We're Home!

We made it home on Tuesday morning (eastern time). The trip went very well and Maddie was very good the whole trip. She slept a lot due to not feeling well. She woke up Monday morning with a fever and it continued the whole trip home. When we got off the plane in Charleston, it was so nice to see Andy and the boys and my friend Trish waiting for us. Maddie is adjusting well to her new home. She really likes her big brothers and is slowly warming up to Daddy. She had her first visit with her pediatrician yesterday and has a nasty case of bronchitis. But she is now on antibiotics and is finally feeling a little better today. The pictures I posted are Maddie on the airplane (looking at the menu deciding what she wants for dinner), the new Fisher Family, Maddie with her brothers, and Maddie at home playing with her toys.

PLAN Party!

Last night we had a big get together in our hotel dining area of all of the families that are here from our adoption agency (PLAN). We all got carry-outs from different restaurants and shared a great meal together. I think there are about 10 families staying in our hotel from our agency and most of them were there. I posted a couple of pictures from our get together. Having been here over 2 weeks now you really get to know everyone coming and going. When our group first got here we were the "newbies" and there were other families that were able to show us around and get us acclimated. The second week here the tables were turned as we were suddenly the ones showing new familes around. This morning my 2 Phu Tho friends Martha & Joy and their babies went home, it was very sad to say goodbye, we have really gotten to know each other over the past 7 months and we spent a lot of time together here in Vietnam. Tomorrow is our last day here, we leave for the airport around 4pm.

We're Coming Home!

Friday morning we had our Embassy appointment and by 4:30 Friday afternoon we had Maddie's visa. I contacted my travel agent and we will be able to catch an earlier flight home Monday night, so we will be home Tuesday. We are so happy to be coming home. Last night we had our celebratory dinner at Bobby Chinn's restaurant and it was very good. It was a very nice restaurant with a beautiful atmosphere (see picture). They sprinkle fresh rose petals on the tables. This morning Maddie and I did some shopping and now she is having her morning nap. After lunch we will probably head out for some more shopping. I will try to get some more pictures taken over the next couple days to post on the blog before we leave.

Water Puppet Show

We haven't really done any "big" sightseeing since our last post. We have been enjoying strolling the busy streets of Hanoi and shopping a bit. Yesterday (Wednesday) we picked up the baby's passports and went to the SOS clinic for their visa exams. Maddie didn't like the appointment very much, she SCREAMED the whole time the Dr. was checking her. She weighed in at just under 20lbs. which was surprising since she has been eating very well since I picked her up from the orphanage. But she got a clean bill of health. Today we were very happy to learn that our Embassy appointments were moved up from Monday to tomorrow morning at 10a.m. which means we could have Maddie's visa by tomorrow afternoon, then we are free to go home, yeah!

This evening we went to the water puppet show which was very cute. The girls all did very well and made it through the whole thing. They were quite interested in the music and lights. I posted a picture from the show above. It was an hour long show with lots of Vietnamese music and puppets in the water that told Vietnamese stories. It was all in Vietnamese so it was hard to tell what the stories were about, but it was very entertaining. Also, as promised are some smiley pictures of Maddie. I am having such a fun time with her. She is very goofy when we play and giggles and smiles a lot. She really likes music too. When she hears music she sways back and forth and claps her hands. I am just amazed as I learn all of the things she can do. I also posted a picture of our appetizer from "happy hour" last night, they are vietnamese fried vegetable spring rolls. We thought it was so pretty how it was presented.

The Weekend - Tet Trong Trang

We kind of took it easy on Saturday & Sunday. On Saturday we walked down by St. Joseph's Cathedral (see photo above) it is just huge. We didn't get to go inside, but maybe we will another day. Yesterday (Sunday) we really didn't do much, we went down to the grocery store in the morning and had a short walk around then spent most of the day back at the hotel. Sunday was the Harvest Moon Festival (Tet Trong Trang). This Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese Calendar (the other being the Chinese Lunar New Year), and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, on this day, family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as eating moon cakes outside under the moon, carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns, burning incense in reverence to deities, planting Mid-Autumn trees, collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members & Fire Dragon dances. We were able to witness some of these things over the weekend. On Friday afternoon when all of the school kids got out of school you could see them carrying their lanters home from school and all of the shops were selling mooncakes in fancy red boxes. Last night on our way home from dinner everyone was out in the streets and several families had urns of incense burning. We also saw a group of little boys with a dragon costume going in and out of shops. I bought a mooncake and tried it and didn't like it, not quite what I expected. Maddie is continuing to do well and I am seeing more and more of her personality every day. We had a great playtime yesterday afternoon and she is definitely very active, she is crawling and pulling up on things and at one point she stood on her own for a few seconds. Her favorite toys are the empty water bottles (as you can see from some of the pictures). She had another bath this morning and it went much better, she really liked it. Enjoy the pictures! She really does smile, it' just hard to catch them on camera, i'll keep trying.

