museum and unloaded the cab and headed to the ticket counter. The building was white and modern looking with curved walls. We all purchased our tickets and went through the gate to give another person at other window the tickets we just purchased. The woman at the second window saw my camera and said something in Vietnamese and pointed to the first window again. Then I noticed a sign that had prices for taking pictures. The cost to get into the museum for the four of us was 42,000 Dong but the additional cost to take pictures was 50,000 Dong. That’s equal to about $5.75 US so it was still pretty cheap. The lobby at the entrance was a circular open room that was two stories in height. You could see people on the second floor balcony. This room was the only air conditioned room in the entire place so we took a lot of breaks there. We arrived at the museum at 9:00am and it was already very warm. The exhibits usually had descriptions hanging on the wall next to them with English on the bottom. There were exhibits that explained the different languages in Vietnam and what families started them many years ago. It broke down what regions of Vietnam were populated by different ethnic groups. Gracie is a little light skinned so the area she came from referred to a certain group as “White Thai” so we are assuming she is part of this group. It doesn’t really matter, but maybe she might qualify for some educational assistance or something,lol. Logan was getting a little antsy during this time so we kept moving. He was a little upset because he wanted to put the sling on and carry Gracie but we needed to try the sling out on him in the hotel room first before he carried her. It’s great that he wants to take care of her.

We made our way to the second floor and man it was getting hot up there. There were some good exhibits of houses, weapons, baskets, dress, and other items but Gracie was getting crabby and Logan was getting bored and the heat didn’t help either. I took Gracie and Logan back to the lobby to cool off. The people walk by and love to see the babies. The people here will play with babies and squeeze their cheeks. It’s really great to see that babies are respected and adored by everyone here. Our group eventually got back together in the lobby so we decided to see the exhibits on the outside behind the building. We made our way down the steps but Logan didn’t see the first step and tumbled down several steps. Luckily the steps were very wide and not very tall because he stopped quickly but he did hurt his leg just a little so he, Gracie and I went back in the museum to sit and wait for everyone to return. The tour outside didn’t take long because everyone was getting hot so we had the museum call us a larger cab and headed for home. No bugs were found on the return trip.

Lounging at the Hotel

When we returned from the museum, we headed to the room to feed Gracie. Soon after her bottle we put her down for her nap and she went fast asleep. Man, the girl can sleep. The rest of us sat around and read, watched TV, and checked email. Becky is still trying to figure out a way for us to see our blog from the hotel room. She is very persistent.

After Gracie woke from her nap, we left the hotel to get something to eat. Logan keeps trying to get us to eat at the restaurant next door to our hotel because he still doesn’t want to walk anywhere. We told Logan that since Dawn saw that restaurant hanging their chicken and duck on a line outside all afternoon roasting in the sun proved we would never eat there. Then I quickly thought that this might be standard procedure for all the restaurants here. I sure hope not. We decided to walk a couple of blocks to a place called the Mediterranean. (Recommended by our friend Tara) It serves mainly an Italian menu with a large list of wine. Logan again had pizza and Becky and I had pasta dishes. It was a good meal but the price was a little higher than most restaurants here but it still only cost $25 US and that was with a glass of wine and a couple of Tiger beers. Not bad.

Walk to the Melia

After dinner, we headed off to the Melia to visit Tracy, Max, and Amy. Logan is getting used to crossing the streets. Logan went a couple of steps ahead of Becky and I because we were tending to Gracie and when I looked up Logan was about to cross the busy street on his own. I yelled at him to come back and he quickly did. This street was much wider than ours in front of the hotel with 4 lanes of traffic. He’s not ready for that one on his own just yet but maybe in another ten years. We made it to the Melia after about a 10 minute stroll. We ran into Tracy in the lobby who was on her way to pick up her laundry across the street. She said to go on up to the room because Max and Amy were there so we went on up. We visited with them for a while. Max is such a strong little boy and seems to being doing very well. He’s a little lankier than Gracie but the boy can really lift himself up. He’s able to can get up an all fours so he’ll be crawling very soon. We caught up with what’s been going on with them and took some pictures of Max and Gracie together. Becky used their computer to read our blog and look at the pictures that Julie has posted for us. Thanks a bunch Julie! After our visit, the Allsup family grabbed a cab for our hotel to retire for the night.

Soccer Game – Vietnam vs Iraq

The big game was at 8:30pm and I was hoping to go to one of the coffee houses on the lake to watch the game. Tong told me that was the place to see it on TV and watch the local people go crazy so I thought that would be fun. The only problem was by the time the game started, I was too sleepy and fell asleep shortly before the game started and I woke up with 10 minutes left in the game. Becky and Logan were already asleep before the game began as well. Vietnam lost 2-0. So goes another day.

Getting Acquainted

2007-07-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

A Day And A Life With Gracie

2007-07-20T17:43:00.000-07:00

Day 6 July 20, 2007
Submitted July 21 at 6:00

Our first night together went very well. Gracie slept until about 3:00am before she needed fed. She takes her bottles well since we finally figured the larger flow nipples is what she wants. You don’t get to her “chucky monkey” size without putting down the chow. She stayed up for a while after her bottle and didn’t get back down until a couple hours later. By this time Logan and I couldn’t sleep any longer so I got on the computer and Logan watched his Rocky movie.

About 7:30 we were all up and down at breakfast. Not many people were there this morning except a European family. Shortly after we set down to eat, the young woman worker came to our table to get a look at Gracie. The people really love babies over here. They don’t have any problem playing with or touching someone else’s baby. It’s really fascinating to watch. Since Becky and Logan were eating, I sat holding Gracie and drinking some of the syrup like coffee I have grown to love. The young woman returned to our table to take/hold the baby while I ate breakfast. Every morning before we got Gracie, we noticed the workers, especially the young woman, holding the babies of the other adoptive parents. I will be looking for this type of service when we get back to the states.

During our meal several of the other families made it down for breakfast so we spent awhile talking to them. It’s also good to get the load down on what’s going on with everyone. Sometimes we pass on vital information like where to buy Jiffy peanut butter.
While we were congregating, the manager, Mr. Tong, stopped by the group to show us some notarized papers. I thought I heard him say the Allsup family but at the same time one of the parents was asking him a question so I wasn’t for sure. Once we finished our meal, I noticed Kenny approaching us from the back of the restaurant. He told me it was time to go to the police station to sign file for Gracie’s passport. Logan asked if he could go so we both rushed upstairs to get ready. We returned to the lobby in about 10 minutes ready to go.

Trip to the Police Station for Gracie’s Passport

Logan and I had my passport and $200,000 dong($12 US) that was required for the trip. Kenny had a cab waiting for us outside. All three of us loaded into the cab and headed for the police station. Logan was happy to be traveling in a cab again. This was probably the only reason he wanted to go. Once we were in the cab, Kenny told me the process of notarizing the paperwork went faster than usual. He said it normally takes a while longer but since Mr. Tong at the hotel has a good relationship with the local official he can get things done quickly. Mr. Tong is the gentleman that took Logan and I to the soccer game several nights ago. The man is well connected. The police station wasn’t but a 5-7 minute ride from our hotel. The police station was actually several buildings all surrounded by a concrete wall. All the buildings were colored a faded yellow. It seems all the government buildings, and there are many of them, are pretty much the same color. They must have had a sale on paint. These buildings remind me of the Vietnam war images when people were trying to get through the gates to the US embassies when Saigon fell to the communists. Logan and I followed Kenny through the entrance of the wall surrounding the place. On the way Kenny told me that if it was busy, we might have to wait quite a while. We climbed some stairs on the outside of the building to the second floor and went into a room similar to a license registration office, but I don’t think they have one of those here by the way everyone drives. There were plenty of propaganda posters hanging on the walls that haven’t seen a coat of paint for many years. The place didn’t look that busy so Logan and I took a seat and Kenny headed for the counter to take care of the paperwork. We sat next to our friends from the Melia. There was Tracy with her new son Max and her sister Amy and next to her was David. Logan was behaving himself so far. After about a 20-minute wait, Kenny and Martin waved for us to come to the window. They wanted us so the officials could identify us by our passport pictures. Logan started to jump around a little bit and act out his baseball swing. The people sitting there waiting were watching him so they probably think all American kids swing their arms uncontrollably. After the woman at the window identified us we walked to another counter on the other side of the room to pay our $200,000 dong and left. The process took a little over a half an hour. Kenny said it was a very slow day there. We walked down the stairs and out to the street for a cab ride back to the hotel.

