Day two with Kaiya

We cannot sleep-in here and wake up early and are too excited to sleep any longer. We wondered out to one of the main streets by our hotel and had an excellent street food breakfast for $1 and then went to Starbucks and spent $11 on coffee - HA HA! I will say it was worth it though as I would never have thought Starbucks would taste watered down until being here several days. Later that morning we were in the lobby getting in a little internet time and had a chance to talk to my parents on Skype. Meanwhile, Kaiya and the social worker came walking in earlier than expected and my parents got to see her walk up and say hello to her (lucky them!). Kaiya was definitely more aware of what was going on today. Sad for a while and does not like being in the hotel. Her foster home is open air to the outside so she is not used to window glass, doors, air conditioning. She is much happier outside so we spent some time walking in the garden around the pool. Dusty got to hold her for a bit which was nice for him...and my arms, but I was still jealous. They took us all to a shopping mall to buy some necessities (and some shoes from her daddy) and Kaiya enjoyed being out and about. By lunch she was the life of the party and making everyone laugh, except for Josh (one of the dads) when she pulled a Hercules and flipped the table so everything slid into his lap! Sorry! Dusty had her laughing again and then when all attention was off her she stood up in my lap, looked around at all of the patrons, and with a smile started to scream. She may give Sophie a run for her money Anna! We had so much fun with her there and then headed back to the hotel for a bit. Getting used to the new environment seems to be just as difficult as adjusting to us so specific prayers for that are appreciated!
Tonight we decided to go to Khao San road, a touristy, crazy, street food, backpackers area that in the evening was kind of like bourbon street meets bohemia meets Vegas and a must see - without a precious little girl in tow - so we enjoyed that and have a list of parks, zoo, temples, to see as we feel Kaiya will want to be outside a lot. We will just plan to be flexible to her needs so we'll see. Tomorrow is the big day!! She will arrive around 11:00 and will be ours!! We miss you all (nearly as much as our boys and own bed)!

Sweet smile

Shopping with Mommy

Khao San Road

Yummy street food

Worth the Wait

We had a great day today. We woke up at 4:30am in anticipation of meeting our baby girl. At 9:45 we met with the other four families in the lobby and went up to one of their rooms. After getting an overview of our schedules for the next day they brought up the children. There were two boys and two girls all between 18 months and two and a half. Kaiya was leading the pack with her hair in braided pigtails looking so confident. We spent about 20 minutes with the group and then were able to take her to our room with the social worker. She played ball with daddy and was laughing and smiling. Then she blew bubbles with mommy and was very entertained. After a while of playing and smiling I think she began to realize what was going on and started to get a little upset. We walked around the hotel for a while and then ate some lunch. We were able to get her warmed back up to us when we broke out the ice cream. The first time she let Kathryn hold here was when she was taking her over to fill up a big bowl of strawberry ice cream. She let daddy feed her a little bit and even fed me back. After lunch we walked around the gardens and looked at the Koi in the pond. She is very curious and loves the flowers and gardens. When she walked in to meet us she was holding a white flower in her hand. Then we made our way back up to our room without the social worker. She was a little timid but did pretty good. She mostly wanted to just be held by mommy on the balcony. She was very tired but was fighting sleep with all her might and managed to win the battle. At 2:00 we left the hotel and headed to her foster families home. The ride took about an hour and Kathryn held her the whole time. I asked to hold her several times but Kaiya wasn't too keen on that idea. Not yet at least. When we got to the foster home we were greeted by her Foster mother, foster sister, foster brother, and foster grandmother. They were all very friendly and had big smiles. We were able to spend about an hour their seeing their home and hearing stories about Kaiya and seeing her interact with her foster family. They were all very happy and friendly and allowed us to take pictures and video. We know that will be priceless for her to be able to see later in life. We got to see her take a bath in a little plastic tub and she loved it. This was probably the happiest we saw her all day. She was laughing and playing in the water and then ran around being silly and not wanting to put her clothes back on. Her foster grandfather was cooking dinner in a pot that was over a fire and talked to us about the flood and how it had effected their house. We got to take a picture with the foster family and they walked us back to the main road where a van was waiting for us. Leaving was difficult and while Kaiya stayed behind we could tell that it was going to be very sad for her foster family when Kaiya leaves on Tuesday. Even the neighbors who were sitting outside were waiving and saying "bye Luk-ped" and asking when her last day was. Kathryn and the foster mother both got teary eyed but managed to hold it together. This is definitely a day we will never forget and we're so grateful for every minute of it. Tomorrow we will see her again for several hours and then take her to the mall to get her a few things. We will be updating pictures as soon as we download them from our camera. Stay tuned.

