Our Adoption Adventure

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Bill's Attempt at this

Well everybody, I guess you've figured out by now that if it weren't for Elizabeth, most of you would know nothing at all about our journey towards Aidai.....some of our faithful readers may not, as of yet, believe that I even exist...well I do, and I also publicly thank my wife for her efforts to keep you all informed. In Elizabeth's last entry she mentions that her favorite photo is the first of today's I will agree, but will also add that the 4th of today's is also wonderful, both of those photos are a good representation of how my mind and my heart see our little girl.

I miss my family...Big Dog I can't wait to wrap my arms around you!! I miss my friends...Can't believe that the Bomosapiens are gathering as I type....I check my KSC account daily, and it's great to hear that things are going well there, a little curious why there was a steam shut down today, but I'll find all that out in due time....speaking of time, it seems like my favorite questions for Elizabeth lately is, what time is it, what day is it, what time is it back home, and what day is it back home.....I'll have all that figured out by Sunday evening!!

I haven't had a Tony's pizza since January because of blood pressure stuff, what ever, haven't missed them, as soon as humanly possible I will be inhaling an entire peperoni Tony's, just a little something to tide me over until I get to either McDonald's, Burger King, or Cheshire Village....if memory serves me right I always leave those places full and smiling!!!

A year ago, if someone had told me I could fall in love with a photo, I would have kindly nodded with a bit of natural doubt. For those of you who know me, you know that some time in March, that is exactly what happened. Now here I sit in such a far away land, many days into learning what a wonderful spirit and person, our little girl is, how naturally she fits into my life, my heart, how much I want all of my people to know her, my eyes tear up as I think about leaving.....my heart aches as much as it ever has, yet I need to just look ahead, as hard as it is, to when she comes home.....I'm her Papa (Yahoo!!!!!) Elizabeth is her Mama....and the best part is I believe that in her heart she really knows this!! For those of you who pray, do that for us and her starting when we leave her on Saturday afternoon, for those of you who do other stuff, please do that, we will all need as much positive juju as possible......

This blog stuff is a lot of work.....Again...good thing for Elizabeth.....And, from me, thank you, who ever you are and where ever you maybe, for caring enough for at least one, if not all of us, for taking the time to log on and read this. This is the most wild thing I've ever been part of, there really are no words for some of what's gone on, my goal has been to leave my daughter's country with a true feeling of it's worth and beauty, the same with it's people, and I'll be able to do that....I believe that I owe Aidai a smile and a positive heart as she asks me about where she came from....Mom..Ellen...thank you from the bottom of my heart for the poem you wrote, I can't wait for others to read it.....it is beautiful!!! Dad, I'll find you a hat...I love a challenge =)

Maybe I'll try this again sometime....don't hold your breath....but maybe....

The last few days

Hi All,

The last few days with Aidai have been great. We continute to go to the park and play in the dirt and on the swings. We got to see her feet for the first time and it seems alot of her balance issues are related to her feet. Not sure what the issue is, CP like it was diagnosed or something else. We will have the doctor look at the pictures and video so they are all ready to get her in when she is home with us. We bought her an ice cream today, it has been brutally hot. I think it was high 90s today. This afternoon we went up into the mountains so I posted pictures of that too. Al-Archa National Park is the name of where we were.

We only have three more days to visit her. I already feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest. God I don't want to leave my baby here. I know she will be fine, this is all she knows. I guess we are just worried that she won't know that we are coming back for her. They are going to tell her and we have the photo album to leave with here but we still worry that she will feel abandoned by Mama and Papa. People ask if I want to go home and in a way I do, but not really cause it won't really be home until she is with us. We have so much to do so I guess maybe the time will fly but getting on that plane with nothing but my thoughts is going to be brutal.

This batch of pictures includes what is so far our favorite of her, it is the first one.

Elizabeth

Short update

Hi All,

I promise more pictures a bit later. We had a great visit with Aidai and then went up into the mountains which was beautiful. It is now dinner time here so we are going to step out for a bit but we promise to post again later. Unless the internet is down again....

Elizabeth

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Late posting!

Hi all,

The internet has been down for hours so we haven't been able to post. It is now 10pm here so you are only getting the cliff notes and we will post more tomorrow. Tomorrow's might be later too because we are planning to get out a bit around town in the afternoon (which is morning for ya'll).

Last night Aidai made what we believe was her prime time television debut. They celebrated Children's Protection Day last week and the kids did skits and dances. Well the local station went to the orphanage and filmed the festivities and Aidai was the star of the show with her dancing! We filmed the TV program and it didn't seem to come out great but it is still neat!

Today we went back to the park and Aidai played in, and ate, dirt again. We are hoping she will take an interest in the playground more this week. So far she only likes the swings and the dirt.

That's all for now!
Elizabeth

Monday, June 2, 2008

Today with Aidai

Another great day with Aidai! Today we went back to the playground with a $3 "gardening kit" in tow. It had pretend items that Aidai just loved. She played for over an hour with the items and let us play with her too. She listened when we said not to dump the sand onto the paved walkway and stayed near us when we asked her to. The pictures don't capture the whole story though. On video we have her repeatedly eating (to our dismay) dirt while using found popsicle sticks as spoons, spitting water onto the ground, and drinking water, not swallowing, and spitting it back into the bottle. She's a funny one alright.

I included pictures of the playground so ya'll can see how great it is. I also uploaded a picture from the other day (the last one) that shows her "pick me up" face. That face gets her carried almost everytime =)

When we took her back to her "group" (dorm) for lunch she waved bye to us as usual only today she said "buh bye" in perfect English. She's heard it for a week from us and seems to be picking it up. She also seems to understand when we ask her if she wants more (like more swinging), she nods yes rapidly! We only had one meltdown and that's because it was time to go and she didn't want to leave the playground. I just picked her up and carried her out and once we got a little way down the path she was fine. Of course it helped that they brought cows to graze in the park today because they distracted her from the complete travesty of having to leave the swings.

Burana Tower

Here we are at Burana Tower yesterday. The tower is all that remains of the ancient city, Balasugin. We paid $1.75 (for 2) to climb the tower. Why we paid for the punishment, I'm not so sure. The tower is only 25 meters tall, originally it was 45 meters tall but the top came off in a 15th century earthquake. The tower dates back to the 10th century and was used as a lookout spot and they also used it to project the call to prayer.

The first picture, and the picture of the stairwell are from Wikipedia. You can see a spiral staircase on the outisde of the tower. That staircase leads to the internal stairs. Originally, the tower was connected to a mosque and you would access the entrance by removable stairs or from the roof. Now you climb the spiral stairs. It was windy when we climbed and I don't like open heights so we were glad to be at the entrance.

Then we saw the inside stairs. They were very steep, very tight, and very dark. We all made it to the top and to the wonderful views but our legs are paying for it today! We were all sooooo glad that it wasn't twice as tall anymore. As well as the tower there are some other ruins and grave statues at the site.