Lazy Day

Not much went on the rest of the day. We sat around the room getting to know Gracie. Logan can’t keep his face out of her face. He is very excited about her and is already a very good big brother. That afternoon Becky and Logan got hungry so they went to get something to eat while me and Gracie lounged on the bed. She had fallen asleep a couple of minutes before Becky and Logan left for lunch. Gracie slept the whole time they went to lunch and also when they returned. After Becky and Logan returned, I decided to go downstairs and get some appetizers during happy hour. Logan was under strict orders to read his book for 30 minutes. I got the only table at the front window and ordered a beer and headed to the appetizers. They serve pastries during their happy hour that are actually good because they are not too sweet. They are more light and flaky. The sky was gray and dark so it looked like to might rain. After a few minutes, the rain started to sprinkle down and soon it opened up to a downpour. It poured for about an hour or so. The people at the hotel turned off the air conditioner and opened the door to let nature cool the place off. Or at least they thought so. About half way through the downpour, Logan came downstairs to join me. He ordered a Coke Light (cracks me up) and played with his gameboy game. He asked if we could drink the rainwater and I told him that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. One funny question Logan keeps asking me is “Will Gracie speak our language?” I can’t get enough of that. I get the feeling that he thinks because she was born here she will automatically speak the native tongue.

As we sat there at the table, everyone started to make their way downstairs for dinner. Soon of the adoptive parents were at the front of the restaurant ordering dinner and conversing. Becky and Gracie also finally made their way down. We had a good time talking and decided to meet in the lobby at 8:00am tomorrow (Saturday) to go to the museum of Ethnology together. The museum has exhibits about the 50 or so minorities of Vietnam. It should be quite interesting because same of our babies have the same features and some seem to be completely different. We are wondering, along with several other parents, if Gracie is part of a minority.

It was about 7:30 so we all said good night and headed for our rooms. We gave Gracie her bath and got her ready for bed. It was a good night.

Gracie’s rash seems to be getting much better. The baths, creams, and air conditioning appear to be working. She had a congested nose in the morning so we sucked it all out of her and she was good the rest of the day. We determined the air conditioning was to low so we turned it up several degrees Celsius. We are starting to get used to it.

More Gracie......

2007-07-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

Here's Gracie......

2007-07-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

And Now There Are Four

2007-07-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

Day 5 July 19, 2007 We Got Her!

Let me first clarify the time difference for our friends and family back home. Vietnam is twelve hours ahead of Decatur time so if it is 12:00pm July 19 here, then it is 12:00am July 19 back in the pride of the prairie. Something I should also mention is I usually don’t write any notes until the next morning, so for events on the 19th I’m actually writing early on the 20th. I hope this helps. I also want to thank everyone for all the comments you have posted on the blog because it helps to hear encouraging words from back home.

Today Logan finally slept until 6:00 am. Logan and I switched beds because he was complaining about how hard the mattress was. It’s worth me sleeping on the hard roll away bed if he can get some sleep and not be a grouch in the afternoon. When we all were ready, we went downstairs to get something to eat. Becky and I told each other that we were going to stay upbeat about this and that getting Gracie will eventually happen but its hard not let your mind wonder to the “what if” syndrome. At breakfast we ran into several of our friends who already have their babies. It’s always good to hear their encouraging words and get their support. At the table close by us, there was an elder couple that sounded European that said they had adopted twin girls from Indonesia 26 years ago so they knew what we were all going though. They said at that time it took about 4 weeks for the process so for everyone to hang in there.

During breakfast down at the restaurant seems to be the time to catch up with all the couples at the hotel. Dawn and Eva joined us at our table for breakfast and Joe, Amy and their baby Collett was at the table next to us. Nancy, who is a single mother and adopting through World Child like us was with her baby boy a couple tables away. Her little boy has been fighting a terrible cold ever since we have been here. After breakfast Becky and I stopped by to see how Nancy was doing. She appeared calm but after speaking with her she seemed at her wits ends. She didn’t know what to do. This was her first child in a far off place with nobody to help her so Becky told her she was a nurse and starting suggesting medication. Nancy was concerned about mixing any medication she already got from the clinic. Becky assured her she could mix motrin and Tylenol without any problem and that she could have some of ours. Nancy seemed to be relieved after talking to Becky.

We got the call

When we got back to the room, we just waited for our phone call from Kenny. Logan played video games, I watched some TV and Becky was on the computer. After an hour or so the phone rang and Becky rushed to answer the phone. It was Kenny telling us that the plan was to travel to the orphanage at 1:10pm and to take our passports because there might be a chance that the official might have time to sign the papers, but he also told us we might be traveling just to see the babies and return some other day for the Giving and Receiving ceremony. This didn’t change our uncertainty of the situation. There was a glimmer of hope because the same thing happened to Joe and Amy when they went to get Collett a week earlier. They were also told that they could travel to the orphanage but their papers weren’t signed so chances were they would not get her then. At the last moment the official signed their papers and they were able to attend the Giving and Receiving ceremony. This was definitely a test.

Dinner and a Show

We knew we might not get a chance to eat so we set out for a new restaurant(Moco Café) we had not tried yet. This place was just a couple of streets away from the hotel. The place had a large menu of items consisting of soups and sandwiches. It also has traditional Vietnamese dishes and items from China and India. Logan played it safe with the spaghetti again and I had vegetable fried rice and a Light Cola (not diet) and Becky had some apple and something salad that she thought would be more lettuce but was about half apples. The place kind of had a Western style atmosphere; that’s probably why there were more foreigners there. The food was good and again inexpensive so I would highly recommend this place to anyone traveling here. We got the added bonus of a marriage dispute for entertainment while dining. Becky first noticed a young man and woman having an altercation in the back of the restaurant that quickly moved to the front by the door. Apparently the man took the woman’s purse and was trying to make his way outside with it. She was very determined to keep him at bay. The workers were trying to keep everything low key. The man finally made his way to the door but the woman wouldn’t let him outside. She started to go after him so the man decided to make his way through the tables. When he headed for our table, (we were in the front corner on the other side of the restaurant) I told Logan to stand on the other side of me in order to put me in front of Logan. Eventually the workers were able to corral both persons and get them outside. He looked as though he grabbed some sort of ID from her purse and she looked like she was going to get some help. Whether from police or from whom I don’t know. (And I thought I wasn’t going to have anything to write about today) We sat and speculated about what might have started the argument. Becky seemed to think he was taking her purse so she couldn’t get drunk (it was only 12:00pm and she wasn’t stumbling) and I thought he worked for the government and was taking her ID to turn her in for her anti-communists ways, lol. As we left the place, we asked the woman sitting at a table next to the door what it was all about since we saw her talking to a worker about the incident. She said the young couple was married and they were discussing money budget matters. Good luck to them.

