One More Day

Last week I sat down with the calendar because I knew this day was approaching.  December 8 would mark the day that Micah lived in Hannah's Hope the same number of day that he has lived with his Mom and Dad.  So today, December 9 he has been with me one more day than he has not!  That is a big day for the little guy, maybe more for me than him.  It also marks his 11 month birthday.  Yes, that means that Micah will be one in one month.  Micah is so close to walking, well more taking his first steps.  He climbs stairs so fast and has the best little laugh.  I think he will weighs 25 pounds, but is growing taller.  I cut his hair yesterday and he looks like a little sweet boy more than a baby.  But he still wants to be rocked like my little baby.  He gives hugs and kisses, very wet kisses.  I am so thankful for him!

6 month post placement

Today we had our 6 month post placement.  Micah has only been home 5 months, but it takes a month to write up and submit.  After our social worker left, Micah and I both got pretty sick with some stomach bug.  He is the first of the three kids to get sick like this.  Elliana and Andy have never really thrown up or continued to do so all afternoon.  Poor boy, but he does love extra cuddles.

Here are some of the photos we had to turn in.  We give 10-15 photos of Micah.

Nine and a half months

I apparently never updated from Micah's nine month appointment so I will try to get on that.  He weighed 24 pounds, but now I think he must be up to 25 pounds!  He was 90th percentile for weight and 75th for length.  I don't actually remember his length, but it is written down somewhere.  He played with the blocks and did all that he needed to do to show how awesome and smart he is!  Of course the nurses love to comment on how cute and fun he is and he loves the attention.  He smiles and waves to anything that moves.  Micah can say mamama, dada, babab, and such sounds.  Micah's favorite game is to chase around a big ball and wrestle with Dad.  Mainly, I think he likes to do whatever Andy does and that is Andy favorite things too.

I need to download pictures from the past month and then I will post a few.  Andy has a speech assessment today to see if he will quality for the local school district once he our grows out early intervention-it only goes until age 3.  He has gotten much better the past few months so I am not sure he will qualify.  At times it can be difficult to determine if Micah or Andy is talking so maybe he will!  Elliana is loving preschool and with her teachers recommendation she will not move on to kindergarten in the fall, unless I homeschool her for one year and then send her again to kindergarten.  I change my mind weekly on the issue.

I often wondered about comments adoptive families receive.  Well, I mostly get smiles and good stuff.  I have run into a few adoptive families while I am on outings and it if fun to talk with them and hear their stories.  The past week was the first time a received a comment that I was not sure how to respond to.  The elderly man did not mean anything mean by it, but just not informed or have a heart to the orphans.  He said he did NOT NEED to adopt because he had five boys.  I was not really offended but more thrown back that he thinks you should only adopt if you can not have bio kids.  It should be no surprise then that there are so many orphans in the world.  Imagine if God said that He had Israel and therefore there would be no need to offer adoption the Gentiles!  Please!

Okay, that is my rambles for this day.  Now off to make my house presentable for the speech assessors.

Early September

Time flies, so they say.

The first few weeks of September have been potty training time in our home.  I had been warning Andy all of August that after Elliana's birthday we were going to begin going on the potty.  He would let me know that he had different ideas so I knew I was going to be in for a time!  Well, my plan was to let him go without a diaper until he got sick of going on himself.  The first day we had three accidents and no success.  The second day we had the same.  The three day we were out most of the day so it was also a loss.  On the fourth day, Andy actually went on the toilet!  WooHoo!  Then more accidents.  Oh well.  On the fifth day I was ready to say maybe we would try again later when out of the blue, he did not have any accidents all day!  Now, he does not wear a pull out when we go out and he has not had any accidents while out, well one that I may share.  Andy's only hold up is that while he does go, he can only tell that he needs to go if he is free.  So no undies for this little man, not yet.  I will push for them when he is better at knowing when he has to go. 
Okay, the story.  Andy has not pooped on the potty yet.  The first few days, he went outside (still in his clothes, just trying to get away from Mom).  Well, we went to this park that is a fort, pretty cool.  I got lost and took 45 minutes to get there when it is only 10 minutes away.  Then within minutes, Andy says he needs to poop.  What!  He has never told me so I want to take advantage of this.  The only bathroom there is outhouses with NO running water.  Gross.  So Andy tries.  Then goes to play for three more minutes and repeats.  We did this about four time.  Of course, we did not actually make it when he went.  So home we went for a smelly boy to get a bath.

