Home for a month

Holly has been home with me for a month now and has settled in really well. I can't believe how time has both flown by since we have been home, and has seemed like I have had Holly forever, all at the same time. How did I ever live without her?

We have gone up to Grandma and Grandpa's house a couple of times since being home, and we will go there for Christmas, as well. She loves going up there because she gets so many cuddles and is hardly ever put down by anyone. She loves the attention and the change of scenery. Holly is definitely a people person and wants to go out, see what's going on, and be around busy places and things. I have taken her to quite a few basketball games, where she loves watching the game, looking at the cheerleaders, or just staring at the score clock as it counts down. She is a great little shopper when we have to go to Spokane to the mall, Costco, or running other errands. What a trooper!

Meeting Maddy at Grandma & Grandpa's

Since she has been home, Holly has really turned on the afterburners when it comes to crawling, but would prefer to pull up on the coffee table or have someone hold her hands to walk around. She is finding her balance really well and even stood by herself for a couple of seconds the other day, even though she didn't know it. She will be walking soon, so watch out kitty!

Having Holly here is so amazing! I look at her and my heart just melts. She is so sweet and happy. Although it is sometimes difficult to get her to smile for other people, she sure shares them with me! Getting a full face grin when I go in to get her from a nap is a wonderful feeling.


Christmas is going to be so fun and special this year. I forgot to take pictures at Thanksgiving, so maybe I can remember to do that at Christmas! She knows how to unwrap presents, but prefers to play with the paper and bows (of course).







I know I haven't been very good about blogging. Don't expect that I will get any better with time! I will try to post once a month or so, at least until things get really crazy and I forget. Just know I am so thankful and grateful to have Holly in my life. I have waited a long time for this and it is worth every second of heartache to finally have her in my arms!

Having a Great Time!

Sorry I haven't blogged in a couple of days. Its hard to figure out when to blog with a baby wanting to help! Holly had a rough couple of nights getting to sleep and her schedule is all screwed up, so its been crazy trying to get down here.

We went to our AIT appointment on Wednesday, which was to get Holly's visa. We saw another couple there who is staying at the same hotel as us. I now have Holly's Taiwanese passport and visa in hand and her picture is pretty cute.

We went to the Grand Hotel today, which was the first world-class hotel in Taiwan...and still is, I think! Beautiful! Fion took our picture in front of a famous golden dragon. Doesn't look impressive here, but I have other pictures that are better.

Yesterday, we went to a botanical garden, which was pretty amazing. We saw several school groups there doing something for biology or some class like that. One group of (mostly) school girls saw me with Holly and came over to see her in a huge swarm. First just 3-4, but then 10-12 of them wanted to practice their English and take our pictures. The few boys in the group also came over to see the baby. Babies over here are VERY LOVED by everyone! Teenage boys come up and tell me how beautiful she is, men in suits smile and make faces at her, and people in restaurants just want to oooh and aaah over her.

At the park today, we saw some men playing softball. We watched (and laughed) for a bit. Check out the pitching and you will understand!

I know its not a lot, but this should be enough to let you all know that we are doing well and having lots of fun. Holly is a very social baby and wants to be out where she can see things and people. That bodes well for basketball games, I think! Tomorrow we will go to a souvenier shop where I hope to find a deck of cards to add to my collection at school. We leave tomorrow night, but have had such a great time while we were here. I love Taipei!

Gotcha Day

In the car on the way back to Taipei.

Yesterday was so exciting and forgettable all at the same time. Everything was such a blur; it was a good thing that Mom & Eric were taking pictures and video for me. Holly is just as sweet as she looks in pictures and so easy-going and happy. She likes to study everything around her and see what's going on. She slept pretty well, considering she didn't know where she was and everything was different. Here are a few pictures of the day.

The famous baby store.

Today we will be going to Taipei 101 and it is sunny, so we should be able to see well. We are going someplace else, to, but I can't remember where. Glad to finally have my baby in my arms!

This morning in the room.

