Home Sweet Home - settled in for the last installment

The jetlag hangover has subsided enough that I can finally have a slightly coherent thought.

Going back to Tuesday, our Monday meeting with the Dr. Kims got postponed, so we finally met with them Tuesday morning. They enjoyed the photos of Henry, and Lynn and I enjoyed the formal small talk. Tuesday afternoon, Lynn and I had to cram in our last bit of sightseeing and shopping (mostly shopping) and then fall into bed. Wednesday morning we woke up, packed and then had a second meeting with Joo Mee and her foster mom. We found out that Joo Mee was her 14th foster child, and that there was another child waiting for her as soon as she was ready. Joo Mee was in better spirits (she wasn’t missing a meal or a nap to meet with us this time), and she flirted and cooed. I walked around with her attached to my back. Old Dr. Kim, a few staff members, and another couple waiting to pick up their baby met us in the lobby for a final blessing. It was a very tearful good bye.

Joo Mee cried about half the time on the plane. Lynn and I were pretty weary by the end of the trip. She also slept only about two hours of a 14 hour plane trip. I’m not sure how I would have made without Lynn. She was a big help.

We love her dearly. She’s very cute and chatty and wiggly, but in my humble opinion, she doesn’t sleep nearly enough – apparently, Joo Mee is the Queen of the Power Nap. She likes to be held, and her favorite toy at the moment is the tissue paper in which her gifts were wrapped.

How’s big brother handling all of this you might be wondering? He is taking it all very seriously. The first night he offered to share some of his Easter candy with her. He also told me that he would read her a story, put her to bed, and go downstairs and do the dishes and put the food from dinner away.

Expectant Papa Pete arrived at the airport ready to greet the new arrival with a pink welcome balloon and pink gerbera daisies. He’s been doin’ his part, helping out with the 3 am feedings, keeping bottles clean. He’s enjoyed a couple of father-daughter walks in the park with Gabby, our sweet & watchful dog. The Korean princess, Joo Mee, has even had a taste of the spotlight with a party hosted by our Village on J Street! Many thanks to all for the love and support.

The whole picture...

This is my last post as official blogger -- it was a pleasure and an honor to be a part of this excursion.

love, lynn

Videos!

There are links on the right now to short videos I took with my camera. They should all be working now.

Just sorry they aren't longer!

Home again, home again...jiggity jog....

Hi All,

We are all back home safe and sound. Yesterday was long but pretty dang good considering the length, complexity and the addition of a baby.

I've uploaded more pictures and tried to rearrange them into chronogical order. There are a lot more cause it's so much easier to work with faster computers and connections. Sorry for all the typos in blog postings but when it's such slow work you don't really want to go back and fix the little things.

It seems like a lot of people were following along -- glad you enjoyed it!

Here is the picture link again:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynnbob/sets/72157594425342776/

Lynn

Yi's POV

As official photographer of this event, it was very fun to try and capture Christie, the baby and the foster mom in action. Joo Mee alternated between flirting and fussying. The moment a fuss started to come on the foster mom flung Joo Mee on her back (one of my favorite pictures) and bundled her up in this wrap-around baby carrier thing. That seems to be the magic trick and then the flirting started again. I kept worrying that my flash was going to bug her but the sight of two Caucasian women (one quite tall) seemed to make more of impression. Like Henry, Joo Mee is very into making phone calls. I believe you’ll see that in a picture too. The foster mom reports that Joo Mee eats and sleeps well and is very intelligent. The only two comments I remember her making about Christie was that Joo Mee was going to have a beautiful mother and that Christie would be a good mom (when Christie went over to the mirror with Joo Mee on her back like the foster mom had done earlier).

The lunch was really nice but by the end I thought if I smiled anymore my face might fall off.

--Lynn, aka "yi"

p.s. we did get to a spa after all. another blog post for another day.

p.p.s. I have some short videos I was going to try and post to You Tube but it will have to wait until we get back. All the computers we use put 80% of the screen in Korean so pretty much everything I'm doing relies on my remembering which functions are where cause I can't read them. Sorry -- I really want to be able to do that.

First mother daughter moment....

Joo Mee is Beautiful! In fact her name means ‘beautiful.’ Pete, Henry and I are lucky to have her! She missed her nap this morning to meet with us, so she was a bit on the fussy side. Lynn and I could tell that it will be difficult for the foster mom to let her go; she was reticent to give her to me to hold. I can already tell that Joo Mee’s temperament is much different from Henry’s. Pete and I will have our hands full! The foster mom loaded us down with pictures, her outfit for her first year celebration, and some toys for the airplane trip, but pictures speak louder than words….