Anyways, I am very proud of Andy for learning and taking charge of himself:).

Elliana began preschool today.  She loves it.  Her friend from dance class is in her class and she sang her good morning sang with her friend's name in it all day.  She was so pumped that she did not even slow down for a nap, which I had thought would for sure happen on school days.  She did eat better than I had seen her eat in a while and went to bed very early.

Micah is doing great.  He is growing so fast.  His legs bend now when he is in the ergo.  He smiles at me anytime I smile at him.  It is a fun game to play while I am feeding him, mostly for my enjoyment.  He climbs and crawls on everything.  It is hard to believe that he has not even been home for three months, he is such a perfect Walls:).

I wanted to add some pictures, but I am running out of time so I will not label them.

AGCI Picnic and Birthdays

Saturday was our agency's picnic in Grand Rapid, Michigan.  Elliana and Andy wanted to stay and Grandma and Papa's house to go swimming.  Micah and I drove up early to go meet one of Micah first roomies while in Taiwan, Leyton.  It was so sweet to see the boys' first reactions.  Leyton gently touched Micah's head and Micah looked a little shocked.  It only took a few seconds for him to start relaxing and start playing together, well, side by side.  We headed to the picnic to meet up with another roomie and our case manager, Kate.  I have been so excited waiting to finally get to meet these ladies in person!  I have emailed with these other moms since the beginning of our journey and spent many hours talking with Kate.  Kate also spent lots of time in Taiwan with Micah and giving in lots of hugs and kisses while he was waiting for us to come get him.  After the picnic, we went back to Leyton's home to let the three boys have more fun together.  Micah laughed harder than he had in a few weeks!  He loved, loved seeing and being with his friend:).  He fell asleep the second we left.  I am so glad he has such a great time, I know I did!  We will definitely be getting these boys and adding a few girls to the mix next year!

Micah and Leyton

Micah, Matthew, and Leyton

Kate and Micah

On Sunday, my sweet little girl turned FOUR.  Since she was just a baby, she has been tenderhearted and compassionate.  She is the protective big sister to her two brothers.  I love to watch her giggle with joy when she is playing house with daddy.  Elliana loves to swim and play with her dolls.  She is looking forward to going to preschool in the fall and being a big girl:).  She asked to go to Red Robin for her birthday dinner. Chris and I took her on Thursday before he left for Brazil.  She also really wanted a pool, Buz party.  She had a great day and loved having family around her for her big day.

Elliana in her Buz outfit.

Mom and the birthday girl

A week and a half

Chris's sister, Ursula, and my sister, Amber, both flew into Michigan to meet Micah.  Aunt Urs lives in Colorado and Aunt Ber lives in LA, Cali.  I drove up with the kids on Tuesday and stayed until the following Thursday.  We got to spend time with more than just those two Aunts.  Micah got to meet the rest of his cousins and enjoy to cuddle time with Grandmas.  Elliana and Andy loved to swim every chance they got at Chris' parents house and Aunt Ursula was always willing to go in the water with them.  Elliana liked to climb down the ladder and sit on the pool floor.  Andy enjoyed jumping in, whether anyone was ready to not.  Neither one can swim so two adults are needed to watching them!  Micah also loves the water, but he doesn't do anything dangerous yet.

Chris came up on Thursday and stayed until Sunday.  We planned a Tigers game for Bill's birthday.  Micah was the only kid allowed and of course he was sweet and slept through the game and fireworks.  On Saturday we went to a lake out by Tina's, my step-sister, house.  The kids loved the beach and could not get enough of playing in the sand and water.

The week and a half was action packed and lots of fun.  We will be headed back to Michigan again on Friday!  I am really looking forward to going to Grand Rapids for our agency's picnic and meeting one of Micah's roomies!!  Chris leaves for Brazil on Saturday and will be there for a week for work.  Once he is back we jump into September and craziness all over again!

Above:  Shannon, me and Amber at Greenfield Village.
Below:  Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Bill at Greenfield Village.