Guand Temple & the National Museum

Yesterday afternoon we went to the Guandu Temple and the National Museum. The temple was incredibly beautiful with hand carved wood murals, statues of Buddhist gods, and amazing architecture within the temple and on its roofs.
This is one of the many dragons on one of the roofs of the temple. Since the temple has different levels, there are a lot of roofs to decorate. The view behind this dragon is of a wetland park and Taipei is in the very back. At a lot of the temples here, there are rocks inlaid into a strip like this, with the pointy (but rounded) parts up. The purpose of these is to take your shoes off and walk across them. They give you a foot massage and if you are "healthy" you should be able to walk all the way down the strip of rocks. I thought it felt good on my feet, but I only got about 1/4 of the way down the strip. Here, it looks like Eric went all the way at the end and returning, but he cheated. He ran way down there just for a picture. Mom and Fion also tried it, but they both said it hurt way too much and put their shoes back on after only a few steps.

Here is us outside of the temple. This is almost at the top, so you are only seeing the top half of the temple. The view from the top is amazing, as you will see in the next picture. The red bridge is apparently a famous bridge here in Taiwan.

My absolute favorite part of the day was when we went to the National Museum. They had artifacts from as far back as 2500 B.C. We signed up to take an English tour and saw the most important/famous pieces in the museum. If I had known how great it was going to be, I could have spent all day there all by myself! I love museums and always like to see everything in them. This one was 3 stories tall and it has only 1% of its holdings on display at any one time. Amazing! I only took pictures outside, because I didn't know if you could take them inside; many museums will not let photos be taken of display items.

The building behind us is not actually the museum, but an auditorium that is built to "match" the museum, which is to our left in the picture.

What a Fantastic Afternoon

What a great afternoon we had with Fion yesterday! All the other JOH families who have had her for their guide have said how wonderful and sweet she is. Everything they said was right on. She is funny, thoughtful, and just plain fun to be with.

This is a bamboo plant decorated with ornaments, like a Christmas tree.


We went to the handicraft market, the flower market, and the jade market yesterday afternoon and early evening. At the handicraft market, I bought a couple of wooden puzzles for Holly (thanks Jeff & Abbie for that idea) and a handpainted fan. Mom bought some beautiful table runners that she will use for Christmas. When we went through the flower market, I though mom had died and gone to heaven! There were more orchids in that market than any of us had seen in our entire lives. And dirt cheap, too. An orchid that would sell for $30-60 in the States cost about $4-5 dollars here. It just about killed mom to walk through there and not be able to buy anything. We can't take live plants back into the States without preplanning and lots of forms. How sad!

Orchids for sale on just one table.

The jade market was amazing. Lots of handmade earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. There were also loose stones and just about everyone had little cell phone ornaments with jade in them. We bought a few of those because we figured they would make really cute Christmas ornaments for the tree. Some guy tried to sell mom a brass teapot that he said was 3500 years old. If it were that old, it would be in a museum somewhere, not on a market table to sell to foreigners! Kerry, Ann, and Eric in front of a tree with cut orchids attached. The streamers hanging from the tree have lemons attached to the bottom.


There is a huge baseball tournament being played in Taiwan while we are here. Like a real world series; the national teams from a ton of countries are playing in four different stadiums. We were kind of interested in going to one if there were tickets still available. After we returned to the hotel, Fion asked the about the games. We could see one today between Australia and Thailand at noon, or we could go to the Guandu Temple and the National Palace Museum. After some thought and discussion, we decided we will go to the temple and museum. We can see baseball any time, but we can't go to these other places any other time.

Fion took us to a great little resaurant for dinner last night that is just about 2 blocks from the hotel. We all had fried rice and then salted vegetable and pork soup. The fried rice was so yummy! The soup was good; the broth was the best part. They will deliver to the hotel if they are not too busy or we can call in an order to pick it up. We think we may do that tomorrow night after we get the baby. We had Fion write down the Chinese names of the fried rice and sweet and sour chicken so that we can have the desk clerk call it in and we can pick it up. The restaurant owner (?) taught Eric how to say "thank you" in Chinese, but it took a lot of additional help for him to say it back to her. We had a good laugh over that, but now he can say "xie xie" with the best of them!

