Catch Up

I knew I never should have taken a day off from blogging...now I am overwhelmed and avoiding it! I will just do a quick re-cap of the last four days and then plan to do a better job of staying up-to-date from now on!

Saturday: We spent the day with Alison's foster family and went to a wonderful restaurant called El Cafe de la Vaca outside of the city (in Machachi) where we got to sample a lot of traditional Ecuadorian food. I think my favorite was the empanadas...and the little corn cakes....and the roasted corn...etc! The highlight of the trip for Jenna were the cow-spotted toilets that went along with the rest of the cow decor in the restaurant :) All in all, we had a great day getting to know Alison's foster family better and learning a lot about Ecuador with them.

Sunday: We visited an English Fellowship Church that is only 6 blocks from our apartment.  It was a wonderful service and we enjoyed meeting people from all over the US that are here in Ecuador for many different reasons. We look forward to worshipping there in the weeks to come and making new friends.

Monday: We visited the historical center of Quito, including a church that was built in the 1500's! The historical churches are just amazing...incredibly ornate and beautiful. Of course, I kept thinking that the amount of gold that was used in the decor of those churches could possibly solve world hunger today...but hey, who am I to question how the pontiffs invested their cash hundreds of years ago?! There is much to see and do in the historical center and I am sure we will go there again during our stay here.

Tuesday: We went to a shopping mall and then to Parque Carolina. Parque Carolina is Quito's "Central Park". It was a beautiful day and the girls got to run off some pent-up energy and we got to enjoy some sunshine. Andy got a nice sunburn on his face and Allie's nose is a little pink....it did not seem that warm out, but at 10,000 feet altitude and at the equator the sun is much closer than you realize!

Today we also met again with our in-country adoption rep who attempted to explain to us where we are at in the adoption process. Basically she told us that our "bonding period" is over now and that the social worker wrote a favorable report that was submitted to the Ecuadorian committee of adoptions. The next step is to get a court date with a judge who will grant us the adoption decree. We are still hoping that we can go to court next week. After that, Andy can go home for a couple weeks and I can continue the process here with his power of attorney.  We have a problem with the power of attorney that needs to be taken care of soon, however. As it turns out, there was a typo with my middle name and that needs to be fixed with the adoption committee before we can get the power-of-attorney.  The adoption committee meets this Thursday and it can hopefully be fixed then. Please pray with us that it can be taken care of without incident on Thursday!

We have been given the okay to travel a little and do some tourist-y stuff while we are waiting for a court date. We are looking into going to the Mindo cloud forest tomorrow and staying there for a couple days.  Hopefully I can find a wi-fi spot so I can keep in touch and share photos of the scenery there! The cloud forest is like the Amazon rainforest...only much closer to Quito and without a lot of the health concerns that plague the rainforest area (like yellow fever).  We are really looking forward to going there and seeing a lot of really cool plants and animals.  Time to do a little laundry and pack...again.  Thank goodness we will be packing much lighter for this trip!

Retail Therapy

     Today we had our first visit from the social worker since Alison came to stay with us. To be honest, it was the first time we had seen Alison a little bit sad. I cannot even imagine what is going through her mind right now and we think she is doing amazingly well...but she must be dealing with so many feelings.  So, we decided to keep her busy today and do what any good American girl does when she is stressed....go shopping! Actually, it was Alison's idea and we were happy to oblige :) She and Jenna rode the little kiddie rides at the mall and bought sweets and giggled...a lot. They also bought new shoes to go with their Christmas dresses. I should note that clothes and shoes here (even at Payless) cost about 1-1/2 to 2 times as much as in the States! The taxi ride to the mall was pretty cheap, though, and it was a good way to spend the day.  The malls here are decorated for Christmas and I liked the purple decor on the trees in this picture. I also like the mischievous expression on Alison's face :)
    I was sorry to miss Black Friday shopping with my friend Angie today, but we enjoyed our shopping adventure in Ecuador. (We definitely could have used some Black Friday deals, however...!) And we didn't have to stay up all night :)  All in all, it was a very good day.