Dates

We have been pretty busy, not sure with what, but I know I am exhausted from it all.  I am sure there are some cute stories from the week, but I will stick to just sharing about the weekend.  This weekend was my MOPS Steering Retreat weekend to plan the upcoming year.  My role is leader of the Discussion Group Leaders.  So I just help the ladies, but do not actually have to lead a table this year.  I have been looking forward to the retreat for some time.  I was not going to be staying the night with the ladies because I would be bringing Micah with me all day on Saturday.  Well, on Friday at 6:16 Chris was finally able to get a hold of the Dentist that had replaced a filling earlier in the day.  This was the sixth or so time that he had been in for the filling.  It was very soft to the touch and hurt very much so he needed to get it fixed before the weekend really got started.  However, that would leave me with three kids and only 15 minutes to find someplace to take them all.  Elliana, I took to VBS (she was a little late, but still made it).  Andy, I called a neighbor and begged her to take him- he was screaming the whole time on the phone so I am sure she was really looking forward to it.  He turned out to be very well and did not cause any problems.

Micah cannot stay with anyone beside Chris or me so he came with me.  The ladies, of course, loved that and it was the first time most of them had seen him.  These ladies are so awesome!  I cannot tell you how excited I am to work with them all year and see what God is going to be doing in our lives through the MOPS ministry.  Well, Micah was not going to make it as long as I planned on staying so we headed home to put him and I to bed.  We got an early start on Saturday to make it back to the retreat for breakfast and are first meeting of the day.  Micah was so great all day!!!

Chris took Elliana and Andy to the zoo and enjoyed their time together.  We also had a couples baby shower to attend on Saturday afternoon.  I had lined up a babysitter to take over for Chris.  Apparently, it was the best baby shower ever!  I am sure it is the only one Chris and been too, but he is still sure - the best!  They played minute to win it games and had a good time.  The babysitter had few problems with Andy so we ended up texting while still in meetings to work out his dinner.  I made it back home just in time to give baths and get everyone to bed. 

Chris and I had a lot of cleaning to get started on since our social worker was coming right after church for our three month post placement.    Notice it is Saturday night and I have not stop to breath, goodness, I am tried.

Our social worker came out and asked lots of questions and watched all the kids interact.  At one point in talking about the readoption process, our sw said something about Micah moving away (as an adult) and Elliana stopped me and very nerviously asked  "Micah gets to stay forever because thats what adoption is?!"  She was getting really sad and I immediately explained that she could not take Micah away and that is not what she was saying.  I don't think the sw heard Elliana and Elliana was comforted in my answer.  Everything was great for the first hour.  After that it all fell to pieces.  Elliana had not napped and was losing it.  Crying, needed me to hold her and stop talking to this stranger in her home.  Andy through a couple of nice fits to show how he started to deal with all the changes in his life.  Micah was just as sweet as ever:).  Really, Andy had been doing pretty good until last week.  He now has a meltdown every day and needs Mom more than ever. 

Okay, so that was the weekend.  It was fun, but I do not like to go, go, go like I thought I did.  We are headed to Michigan so Micah can meet the rest of his aunts.  We will be gone for a week and a half.  Chris is really hoping it will be restful for me.  I am really hoping too, but I think I know reality:).

I have been wanted to share some neat date stuff for some time:
May 6- our first hearing                                 AND our birthmom's birthday
May 26 - Ruling for final decree                    AND  Chris' mom's birthday and the day my grandpa passed
June 7 - Final decree                                     AND  Chris' birthday
June 21 - issued final decree and GOTCHA day  AND Father's Day

God's timing in always perfect:).

The crazy life

Micah can now sit without any help from his front arms or support from me.  He can move around on the floor just about anywhere.  He can also hold himself up on all four for quite a long while.  He has started rocking and even jump forward.  The jump is pretty funny, his arms don't move forward, only his legs.  He lands in a face plant, but seems to laugh it off and try again.

To start the day, I took the kids to Entertrainment Juction to play and burn off some energy.  They had a field trip there and it was the busiest I have ever seen it.  We played for about two hours.  The kids were able to ride the Thomas train, but only after waiting in line.  They were very patient and had a good time.  We did not actually look at too much of the train display, but we have seen it many times.

We attempted to take all five out to eat for the first time.  Today is my birthday so I did not want to cook or think about what to eat.  Everyone did great!  Sometimes it is not a good idea to take a two year old out where he will have to wait to get his food, but Andy controlled himself and didn't cause any problems.  Micah sat in a high chair for the first (not at home).  In Taiwan, every restaurant ask if he could sit in one,  he would only last 30 seconds.  But tonight he made it through all of the eating time!  After dinner, we all went to the library.  I had stuff to return and Chris apparently had never been!  We showed him the videos and computer area.  Elliana and Andy are very into Signing Time videos.  They are actually pretty helpful with Andy's speech too.  He is very hard to understand and mumbles horribly.  If he knows the sign, it really helps.  His favorite sign is the color "orange". 

