Pictures from our first day in Manila

Men walking in the middle of the road.

Caleb enjoyed the art museum and is excited to show different pictures to his art teacher.
He is carrying along his notebook of pictures he has been drawing from the trip. Our budding little artist!

This scaffolding looks like it is close to the ground, but it is actually about three stories up.
The young man on the bottom is standing on two small pipes - no harness.
The man above in the Superman shirt is also standing on small pipes - no harness - no shoes.

We frequently see men sweeping the roads with these brooms. The sidewalks and roads are very clean... if only the sides of the sidewalk didn't smell like urine... ick.

A Philippines topographical map in the city park "lake"!

Anyone need a ride?!?

This is what all of the power lines look like around here, they are absolutely chaotic, an electrician's nightmare.
This street added to the chaos by hanging their Christmas decor from the wires too! Beautiful stars though! They are very traditional at Christmas time.

Lunch at Max's..." The House That Fried Chicken Built"

Children's Playground! Caleb got up to this window by a small - non-OSHA approved ladder. :)
And he lived to climb more non-OSHA approved equipment!

Caleb met a friend named Alexandria.
They followed eachother around for about an hour!

Look at this unique tree!

Notice the random lady taking a picture of our son!?
This happened frequently along with a lot of stares at us.

Loved all of these different sculpture/play equipment,
as the playground was surrounded by huge city buildings!

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Love & attachment

As I hug and kiss my son goodnight (for at least the third time, 2 hours past his bedtime!) I can't help but think about my other children. How I long to hold them in my arms, kiss them goodnight, show them how much they are loved, let them know that I will always be their mother. Yesterday Jon and I attended our first education meeting. This was put on by our local agency conducting our homestudy. The focus of this meeting was to talk about what to expect once our children are home. We learned a lot about "triggers" for our children - when life could be more difficult, we also learned more about attachment issues, and we learned/discussed what it will be like for our children to live in a "white privileged" family & neighborhood. Since this education, my mind has been swarming with many different thoughts. Many I'd like to try to convey into my writing, although this may take a few blogs. Tonight, as I work on getting my son to go to bed - and Stay ...

decisions to be made

Last week I was taken a little aback by the news that it could be 3.5 years until we would be bringing our children home. I knew this would be a process, a long process, and maybe I was kidding myself thinking that somehow our process would be shorter. We still do have the potential to have a shorter process since our parameters are not extremely narrow, but we will still be no where near what my head was hoping for. In the recent months it had crossed my mind that I could see us adopting more than once, but what a process that would be! If this is a 3-5 year process, to start all over again seemed like so much. But now our minds are racing with a new hope... Because of the letter they sent us, we learned that simultaneous adoption is an option. The thought had never even occurred to me to look into this option, but I'm becoming quite excited about the prospect. With simultaneous adoption, we would be part of two different adoption programs within our agency - Ethiopia & ...

Davao Day 3 - Our Forever Family!!!

We would like to announce our newest son to the world! Christopher Andrew Christopher, aka Tope (Toe-pay), is a delight to behold. We are incredibly blessed to have him in our lives. If his smile doesn't melt your heart, then his big dark brown eyes will. He is a five year old that has a Great sense of humor and is already quickly melding into the family. His laugh takes my breath away. His hugs are like a warm blanket. And we are so thankful to call him our son. We hadn't even made it into the opening of the gate before Tope ran over to meet us. He quickly jumped into Jon's lap and there he stayed, looking almost shocked and yet content to be with his Daddy. He almost looked like he was going to cry. He clung to Jon for a very long time. What a blessing! One of the caretakers had him put on his shoes, of which he tied himself! He is already such a big boy! We made our way to the office to sign papers and receive papers. Tope talk...

Waiting Stitches

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