It feels so good to be home! We arrived late last night, very weary, and we were happy to see Christopher and Brandy who greeted us at the airport. We arrived home to a house decorated to the hilt, fridge stocked, and homemade bread and cookies. Thanks Colleen, Laura and Pam for making it so special! We’ve been trying to catch sleep where we can, and Eva Joy is adjusting well. She’s pretty excited about the space and the toys and all the friends. Pictures say it all best- here’s some from our arrival in Minnesota and since we have arrived home:
Colin and Eva - first hug!
Ryan and Katie hold the Welcome sign they made
Ryan, Katie, Molly O'Neill and Colin all love on Eva
Sorry we did not get to post on our last day. Internet access was not available for the last day, then we didn’t find time when we were at the airport. Hope you weren’t worried!
We are happy to announce that Baby Eva has touched American soil as of 3:15 today in the back yard of our friends, the O’Neill’s in Minnesota (where Colin was staying the last week we were gone). We are so grateful to them and my parents in Iowa for watching Colin while we were gone. It sounds like he had a really good time. We may not get him back now.
We are travel weary, but definitely happy to be back. We flew from Hanoi to Tokyo on Friday evening Vietnam time. All of our travel was pretty smooth. We had a 10 hour layover in the Tokyo, made all the better by finding a baby stroller to borrow, a playroom for Eva and some sleep/shower pods, which you can rent, which is much cheaper and a better short-term option than a hotel. Eva slept most of the way home, and she’s doing well considering what she’s been through.
We’ll be leaving Mn shortly, and we will be back in NC at 10:00 tonight!
Elizabeth this time… no pictures… boo! We can’t connect very well from the hotel, but I popped on one of their computers to check in with the rest of the world. It’s raining here, and we have about 6 more hours before we catch the bus to catch the train to catch the plane…then home!! It’ll be about two days and a half days to complete all that, but we are eyeing the home stretch. We are ready to be home. We miss you all, and we are especially homesick for Colin.
As you can see by his post, Kirk’s made many friends. He always does when we travel. I wish you could see the strange looks we get here. I think it’s mostly due to the fact that Kirk carries Eva around in her carrier. I have not ever seen a Vietnamese man carrying a child here. The fact that she is Vietnamese seems less of an issue to them, although a lot of people stop and ask us. I think any staring we’re in for at home will seem mild!
The Hmoung women surrounded us again today. I will try and take a video because a picture just does not do it justice. They all shout, “Buy from me!! Why you not buy from me??” They wait outside our hotel for us!
We’ll check in again tomorrow, and I promise to make up for posting today without pictures. To those of you who have claimed that Eva is a ham. Yep – she is. Thank goodness – Kirk tried hard the first few days to very little smiles and no laughs. She was a tough crowd. She’s either just now showing her true colors or she’s adapting to him. One thing that is funny is that she still looks very serious, but you can coax a smile or a laugh, but it’s only for a second, then she’s right back to serious again.
Love to you all
Baby trying to sell a bracelet to Eva - his first words..."Buy from me!!"
Hi Everyone, we’ve been out of pocket the last couple of days. We gave up our cushy/comfy hotel in Hanoi for a trip to the mountains of Northern Vietnam in a charming little village called Sapa. To get here we boarded an overnight train, which was fine. It’s not the best sleep we ever had, but then again, we are not used to riding the rails. Eva slept like a champ. A young lady named Ngoc (pronounced like noke) was very helpful to us in getting us to the train station and onto the right train. She booked our train and hotel and everything went smoothly.
Sapa is gorgeous. The mountains are breath-taking. They have these terraced rice paddies and the mountains are enormous. It’s the eastern-most part of the Himalayas and we can see Vietnam’s highest mountain peak Fan si pan (which we like to call Fancy Pants) from our hotel room. There are a lot of tourists in Sapa and the locals like to try and sell them their wares, especially the Hmong (sounds like mung) women, which you’ll see in photos below. Nerd alert: Please go to the following link if you’d care to know more about Sapa…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa_Pa
Eva seems to have charmed another crowd here in Sapa. Many are curious about her and very sweet towards her. She is really blossoming before our eyes and is a very fun, happy child, and a busy bee. The ladies at our hotel today looked after her while we ate breakfast after we got here early. They clearly love and value family very much here, and that is awesome.