The number one question I get is "what is the hardest part so far?"  Really, it depends on the day.  Overall, I would say the mental exhaustion.  There is hardly any down time to think or process.  I used to be able to check email and respond any time of day.  Now I am good if I read an entire email, but don't count on a reply to fast.  If I have slept, my mental state is much better.  Strangely, it was difficult getting used to not nursing.  I will leave that at that.  When I go the the grocery store with all three, I get some pretty good looks.  Lots of comments, but mostly crazy looks!  The comments are mostly from moms thinking back to when they were in my shoes and how fast time has gone for them.

I love have three kids!  I can't imagine what life was like before each of them.  We have enjoyed each other much more.  Instead of getting together with others, we have really focused on spending time laughing and play with each other.  What a joy family is!

One Month Gotcha Day

Today is Micah's one month gotcha day!  I told him the story of the day we got him, I cried, he just looked at me.  He is, of course, our son and God has planned him to be before he was even a thought in our mind.  It is amazing to look at him and know that he is finally here and forever part of our family.  On Sunday, Elliana asked if Micah could stay and always be her brother.  I said, "Yup, that is what adoption is."

We already have our three month post placement set, our social worker will come and ask us a bunch more questions.  We will need 10-15 pictures, I am sure I could give 50-60!  It is set for the end of July.  I think they are going from the May 26 date that I think may be the first final decree date.  I think are actual final decree date is June 21, but I am really confused as to when it is. 

Micah is six months old.  He is working on sitting up without front arm support, he can do it if I clap for him.  He can do his dadada, but not mamama, despite my best effort to teach him.  He pushes up on all fours, but not rocking.  I am not sure I am ready for a crawler yet!  He gives the biggest smiles when Chris comes home from work and says hi to him.  It is so sweet to watch.  I am with him ALWAYS so no chance for me to get that reaction:). 

Okay, just one family picture.

Pictures

People often ask to see inside the truck, to see what three carseats looks like.  Elliana was not buckled yet, she is still in a five-point harness too.

One of Micah's first baths at home.

Just a little cuddle time with Ana.

July 4th celebration.  We did not stay for fireworks, but had fun for a short time.

Three Weeks

Micah has been in our arms for three weeks!  We have been home for two.  We know we have a God who hears our prayers and loves us with His EVERLASTING LOVE.  All three kids are doing so much better than I thought.  Micah still sleeps through the night.  He occasional wakes up for a pat on the back or a pacifier, but not for a bottle.  Elliana gets up around midnight to sleep on our floor instead of her bed.  Andy does not care what is happening at night as long as he doesn't know.  Elliana is still a big helper, but now feeds her babies and changes their diapers.  Andy seems to have adjusted without any fuss and loves having a baby brother to "play" and hold for a few seconds at a time. 
Micah went to church for the first time.  He did great.  He did not give his great big smiles, but he still looked super cute!  Our church family is wonderful, they did not overwhelm him or crowd him at all.  Most admired from afar if someone else was talking to me.  I love that he got to see some many people who have been praying for him for so long!
No pictures for a few weeks.  Our computer is broken so updates are less frequent too.  I will update when I get to someone else's computer with lots of time on my hands:)  No computer has been a huge blessing in giving me time the kids, reading my bible, and working just being home.
Oh, Micah is ready for his bottle:)  More later.

Pictures

Micah was actually born in the year of the ox, he missed the year of the tiger by a few short weeks.  Notice the bubble tea:)

The long plane ride home.

Elliana so excited to have Micah home!

Andy actually asked to hold Micah before Elliana!

This is what EVERY bottle has pretty much looked liked!

Gotta end with a good one!