Needless to say, we are having a really great time. In the back of my mind, however, is always that I get to pick up Holly tomorrow! Hopefully today will be as busy as yesterday to keep my mind occupied.

We Are Here

We arrived in Taiwan at 6:45 Friday morning. We met the JOH (adoption agency) representative at the airport, checked into the hotel, and looked around at some local restaurants. Then we headed for Starbuck's to have some coffee and people watch.

There are scooters here everywhere and its interesting to see them at intersections zooming in between lanes of traffic to get in front of all the cars at a stoplight. There is obviously a system that is used at traffic lights when it comes to scooters.

We found a bookstore a few blocks away in the afternoon. Mom bought a quilting book in Chinese and I bought a chocolate cookbook. Mine was in Chinese and English. We went to a local shrine where people were having blessings done or something like that. There were volunteers there who seemed to be praying for people and families were leaving food at huge tables.

We wandered around to little shops, ate hamburgers at one and watched part of a baseball game between Japan and Taiwan. Then we found a great bakery right behind our hotel which we may go back to again.

We met another JOH family, Anne Marie and Jim, who just picked up little Alex. We went to a local hot springs, where the water gets up to 90 degrees F. Apparently, someone once fell in and was boiled, so they had to fence the springs off and now you can just walk around them and look down at them. Really, it just looks like a stream with hot steam coming off of it.

We ate dinner at the hotel and went to bed about 7:00 pm and slept about 12 hours.

Today we are going to go find a cable for my camera, so I can actually post some pictures here, since I forgot it at home. After that, we are going to find a fabric store to see what cool fabrics we might be able to find. I would like to make a quilt for Holly with some local fabrics. Later, Fion is going to pick us up and we will go to a jade market. So much shopping, so little time...

We will go down to Taichung Monday morning to pick up Holly. Fion told us yesterday that I will get to meet with the birth mother. I am very happy about that. Can't wait to pick up my little girl!

PS - Obviously, finding the cable I needed was a success!

Surprise Update!

The day before I leave for Taiwan and the thing I expect the least is to have an email with more new pictures of Holly. But surprise! Someone either tried to cut her hair while she was moving around, or she got ahold of the scissors and did it herself, because her bangs (what's left of them!) are all kinds of crazy! No worries, her hair will start growing out the minute I get her. She will be in pigtails in no time.



Also, I am not thinking Holly was very happy to be having her picture taken at the time. Back to no smiles and the occasional grumpy look. Maybe she's saving her smiles for Monday when I pick her up.

Of course, I should be trying to get a few things done, like finishing the packing and cleaning the rest of the house, but I guess I will do that later this evening.

Today was my last day of work until February 4th and I was more sad to be leaving than I thought I would. I got some chopsticks from one of our exchange students to practice eating, so I won't starve while I'm in Taiwan. Thanks, Raphael! We had a little fun in class while I showed him that I could pick up thumbtacks, erasers, and even a marble. Don't worry about me starving!

I was really amazed at how so many kids came by my room at the end of the day to say goodbye, wish me luck on my trip, and make me promise to come visit. (Thanks, guys. That truly did meant a lot to me.) Like they won't see me?! I live 5 blocks from school, ya know!

Ok, gotta go get something done. Next post will be from Taiwan!

An Addition to Holly's Room

I've had Holly's room pretty much done for a few months now, but I saw a "Going Out of Business" sign on a furniture store today and stopped in to see if I could find a decently priced rocking chair. I hate the price that you have to pay for decent furniture, but have also come to the conclusion that I WILL need a chair to rock my sweet little girl to sleep in.

I found a chair that rocks and that I can kick my feet back in, but it doesn't recline all the way back. Once I am done with it in Holly's room, I can use it anywhere in the house. While I was taking a picture of the new chair, I thought I would take a few of the rest of the room so everyone could see what it looks like.

