We are home!!!!!!!!!

Praise God! We are home after about 40 hours of traveling from Vietnam. We arrived at the Portland Jet Port around 12 pm on Sunday. We had a small paperwork snafu, but it was quickly fixed with no delays. Otherwise, the whole process went very smooth. Cara loves being with her daddy and brothers. She is a very pleasant, happy baby. She is getting used to the time change, taking 2 naps during the day and only waking once during the night for a bottle. Her rash and the sores from the scabies are clearing up. At her first medical exam in the US, she weighed in at 16 lbs. Here is a picture of her with the boys.

More pictures

Here are more pictures of Cara. I apologize for the fuzziness of the pictures-both the camera and the person have to be perfectly still for a clear picture. Ellie took us out shopping yesterday. We were out for less than 2 hours. I did pick up a few souveniers. We will be leaving here and going to Hanoi, Northern Vietnam, on Tuesday night. If all goes well, we should be able to leave Vietnam Thursday night or Friday.

Nothing much

Here are some pictures of Cara in our hotel. We have not ventured out at all for shopping or touristing. We have had to wait for the call for each of our appointments. Yesterday, Cara had her medical exam. I unfortunately did not get the specifics of her weight, etc. The doctor was trying to explain the rash on Cara's face. The language difference did not help. He also thought we should have another little girl to balance out our two boys, one girl family. Anyways, we are waiting today for our first interview after filing the adoption papers. So I am here in the hotel room watching National Geographic as Cara sleeps. The hotel has been great. The food is good and the staff are wonderful. They are happy to wait on you hand and foot. They always address me by name, always say "delighted to serve" and always with a smile. I am itching to get out. So hopefully over the weekend I can. Enjoy the pictures.

A New American

Cara is now ours. We had a uneventful Giving & Receiving Ceremony. Here are 2 pictures of the ceremony. There would have been more pictures but my batteries died. We are now back in our very cool and comfortable hotel and Cara is napping. We will be leaving after lunch to go to the police department to apply for Cara's passport. Tomorrow we will be going to the hospital to get a medical exam for Cara.

Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday. I will have more of the ceremony today.

I am in Vietnam and have Cara

I arrived very late last night. The first 2 planes were very full and I did not get much sleep. Thankfully the last plane was not so full, but still only sleep for about an hour. Martin and Ellie from World Child, as well as a couple of hotel personel, met me a the airport. It has been very interesting so far. The first thing I noticed when I got here. The people waiting to pick you up are not allowed in the airport. So there was a huge crowd outside of the airport. They shuttled me to the hotel, which is about a half hour away. I got settled in and ready for this morning. The morning did not start off so well as I overslept and woke up only minutes before Ellie was to be here to pick me up. So I did not get breakfast or COFFEE! We left the hotel about 7:30 this morning to go to the orphanage to pick up Cara. When we got there, I met the director, one of the vice directors, and the paperwork lady. Then they brought Cara in. She is so beautiful and smaller than her pictures make her look. I did get to go into the "baby room" to see where Cara was staying. All of the caretakers just cooed over and loved on Cara. After that we went to get Cara's passport pictures, which we had to wake her up for and then to the supermarket to get formula and cereal. We got back to the hotel about 10:30. Ellie stayed to fill out paperwork and translate the instructions from the orphanage about Cara's feeding schedule. After her bottle Cara fell asleep. So I was able to shower, eat and sleep some. I will post some pictures after I load them on my computer. Tomorrow we go to the Justice Department to make Cara leagally ours.