Getting ready for the trip

It was getting close to our departure time so we headed back to the hotel. The street was filled with people cooking up all kinds of stuff and sitting all over the sidewalk eating their lunch. It smelled like walking through the carnivals back home. I would like to try eating some of this type of traditional dishes but I just don’t want to risk getting sick.

When we got back to the room, we changed into long pants (required for the giving and receiving ceremony just in case) and got the presents all organized. Becky practically did this the day we arrived here. At 1:00pm we headed for the lobby to meet Kenny with our transportation. We ran into Joe at the hotel’s computer on the way and he wished us good luck and reminded us that the same thing happened to them and they came back with their baby. I thought I was starting to come down with something because I was sort of light headed. I didn’t have a temperature so I tried not to worry about it. Kenny was already in the lobby and we were quickly lead outside to a van waiting outside. Kenny and the driver had already picked up the other folks from the Melia hotel. There was Tracy and her sister Amy, who we had met at LAX and a couple from Tennessee Dave and Christy. Everyone was very excited but there was a dark cloud inside the van because everyone knew we might be returning without our babies.

Ride to the Orphanage

We headed for the north side of Hanoi. We passed several very nice high-rise apartments at the edge of town. I don’t know what the portion of middle class is but it appears as though they are doing very well or very poor. Not much in between. I could be wrong because on the edge of the cities after we crossed the Red River we saw a large industrial park with many manufacturing plants. There was Panasonic, Yamaha, and at least 12 others. We past the airport as we left Hanoi’s divided highway and merged onto a smaller 2 lane road similar to a county highway back home. As we drove past the airport, everyone commented on how we all couldn’t wait to get back on that freedom bird. Vietnam has been great to visit, but the thought of living in a hotel room with a new baby is a little taxing. The van passed through many rice fields and small villages. People were hard at work in the fields or in their small shops along the road. The water buffalo and cows pretty much roamed were they wanted to. We drove for about an hour before we hit the Thai Nguyen province(where Gracie lives) so everybody was getting excited. I still had a light head and didn’t know what to make of it. We continued through more rice fields and small villages until we entered the city part of Thai Nguyen. The van entered the center of the city and drove around the circle and headed off in another direction. Kenny gave us a warning that we would be at the orphanage in a couple of minutes. You could hear all the cameras clicking on. The van made a turn into a street about the same width as the van itself. We drove for maybe a couple hundred yards (I still can’t convert to metric distances here) and pulled into the orphanage.

Visit at the Orphanage

It had several buildings all very old and painted yellow. The buildings were in considerably good shape. We all stayed in the van while Kenny went inside. There were young boys and an old man outside that made their way to the van. We all smiled and waved at each other. Logan asked if the old man was there because nobody ever adopted him. Too funny. Kenny eventually made it back to the van to show us to the door. We entered the front room of the orphanage. It was a small room with several chairs and the air conditioning was very low. One wall was glass and you could see a staircase through it. Kenny was standing next to a caregiver and said the babies were on their way. There was quite a buzz in the room. Everyone saw the caregivers walking down the steps with the babies in their arms. As the babies came into the room it was amazing. They were all so beautiful with their eyes opened wide thinking what in the hell is happening to me. We all got to hold our babies and change them into new outfits and take pictures. Gracie seemed to connect to Becky from the moment Becky grabbed(and I mean GRAB) her from the nanny. She was wide opened mouth and smiling when Becky spoke to her. I still had in the back of my mind that we might have to leave today without her. A short time later Kenny erased those fears by saying the official was able to sign the papers so we would be making our way to the government building for the Giving and Receiving ceremony. Everyone was so relieved. Shortly after the Kenny’s announcement, I noticed my light-headedness went away. My nerves were shot. I don’t realize the consequences Kenny was going to make if he told us we weren’t going to take them home today. He would have had to deal with the likes of Tracy and Becky and I don’t think he understood what that meant.

To the Giving and Receiving Ceremony

The ceremony is conducted at the government building that’s a 10 minute drive from the orphanage. It is where the Vietnamese government recognizes the adoption of your child. So we all loaded back into the van with the kids in our arms (no need for child sits here with the way they drive) and headed for the government building. The room was on the second floor and contained a long narrow table with seating around the table as well as along the walls that made it difficult to maneuver in but we were all able to get situated. We had to wait about 10 minutes for the ceremony to start. The air conditioning was weak and the clothes we put on Gracie was making her sweat so we couldn’t wait to get back in the van to cool her off. Kenny had us sign some papers and then he left the room. A couple minutes later Kenny returned with two older gentlemen and a younger woman that appeared to be an assistant. One of the primary caregivers who rode with us from the orphanage was also there. The assistant asked each of us to come to the end of the table to sign more paper work with the old gentlemen looking on. When Becky and I were done signing, we shook their hands and sat down in our original seats. I still wasn’t sure who the elder men were. When we were all finished signing our papers and back to our seats, the two elderly gentlemen stood at the end of the table with Kenny next to them to interpret. The one gentleman with a uniform on was the official who started by apologizing for the wait but he had other important issues to tend to. He wanted us to understand that it was our duty to raise them until they were of age 18. None of us had a problem with this. After he spoke for several minutes, he asked if we would comment. We all told him how grateful we were. I told him this makes our family complete. Becky attempted to speak but tears started to flow and she had to make a short comment on her part, which included thanking them for giving Logan the opportunity to be a big brother. The ceremony ended after about 30 minutes. It takes longer to buy a car. We were all relieved and ready to get in the van and head back to Hanoi.

The ride Back to Hanoi

The ride was great. This was the first time we got to just sit and look at her. She is just beautiful. Becky’s crazy antics and noises makes Gracie smile a lot. The babies dozed in and out of sleep and we even tried to give Gracie a bottle. Logan got to hold her as well. He is going to be such a great big brother. He just kept asking me if we were going to get to keep her. I kept assuring him we were. We arrived in Hanoi about 7:00pm and made our way through the cities. We dropped of the folks at the Melia hotel first but the closest we could get to the building was several buildings away because the police had closed the street since a diplomat from Laos or Cambodia was there so they all had to walk. The van then dropped us off at our hotel and Kenny told us Martin would be by tonight for us to sign a couple more papers to be ready. Not a problem since it was such a stressful day we weren’t going anywhere.

Gracie’s first bath

We brought her up to our room and got her ready for her first bath. At the same time we ordered a pizza delivery from Al Frescos to make things easier. About the time Becky got Gracie undressed, Martin came to the room for our papers to sign. I took Gracie while she was wrapped in a towel so Becky could sign the papers. Miss Gracie must of felt the air conditioning because she proceeded to pee on my arm. Pretty warm stuff. The paperwork went quick and then Martin told us what to expect for tomorrow. Before he left he pointed towards the air conditioner in the room and commented on maybe turning it down. I’m always amazed at the level of air conditioning the Vietnamese don’t like. We will have to wean Gracie on the Western level of air conditioning. We gave Gracie her first bath while I held her, mom washed her, and Logan got it all on camera. We visited with her for a while but she got sleepy so we put her to bed. The remainder of the night we ate pizza and caught up on emails and the local soccer scores.

Pictures to follow compliments of aunt Julie.