Hoan Kiem Lake & Ngoc Son Temple

Yesterday we ventured out for some local culture and sightseeing. We walked around Hoan Kiem Lake which is not far from our hotel. It is a beautiful lake where a lot of the locals sit and relax. In the middle of the lake is Tortoise Tower (see picture above). Also right on the lake is Ngoc Son Temple. The famous "red bridge" leads to the temple and it was so pretty. I finally got some pictures of me & Maddie together. She loves being out and about seeing all of the sights. After we finished our excursion, we ended up at Highlands coffee again for a nice cool drink then back to our hotel for naps. We tried a new restaurant for dinner (don't remember the name) but I tried some Pho (soup) very popular here in Vietnam, and it was very tasty. Today is Saturday & so far we are taking it easy this morning. We may venture out a little later this afternoon. Maddie is doing great. Every day her little personality comes out more, and every day I see more and more smiles. She is a great sleeper and a great eater!

The Smile

I finally got a couple of pictures of Maddie smiling. She is starting to smile more and more, it's just difficult to get a picture while she's doing it. Martha took these last night at dinner. She definitely looks much happier here.

Here She Is!

I finally have Madison! Yesterday was an amazing day. We began our day very early @ 7am and headed out for our VERY long (4.5 hours) VERY bumpy ride to the Phu Tho province of Vietnam. It was an extremely rural area but such beautiful scenery. Unfortunately I couldn't get much video because of the bumpy ride, but I did manage to get a little, and some quick snap shots as well. We arrived at the orphanage around 11:30 and were taken to the building where the babies were. I saw Maddie almost right away and she looked right at me. I had someone take my video camera when we walked in and was able to get our first meeting all on video tape. She wasn't very happy to come to me at first, she cried a lot. The nannies in her orphanage were wonderful, they were all so loving and each came up and held her and gave her big hugs and kisses. I was able to get all of this on video as well, it is very touching how they love all of the babies so much and care for them so well. They helped transition Maddie to me and eventually she didn't cry. We had to wait about an hour for the orphanage director to show up so we could meet with him and then we were on our way to Viet Tri for our G&R ceremony. Maddie slept most of the way there, bumpy roads and all. Our day ended very late and we did not get back to our hotel until around 8:30p.m. we all skipped dinner so we could focus on the babies. I gave Maddie her first bath (which she did not like) and a bottle and she fell fast asleep around 9:00 and slept all the way through until 6:00 a.m. Right now she has quite a shy personality and is very sensitive at times. She doesn't like for me to put her down and when I do she cries. But once she falls asleep, she is fine on her own in the bed. I didn't see any smiles from her yesterday, but today and especially tonight at dinner her silly little smile started coming out. She wrinkles up her nose, squints her eyes and does a cheesy little smile. I haven't been able to capture it on camera yet, but I will keep trying. We applied for her passport today and will get it sometime next week. Once we have that, we get her visa and shortly after that we can come home. Meanwhile we will continue to enjoy the sights of Hanoi, it is such an amazing city and country.

More Pictures

Above are some more pictures from our journey out this morning. I'm sorry I haven't yet figured out how to label each individual picture. Each time we venture out we get better at navigating our way around the streets (and mopeds). We did a bit of shopping then found a Highlands Coffee (like Starbucks in the US) that overlooked the lake and we sat and relaxed for a while before doing a bit more shopping then returning to the hotel. I wanted to do a quick post now because it will be a busy afternoon and evening preparing to go the orphanages tomorrow. I have to get the diaper bag all packed and clothes gifts all ready. It's going to be an early morning for us. We leave the hotel @ 7a.m. for our 4-5 hour ride to the orphanage. It is going to be a very long day. We were told we probably wouldn't be back to the hotel until 6-7p.m. We are all getting very excited about finally getting our babies. So hopefully my next post will be pictures of Me & Maddie!

Out & About In Hanoi

My second day in Hanoi it rained all day so we didn't venture out and about until dinner. We tried a local Vietnamese restaurant and it was pretty good. Other than that I spent most of the day unpacking and getting my nanny gifts put together to take to the orphanage. This morning it rained again but stopped after breakfast so we ventured out to explore some of Hanoi. Another couple who already have their baby and have been here for a while offered to take a group of us "newbies" out to show us around. It can be quite overwhelming trying to explore the streets of a foreign country when all streets look the same. We learned that some of the streets here are named after the "goods" that are sold on that street, there is toy street, baby street, silk street etc. The most interesting thing about the streets of Hanoi are the mopeds. This is the main source of transportation for people here. Crossing the street is a real challenge. You need to find an opening and just walk out into it and the mopeds just swirve around you. Walking along the sidewalk also poses a problem because that is where everyone parks their mopeds. We also found a big grocery store where they have just about everything we will need for our stay here. We all picked up some diapers and wipes to stock up for the babies. We ended our day at a terrific authentic italian restaurant that was recommended to us, yum!

Greetings From Vietnam

I made it! 4 planes and 28 hours later, I arrived here in Hanoi just before 10am Vietnam time Friday. My trip went very well. I was able to sleep 7 hours on the long flight from LA to Hong Kong. The weather here is just like Charleston, warm & humid, so no climate adjustment needed. My hotel is very nice and the wait staff are wonderful and very helpful. I had a shower and a short nap this afternoon and just finished a small dinner from a restaurant down the street called the Kiti. It looks like I will have to wait a day longer to get Maddie. I received an email from our agency contact just after arriving and they said that we will go to the orphanage on Tuesday to get the babies. The rest of the Phu Tho families are getting here tomorrow and Sunday, so I will have some friends to hang out with soon. I am looking forward to talking to Andy & the boys this evening via Skype, we're all hooked up on both ends, so let's hope it works. Above are just a few pictures of the beginning of my journey.