No news yet

Some people who received their referrals to Thai Nguyen two days before we did, received Visa calls yesterday. They were told their date of entry into Vietnam will be 9/17.

Not us. We are hopeful that we are among the next travel group. We just don't know when that will be.

I'm testing how to post video

I went on vacation in August with my family and we went fishing one day. This is video of my father feeding the birds. You'll see Ray & Jimmy in it also. (You'll probably have to click on it twice before it will play.)



So, then Jimmy had to try it too.

This is a test - Jimmy's show

If you click on this map it will enlarge. We will be staying in Hanoi (circled in red), but Emelia is in Thai Nguyen (circled and has arrow), which is just north of Hanoi on the map. I've heard it's about a 2 hour ride.

Cookie now has a name!

We are calling her Emelia Anne (maybe Emelia Anne Lai-not sure though). So here are portions of a picture of Cookie (Emelia). You can kind of tell she's cute.

Announcing baby girl Hogan!!

Announcing baby girl Hogan! We received our referral yesterday, 7/5/07. Her given name is Nguyen Thi Lai (her last name being Nguyen - which is equivalent to Smith in the U.S. - a very common last name and her first name being Lai). She was born on 5/14/07 and is in Thai Nguyen Province. We have not entirely agreed on her name yet. She is beautiful! She is "chubbed up" as our caseworker put it. She looks healthy, which is great!

We received pictures, but we are not allowed to post them online until she is ours. We are allowed to post small portions though. I will attempt to do this shortly.

We are just so excited! They are telling us that we may travel end of September, beginning of October. We'll keep you posted.

We miss you Mom

My mother passed away on March 23, 2007. It was the worst time in my life and my family's life for sure. We all miss her very much and still cannot believe that she is gone. She will never get to meet our daughter and our daughter will never get to meet her grandmother and that's so sad - for both of them. She has lots of grandchildren that will miss growing up with her. She was a very special grandmother and she was the best mother & wife too.

We are going to Vietnam!

We decided to go to Vietnam to adopt while we wait for China to move along ever so slowly.

I think we really decided when we met Julie in Ireland, Ray's cousin's daughter, who was adopted from Lang Son province in December 2006. She is soooo cute!

For those of you who are just getting their dossier together. Our dossier was received by our agency on 5/25/07 after it was authenticated at the SF Vietnam Consulate. It was then sent to Vietnam on 5/31/07. We then found out that it was translated and received at the Vietnam adoption office on 6/12/07. Also, our I-171H followed on.

Now we wait for our referral. We are not sure exactly how long we will wait, but we were initially told a few weeks. Let's see what happens.