The Day Goes On

2007-07-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

Day 4 July 18, 2007 (Disappointing News)

Written and submitted at 6:00am on July 19th

I awoke around 3:00 am (July 18th) and decided to start typing since I can’t sleep. I don’t know if I will ever get my sleeping schedule back on track. Logan came out of the bedroom shortly after me so we will be hard to reason with this afternoon.

The menu wasn’t that bad for Logan today. A majority of his meal was spaghetti with tomato sauce. This is the first restaurant were the sauce has a red color to it and not light orange. It must have been good because Logan ate two helpings. That was good too because we didn’t know when we would be eating again since we were still expecting to travel to the orphanage. This morning he escaped the yogurt again.

The English chap that went to the soccer game a couple of nights ago with us was seated at the next table to so I introduced him to Becky. He said he was leaving today for the airport in Da Nang to catch a flight to Thailand for the next part of his vacation. He said he would be there three more weeks before going back home. I don’t know what company he works for but the vacation time sounds great. At the table next to us was Joe, Amy and their little 4 month-old-baby Collett. We talked to them to get some information about the process since they were about a week ahead of us. Joe had recently left the Army after 13 years as an orthopedic surgeon and Amy is a stay at home mother. I had met Joe in the lobby when we first arrived and I remembered him telling me he just recently got out of the army, but during our conversation that morning, he said during boot camp he stayed in a hotel. I quickly asked if he was in the Air Force because I thought I could have misunderstood him. He said “good one” with a laugh. This was another classic case of Jeff sticking my foot in my mouth. Anyhow, we chatted with them for a while and decided to visit their room later to further the discussion. We are happy that everything seems to be going well for them.

When we got back to the room, we had a couple of hours to do nothing. This is the part we hate the most. Stuck in the room with three English TV channels. Becky got everything packed and ready (this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone) and Logan was watching one of his new DVDs. It was the crazy English Mr. Bean but the movie we bought was all in Vietnamese. He went ahead and watched it and by the sounds of him chuckling he must have thought it was funny anyway. After we (Becky) finished packing, we went to the room just above us to visit Joe and Amy again. They were able to give us the download on what type of formula the orphanage uses and where we could purchase it close to the hotel. They told us what to expect at the giving and receiving ceremony and how disorganized it seems. All in all they seemed to have a pretty good experience with it so that sounded encouraging. They let us use their device to download our pictures to our computer. It worked great so we shouldn’t have any problems posting and emailing our pics(with a little help from Becky’s sister Julie. Thanks Julie!). After a short visit, we returned to our room to get ready to travel to the orphanage.

Disappointing Phone Call

We were all changed into our long pants for the ceremony. (I am not looking forward to the several occasions we must wear long pants because the heat is just too much) We were ready for our 12:00pm meeting in the lobby for the big trip when we received a call at 11:30am that the officials were too busy for the ceremony and that it might be tomorrow. The news hit us pretty hard and we both sat there with nothing to say. We tried to make it sound like no big deal in front of Logan but Becky and I were about to explode. We changed back into our shorts and laid around watching TV trying to make sense of this. After about an hour, we decided it was time to get out of the room and go get something to eat. As usual, Logan tried to get us to use a taxi but we told him we only had to go two blocks to a restaurant called Little Hanoi.

Little Hanoi

This place wasn’t far from the hotel. Logan is not only learning how to dodge the traffic but also the street merchants. I just told him to keep his head down and keep moving. The heat wasn’t nearly as intense today. It was an overcast day with a little breeze but the ever-present humidity is there. It’s a good thing it was a little cooler because this restaurant is open-air. This place was recommended by several people because it serves soups and sandwiches similar to Panera (yeah, right). Logan again had spaghetti and Becky had a BLT/C (C= cucumbers) and I had a vegetable sandwich with gouda cheese. The meal was good and cheap. The price came to about $12 US.

Shopping

After we left the restaurant, we walked several blocks to the Intimex shopping center. We came here the day before but now we needed to get some of the formula that Joe and Amy suggested. We browsed the store found what we needed and picked up some additional Ritz crackers to go with our peanut butter we bought earlier because sometimes we need to snack on traditional food from back home. After we left the Intimex, we headed for the shopping mall with four floors and air conditioning that we went to the day before. It was just a couple blocks away. By taking our trip in smaller segments we were able to keep Logan’s pleas for a taxi at bay. We walked along the lake on our way to the mall. It was a nice walk with the heat not as bad, but I promised Logan we would take a cab ride back to the hotel.

We browsed through the mall and found a place to buy knick knacks for back home. We also realized that some of the prices at the mall were cheaper than on the streets so we realized we were going to hone our bartering skills on the street. We found an electronics store that had a device that looked a lot like a flash drive but our camera’s memory stick fits into one end of it and the other has a USB port that plugs into the back of our computer. It was only $10 US and the salesman said he would warranty the item if it does not work (at least that’s what it sounded like). On the next floor we ran into Tracy and Amy who flew in with us and were also scheduled to go to the orphanage until it got canceled. We all expressed how disappointed we all were but to alleviate their frustration they decided to shop their anger out of them. We departed our ways and all agreed to stay optimistic about the process. We finished our tour of the mall and grabbed a cab for our hotel. The cab driver tried to charge us $4 US for the ride but we said $2 US. He then said $3 US because there were 3 of us but Becky was quick to say Logan didn’t count. We started to walk away and he quickly agreed to our price. Logan didn’t seem to be bothered by this.

Back at the Hotel

We lounged around the room for several hours watching a couple movies on the TV. There are actually some good movies on every now and then. About 6:00 pm, Logan and I started to fall asleep so we got up and went downstairs to sit at the big picture window in the lobby. It is always extremely busy out the window. There were some men busting concrete from the building on the other side of the street. I sat and watched them for a couple of hours. They were behind a tarp with an electric jack-hammer and then eventually using a large sludge-hammer the break up the building wall. After the men were done pounding the concrete, I saw them set a scale on the street in front of them and started stacking the rebar on the scale before loading it on a hand cart. When it was full, the women pushed the cart full of rebar down the street. The street was filled with pedestrians, scooters, double parked cars, and taxis driving by. It was fascinating to watch because all this is going on a street that is only roughly 15 ft wide with the sidewalks roughly 5 ft wide, got the picture in your head? lol.

Logan and Becky both had their heads rested on the table so it was time to head up to the room. We all got ready for bed and hoped tomorrow would be the big day.

Disappointing News

2007-07-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

Day 4 July 18,2007

Got some disappointing news at 11:30 am today. The World Child staff phoned telling us that the officials are too busy to perform our Giving and Receiving ceremony. So possible tomorrow Thursday July 19. Please pray that we will be on our way tomorrow.
Jeff will post later on our adventures for the day.

Good News Received

2007-07-17T18:56:00.000-07:00

Day 4 July 17, 2007

Before Jeff begins his long dissertation(sp?), we heard from our World Child staff today and it is a go for Wednesday July 18,2007. We will be leaving our hotel at 12:00 noon with a 2-hour drive to Thai Nguyen. Our Giving and Receiving ceremony is scheduled for 3:00 pm. I cannot believe in less than 5 hours Gracie will be in our arms, YEA!!!!!