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynnbob/sets/72157594425342776/

Lynn and I also had lunch today with several other families visiting the agency, Eastern Social Welfare Services. There were two Australian couples (one woman is a dead ringer for Princess Di) and a couple from Minnesota also here to pick up infants. We also met three other families who are here ‘on holiday;’ they adopted children years ago and were back to visit Korea, meet the foster moms, and see the agency.

--Christie

what about the baby?

In case you think we've forgotten the purpose of our trip because of all this great sightseeing, we haven't. Monday morning at 9:45, we meet with Joo Mee's case worker and complete the paperwork for her international travel. At 10:00, we meet with the two men who run Eastern Social Welfare (old Dr. Kim and young Dr. Kim.) The father started the organization about 50 years ago, and the son runs it now. We will sit, possibly sip tea, and make small talk for an hour. At 11:00 FINALLY we will get to meet Joo Mee and her foster mom.

By the way, this is me writing this, not you, meaning Christie, not Lynn, can you tell it is a double, if not a triple latte that I'm drinking while I type this??!! -- ordering in Korean, not one of our skills.

Some pictures!

Christie and are having coffee at "A twosome place" that we discovered yesterday. They play cheesy american music (think Celine Dion) but they have a computer and it seems like I will be able to upload pictures here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynnbob/sets/72157594425342776/

Does that work?

12 hours

yesterday we flew for 12 hours -- today we went sightseeing for twelve hours. both of them are exhausting.

but the weather is lovely for walking about which we did plenty of. people are all lovely and willing to help two lost looking blonds -- we don't even have to ask for help.

speaking of helpful -- there is a much longer story than I have energy to type about a very very helpful vegetarian restaurant owner. but we ended up going to her restaurant for dinner and at the conclusion she firmly asked Christie to write a review directly into a food websight. find it below.

http://www.happycow.net/reviews.php?id=7142

we didn't get to a spa today. tomorrow!

Monday we meet!

We have our itinerary for meeting Joo Mee. Monday morning at 10:00 we have tea with Dr. Kim (we don't know if that's Dr. Kim Junior or Senior). At 11:00 we get to meet Joo Mee!

Until, we're just playing tourists around town. Today (Saturday) is Christie's birthday so we might try to find a nice spa to relieve our travel aches!

For the boys, Bob and Pete

As Pete's stand-in I settled into reading Sky Mall on the plan, a favorite of his. Unfortunately, I fatigued early on and never made it all the way through. Fortunately, I didn't need to read any further than page 9 to find the perfect item for Bob (and anyone, really).

It's a Pop Up Hot Dog cooker. Isn't it brilliant? Not just the hot dogs but the buns too. How come I don't know anybody that has one? It's so obvious!!

It's 4:16 am here in Korea (I'm wide awake and my back hurts so I thought I'd get up and post some stuff) so I might in an altered state that is a little too excited about the Pop Up Hot Dog cooker.

You have to be able to help yourself....

Our journey is going well. We had a little too much excitement changing planes in San Francisco. The ticket agent told us how to avoid going through security again. You had to take a left at Yankee Pier (a restaurant) and get on a bus. We thought that was awesome and made menal notes.

Our flight was 30 minutes late leaving and the connection was tight. So on the flight they told us that again (there were several people with tight international connections) how to go the secret way.

We found Yankee Pier, we took a left and then like lemmings we followed a bunch of people down an escalator which was a poor choice. We got past a point of no return and had to go through security again. This poor english woman was following us (I should have told her it was a bad idea) so we got her lost too. All three of us are racing through the airport trying to get back to Security. Luckily, there were no real lines (although Christie lost her legitimate water bottle cause they had to confiscate it) and we arrived at our gate just as they started boarding. Hopefully that poor english woman made it as well.

We're Here

We're exhausted. We're going to bed after eating some toast. More to come.

Happy Birthday to Pete! Happy Birthday to Pete!

Today was the magic phone-call day that "the baby is ready to travel". It's a nice birthday present for Pete -- he was even the one to answer the phone's ring. So Christie and I plan to leave Thursday morning to begin our trip to Seoul.

Where's my Dramamine? Yep, Christie may have her hands full with traveling companions that are kind of useless. Well, nobody expects a 6-month baby to be useful but there's no excuse for me. Time to pick up my flying rituals of dramamine, the current New Yorker, Mentos (Christie eats most of the orange and I eat most of the pink) and peanut M&Ms.

Off to see the world....or at least Seoul Korea.

Last spring Christie and I drove a UHaul truck from Austin, Texas to Tacoma. That trip went pretty well and we successfully accomplished our mission.

So this spring it's a trip to Seoul, Korea to collect a little girl. You don't think Joo Mee would be unduly concerned if these two shining faces showed up, do you?