"After you adopt where would you like to go?"

Main Street USA - Hong Kong Disney

We're going to Disney - Hong Kong Disney! We have our TA, our CA (3/25) and now we have the best welcome to the family EVER! We are taking the kids to HK Disney!

Are we the coolest parents ever or what? Yes, I know but, hey, in for a penny - in for a pound! How many times will we get to Hong Kong! Everyday this year there is a Lunar New Year Parade - Year of the Mouse - Fireworks and all... we must have the kids see that! Frankly - me and DH are SO FREAKING excited - you would think we were the children! EFP is going to repeat those awesome (usually reserved for Icebox Cake) words "This makes me so happy" and I will be one happy Mama!

We are flying into Beijing and touring the Ming Tombs and Great Wall (Mutiyanu) and eating Peking Duck in Peking... what a life! I hope that EFP will be appropriately bowled over. We are so happy to be bringing her back to her birth-nation in this way. Are there enough suitcases to pack all this happiness?

Let the Packing Begin!!

We are heading to China! We should be leaving around the 12th of March and spending a few days in Beijing.. then traveling to Lanzhou, Gansu and finally to Guangzhou, Guangdong!! Remind me to fall in love with a Guangdong kid next time!!

We decided to take a chance and spend 2 days or so in Beijing.. we will try to hit the Ming Tombs, the Great Wall (again!) and possibly eat Peking Duck (in Peking - how quaint!) and get acclimated to time change and all. I think EFP will appreciate the Ming Tombs with the large stone animals and although she may not appreciate the Great Wall - she has seen it in the Little Einsteins and will be on the look out for the Yellow Dragon Kites, Blue Dragon Kites and the Giant Emperor Dragon Kite... do you think she will be VERY disappointed? Anyway.. we have completed the big shop - have a veritable pharmacopiea to travel with and even some boy type underoos! Now I just need to get work over with... and all my other ducks in a row.. school wise and house wise! But we are so excited... We also realize we will celebrate EFP's 3rd birthday in China... yummy cake! Noodles and dumplings for the Empress! She will be so happy!

I am only freaking a little! OK A little more than a little, but still not much!

2 years ago today.........

In a chaotic rush - heads spinning, eyes watering and hearts overfull.... my dream of being a Mom came beautifully true. As we entered the building and spied our little girl - overcome with emotion I even forgot to pull out my camera, and gazed upon the face that I now know so well as my own - I realized this HAD to be where I was meant to be. All the long years... all leading to one fateful day in a crowded room in a faraway land... with people who were little more than strangers.. that are now as dear to me as family..... knowing that thousands of miles away more loved ones waited in eager anticipation for the knowledge that our journey was ending in happiness... and so it did.

It has occurred to me that in this waiting phase now - for our son, that the miracle of that moment and its lasting gift to me that occasionally a leap of faith is rewarded a thousand-fold, that may be the reason there is no panic now, no anxiousness only great hope and anticipation that this leap of faith will also be rewarded with that brief glimpse of the universe.

In the myriad matters that make up a life.. family, work, etc. it is too easy to forget the blessings and the miracles that have been markers... I am glad that in addition to other reminders.. that for the rest of my life I will pause on certain days to recall the decision and journey that has profoundly shaped my life. From the friends - I would most certainly not have - who waited and cried and hugged and shared and danced and who hold my hand even now as we wait for our second miracle... to the children I am so fortunate to call my own - one who sleeps nearby and one who soon will..... to the thoughts that drift into the future of what My being THEIR mother will mean to them.... when I know it has already meant everything to me. We are lucky those of us who have chosen this 'second way' we are lucky and so blessed to be called their family... to have each other but especially OUR children who give us so much more than we could have imagined...