I finally slept past 2:00 am, but instead I awoke at 3:00 with nothing to do but type. Becky and Logan were finally able to get on track with at least sleeping until 5 or 6:am. We all were up and ready to go by 6:30 am and headed for the restaurant downstairs. It was a tough morning for Logan because out of the 15 or so items on the menu, he only liked something that appeared to be pigs-in-a-blanket. He was happy that this was the first meal that Becky forgot to have us eat yogurt. At breakfast I introduced Becky to the Aussie gals that went to the soccer game with us the night before. They are very friendly and asked what we were going to do today. We told them we going sightseeing and shopping. Logan’s ears perked up and quickly asked if we would be taking a cab instead of walking the streets (he hasn’t come to terms with his fear of merchants). The gals sent they traveling for a few days to some Bay close but would be back soon. As we left our table we ran into the woman who is here by herself adopting a son. He has had some problems(cold like symptoms) and she seems to think the air-conditioned room may have something to do with it. I certainly hope the same thing doesn’t happen with Gracie because the cold rooms are a safe haven. On our way to the room we ran into Joe (who is also adopting with his wife Amy) from a room above us. We told him about our problem with not having brought the right cable to download our pictures and he said he had a flip-drive that we could put our camera disk into and download into our computer so we can send some better pictures home. We said we would catch-up with him later but never did. Maybe we will see him on Wed.

Temple of Literature

We decide to go see the Temple of Literature this morning. It made Logan very happy that the temple was far enough away that we had to take a taxi. It was about a 10 min cab ride to the temple through more traffic, shops, and street merchants. I keep thinking to myself now how easy it is to walk/bike across US 51 to get from the east to the west side of the highway. Except these people will actually try to maneuver around you. The temple sat on about 10 acres of ground surround by a tall concrete/brick wall. Another wall bisected the front and back of the property creating two separate sections. One section looked like a park with many trees and walking paths but it was closed off so we couldn’t investigate it. The other section contained the university. We could only get very limited information on the temple, due to the descriptions on the walls being only in Vietnamese. It was established in 1070 as a temple and then in 1076 it was turned into a university with the teachings of Confucius. The grounds had two large building with statues of the early leaders with artifacts throughout certain periods. There were also two large ponds in a concrete basin in which the water sat. Becky and I both agreed we could fix half the malaria problem by just draining the ponds of stagnate water. We ended our self-guided tour and headed for the cabs. We told the cab driver we wanted to go to the Intimex shopping center and he told us $5 US to get there. We told him it only cost us $3 US to the temple. He said the roads to the temple were only one way and would have to take a different route. I almost laughed at him because I haven’t seen a road yet where people drive only one way. Anyway we told him $4 US and he said no, so we proceeded to walk down the street. He quickly changed his mind and agreed to our terms. Logan was glad the bartering was complete.

Intimex Shopping

The cab dropped us off in front of the shopping center that was across the street from the lake and only a few blocks (if you can call them blocks) from our hotel. It was just basically a two-story department store that you had to check you backpacks at the entry because they must deal with a lot of theft. Becky did some browsing through the children’s department and bought Gracie some gifts. Tracy said she was going to buy her baby a Vietnamese gift for all birthday’s 1-18. Becky liked the idea so she found several items for Gracie’s future birthdays. We collected our checked backpack and headed for the streets. Logan asked if we were getting another cab and he was wasn’t happy we decided to walk but he did well. He is starting to tell the people no thanks. I just reminded him that some people needed to be told several times.

Shopping along the Streets

We walked along the lake looking for a small vendor to buy some water to drink. I spotted a place to buy water but it turned into a public restroom that charged for usage so we decided to keep looking. We crossed the street and went into the tourist information center again. It has a computer by the front door that we can access our blog since we can only post entries from our hotel room but cannot view the webpage with all the comments from everyone.

We went next door to a bar and grill on the second floor overlooking the street with a view of the lake. We ordered bread to snack on with drinks and cooled off for a while. It was starting to get very hot.

After we rested we made our way to the Water Puppet Theatre to see about getting tickets for tonight’s show. On our way, we stopped by a shop to buy Logan some DVD movies and a gameboy game. Pirated DVDs are great! They were only $1 US per DVD, so we splurged and bought him two movies. He got the new Rocky movie along with a “Mr. Bean” movie. The woman said the game was expensive at $9 US but we determined that’s half of the price back home for a used game so we went ahead and purchased it. I don’t think the DVDs will make the trip through the airport with us. We stopped by a couple of more shops on our way to the puppet theatre and found some small items to take back home. We went into a silk store so I could by a tie made in Vietnam for Gracie’s baptism. I wish I could say that was my idea but that belongs to Tracy. Way to go Tracy. The heat was really starting to get to us so we walked a short distance back to our hotel and collapse in the room. I went through 3 Tiger beers in about 45 minutes.

We met Michael and Dawn with their baby Eva in the lobby of our hotel. We chatted for a few minutes but the lobby’s air condition was poor so we headed to our room. A short time later they called our room and asked if we would like to join them for dinner. We agreed to meet down in the lobby at 4 and grab a cab to the restaurant.

Pizza for Dinner

This restaurant, Al Fresco’s was recommended by several people for the Italian menu and also because nobody has gotten sick yet by eating there. We took a table on the second floor. This was great because the air conditioning worked much better up there. Logan ordered a small cheese pizza and Becky and I had a Hawaiian pizza with thick crust. I’m glad Michael and Dawn suggested thick crest because thin must be more like a cracker crust. I had an Amber stout (they call it black) beer. I always thought amber was usually the color but here Amber is the name of the company. They brought Logan a glass of ice for his Coke and I didn’t pay any attention to it. Michael quickly told the server “no ice”. Way to go Michael! The pizza was very good. This was the first time since we have been here that I have seen Logan eat like he did at home. We will probably be back. It was getting close to our puppet show time so paid and left.

Since we have been here, we have been trying to find this place call the plaza. Michael and Dawn said it was right across the street so we all made our way there for a quick glance for future reference. It’s just like a mall back home except smaller and with about 4 floors of stores. After a quick trip through the mall, we parted ways with Michael and Dawn and we headed for the show.

Water Puppet Theatre

On the walk to the theatre, we walked by an International post office and went inside so we could send some letters home. The building was similar to the other French Colonial buildings without air conditioning. (I don’t understand how these people work in this heat) As soon as we got to the counter to ask for information, there was a young man ready to sell me postcards, travel information, and other small items that could be conveniently sent through the mail. He setup shop in a pretty good location.

We made it to the theatre and headed to the entrance. There was a sign that had the charges if you wanted to take pictures of the show. The cost to use a camcorder was $3 US and a still camera was $1 US. This is a scam because nobody checked to see who paid and who didn’t.

The theatre was small with seating for roughly 150 people and it was sold out. I’m glad we didn’t get there early because the air conditioning wasn’t that great. I was fine until about 2 minutes before the show started when this gentleman seated in front of us reeked of BO. On the way into the theatre, they gave everyone a free paper fan as a souvenir. I was working that thing overtime during the show. The show started with traditional folk music performed live. They were located to the left of the stage. The stage looked like a temple building with the curved roof. There was a large pool of green water under the temple like building (hence the water puppets). The puppets came from behind a bamboo door under the temple like building and acted out in the water. We were amazed at how they could move the puppets through the water at sometimes almost 10 feet in front of the building. There were 17 acts but by the time we hit act 10, Logan was getting antsy. The show lasted about 50 min. By that time I had had enough of the BO guy in front of us and was ready to get out of there. All in all I would recommend this to everyone. We quickly grabbed a cab and headed for the hotel.

Third Day and Still WAITING

2007-07-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

Day 3 Monday July 16, 2007

The day again started at 2:00am for me. I just can’t get on track yet. Logan didn’t come join me until an hour later so at least he is getting better. Becky is right on track. When it comes to sleep, she doesn’t mess around. I like getting up this early because I can keep track of the Cub’s game while it’s in progress.

