We are home

Thank goodness, we are finally home! Our travels went well, but I cannot express how happy we were to get off of that plane. Lee is doing well here and seems happy at our house. I still feel groggy from not having enough sleep, but am hoping to get caught up more tonight.
I will post some of my most recent pictures on another post soon. I know so many of you have mentioned to me that you check the blog so often so I wanted to let you know that we are at least home.
Thanks so much for all of your support.
Rhissa

These pictures are from our walk around a different neighborhood yesterday. I wish we had discovered it sooner, but it was very nice. This old church sits in the center of this quarter with shops all around it. Trip and I agreed we think this is the first church we have seen since we have been here. The architechture of this church is not typical of what we have seen here, but so much of this culture has been influenced by the French that we feel this church was built in that era.
This last picture of Lee is of him watching a man dig a whole in the sidewalk. We were in a store shopping and I think he could have watched that man for an hour. Nothing as exciting to a boy as a shovel and dirt.
Our plane leaves tonight very late. We will return to Orlando early afternoon on Saturday. Words cannot describe how happy we will be to see our girls. We have missed them and missed our family and friends so much. This trip has been full of everything, joy and sorrow, frustration and relief. It has been our labor together to bring this child home, and now our lives can begin together as a family. I will post when I get a chance, I may not have a chance in Soeul to get a connection. Other wise I you will hear from us once we are home!
Love to you all,
Rhissa

This is Lee begging to be held, as usual. He is hard to resist, but we are beginning to think we are being suckered.

The good news is that we have been given a time for an interview this afternoon. That means in all likelyhood we will be given his visa in 24 hours.

Upon receiving his visa we will have to see if there are any flights available for us to leave early, if not we will keep our sam flight on Friday.

I need to run, the girls want to come in to clean the room and we are going to lunch. I will update again later,

Rhissa

Lee was copying Trip in the park and trying to keep his balance on the edge of the sidewalk.

Tomorrow is his medical exam. We talked to our interpreter today and he said he is expecting us to have our second interview on Wednesday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. That way we would get his visa either Wednesday night or Thursday morning. The second we get that visa in our hands we are calling our airlines to see what we can arrange for leaving.

Keep us in your thoughts, this has been a real nail biter!

These are some pictures of us in the park today. It's the same park we went to a few days ago, we are trying to ease Lee into playgrounds.

The first picture is of the entrance. The second pictures is of Lee at the entrance under protest because he remembered where we were and that we were trying to get him to sit next to the playground. The third is of Trip climbing the playground equiptment to encourage Lee to play too.

The fourth is Lee deciding to climb on very old looking equiptment in the park because it is almost identical to the play equiptment they had in the orphanage. After a while he became a little more comfortable and walked most of the time we were there instead of asking to be held. He has learned and seen so much in this past week. He has come so far, a week ago he almost cried everytime we were in a large group of people, now, after a week of carrying him and loving him he knows it's safe to just hold our hands. He is a good boy, really so willing to love and please. He's a great sleeper! I have a few more pictures to post. So I'll get to it before I go to bed!

Good morning to you. I am just about to get in bed but at least wanted to post. Nothing new happened today for us because of course it's Sunday.

We did, however, go to tea with our travel companions and had a wonderful time. The hotel we went to, called the Sofitel is just incredible. Their tea is even beyond what the Ritz offers for tea. I'd love to go everyday. Lee seemed to enjoy all of the chocolate they offered, but in the end stopped eating the chocolate to eat grapes and watermelon instead. Go figure.

He is doing much better in public and doesn't seem so afraid and overwhelmed. He is very shy when someone new tries to talk to him and clings on us, but generally, once he warms up to someone he is very affectionate. I know he doesn't look very happy in this picture, but I promise, most of his day is spent smiling. We are still having some moments of grieving, but I will expect this for a long time.

He watched some Thomas the Tank videos today and talked to the tv the whole time. I have no idea what he was saying, but he seems to enjoy talking to the television.

I will try to take some pictures tomorrow. I think I may be taking pictures of the baby of the couple we are traveling with. I can't wait, during some of my long days I wish I had some work to do.

Have a good day everyone.

Rhissa

Just in case any of you were wondering, the first two pictures here are the view outside of our hotel window. The tile roof building is obviously below us and although it appears to be vacant, I assure you that people probably live in there. Maybe even more than one family!


This is a picture of a cake at a bakery very close to our hotel. This picture does not do the delicate decorations justice. But just know that we ate some dessert from them last night and it was fantastic. This cake says 110,000 which means in American dollars it would be $6.87. I wish I could ship it home!
This picture of Lee is him gazing at all of the sweets in the bakery window. We bought him a piece of cake that had orange flavoring in it. He seemed to like it, but did not eat the whole thing. We told him, "Happy late birthday!"



This bridge is from a section of town in the Old Quarter. We didn't cross it but just enjoyed sitting at the lake for a few minutes.

We hope all of you are well. We are looking forward to Monday so we can start this ball rolling again. There is nothing we can do on the weekends but wait for the government offices to open on Monday.
Tomorrow we may go to tea with the couple we are traveling with. We have really enjoyed their company and their knowledge of this area since they have traveled here many times.
I will post again tomorrow.

Good News!

While all of you in America were asleep we received a phone call that gave us very good news! Our first interview was rescheduled for this afternoon. That means that while you slept, we got dressed up and went down to the US Embassy and had an interview with the woman who will submit our paperwork for Lee's visa.

The meeting went well and we are glad that part is done, now we just have to wait to hear of the date for our 2nd interview and get Lee's physical done then we should have permission to leave. They feel confident that our travel date will be on or before our original date. What a relief.

We have had a good but busy day.

Lee has been feeling some homesickness we believe and we are doing our best to comfort him. Even though my heart cries for him inside, I have to be strong enough to get him through this.

He is in the shower with Trip now, laughing and getting ready for bed. I think he has brushed his teeth either four or five times today. I think it's the taste of our cinnamon toothpaste he likes!

This little boy was so sweet today while we were getting some laundry done. While waiting for our appointment at the Embassy we were washing and drying and ironing some clothes. (Turns our the hotel laundry service isn't much cheaper than in America) So he wanted to feel busy too and started taking clothes out of the dirty hamper and folding them so neatly. I cannot believe a four year old little boy has the ability to fold this well, on top of have the patience to do it for nearly a half an hour. He really is so sweet. He is getting a little pumped up now, so I think he needs to lay down and get ready for bed. He missed his nap today because of all of our excitement.

No pictures to post now. I will take more this weekend while we are out at parks and the Old Quarter shopping.

Hello to everyone and thank you all for your emails. We love hearing from each of you. It means so much to have the support while we are so far away. Trip and I have been a great support for each other, I can't imagine having made this Trip without him.

I will say good morning to you, but now, I am getting ready for bed.

Rhissa

He is trying to learn how to wink. We enjoy his daily accomplishments.

We miss the girls terribly, but hear they are doing well. We are very grateful to Trip's parents for watching them now.

My connection is bad so I must stop posting. Enjoy the new photos.

Much love to all of you,

Rhissa

I don't know what the word for "again" is in Vietnamese but he kept repeating the same phrase over and over. I think we finally got him to understand the phrase "All done"

His laugh is contagious.

We took a walk in a beautiful park today. We wanted to give him the opportunity to play and run with other children but he was too shy. He wouldn't even go down the slide. I told Trip I would place a bet that by the time we leave he will be running to the slide alone. He seems to accept situations so well after a short period of time. Now he is sitting on my lap trying to observe what I do. I know if he watches me enough times he will know exactly what to do. He is very observant and quick witted.