Home

We made it home!!  Micah did great on the flights.  He cry only for a short time, with only 2 hours left!  I would say that is not so bad since we got him up at 5:30am and it was 12:00 am to him.  He slept off and on most of the way.  My mom and Bill picked us up from the airport and we met everyone back at Chris' parents house.  Elliana and Andy were so excited to see Micah!  Andy was actually the first to ask to hold him.  He was very gentle and sweet.  Micah cried most of the introductions, little crazy with the kids:)  Elliana has helped with every bottle!!  She has been an excellent helper and cannot stop her self from loving him too much.  After swimming and eating with family, we headed back to my parents home for the night. 
On Sunday, we stopped to see Chris' grandmother who was put in the hospital while we were in Taiwan and just moved to a nursing home for short while.  She loved meeting her newest great-grandson and she seemed to be doing pretty well.
We finally pulled into our driveway around 8:30pm.  We all gave Micah a tour of his new home and settled in to relax and get ready for bed.  Today, we took it easy and stayed in, just hanging out together.  The kids are relearning their routines and adjusting to being one of three:). 
Chris went into work for a short time and will go back all day tomorrow.  I do not see much on my plate for tomorrow either.  Micah is liking the slower pace!  I am still not complete recovered from traveling time zones and traveling in general, hopefully a good nights sleep will help.  I will post pictures, hopefully tomorrow.

Taipei Zoo, Taipei 101, and National Palace

Yesterday we started our day by taking the subway.  It was very easy to figure out and not a far walk from the hotel.  We went to the zoo first to beat the rain.  We, however, did not beat the heat.  The Taipei Zoo is home to two pandas!  It was the first time for me to see them.  They have a nice indoor exhibit and one bear actually woke up and walked around for a minute.  The koala bears, kangaroos, and hippos are at the zoo too, all animals that the Cincinnati Zoo does not have (the hippos will be there by the end of the summer).  They did not wake up for us.  The zoo lay out was great and we had a great time.  Chris took 140 pictures!!!  I thought it was a little excessive, but he still has to weed out the blurry ones, so he says.  He took lots of butterflies and giraffes.  We highly recommend the zoo, even though the travel books did not!

After the zoo we went to Taipei 101.  It is the second tallest building in the world, it was number one until this year.  It is home to tons of business and the most expensive mall in the world (that is my estimation).  It has Prada and all the red carpet designer names that I can not spell or pronounce.  We had a snack in the basement food court before heading up to the top.  Chris was more impressed as the engineer, but very pretty views from all directions.

We ate dinner back at our hotel.  Micah has been getting fussy around dinner time so we were not sure if it would work out.  He did pretty good and there was another baby, just as big and the same age so not a big deal if he made some noise.  Micah has been a real trooper going all over the city from morning to night so it is very understandable that he not want to be out anymore in the evening.

He has been only having five bottles instead of the six he was drinking at Hannah's Hope.  It is too difficult to wake him when he is sleeping and he doesn't want to eat when he wants to sleep.  However, dropping a bottle means that he is hungry very three hours instead of hour.

Today we went to the National Palace Museum first thing because the guest relations person said we would need a lot of time and that we should do the English tour, which is at 10:00 or 1:00.  We opted for the 10:00 tour.  The guide was very funny!  If you should go, go on Friday since it is the only day he volunteers.  He was very knowledgeable.  It is supposed to be only an hour, but he generously went one and half to get more in.  One of the famous displays is a jadeite cabbage.  Yes, cabbage with two grasshoppers on it!  Interesting story about two princesses too, but I will let you come and hear it for yourself.

We did not make it more than three hours before we began to fade from hunger and needing a break.  We headed back to the cafe by AIT for lunch:)

Once energized we went to the Handicaft Market.  It is one of the few places to buy Taiwanese items.  We ended up getting a set of tea, water, juice cups.  We thought about heading to the night market but we think Micah may have had enough for one day.  We will try to leave the hotel by 5:30am to head back to the States!!

In a little bit

Okay, I know I have not bloged about the last couple of days, but I hope to have the time tonight.  :)

AIT

On Tuesday morning we headed over to MorningLight, the unwed mother's home and office of Deana and her staff.  We recieved all of our documents for AIT and Micah's passport.  His little picture is so cute!  After that we picked up some rice box lunch and headed to airport to wait for our flight back to Taipei.  While we were eating, of course everyone was watching us.  Women love babies!!!  These three women came up and gave us some more food, but it was homemade and very good.  It was rice with pork and mushrooms wraped in leaves.  So fun to try homemade food! 

Micah slept the whole plane ride back and with lots of tuberlance that was a good thing.  After arriving back in Taipei we relaxed and checked out the area around the Westin, our hotel.  We are in the banking area so mostly banks are all you can see.  Michelle, you will be gland to know that we have had no problems getting food or around.  (She was worried about us.)