So far we’ve chilled out and just enjoyed the scenery, had breakfast with a nice couple, Dan and Sharon from Cape Cod, and while Elizabeth napped today, I met some really nice people from Germany who were staying in our hotel. They were traveling from north to the south over 4 weeks and were just getting started. Sounds like fun under different circumstances. Other than we took a break from Asian food to eat a delicious Tropical pizza today. Elizabeth said it reminded her of pizza she’s had in Australia. We also went through some of the shops here, many of which have beatiful clothing items made by the local Hmong and other tribes here (the Hmong being the most conspicuous). Well, that’s all for today. We’re here for another day tomorrow and back on the train tomorrow night for Hanoi and home!!! We can’t wait to see you all again and introduce you to our baby girl. Thanks for all your comments, support and prayers.
In our train cabin
Beautiful Mountains in Sapa
Eva and Daddy enjoy the beautiful view from our terrace
The terraced rice paddies...amazing how they use the land
Our hotel in Sapa...we enjoyed it
Elizabeth surrounded by Black Hmong ladies trying to sell their wares
The Black Hmong women of Sapa are known to be persistent. They engage you and if you show any interest or sometimes even if you say, no thank you politely and look at them, they will use it as an opening to pitch their wares. They are really nice, very interesting looking, with beautiful dress and many speak English decently enough.
Our work here is done. Eva has her visa now (not her American Express, Brandy). The appointment itself was no big deal. The Embassy was highly secure, and we had to pass through security like at the airport. Once in, we just had to pay and show our passports. It was ready a few hours later. We went home for a nap afterwards. Eva slept 3 hours! We just chilled out today in our hotel. We went out for dinner in an area called the Opera District. It’s very pretty, especially at night because it’s all lit up. We went to a kids area we saw the other night where they have a small carnival. It was fun to watch the kids. Many of them would come up to see the baby or to practice saying “hello,” and they would giggle and get shy. We’re in for the night, and we’re checking out tomorrow. We have made reservations to go to Sa Pa for the next few days, which is near the border with China in a mountainous region. To get to Sa Pa from Hanoi, you take an overnight sleeper train (yes, we’re nuts), spend the first day, overnight in a hotel, spend another day, then back to Hanoi by overnight sleeper again. Hopefully we will be able to post from there too. I can assure you there will be lots of pictures taken. It looks beautiful.
Thanks for all of your comments. It’s really fun for us to read them. We are homesick, so it make us feel better when we read them!
Here are some more pictures from our day:
Eva checks out the traffic from our window
At the American Embassy
Eva and her buddy Minh (Kirk providing entertainment in background)
We visited Ha Long Bay yesterday. It’s one of the most famous scenes from Vietnam. We drove to Ha Long Bay from Hanoi in a mini bus with another adoptive famiy staying here. It’s about 3 hours each way. The babies did well considering the heat and lack of space. Eva had what Kirk refers to as RBS “Restless Baby Syndrome.” Oh Eva – just wait until the plane ride!! We then toured the bay on a junk boat, and we had a fresh seafood lunch with shrimp, crab and carp. We even stopped and went inside one of the formations. Here’s a few pictures from our day.
Cruisin'
Napping on the way there
Seeing the countryside
Getting on our Junk boat
The Bay
Us at the bay
Exploring the caves - Eva was the main attraction for this group of girls
Here’s Kirk’s groaner for the day…”Ha Long ’til we get there?”
Anyway – we fell into bed when we got back, and we’re just chilling out this morning before our embassy appointment today. That’s our last official step. We’ve had no luck changing our tickets, so we’re considering heading to the hills for a change of pace.
We talked to Colin yesterday. He’s now in Minnesota with the O’Neill’s. He had a great time in Iowa with Grandma and Grandpa. He’s already been to the zoo, and I think they are off to the beach today. We’ve been showing Eva lots of pictures and videos of Colin. He’s going to love her. The funniest thing she does is growls like a little tiger.
Here’s more pictures of Eva. Let’s face it – that’s what you’re here for!
Grins!
Going towards the outlet...danger baby!