Just for the record, I DID NOT paint it myself! A lady who lives in town did quite a few years ago. Unfortunately, the chair hides the little hill with a couple of kittens sitting at the bottom of the tree. Maybe I will need to rearrange...

The blankets that are hanging on the bed are ones that were given to me by friends. The quilt on the right was handmade by a group of my quilting friends, and the one in the middle is one that I made. I still have a couple of really cute shelves to hang somewhere, too, but I will worry about that once I get home.

Anyway, in a week and a half, the room will be occupied by someone other than the cat! I can hardly believe it. The fact that I leave in three days still seems so surreal.

Things are coming together!

I talked to Tien at JOH yesterday afternoon and got quite a few things clarified for our travel. We will definitely be able to go pick Holly up on Monday morning (Nov. 12)!!

After my frustrations with trying to find reasonable hotel accommodations, I finally decided to just have Tien book our room for us. Rooms with 2 queen beds are apparently not as popular in Taiwan as they are here and that is what I was looking for. She booked us a room at the Golden China. The hotel has had mixed reviews from different adoptive parents who have stayed there, but I honestly don't care as much about the room as I do getting my baby! Also, it won't cost a small fortune, like some of the other hotels in Taipei. Once we are there, I will give a full report of my impressions of the hotel for all of the other JOHers out there who haven't traveled yet.

Please pray that the birth mother will choose to meet me when I am there. She is still undecided at this point, which is totally understandable. I think that meeting her and getting a chance to talk with her about her hopes and dreams for Holly is important. Also, later on, when Holly has questions about her birth mother, I will be able to provide more information, tell her all about getting to meet, and show her pictures and video of that day. I really, really want this to happen for Holly's benefit, so please keep the birth mother in your thoughts and prayers.

Planning Travel

After getting the news Monday evening that its finally time to travel, I spent most of my free time Tuesday booking out flights and trying to figure out where to stay. I thought I had the whole hotel thing decided and it would be easy to get those arrangements made. Wrong!

When I called the hotel where I had been planning to stay, the lady must have either a) been doing the exchange rate incorrectly or b) seriously overcharging me for a room. For a suite with two queen beds, she quoted me 15,000 NTD, which is almost $8500! When I asked her if this was for the entire time we would be there, she said no, that it was for each night! Yeah, right! Like that's ever going to happen! Obviously, I think there was something amiss, but we won't be staying there.

We will be leaving on Wednesday, Nov. 7 in the evening and arrive in Seattle. There, we will sit around the airport for about 6 hours and leave for Taiwan at 1:30 am on the 8th. We will arrive at 5:30 am on Friday, Nov. 9. I wanted to be able to pick Holly up that day, but we will have to wait until Monday or maybe even Tuesday. The AIT appointment will be Wednesday, Nov. 14 and we will fly out of Taipei on Friday, Nov. 16 at 11:00 pm. We will arrive in Seattle at 5:30 pm on Friday and catch our final flight home at about 8:00 and land in Spokane a little after 9:00 pm. We should get to the house about 11:00 pm.

Having the extra days in Taiwan will at least give us some additional time to sight see and enjoy Taipei. I am guessing that sight seeing with a baby isn't nearly as easy, fun, or practical as without one, so learning more about Holly's birth country and culture will be a good thing to do until we can go pick her up.

I am glad to have the arrangements made and can now focus on getting everything together and organized before we leave. I'm guessing it could be the last time my life is organized for a very long time!

Final Ruling!!!

For the last week or so, I have been checking my email constantly at work, sometimes 10-20 times a day, waiting for news of my final ruling. Following this pattern, I did the same today, but stopped checking after about noon, because I knew it was 3:00 am in Taiwan and that if I hadn't gotten any news of a final ruling by then, I wouldn't be getting the news today.

After volleyball practice, I got home and checked my phone messages. The first one was from the adoption agency asking me if I had gotten the email about my final ruling and the AIT (American Institute in Taiwan; like an embassy where you go to get a visa to come to the U.S.) appointment scheduled for November 14th! The agency said that their server hasn't been working correctly and that some people are having problems with their email because of it.