Micah slept from 8pm to 7 am, when I woke him to feed him.  Deana said that some babies handle stress by sleeping, I am thinking Micah may be one of those.  Chris is also that way!  He is bonding very well though.  He loves to hold our hands while falling asleep and loves to be touched.  He seems to love to play with Chris and be comforted my me, just like Elliana and Andy!

This morning we headed to AIT for our appointment at 9:00.  After changing their minds of what size visa picture they wanted we had to go print another size.  Otherwise we had no issues, very easy.  Micah's birthmom was required to come too.  It was good to see her again.  She was able to hold Micah one more time before being interviewed.  It was very short too, only 20 minute.  Some have taken 3 hours!  There were two other families adopting at the same time.  We exchanged information with one of them since they only live 15 minutes from my parents!  What fun!

The temperature was already around 95 degrees when we left.  We walked around Daan Park and melted in the heat.  It is a pretty park and the only green area in Taipei.  We found a fun little coffee shop and had lunch.  Maybe my favorite food here in Taipei! 

Micah is napping now, but his visa will be ready in 30 minutes.  We will head back to AIT to get it and then off to the Woodpecker Baby Store.  Others before us recommended it, and asked up to pick up a few things to bring back for them:)

This is Alexi (Deana's assistant), Michelle, and us at the MorningLight Home.

Taitung

On Sunday night we went to the night market in Taitung.  We were the only Americans most saw, so we stood out and everyone really enjoyed staring at us:)  Michelle helped us get food and tell us what everything was.  We tried stinky tofu.  I can say it is very stinky!  I am glad I tried it, Michelle likes it.  I finally got to try bubble tea too!  It was good and fun to drink.  It is tea with little tapioca balls in the bottom!  The night market has tons of games for kids.  Elliana and Andy would have loved it!
When we got back to the room, we skyped with the kids and introduced them to Micah.  It was very cute!  Elliana does not understand why it takes so long to come home since we obviously have Micah already.  Next we talked with our friends in Bolivia!  And finally, we saw that our community class (Sunday School) at church was on, doing a test run for talking to the Wardens (in Bolivia) next week.  So we called them too!  It was so exciting for us to introduce him to family and friends who have been praying for him and us for so long!  They both, the Wardens and community, prayed for us again. So precious, thank you guys.

On Monday Michelle came with a new driver, her landlord. She is so sweet, it was difficult for her to find another driver, she called all her friends.  Jake, her landlord, is very nice and runs a Chinese Medicine store so he said he had a flexible schedule.  Deana had a change of plans, really our paperwork from the court was not ready.  We did not know this at the time so we were not worried or stressed about the change.  It worked out good.  We went shopping on the streets to see all the fruit stands and shops.  Michelle took us where she shops, the grocery store:)  She is afraid of the fruit stands because once the fruit had ants all over it and they speak Taiwanese instead of Chinese.  Too funny, also she does not cook so she doesn't know what do do with all the stuff in the little shops.  At the grocery store we got some fruit and dried mango for a snack.
Jack came back and took us to the beach.  We thought we would eat our snack there, but with the heat index at least 114 degrees it was too hot!!  Michelle works at a place called Hookies, named after VT Hookies.  So we went there and ate.  Chris had his only Mountain Dew of the trip!  It is the only place in Taitung that has it.  Next we met Deana for lunch and ate some more yummy food!
It was almost 2:00 so we headed over to Hannah's hope to meet the other babies and special mothers.  Deana went to go pick up our birthmom from the train station and go get some papers signed at court.  The babies were so great!  I will send pictures to all you waiting mom's and dad's, hopefully today!  Without Deana there to tell us all the English names, we did not get pictures of all the new referrals.  The special mothers are so loving and truly care for each little one!  We got to see the ones that cared for Micah.  It was very difficult for them all to say good bye to him, so sad.  At about 3:00 Deana called so say they would be there soon.  As soon as they walked in, she got a call that she had to get to court right away.  Michelle would have to translate for us.  She did a great job, I am sure she was very nervous, was were we!  But she was wonderful.  We learned lots of stuff to share with Micah as he grows and we were able to video the whole time.  One thing she made she sewed "Good Man" on it, which is what Micah means.  That was pretty neat, since she would not have know that!  Micah took a much needed nap as we talked, but she had to be at an appointment at 4:00 so she was rushed away and we had time to decompress and relax for a few minutes.  I went back to say goodbye to the babies and give the clothes that a few families had sent. 
Chris asked about going to the House of Registry that we were supposed to do that morning.  Well, after a little confusion, our paperwork was still at court, but we, Michelle, Wuli (social worker) and us headed over anyways.  They said we were missing a document and we had to wait.  Deana came running in after finishing a families first hearing and tracking down our missing paperwork which had just been completed moments before.  Stressful day for Deana!  We were totally exhausted and came back to our hotel at 5:30.  After eating dinner we headed down to look at the shops.  We saw the traditional tribal show going on and stayed to watch it for a bit.  It was pretty cute to see. 
After a long busy day, Micah was very glad to go to sleep!  He had his bottle at 8:30 before we went down for the show and only woke up at 5:45 to eat again.  That is the time that the special mothers always feed him, so he was right on:)  Yesterday was very difficult to him too, so he is soaking up all the sleep he can get! 
Today we have to go sign the rest of our paperwork and fly back to Taipei!  It will be sad to leave Taitung.  It is such a warming, not to mention super hot, and sweet place.  Michelle has been a huge blessing and help. I cannot wait for the other families to meet her too!  She taught us so much about the young culture of Taiwan!