The three of us went to breakfast at 6:30am. We are usually the first because we are the newest ones here. As time goes on I hope we will be sleeping in. Anyway, they changed the menu a little bit so this day Logan was able to find something more to his liking. I usually can’t wait until this meal because the coffee is very strong and almost resembles syrup. Good stuff.

After we ate, we decided to get an early start to the day so we could get out of the heat by 12:00. We decided to walk to a place called the Towers Mall. It’s just outside the Old Quarter and very close to the Melia where our friends are staying. I’m glad Becky and I didn’t tell Logan we were planning on walking the streets before breakfast because he would have lost his appetite. He still has a fear of street merchants. He’s probably more scared of the merchants than he is of our neighbor who dressed as the Michael Myers character in the movie Halloween. We made our way through the streets. All the storeowners were busy cleaning and arranging their goods before the busy day so everyone left us alone. This boosted Logan’s confidence. We took many pictures along the way. Becky noticed this chicken in the window of this very small meat market. The bird was whole sitting there and it was all a yellowish-green color. It looked like maybe they boiled it. It looked yummy. As we got closer to the Tower, the stores became more high-tech. You can find anything from air conditioners to Bose sound systems to cars. We got to the Towers mall after only a 15-20 min stroll. The building was mostly a high-rise apartment with some shops on the ground level. We toured the shops and stop in a convenience store to buy some water and other items. After a quick look in a golf shop and baby clothes store, we decided to see if we could find the Hoa Lo Museum better known as the “Hanoi Hilton”.

Prison Tour

The prison was right next to the Towers building. Apparently there was an agreement when the developers purchased the land for the Towers that they had to keep a portion of the prison as a museum. There is a little less than half of the original prison left. The tour was self-guided and costs $5,000 dong per person which is about 35 cents US and children are free. This is truly worth seeing. It takes your through the history starting with the French using it to detain the Vietnamese to the Vietnamese using it to detain the Americans. I tried to picture myself crammed with others in the small jail cell with my feet shackled to the concrete floor in the stifling heat of the summer. It was only 10:00am and I starting to sweat terribly. I couldn’t imagine what the prisoners must have felt. One section of the prison where the Americans had been detained posted information on how well these prisoners were treated. It almost described an atmosphere similar to a country club. I have my reservation about this. Anyhow the tour was interesting and Logan seemed to be interested in many of the exhibits especially the machine used to cut-off people’s heads. Good thing he didn’t take a closer look at the picture next to the machine. It contained the heads of three women without there bodies. They didn’t look so good. It was starting to get very hot and we pretty much covered all the exhibits so we headed for the Melia.

Swimming at the Melia

The walk to the Melia was only about 5 min but by the time we arrived we were ready for some AC. Tracy and Amy were at the pool so we sat along poolside. Logan was chomping at the bit to get in the pool but we didn’t pack any swim suits. We gave Logan the green light to jump in with his shorts on and as soon as we finished the sentence, he was already making a splash. We lounged about the pool for about an hour but it started to get hot at the pool so we decided to go up to their room. After we wrung out Logan’s shorts we took a cab back to our hotel.

Back at the Hong Ngoc for “the call”

We were told by the adoption agency folks to be at our room for a phone call to see when we will travel to the orphanage to get Gracie. Logan and I watched snooker(pool game) this afternoon. It was very exciting. Becky spent most of the time trying to load pictures on our blog. I could tell it wasn’t going well by the screams coming from the room she was in. We lounged around and ordered room service for lunch. Lunch consisted of two big orders of fried rice, an order of French fries, and a cheeseburger for about $12.00 US. Not bad. The lunch was good but Logan said “it aint no Kreckel’s cheeseburger”. About 2:00pm the phone rang. It was the Kenny from the agency to tell us that we wouldn’t be traveling to the orphanage today or Tuesday but that it should be Wednesday. So we decided to make the best of it and try to keep ourselves busy.

Logan and I both were on the bed watching TV after the phone call. It was very difficult not to want to take a nap. Logan kept closing his eyes but his mother’s screams coming from the other room was waking him up (just kidding). We decided to go down stairs to happy hour. We just sat at the front window and watched the traffic go by. The cyclo drivers still wave at you through the window while you are sitting inside the building to see if you wanted a ride. Tong was on duty that afternoon. He is the gentleman that asked if we wanted to go to the soccer game the day before. I told him Logan was pretty tired so I didn’t think we would go. Shortly after he left, we thought it would be a good way for us to stay awake.

Asian Cup Soccer

I asked Tong if his offer was still good. He said to be down at the lobby at 4:30. Logan and I had several minutes so we went up to get ready and returned a couple of minutes early ready to go. Tong had his 7 year old son with him and also waiting was three other guests from the hotel. These included one chap from England and two gals from Australia. Everyone in our group knew soccer very well except Logan and I. We loaded into a mini van cab and left for the game. This was the Asian Cup with Vietnam playing Japan for the semi finals so it was a very important game. As we got closer to the stadium the traffic was just crazy. I have never seen anything like it before. There were people on scooter, car, buses, and trucks coming from all directions. I got the sense that Tong didn’t have all his tickets he needed because he was really working his cell phone on the cab ride to the game. When we arrived at the stadium and started walking to the entrance, Tong was working his magic to get the remainder of the tickets needed. Once we got through the main gate, Tong passed his tickets back through the fence so his other friends could get in the game. There were probably twice as many people there as there were seats. As soon as we reached the top of the stadium steps the crowd let out a loud roar. The Vietnamese team had already scored the first goal. Too bad we missed it because that was the only goal they scored for the remainder of the game. The Vietnamese team was just out matched. When we got to our seats, Tong asked if we wanted something to drink so he went to get us all water. He returned with two bags containing 6 sandwich size plastic bags with drinking straws in them. I hope I didn’t disrespect him, but I had to ask if it was bottled water. He said they put bottled liquid in bags because people will throw the bottles towards the field. We saw many full bags flying over our heads during the game. It was fun to watch the crowd. They were really fired up. It’s too bad their team didn’t win.

After the game we headed for the exits to find a cab. Tong was again working his magic to find us a cab. This guy is really connected. We walked in the crowd of people, scooters, and cars for about 15 minutes when we approached a cab waiting for us. We piled in the cab for the long ride home. The traffic on the return trip was ecstatic about their loss. There were people celebrating everywhere. A truck passed us with people at the back beating drums and blowing horns. (I couldn’t believe it but there was a scooter with two people sitting on four half sheets of what appeared to be drywall) Logan fell asleep on my shoulder on the trip back to the hotel. When we reached the hotel, it took me several tries to get him out of the cab. He was totally exhausted. As he walked through the lobby, he drew several grins because the people could tell he was a walking zombie. When we got to the room, his mother wanted him to take a shower and I said he would never stay awake so he just headed to bed. I don’t think he will wake so early tomorrow.

2007-07-15T23:53:00.001-07:00

Picture Gallery

2007-07-15T22:32:00.001-07:00

Front of our Hotel

Down the street from hotel (hotel in the middle, find WALDO)

Here's Dinner Looking Back At You!