Needless to say, I am VERY excited and can hardly contain myself!!! I tried to call the airline to make reservations, but it was after business hours, so I will have to call back tomorrow.

Happy, happy day! It is a relief to know that Holly is legally mine now and all I have to do is go and get her! God really does answer prayers.

To Iraq Again?

I got an email from my niece yesterday saying that her National Guard unit will most likely get called up next summer and have to go back to Iraq. This news is certainly a bummer. She has been there once and, like everyone else in the country, really struggled with the question "Should we be there?" especially once she returned home. My cousin also returned from Iraq earlier this year, and a long-time friend just came home this month. Nobody I know who has been to Iraq has been physically injured and I am very grateful and thankful for that. It is frustrating to know that my niece may return for a second tour. Hopefully, her orders will get rescinded and she will not have to go back and be placed in harm's way again.

The Joy of Friends!

Wow! Just when I was feeling a little down and blue that I haven't received my final ruling yet, something great happens to cheer me up! How do friends know when you need something even before you do? Amazing!

I went to play bunco with my friends tonight. Halfway through the game, they say "Ok, we are done playing!" and proceeded to throw a surprise baby shower for me! I apparently walked right by all the gifts twice and didn't even notice them. Fortunately, they all have children, so they know more than a first time mom what someone needs for a baby. Here are some pictures of the beautiful gifts for Holly.

Here are two crocheted blankets, one of them made by the lady who will be Holly's babysitter. Also, a soft, fuzzy blankie with satin binding, and a floral cotton receiving blanket.

Here are some of the other thoughtful gifts that I received. Everything from sippy cups, bath toys, a piggy bank, board books, food suckers, washclothes and bath lotion. Also, clothes, clothes, clothes! If this girl doesn't like pink, she's not going to have a choice until she is at least 2 years old! Among other things, there are jammies, a Nike skort and shirt, overalls, and the most adorable pink tennis shoes I have ever seen.

The last gift of the night was from several very close friends and brought tears to my eyes. I was speechless, which is sometimes hard to do, if you know me very well. They went together and had the most beautiful silver necklace made with Holly's birthstone and mine in it. I can't even describe what a wonderful gift this is!

Needless to say, I am overwhelmed by my friends' generosity! What a great feeling to have such thoughtful people in my life. I had a wonderful time and want to say thank you, thank you, thank you for all the beautiful gifts.

All About Taiwan...Well, not ALL

For those of you who know absolutely nothing about Taiwan, I thought I would give you a little info. Starting with "Where is Taiwan, anyway?" On the map above, it is the little blue country just to the east of China. And just in case you were wondering, they speak Mandarin Chinese there.

There is a lot to learn about Taiwan. If you want to know about its history, there's a great book called "A Short History of Taiwan: The Case for Independence" written by Gary Marvin Davison. It is short - only 129 pages! However, this guy says a lot in a short amount of space. It basically takes the reader through different time periods and rulers. It begins with the aboriginal inhabitants, then describes Dutch occupation, the Zheng Family and Qing Dynasty rule, Japanese occupation, Guomingdang rule, and finally self-rule by Taiwan. This isn't "history for dummies" its "history for smarties." But most of my friends are smart, right?

If you don't want to read a whole book, then check out the new link about Taiwan or read a little news in the Taipei Times. Gotta learn something new every day, right?

There's a First Time for Everything

I have debated for a long time as to whether or not this blog thing is a good idea. I don't want to be trapped into having to update it all the time. I am a busy person, you know!

Anyway, I figured since I finally decided to take the blogging plunge, I better get a handle on how to do this whole thing before I go to Taiwan and find it all in Chinese! How am I going to navigate the pages then?

For those of you who haven't been diligently following the adoption process, you can look below to see my timeline and you will be caught up. You can also oooh and aaah over all the beautiful pictures of my little girl!