This one's for me...

You're welcome to read this post, but this one's really for me. Kailin and I had the best day yesterday. We had a rare day together - just the two of us. I don't know if she just needed a little Mommy and Kailin time or if the extra sleep did the trick or if it was a combination or just dumb luck, but we had the BEST day! We tried on some possibilities for Easter dresses and twirled around, played with my rubber stamps and ink (to her messy delight), snuggled up on the couch, read some books, ate a decadent lunch of cheese and crackers and fruit (her favorite) and then headed out for some shopping after she woke up from her (almost 2 hour!) nap. It's hard to put it into words. Yesterday she was the bright sunshiney girl I know she can be but whom we've rarely seen as of late. We giggled and we laughed and we made some everyday memories that I know will last my whole life long. It was the last day we'll spend alone before Colby comes home and I was so glad that it was a good one!

Today we have our travel call with our agency and our travel packet should be arriving! One more step toward the trip. That means that tomorrow night I'll be running off to make copies of all of our paperwork going to AIT (American Institute in Taiwan) and sending it off via FedEx so that they can start getting things in order on the Taiwan side. Once that's done, it's down to the list making and packing and last minute shopping (oh, and the 9 bazillion other things I wanted to get done before Colby comes home....).

Perspective

I was thinking last night (yes - rare event as of late and it did hurt....ha ha ha). I was having one of those moments where the trip seems so far away and yet right around the corner. I think I'm just in that place where it seems too soon to do some things and at the same token the number of things that need to be done before we go seems very large! Anyway, it suddenly dawned on me that a month ago today we didn't even know we had a first ruling (much less a final or travel dates) and a month from today we'll be home with Colby and that whole part of our adoption journey will be over. The difference in our lives that one little month can make amazes me.

I've always hated the "spring forward" time change. The extra hour of daylight is particularly nice, but losing an hour of sleep has never been my favorite. Again - PERSPECTIVE! I happen to have the day off today and Kailin and I slept until 7:10! That never would have happened before the time change, so with a little perspective change, I've realized the price I paid in losing an hour of sleep yesterday was well worth it to gain an hour and a half today - and the greater prize is a well rested, HAPPY child!!!!

Up and at 'em!

We "leaped ahead" this morning and we were hoping that would translate to our early bird rising a little later. She did indeed - sleeping until 7am (or at least that's when she got us up)! I hope that it's a continuing trend because getting up at 5:15am every day is not allowing her to get enough sleep (translate - causing her to be invariably UGLY ALL DAY!). I wasn't expecting her to sleep that late though - 6am is unheard of lately - so I didn't set an alarm and now we've missed church.

Steve is sick again - a nasty cold this time. We're both hoping that he's thoroughly over this and HEALTHY when we leave for Taiwan. Time will tell.

I'm off to my sister's baby shower today. I'm sure she's tired of me poking at her belly, but I keep doing it anyway! I can't wait for Henry to arrive (although I'd prefer that he wait until we get back from Taiwan to make his appearance!)!

Making the tough choices

Sometimes being an adult stinks. I know....not a revelation. All along we've really wanted Kailin to be at the airport when we return. We really want her to grasp that we did go on a "big plane" to get her brother and that she's the first one we want to see when we got home. Well... we've talked it over and we just can't bring ourselves to roust her out of bed at 3am (we get in at 5:15 in Chicago) just to ride an hour+ to the airport to turn around and ride 2+ hours home. We're settling for stopping at Steve's parents' house on our way through to pick her up (at a much more reasonable 6:30 or 7). I'm so disappointed, but it's the adult thing to do.

Along those same lines, Taroko Gorge just isn't going to happen this trip. It's one of the things I really, really wanted to see, but it's a huge long day and we just don't want to do it with Colby and to do it without him we'd either have to go 8 hours after we land, or the day before we get him. I guess we'll just have to plan to go back!!

We got our plane tickets via FedEx this afternoon!

Purchase plane tickets - check!

Our plane tickets have officially been purchased! We depart at the crack of dawn on 3/27 from Chicago, spend some quality time in the San Francisco airport, and then depart about 5:30pm for Taipei. We'll land in Taipei at 10pm on 3/28. We head home on 4/8 at 11:30pm (sleeep Colby....sleeeeep!) and arrive back in the States on 4/8 at 7:30pm (before we even left....ha ha ha). We'll be back in Chicago about 5am on 4/9 and then the fun begins!