We’ve been in Hanoi now for two days. Sorry we haven’t been posting as often – the web service has been too slow to upload pictures. It’s really a nice city. We’ve been doing a little sightseeing. Yesterday we were a little tired – another very early morning. I never thought I would be waiting for breakfast to open at 6:00 AM. We discovered an excellent breakfast in the hotel. The best part about it was the highchair. We’ve been doing so much eating with Eva on our laps, or feeding picnic style on the floor, that this was a very welcome sight. We (I) have found breakfast is a little odd. There are always seafood, Vietnamese pho (soup), dimsum, rice and noodles available on the buffet along with the omelet and some items we typically eat. But you all know Kirk – he has embraced it all, and he regularly scarfs down an American breakfast, some soup, usually something with wasabi and fruit. He even fit in a bowl of fruit loops too yesterday. We alway get our money’s worth!
We are about 6 blocks from a lake in the heart of the city called Ho Hoan Kiam (Lake of the Restored Sword). There is legend of a divine tortoise in the lake and a king who received a sword from him. It’s a nice spot to walk or sit and have breakfast. We enjoyed watching the morning exercise routines here.
Divine Tortoise
Hoan Kiem Lake, view to Divine Turtle Pagoda
The Bridge to the Pagoda, Hoan Kiem Lake
The Turtle Pagoda is a very spiritual place
Enjoying breakfast by the lake
Friendly women who loved on Eva
Our experience with the Vietnamese people is that they are very friendly and engaging, and love family, especially babies. So many would give Eva a smile or touch her cheek or say “Hello Baby” when we passed them. It is really very sweet.
We attempted our first night out in a nice Vietnamese restaurant last night. We didn’t get exactly what we bargained for. We were looking for something traditional, but not too exotic. I researched it for a little while and found the perfect place. We got dressed up and took a cab there, only to find sort of a run down area where no one spoke English, and we never found the restaurant. Well, the cab was gone, so we just decided to make the best of it and walk and find something else. We ended up in a Western style microbrewery. It was a strange experience to say the least. The funniest part was when we asked if they had a baby highchair, and they came back with 4 cushions so that we could prop her up on a regular chair. This from a waitress who chastised me for letting her chew on a chopstick!
This is the place; looks inviting, right?
This morning, we went out early to the lake area, and then we went to the Old Quarter for some shopping. We saw fresh food stalls that are situated in block long alleys. They have fresh fruits and vegetables, spices, all sorts of fish and meats – some staring back at you. They have streets there named for their wares – like handbag street, etc. We even took a fun ride on a cyclo (bicycle carriage). They had ones that would fit two Asian bottoms, but not two American ones. What a fun way to see the Old Quarter. The cyclo driver followed us for nearly an hour, meeting us outside alleys and on corners before we agreed to ride. His persistence ended paying off.
Kirk and Eva on a Cyclo
View from a Cyclo, Old City Hanoi
Some Old City Hanoi Wares
Old City Hanoi Fresh Market
Fish swimming
Pretty Store Fronts
In the afternoon on Saturday, we chilled out, and Eva took a nap. It’s not easy getting her settled, but we tried swaddling her today, and she loved it. We are also happy to report that she’s an excellent eater. So far she’s like all the vegetables and fruits I packed, and she likes some of our table food as well. She’s adjusting really well to all these changes in her life. She has taken to us, and I’m not so worried about attachment issues or developmental delays.
Swaddling Rules!
When she woke up from her nap, we played and took pictures (of course). We went out tonight to dinner – a quick one (the nice one I referred to above STILL eludes us). Tomorrow we are off on a long day trip to the famous Ha Long Bay. It will probably look familiar to you. We have found out that our embassy appointment is on Monday afternoon. We will finish our process a full five days earlier than expected. Unfortunately, I have had no luck getting us on an earlier flight yet. I will try again tomorrow.
Hi all! We’ve changed venue! We said goodbye to Ho Chi Minh City yesterday, and now we are in Hanoi. It’s the capital of Vietnam, and it’s about half the size of Ho Chi Minh City with about 1.2 million in the city. We are coming here to complete our last step. We have an interview at the embassy set for next Tuesday.
Our flight went well It’s only a one and half hour plan ride. As opposed to domestic flights in the US, it was very inexpensive and nice. We booked it two days ahead for only about $110 each. The flight itself was a huge 737. We were even served a meal. Eva did well. She slept some and then sat happily on my lap. This part of our journey had been something I was worried about ever since I had read some news story about stowaway snakes found on a Vietnam Airlines flight. Whew!