St. Joseph Catholic Church

Across the street from our hotel

Getting Used to our Surroundings

2007-07-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

Day 2 Sunday July 15, 2007

We still have our nights and days mixed up. I awoke at 2:00 am wide-awake and decided to start writing our journal. Logan soon joined me with his movie DVD player. Becky didn’t seem to have a problem sleeping until sometime around 6:00 am, good for her. After we all were up and ready, we all got dressed and went downstairs to get some breakfast. The hotel has an elevator but since we are on the third floor we just use the stairs. One must be very careful while using the stairs of this hotel because the tread height is not always the same. They can range from 4 inches to what appears to be about 10 inches or even more. The building standards could use some updating here. The restaurant shares the same space as the bar and it holds about 12-15 tables. They offer a buffet every morning that comes with the price of the room. The food is pretty good but Logan is still not able to find anything that he will just tear into. The menu has rice (of course), vegetables and noodles, cereal, some sort of sausage roll, eggs easy-side up, flavored rice with vegetables, and an assortment of rolls, croissants, donuts (not like Golden Glaze), and pastries. I kind of stayed with the rice and noodle items so it was a lot like dinner. Becky got a little gutsy by trying the milk. Since she normally has to have it very cold, this didn’t seem to work for her. She still makes Logan and I eat yogurt every time we see it on the table to try and prevent any bacterial problems.

While we were eating breakfast one of the hotel staff, who spoke very good English, came to our table and starting messing with Logan. His name is Tong and he has a child that is 6 years old. He along with everyone over here is amazed at how tall Logan is for his age. Tong asked Logan what sports he liked to play so Logan told him baseball, basketball, and football. Tong asked if he liked soccer so Logan looked at me and I told Tong we were fans of soccer now because that’s all we can get on our TV in our room. He asked if we wanted to go watch Vietnam play I believe Japan on Monday night. This is the first time Vietnam has made it to the playoffs in whatever league they are in so it will be a huge event. I told Tong we might not be here because we may be going to get our baby but if we are back in time, then Logan and I would like to go. I only hope we all don’t have to ride on one scooter to the game.

First Meeting with Kim

We were getting ready for our walk to the lake when the phone rang. I answered the phone. There was a woman’s voice on the line and the only thing I could make out was she wanted to come up to visit. I guessed it was someone from the agency so I said come on up. It was Kim from World Child International and she was introducing herself and giving us some information for the next couple of days. When she entered the room, she shook Becky’s hand then Becky gave her a hug. Becky said she could tell Kim stiffened up because apparently Vietnamese don’t like to be hugged. God Bless Becky, but it’s just a natural reaction for her. Kim told us that our receiving date may still be Monday or Tuesday but we can contact them by phone on Monday to get an update. Kim also said she would call as soon as she heard. I will bet the house Becky calls her first. Kim briefed us on the sequence of events that will take place over the next couple of weeks. Her English is not bad but I don’t think she understands us all the time. I asked her a question that was an “either or” question and she replied yes. On a couple of occasions we had to try a couple times to explain ourselves. This is when Becky decided that the problem must be that Kim just can’t hear us so Becky kicked up the volume. Anyway the meeting went well and Kim told us to take it easy and that she would be in contact soon.

Our Walk Around the Lake

After our meeting with Kim we decided to try walking the streets again to get a look at the Old Quarter. The place where our hotel is located is right in the middle of what they call the Old Quarter. It is a network of 36 roads (none of them square) that are lined with many shops and cafes. Each road’s name starts with “Hang” which means merchant. The next part of the name is what the merchants specialize in (e.g. silk, tin, hats, etc) so all the shops are grouped in specific areas of the Old Quarter. We left the hotel and headed for a nearby lake that is roughly ½ kilometer from the hotel. It was 10:00 and the heat was already very intense. I honestly don’t see how anyone can get used to this heat. We started on the same path as we did the previous night when we got something to eat. On the way to the lake we were approached by an old woman selling stick/cloth fans (no fan water bottles here). Another couple had advised us to get some because the orphanage is smoldering hot so the fans are a must so Becky proceeded to barter with the old woman. This concerned Logan because he thought mom should stop arguing with the old woman and just pay the price. Logan will definitely need his mother when he buys his first car. Becky and the old woman came to a price they both agreed and we were again on our way. We reached the lake in about 10 minutes and we seemed to get through the traffic much better than the night before. This was good because as we reached the lake and there was a wide road with much more traffic that we had to cross. We just closed our eyes and ran (just kidding). This seemed to work because we made it. The park around the lake had several stone paths intertwining each other that circled the lake. It took us about an hour to walk around it. There was plenty of shade from the numerous large trees so we were able to stay out of the sun. We got plenty of looks from the locals. There is just not to many red heads here in Vietnam. About half way around the lake a young man who thought he spoke good English approached us. He struck up a conversation with Becky and they seemed to by hitting it off so Logan and I trailed them. After walking with us for a couple of minutes, the young man asked if we would like him to be our interpreter for the next couple of weeks for a small fee. We politely said no and he wished us a good day. I am amazed at how these people think of goods and services to sell. As we continued our trip we spotted the Water Puppet Theater across the busy-wide street. We crossed the street but this time I had my camcorder pointed at the oncoming traffic. If not to only capture the thrill of the moment but also for insurance purposes. Before we went up to the ticket window, we walked through a couple of hat shops. There was a woman who was carrying fruit for sale. We didn’t want any because it could make us sick so we said no. She proceeded to put her hat and carrying device on Logan so we could get a picture. I didn’t realize that after the picture, she wanted money. We paid her a quarter worth of dong and she finally left us alone. This didn’t help Logan’s fear of walking the streets of Hanoi. The tickets were all sold out for the shows we wanted for the puppet show so we decided to try again another day. It was getting very hot so we finished our walk and headed for the hotel.

Relaxing at the Hotel

We are still trying to get over this jet lag along with the time change. Back at the room we decided to have Logan read for a half hour. Becky did the same while I started on my nap. After Logan finished his book, he laid between Becky and I and we all fell asleep from 1:00-5:00pm. We missed happy hour down stairs. After we woke up and got ready, we took a cab to the Melia hotel where the others are staying.

Meeting with Martin and Kenny

While the doorman was getting us a cab, I was approached by two young men that were dressed casual and they also knew my name. I figured they had to be from World Child so I signaled to Becky to come and meet them. They were Martin and Kenny both from World Child and they wanted to introduce themselves. I got from them that they were just visiting with some friends and they just happen to see us. They were a lot younger than I thought they would be and both were very friendly. I often catch myself wondering what this place would have been like thirty years ago and how unwelcomed we would have been then. Anyway the taxi was waiting (this also bothered Logan) so we said good-bye and hoped we would see them Monday or Tuesday. We jumped in the cab to the Melia; the cab ride cost 2 US dollars.

Melia Hotel Visit with Friends

This hotel is not far from ours but it is worlds apart. It is more of a Western style hotel with a large drive with big automated glass doors. The entry is large and spacious and it resembles something similar to a Hilton class hotel. The friends we met on the plane, Tracy Precepe and her sister Amy, both stay at this hotel along with some other couples, Samatha and Tom McCall and their new daughter Molly and Michelle Shaw (not sure what her daughters name is) that Becky has kept in contact with. We tried the rooms of several people but nobody was there. After walking around the hotel trying to explain to Logan why we couldn’t change hotels and stay there, we ran into Tracey and Amy in the hallway. They just returned from some shopping and were in need for some air conditioning so we went to their room to chat. We compared notes from the day because they also got a visit from Kim. After a while Becky, I, and Logan decided to eat at the restaurant at this hotel. It was $18.00 US per person and they didn’t charge for Logan. It happened to be African night at the buffet and it was quite good. They had many different types of food but Logan stuck to the fried potatoes and fried shrimp. The meal also came with unlimited soft drinks and draught beer, not bad. While we ate, it just poured down rain outside. We saw flashes of lightning but we never heard any thunder. It was very strange. I remember it doing the very thing when I was on Okinawa years ago. The storm still didn’t stop all the scooters. Although it did reduce the numbers scooters, there were still several hard-core riders out in it. We finished our meal and took a cab back to our hotel. Our cab driver drove passed a church on the way back and Becky ask if it was a Catholic church. The driver said yes and asked if we were Catholic. He was happy to hear us say that we were Catholic and told us that his name was a Christian name. It was one that I never I heard before. He dropped us off at the hotel and we retired for the night.