Gotcha Day!

I will try to start at the beginning and please excuse any mistakes in typing!!!  We got up at 5 to leave our hotel at 5:30.  It did not take long to get to the domestic airport.  Surprisingly, there were many people out at that time of the morning.  The sun had been up for awhile too:).  When we got the airport, and figured out what line to stand in, the guys told us our reservation for for a 12:05 flight!  We found the other airline and waited for them to open.  They had the next first flight on Sunday mornings at 8:20!  It was fully booked so we found the standby list and were the first ones.  They said come back 20 minute before leaving to see if we made it.  While we waited a really nice group gave us part of their breakfast sandwiches from McDonald's.  Chris and I were getting pretty hungry since nothing was open when we left the hotel so we were very thankful!  At 8:00, a man gave a us a look and said that we could go buy our tickets.  We made it!  I praised God for His timing, I am not sure I would have made it to 12:05!

Once in Taitung, we found Michelle, a student from Taitung University.  She will be taking us around while we are in Taitung.  She took a picture for us at the welcome fountain at the airport.  She is a lot of fun to talk with and has been very helpful. 
Our first stop, of course, was Hannah's Hope.  Deana met us there.  She brought Micah down right away.  He is perfect!  I am not sure I have words to describe it!  We will go back on Monday to visit the special mothers (nannies) and the other babies.  So don't worry, all of you waiting for pictures of you little dears, I send them as soon as I can.  We did not even see them yet.  We then headed to Deana and Luke's church.  It was fun to hear the hymns I grew up singing sung in Chinese.  Deana translated the youth pastors sermon and told us what was going on. 
Luke, who had been preaching at another church came at the end to pray a blessing for us.  We recorded it, but did not get pictures of that. 
Okay, next we went to get our stuff and get checked into our hotel.  It is a great place and everyone is so very nice.  With hunger setting in again, our driver picked up her kids and we went to lunch with Michelle and our drivers family.  It was great to go to a restaurant and not have to order a thing, since there were no pictures and we would have been totally lost.  Micah had his first bottle there and my arm was breaking by the end.  Deana had told me that Micah had to be moved to another room in the home because some of the special mothers could not hold him for very long,  I completely understand!  Wait until you see these legs!  He is five months and wearing a 24 month shirt:).  The picture below is our driver holding Micah while we were eating.  Apparently I must have looked like I was struggling trying to eat with my chopsticks and holding him LOL.
We are now back at our room for a nap and rest time with Micah.  He is doing great!  He loves to "talk" and does a great big belly laugh with Chris.  We will be headed to the night market here in Taitung.  It is only on Sunday nights here.  There is lots of food and shopping and all around fun to be had, so we heard.
Tomorrow is a busy day again.  We will change Micah's permanent address, meeting with his birthmom, and visit Hannah's Hope.
Here are a few pictures from today:

Arrived

We have finally arrived in Taipei. Yah!!  After 22 hours of travling, we are at our hotel for about 6 hours.  We will leave for the airport again at 5:30 to go Taitung.  Tomorrow is GOTCHA DAY!

The first picture of the trip is Chris in Japan.

This is the Taipei International Airpot.