The place we are staying is awesome. It’s actually an apartment. It has a kitchen, dining room, living room, two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Best of all- central air conditioning and a washing machine. We have all the comforts we need!
With all the travel stress, Kirk had a flare up of an eye condition. So – when we arrived here yesterday, he went off to the doctor here. Amazing success. He was back one hour later, after seeing an eye dr, with 4 prescriptions in hand – all for about $110. Happy to report he’s feeling much better.
Eva has been really terrific. She’s happy, eating well, sleeping well, and seems to be getting more adjusted to us everyday. She does not smile a lot, especially when out and about with strangers. She looks pretty serious. But when she starts to play, she smiles and babbles and bangs and chews on everything. She gets around well with a sort of strange crawl, and she’s very curious about outlets and cords. Kirk and I don’t see any development delays. She seems very typical for a 9 month old baby.
We talked with Colin today, and he got to hear his baby sister babble into the phone a bit. He seemed thrilled, although I think he’s waiting for her to talk. He was in the midst of a birthday celebration at the Bostwicks with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Eric, Aunt Michelle, Uncle Mark and Zach. Even though his birthday is not until August 15, they celebrated early. He’s been having a great time, and he’s been a good boy. His stay with them ends on Saturday when they go up to Minnesota.
Thanks to all Penny’s careproviders too! Larry and Laura and Colleen and Chris. Thanks for loving on our girl while we are gone!
Also – some good news to share. Our agency had another family approved for travel today. It’s progress! Here’s hoping for a steady stream of approvals, especially Chris and Colleen.
Here are a few pictures from yesterday. We are hanging in today since it’s raining, but Kirk is downstairs now arranging a daytrip to Ha Long Bay. More to come!!
They carry the craziest things on their motorbikes
Well, today we were up early again, so we decided to feed little Eva. She’s still taking her bottle like a champ, if we let her think it was her idea. We also had a breakthrough. She smiled consistently (or at least looked very pleased) during breakfast at the hotel banquet hall. She must be a future drummer because everytime she either banged her hand on the high chair tray or her spoon or cup, she’d look down and then up with a very pleased look. Please do not let this fill anyone with ideas of buying her a drum set.
Also, we gave Eva her first bath and that went over about as well as roller skates on a pig. We figure she’s got a lot of time to get used to the idea and perhaps will like our home tub better. She’s a clean girl now and her and mama are taking a post-breakfast nap while I hear the strains of a jackhammer outside of our hotel. I don’t think it’s waking them up, so that’s good. Well, more later. Thanks for following our progress. More later.
Bath time - hair gone wild!
Here’s later – Elizabeth this time. I am not used to needing a nap at 8:00 AM. Such has been our life for the past 3 days! Actually, today I felt pretty good all day, so I think the jet lag is wearing off.
Today we did not have any appointments, so we actually took in some sights. Kirk has a mutual friend named Jonathon from the Midwest who happened to be vacationing here now, and we enjoyed doing a little sightseeing with him and his wife Sarah and their smiling son Oscar. Jonathon, Sarah and Oscar live near Toyko now, and they have spent a lot of time in Vietnam before. It was terrific to be with some people who knew where were going and suggest some great sites. We took in the War Remnants Museum. This was interesting and horrifying, but pretty much a must see when coming here. Luckily smiling Oscar and Little Eva lightened the mood. We then walked to the the largest market place in the city – the Ben Thanh Market. We had some pho there and a mango smoothie. It was fascinating to take this place in – we wish we could bring you the smellovision version, but there’s a few pics below.
War Museum
Oscar and Eva at the War Remnants Museum
To market, to market to buy a fresh pig...goat...turtle...
So – little Eva, or “Little E” as Kirk calls her, has had a terrific day. Not only did she give us smiles, but she gave us laughs! I have been worried for a while that she was just a serious little baby. She finally started letting on that maybe she’s not so serious after all. We’re not sure if it had to do with the extra prunes we have been feeding her or what, but she belly laughed tonight when we gave her raspberries on the belly. She also showed us that she can crawl and pull up by herself. She’s just taken a few days to come around, but she’s finally showing us her terrific little personality.
Tomorrow we leave in the morning for Hanoi. We still have the embassy interview to go. Thanks for checking on us!