We Have Arrived Safe and Sound

2007-07-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

Day 1 Traveling to Vietnam

Flight
We started the day from Decatur at 10:00am Thursday and drove to Kevin and Sue’s house in Lagrange because he drove us to O’Hare airport. All of our flights went right on schedule. The legs of our trip were Chicago to L.A., L.A. to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong to Vietnam. At the end of our journey, it all totaled 36 hours. 21 hours actual flying time and the remainder either layover or traveling to and from the airports.

We all did really well on the flights. I was especially proud at how well Logan did. I knew he would travel well and he proved it.

We met up with Tracey and her sister Amy at L.A. who is also going to Vietnam to adopt Max. They flew to Hong Kong a couple of hours before our flight but we were able to see them again because we had to same flight from Hong Kong to Vietnam.

The flight from L.A. to Hong Kong was very long (14 hrs) but we were able to get a few hours of sleep in the beginning of the flight But since our bodies were still on Decatur time, we were up most of the flight. The only problem we had on the flight was a teenager who was sitting across the aisle from me vomited all over the place. The flight attendants were quick to clean it up so it wasn’t that bad. Becky and I kind of felt sorry for him and for the guy who sat in front of him because he got the blunt of the nasty stuff.

Trip from the airport to the hotel
When we arrived at Hanoi airport, you can tell the country is quite poor. The terminal is very old and in need of renovating. We were loaded onto old buses that gave off lots of exhaust and transported to the main terminal. The terminal is quite small, about the size of Bloomington’s terminal, so we were able to quickly get through customs, obtain our bags, and proceed to the front of the terminal to find our ride. There was a young man with a sign that had our names on it and the name of the hotel we were staying at. Within 10 min, he had us with baggage in a car and on our way to the hotel.

The car was a late model car that was very comfortable. The driver was a young man who spoke pretty good English and was very friendly. There were a couple of times he had me confused but Becky was able to follow what he was saying. We chatted to him about the traffic, weather, and mostly about the people of Vietnam. The drive to Hanoi was quite an experience. This is where you get to cut your teeth on the driving styles of Vietnam. It appears most people opt for motor scooters as their mode of travel. Some scooters have anywhere from one to four/five persons on them and some people carrying large amounts of goods their scooters. We saw one fellow carrying at least 50-75 cartons of eggs on his scooter. I asked the driver if there were many accidents. He said that he had just pasted an accident on his way to pick us up at the airport. We pasted the same accident in which he spoke about on our way to our hotel. A scooter carrying two people were hit by a delivery truck and the persons died. We saw what was left of the scooter under the truck and a crowd was working to get it out from under the truck. Our driver apologized that we had to see this. Shortly after we passed the accident, our driver cracked his window and threw a couple of bills (dong) out of the window. He explained that in Vietnam it is customary to leave money for the spirit of the dead so people driving by a deadly accident throw money as they pass by. As we got closer to the city, the traffic really picked up. This is when you realized you are no longer in “Kansas” anymore. At every intersection cars, trucks, and many scooters enter from every direction with no one stopping. It is the craziest thing I have ever seen. I was very impressed we made it to the hotel without a scratch.

The streets of Hanoi are very dense with all the building right on top of each other. When we stopped in front of the Hotel, I didn’t even notice the hotel. Every hotel, store, eatery all seem to blend into each other. The streets are lined with scooters parked everywhere. Someone on one in Becky’s email group who had already been to Vietnam said baby strollers was of no use on the sidewalks and they were not kidding. Scooters and people are everywhere on the sides of the roads and sidewalks. Many times while walking on the sidewalks you have to step into the road to get by.

Hotel Hong Ngoc
The hotel Hong Ngoc is very quaint. The staff is very friendly and they were very quick to get us checked-in and up to our room. The hotel has a small café, bar, and visitor center on the first floor. Our room is a suite on the third floor. The air conditioning works better in the rooms. The bed has a very thin mattress and the furniture is all wood, no cushions. The floors are marble tile and the room is decorated with pottery and several traditional Vietnamese pictures.

Our first trip out
We got unpacked and took showers and we let Logan take a nap. This was a big mistake since his body was still on Decatur time. It was only 3:00 pm on Saturday and we knew if he continued to sleep, he would be up all night. We finally woke him and went for a walk to get something to eat. Becky ran into another couple she knew would be here so she held their baby and we talked for a while. Logan had a hard time staying awake so we decided to go find a place to eat.

Walking through the streets of Hanoi takes some getting use to. It seemed kind of easy driving in the car from the airport, but when you actually get to walk through the streets, it is another thing. One thing we learned quickly is when you cross a street don’t stop walking. I think the people on the scooters actually factor this into their steering. Never the less we made it several blocks to a Vietnamese Italian pasta house and back without getting hit. On the way to the restaurant, we were approached a couple of times for money. One was a student selling maps and Becky and I politely said no and the other was an old man with his arms stretched out holding his hat. I didn’t have any small bills so I kept walking but he proceeded to follow me for 15 or 20 feet. This really concerned Logan. So much that he kept talking about it at dinner and asked if we could walk on the opposite side of the road so not to walk by him again. This as course meant risking our lives more.

We made it back to the Hotel in one piece and when we arrived in our room the extra bed for Logan was already there along with the crib that will be used for Gracie in a couple of days. After a very long trip and quite the culture shock we went to sleep at 6:00 pm.

We are on our way

2007-07-09T20:17:00.001-07:00

The Visas are here, the flight is booked and we are getting packed. We will be in Hanoi,Vietnam Saturday July 14 at 10:00 am(after leaving Chicago Thursday July 12 at 5:00 pm)and hope to get Gracie on Monday July 16 or Tuesday July 17. The nervousness is escalating and we can't believe it is here(I know everyone says that)but it is true. Please continue to wish us luck and say lots of prayers.

The Call that started it All

2007-07-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

We received "The Call" from our SW with World Child at 11:49 Sunday July 1, 2007. The caller ID stated Private Call, Jeff was hesitant to answer, but I said go ahead. Thank God he did because it was Jenny our SW telling us the great news. She said to get our Visas ready for arrival to Vietnam by July 12 or 13. She said we have a 95% chance of getting Gracie Monday July 16, 2007 at the Thai Nguyen orphanage. She instructed us not to get our airline tickets until she knew for sure of the G&R date(in Vietnam there is a Giving and Receiving ceremony which is the time Gracie is officially ours according to Vietnam.)

Now let the games begin. We sent off for our Visas on Monday July 2, 2007 and began the impatient waiting. Visas take an average of 4 days to arrive. We are now deciding on the Thank You gifts we will be giving to the nannies at the orphanages who took care of Gracie, the officials who do the paperwork to make this adoption possible, and the World Child staff in Vietnam who will help us make our appts., get us to our appts., and multiple other tasks to make this adoption easier.