Dia de Gracias

    Today was no ordinary Thanksgiving Day for our family. As you can see, we celebrated Alison's first full day with our family and we have ever so much to be thankful for.  We met Alison for the first time yesterday and she chose to come back to our apartment to spend the night. The girls have been inseparable since and we are so enjoying getting to know this sweet, beautiful, and funny girl who is already calling me "Mo-om" with two syllables, just like Jenna does.
   The only thing that would have made today more perfect is if Jamie could have been with us. Instead, she celebrated with my family in Oklahoma and got to have two dinners :) I figured out how to call her over Skype tonight so we had a long conversation and she got to try out her Spanish conversational skills with her new sister. Alison is already picking up English words and we think that she is very intelligent. She knows her way around an iPad and is using a translation app to communicate with us when we just don't get it. She just types in the Spanish words and it translates to English! Pretty amazing!
    Alison was with a wonderful foster family who I know are grieving terribly for her right now. As much as we are enjoying Alison, I know they are missing her so much. I can't help but think of them today and am so incredibly thankful for how much they have loved Alison and cared for her--all while preparing her for her forever family. I am amazed at how God is weaving our lives together and I know that they will be a part of our family forever.
    We meet with the social workers tomorrow who will observe Alison with us and see how she is doing. If all goes well, they will write a favorable report and we will proceed with the next steps of the adoption.
Alison seems to be happy and when she spoke with her foster mom tonight she told her that she is "muy, muy, muy feliz...a very good sign.
    A very happy Thanksgiving indeed!
   

And we are off...

Aside from some weight "re-distribution" issues and a ticket agent asking us if we were MOVING to Ecuador, we managed to get on the plane with little incident. I want to throw out a huge thank-you to my dad for donating his air miles to our trip. His Platinum status meant we got Priority Seating...definitely a bonus! Jamie is also boarding a flight to Tulsa right now..so we ask for prayers for travel mercies for all of us. We will be in touch!

Ready to Go!

Can you believe all these bags? Trust me, it was no small feat packing for a family of 5, soon to be 6, for a period of six weeks! We also have 3 large duffel bags full of supplies/gifts that we can't wait to take to the orphanage. Thank you so much to all you generous friends who helped fill those bags! (One question: where were you when it was time to load those bags? FYI: peanut butter is HEAVY...) haha
We managed to fit all those bags in the Durango and even left a little room for Allie and Jenna. We are on the road now to Seattle. More later...

I wonder what she will think about this?

In the midst of my crazy day today, I took out time to take some pictures of our beautiful snow so that we could show our new daughter in Ecuador what she has to look forward to upon coming to Idaho. I couldn't help but wonder what she is going to think about SNOW...and about so many other foreign things. I can't even begin to imagine what is going through her little mind right now. She knows that we are coming, and we are told that she is excited....but I am sure that she is very scared as well.  Even though she does not have a family in Ecuador, she will be leaving everything familiar in her life to start a new life in a new place with a new language, new foods, new routines, and new sights. And snow. I hope she will like the snow. We can work on all the rest....but not much can be done about snow in north Idaho! I like snow because it blankets the world with beauty and makes everything seem brand new. It's like we get a fresh start each time it snows.  I hope Alison is looking forward to her fresh start. And snow.

The purpose of this blog...

     Hello there and welcome to my feeble attempt to join the blogosphere! I have created this blog so that I can keep friends and family updated as we travel to Ecuador to adopt our daughter.
     For those of you who don't know by now, we have been in the process of adopting an 8-year old girl from Quito, Ecuador since January of this year. I could write a book about our international adoption adventure up until this point...but our upcoming travels promise to be much more exciting than the interminable waiting that has been the sum of our experience so far. Suffice it to say that this whole adoption process is not for the faint-at-heart...it has been a rollercoaster ride and has definitely tested our faith at times. However, we serve a God who is incredibly good;  His will has prevailed and His peace has kept us sane (well, mostly).
     I hope to give you some background information about what led us to adopt an older child from a foreign country in future posts.  However....I am completely overwhelmed with a million and one details that must be attended to before we can leave the country IN 3 DAYS, so consider this the "practice post" so I can see if it really works.  Hopefully I will have time to keep up with this blog so that you can join us on our journey to Ecuador :)