We’ve had a very busy day today. Last night, Eva slept pretty well, considering everything. We all went to bed about 6:00, and then we woke up at 10:00 PM, then slept again from 11:00 PM to 4:30 AM. Then, up….for the day!! Oh boy! The great news of the day is that she is taking a bottle. When we left the orphanage, I said, “keep her bottle, we have one.” Well, she did not like the bottle we had, or the others we bought at the store yesterday, but finally we borrowed one from the other family. So after about 24 hours without a bottle, she finally had one. Whew! The good news is that she likes to eat, and we’ve had lots of cereal and bananas and yogurt. Oh – and prunes!
We had a medical appointment today at the hospital. She needs that for her passport. It was a very interesting appointment. It’s a pretty old hospital, and this particular office was behind the hospital. It was straight out of the 50’s. Eva did not like it there at all, but made it through OK. The doctor was kind of funny; as she cried during the exam, he said her lungs were fine and that perhaps she might consider Karaoke for her future. He said she was…normal.
Elizabeth decided to go to bed and asked me to finish. After we got back to the hotel from the appointment a friend named Jonathan, who happened to be in town vacationing with his family (Jonathan lives in Tokyo and teaches English at a private school), called me for lunch. I got downstairs, greeted him after not having seen him for 14 years, proceeded to hop on a couple scooters and be driven down to near his hotel where we had lunch at a street side stand that he likes and coffee afterward. I told him that I had to get back by 2:15 as we were going back to the orphanage to see Chris and Colleen’s (Elizabeth’s brother and his wife) twin girls. Well, we had a nice lunch/conversation and we walk a bit down the street and he hails this man on a scooter who offers rides. We negotiated a price for the ride and I say goodbye to Jonathan, but after being on the bike for a few minutes and riding around the very crowded streets with this stranger at the wheel, I wondered if I was ever going to make it back to the hotel. It became obvious pretty quickly that he didn’t know where my hotel was, even though we asked him up front and he assured us he understood. So, I got a very long tour of Saigon from the back of a motorbike and that was neat, but I was worried because he had to ask 3 different people if they knew where the Royal Kimdo was located. My loud, slow, orverly-ennunciated English was not helping him understand any better. Finally scooter man asks a cab driver who kind of smiles and tells the man where to go to drop me off. I was very thankful to be done with my little tour, and even gave him more than we agreed because he was persistent and it was actually kind of fun. Of course being a half hour late did not go over well with Elizabeth, but I made up a story about kidnapping and a hostage situation, but I don’t think she bought it.
So, after that we went back to the orphanage to drop off donations (thank you to anyone reading this who made a donation; they were very excited and appreciative) and to visit Chris and Colleen’s twin baby girls. They are so cute and we can’t wait for them to be united with their future parents and share some good times with our little Eva. Hopefully they can make her smile, as we’ve tried all of our A material. It’s so awesome to see these people who run the orphanage and the love they have for these children. They are the salt of the earth for sure. We were hoping to put the twins in our empty duffle bag, but no such luck. We are all hoping for some good news soon.
Elizabeth stayed with Eva in the room while I went to the Immigration Office (with our guide from the adoption agency) and picked up her Vietnamese passport. The people there look about as happy to be there as folks at our DMV, but I was happy when they handed us Eva’s passport. The process is moving forward nicely.
Tonight we took Eva out for dinner. Well, OK, she dined in, but she was a good sport and went on an outing with us. She happily stayed in the Baby Bjorn (infant carrier) while we ate dinner and dessert around the corner from our hotel. Get this, the Paris Cafe was out of baguettes, so we couldn’t order any sandwiches. When I asked if they could just put it on a croissant, she said no substitutions. Great, the bread nazi!
We finished off our day with a call to my parents in Iowa to speak to Grandma and Colin. It was great to hear his voice as we miss him so much, but it sounds like he is getting on well there, if not eating the best or going to sleep until late, but that’s just grandma and grandpa spoiling him, I’m sure. They bought him a cool Speed Racer toy for his birthday and he loves it. Grandpa took him to see “Space Chimps” and he loved that. The cutest thing he said to me was, “Can you put baby sister on the phone so I can talk to her?” I explained that she was asleep and not available to talk, but that he could talk to her really soon. He’s excited to become a big brother.
Well, that was long. Thanks for staying with me, and for checking out our blog. Take care!