Today's goal is to double check our paperwork and look into whether we want to take any excursions beyond Taipei while we're there! We know we want to hit Wulai which is an aboriginal village where they make some magnificent glass beads, but we had been contemplating venturing further to the south and east to Taroko Gorge (being the nature buffs we are). It's looking like that is a LONG day trip, though, and would mean we'd either have to do it Saturday or Sunday since I don't think we'd choose to take Colby out on that long of an excursion. I don't know if we'll be ready for that on Saturday and to get "home" late on Sunday might not be the best idea, either - not that I expect to get much rest that night! It's hard, though. I don't know when we will get back to Taiwan and I want to make sure we see what we can so we can show Colby the wonders of his heritage.... Steve and I need to have a sit down discussion about it, I guess!

Half a step forward?

I spent much of yesterday reviewing itineraries and fares. The travel agents I've inquired with have come up with the same fares I found (within $25 anyway), so it was down to scheduling. One plan got us into Taipei at 6am; the other got us there at 10pm. They both had advantages and disadvantages. The 6am flight had us leaving one day early and with the travel time to the airport and the need to be there several hours in advance, we would both have lost one more day of work. We couldn't decide if arriving at 6am was a blessing or a curse. It's been my experience that if you can make yourself stay up with no naps until it is night time in the place you are visiting, your jet lag is severely decreased. You get a full night's rest and wake up at about the right time the next morning feeling mostly refreshed. So getting in at 6am would, on one hand, give us the full day to explore. On the other hand, we'd have to keep ourselves awake for over 12 hours after we'd just been traveling for almost 24 hours. With the 10pm flight, we have the advantage of being able to go to sleep as soon as we hit the hotel and then wake up and explore first thing the next day. If we manage to sleep most of the flight we risk being wide awake in Taiwan and then about the time we'd be ready for bed, the sun would rise and we'd be in the same predicament as if we'd arrived at 6am in the first place.... Ultimately, we decided that we'd rather save the day of vacation and arrive at 10pm. We'll be up at 2:30am or so the day we leave, and will be awake until at least evening when our flight leaves, so chances are with the less than stellar quality of sleep one can achieve (read...."I" because Steve can sleep ANYWHERE) on a plane, we'll likely be ready for a few hours rest anyway. Let's hope. We'll arrive in Taipei on Friday night (3/28) and have Saturday and Sunday to acclimate to the time change before we pick Colby up on Monday(3/31). Today I'm going to finish filling out our paperwork and do a little more homework in my guidebook. Tickets should be booked by the end of today! One more thing checked off the list!

The search is on!

Well, I bought a guide book on Friday night. I ordered one back in JANUARY from Amazon.com and it's still on back order. Fat lot of good that does me! So I paid dearly for it at Barnes and Noble, but alas - what's a girl to do? I haven't gotten very far into it as of yet - yesterday was a blur of searching the internet for airfare and prepping food for Steve's birthday brunch this morning. Happy Birthday to my honey! He's 34 now and keen to tell me that I'll understand his woes "when you get to be my age..." To that, I say "CRYBABY!!!!" As soon as I post this, I'm off to read the book some more and see what I can come up with - I think I've exhausted the airfare search and come up with the best I can do (which is also the best the travel agency we used for our China trip can do, so we'll probably book through them and save the headache of trying to link the international and domestic flights).

We had a substitute teacher at Cricket school yesterday and she noted that if you pronounce Kailin's name as Ky-leen, then you'd have Chinese for "proud forest". I thought that was interesting to note!

Our other big weekend news is that we have a new niece! Steve's brother Jason and his wife, Sara, welcomed baby Evalyn last evening. We're thrilled for them and hope to meet our new niece in the not too distant future.

I know that this next week will bring lots of progress on our trip. We should have our airline reservations finalized, hope to choose a hotel, finish up our paperwork, and maybe our list of sights and other things we'd like to see while we're there. Yes, this is quite (darn it now I've lost the word I need to use there....I keep thinking "advantageous" and that's not it - but I can't get it out of my head!!) oh fine - it's a long list and "we" probably won't come close to accomplishing it all, but we'll give it a good effort.