Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Dear Madelyn, Ashton, Allison, Harrison, Evelyn, Grandma and Grandpa:

Here is our second update.

Saturday afternoon, we went to the Royal Palace in Bangkok. It is the place where a woman named Anna came from England to teach the children of the King English and about Western culture. What she did was made into a musical called “The King and I.”

Behind the Palace is a Buddhist temple. It was very elaborate and detailed. Here are some pictures from the temple.





The palace itself is also very nice. The King doesn’t live here anymore, but it remains a place the people in Thailand love to visit. Here is what the outside looks like. We didn’t go inside.


On Sunday, we traveled to the very top of Thailand—where Thailand, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and Laos come together. Perhaps you can find it on our globe. We visited a village in the mountains where many of the women place metal rings around their necks to stretch them out. It is called the “Village of the Longnecks”. They are not dinosaurs, however; just people with long necks, as you can see from this picture.


They live in a rather primitive village, where they make their money by selling things to people like us who travel from across the world to see their long necks.


You can also see rings around their legs, at their knees. The guide told us that, anciently, they wore those rings to protect against attacks from tigers. There aren’t many tigers in the jungle today, so we didn’t worry too much when we visited the village.

After we left the village, we drove to the Ma Kong river, which separates Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. We rode across the river to Laos, where we visited a very small village. The people in the village had found a little bear in the jungle, and kept it in a fenced in area. They are trying to sell it, but no one has purchased it yet. He was a cute little guy, but we didn’t try to pet him.


Today, we will mainly visit craft shops, as we travel from Chiang Rai to Chaing Mai. I think Mom will have fun—I don’t like shopping that much, so I don’t know how much fun I will have.

We hope you are all doing well. Harrison—keep using the potty! We are proud of you. Also, thanks, kids, for getting all of the thistles out of the yard. Good work!

We love you.

Love,
Mom and Dad

June 2, 2007

Dear Madelyn, Ashton, Allison, Harrison, Evelyn, Grandma and Grandpa:

So...here is our first update.

After we left you, we flew and flew and flew and flew, through the night and the next day. We landed at the Tokyo airport, walked around for a bit, then got on another plane and flew to Singapore. We were very tired by the time the flight ended. We each had our own TV that had movies, cartoons and games. Ashton and Madelyn, hopefully it will be like this when we go to Taiwan. I think you will have fun.

Singapore is a very clean city, right by the ocean. We went on a little boat ride on the river that goes through the city, right by this Merlion (half fish/half lion).




We then went to a Tao temple. It was very colorful.




After that, we went to the National Orchid Garden, and saw some "speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil" monkeys. Can you tell which are the monkeys?




Finally, we went to a zoo at night and went on a "wild animal safari" ride. It wasn't very wild, and we were very tired. We probably should have just gone to bed.

We got up early the next morning and flew to Bangkok, Thailand.

Bangkok is not as clean as Singapore, but very interesting. We went out exploring that evening, and went to a dinner where they had some people in costumes, dancing. Allison, you probably would not have liked much of the food we ate. It was very different, and there was no peanut butter. We liked it, however. We have some stories to tell you about Bangkok when we get back. Riding back to our hotel, we rode on an M&M train. We thought Harrison would like to have ridden on the train. Grandma Oaks wanted everyone to know that we didn't get M&Ms on the train--the train just had M&Ms on it. Here is a picture.



Today, we went to a local market (more stories), a coconut plantation, and a floating market (still more stories). Here's one picture from the floating market.



This afternoon we will go to the national palace. It should be interesting. I'll describe that in more detail tomorrow.

Tomorrow we get on another plane and fly to Chiang Rai, in Northern Thailand.

We love you and hope you are doing well. Feel free to type an email to us and let us know how you are doing.

Love,
Mom and Dad

Monday, June 25, 2007

Monday, June 25, 2007

I'm tired of waiting. I'm not wanting to change anything, as things will happen as they're supposed to, I'm just not going to put anymore energy into adoption for the time being. I do not even want to write an entry but am forcing myself. I no longer check e-mails to see if something has come in from the agency and I'm not wondering when the phone rings if it might be Laura--I just know it's not. When she finally does call, I'll have trouble believing it. I have to shut down emotionally to manage.

Six weeks ago yesterday, the middle of May, our information was sent to St. Lucy's Center in Tiannen, Taiwan. I believe I was told that it usually takes a couple of weeks to match the families--referrals usually come out the first week or two of the following month. We all thought, including our agency, that everyone else in our group (families whose papers went in with ours) would be matched while we were out of the country as we left May 29th. It's unbelievable that we were gone 3 1/2 weeks, while on the verge of receiving a referral, and it didn't even make a difference! I'm so glad that the timing on receiving a referral didn't cause us to do anything crazy like cancelling or shortening our trip. I feel very fortunate that we were able to chew up nearly a month of our "it's-coming-any-day-now" wait by traveling in Asia.

My theory is that our referral won't come until the regular time for a July referral--so we still have a few more weeks. It's also possible that we won't be matched at all in July and will need to wait longer. It's even possible that St. Lucy's won't want to match us with one of their children because we already have a large family by their standards. Because I just don't know, it's not worth lots of energy anymore. I am planning on enjoying the wonderful children that I have right now and being surprised when something actually does happen--I know I won't be looking for it actively.