Good job Dusty on filling in on all the details! Now my turn. :) Lukped is just beautiful. She walked in that door so confident in her pretty outfit and came right over to us. She does not speak very much (as we saw and the social worker told us) but you can tell she is very smart! She watched closely all of the other children with their families any time we were together and was always studying what was going on around her. It was very easy to tell if she did not like or want something and when she did she just pointed with the cutest tiny pointer finger. She did amazing. Prayers were answered as we got a few smiles (who can't laugh at Dusty and his funny daddy ways) and were able to hold her. Yes, we saw grieving. Her foster family is amazing, fun, happy, loving, etc. and our sweet daughter does know what is happening (she had the photo books we had sent and she knew the pictures). We are thankful that we were able to hold her during this time and make it to some happier times still holding her. She was so hilarious at her foster home that we were able to see some very fun times in our families future. Yes, she too can silly walk and we heard of her dancing that they all tried to get her to do for us. I think running around in underwear laughing was enough for her today. Tomorrow will be a new hurdle as day two comes and she gets more comfortable telling us how she really feels. We are so happy and exhausted (my arms are nearly broken from holding her - but there is no way I was going to put her down for a second). Dusty made me put her down to go to the bathroom before we left for the foster families but I really didn't want to. Thank you for praying for us and her. I cannot wait for you to see this incredible little girl...I'm telling you, she is a life changer.

Made it to Bangkok

Our last night in Phuket was so memorable. We went into a tiny local beach "restaurant" literally a hut on the beach, sand floor, no doors just open to beach and sat among two men watching cartoon network with a small boy while two tables of Thai women played intense card games. We kind of felt like we got to be a fly on the wall to a common evening in southern Thailand. After that we walked on the beach and it was the time between all of the tourist crowd leaving the beach and coming back for dinner so it was just us and many local shop and restaurant owners with their children playing soccer and taking swim before dinner crowd came. We laughed and watched and even were included in some of the fun. I got to try to teach a young boy how to whistle through his hands in the water and it was so sweet to be smiling and laughing and teaching without being able to understand each other's language.

Today we had a couple hours on the beach before catching our flight to Bangkok. The flight was very scary for me. We unexpectedly hit turbulence and the plane dropped so hard that everyone's drinks spilled everywhere and a woman screamed out loud. My heart was racing the rest of the flight. Dusty was his usual calm. He was just glad we had declined drink/snack service. We arrived in time to drop off our things and go have a nice dinner. Bangkok is definitely different than the slower laid back pace of Phuket. It is a huge city and busy, but we are ecstatic to be here because we know we will be meeting Kaiya tomorrow morning!! Will try to update you as soon as we can about our first meeting, but we unfortunately do not have internet in our room (no lan connection on our mac).
Good night!

Oh what a day!

We are here!

Beautiful! We are SO happy to be here after a crazy and LONG travel day(s) which included running as fast as we coul through the Bangkok airport last night to make our Phuket connection and then praying our bags made it. God is good! We made it, bags made it and we are in THAILAND! It is breathtaking. It is only 8:45 am but we have already had breakfast and I am writing this from Nai Yang beach. Today's plan: relax an think about how close we are to our little girl! Will post pictures later.
Sawadee Kha,
K&D

Leaving in the morning!!

We cannot believe this day has finally come! We are packed and ready to head out first thing in the morning. I am already sad to be leaving Cole and Jae for so long, but am beyond excited to be so close to looking into the eyes of our daughter-finally holding her- smelling her-kissing on her-speaking broken Thai with a southern twang to her-and seeing how God shapes our family yet again into what it was always meant to be. We love you "baby duck" and will be there soon!