Here I am at 8 months!

Paul and I were pleasantly surpised to have recieved an email today from the agency that had a picture and health info for Minsoo! He is exactly average height and weight for 8 motnhs (he wlil be 9 months on the 30th) which is great news.
I am wondering how we were so lucky to have recieved a picture, since the country manager told us just last week we had to request it and we only get to ask once so we should wait as long as we can and as close as we can to the travel time. I really hope this means travel is closer than expected and not that the country mgmr decided to request the info wihout us asking for it. Either way  - we are excited to SEE him! He is getting big!

One month, two month, three month...four!

Are you ready for a rant and rave? If not, skip this post!

We are starting to swing more on the "prepared" side than "unprepared" side of the pendulum for Minsoo's arrival. Yeah! But then the mish mash of conflicting info has left us frustrated. The agency told us the average wait time for travel to get him would bring us to end of April. Then a few weeks ago the travel specialist said more like end of Mary. Then a newsletter came out from the agency that said 6-8 months. There was some obvious discrepancies so I emailed her and she says now more like END OF SUMMER!!! I have a solution - I should just not email and ask because everytime I do for the last 2 weeks I get a new answer and it is not one I want to hear. As you can imagine - we are pretty frusterated. The longer timeline means Minso could be OVER a year and almost 14 months when we get him. There is a big difference between an infant and a toddler.

I am also frusterated at the response the agency has given us the last few weeks. It is clear she reponded in the email without even looking at our case which is why she told us May (waiting for 5 months) when it has been 6-8 all long. I wanted to beleive we were some special case, but I should have known better and I am glad I asked again for clarification!

OK, now the things we are grateful for.
-Our health - we are doing well and healthy.
-Our jobs  - while I may be working crazy crazy hours at my new job. I have one and I enjoy it (minus the crazy hours). Paul still has his job even though his company laid some the team off.
-Great friends and neighbors - we have gotten to know some of the neighbors better and we are really lucky because they are pretty terrific!
A REFERRAL! At least we have one and we know who are little boy is. We are very grateful for that and have to remind ourselves that we don't make the plan, we just make the best of the plan and know that sometimes we don't know best like we think we do. :)

Care package

We found out we get to make MinSoo a care package! Yeah! It has to all fit into a freezer 1 gallon bag. Why, you ask? This is to allow for adoptive parents traveling to Korea to take it with them to be delivered to your child.


We are pretty excited abut being able to do this for MinSoo. We have his first little outfit. Its so cute with a little vest with a dinosaur on it. We also are including a chewable photo album, a pacifier, a blankie and a stuffed lion that is really soft.
 
Somehow we managed to get all of this in a little 1 gallon bag!

We don't know if MinSoo will be able to take any of these things with him when we bring him home - but maybe if we are lucky we will get a picture of him in his new outfit. :)

New Names for MinSoo

Paul and I have been researching names...below are a few so far. What do you think, which one fits him?
Emmett
Carter
Ashton
Payton
Nikko or Niko
Preston
Ronan
Kingston
Grant
Truman
Jaydon, Jaiden or Jadon
Kai
Mason
Weston
Logan
Cooper James
Jack

Min Soo's first Christmas gift

Grandma and Grandpa Welter gave MinSoo a cute little soft  and fuzzy penguin  - it is his first Christmas gift!

Merry Christmas...to us!

The day we have been waiting for has arrived....yep - we received our referral!!! Yesterday at 8:48am central time we got a call from the agency. I answered the phone and Ben, our social worker asked if Paul was around. I said, "do you have news for us Ben?!" and he sure did! I then preceded to run down the stairs and yell to Paul with excitement "we have a referral! a referral!" We then put Ben on speaker phone and then the loud crying part of the conversation started, shortly followed by silence and shock part. I had the full range of emotions all in a 5 min period. We put a rush on the medical check through the U of MN international adoption clinic, got the results back in the afternoon and accepted the referral this morning. We are so excited - words can not describe! Our little boy was born June 30th, 2009. His name is Min Soo. He is almost 6 months old and is such a little cutie. We can not wait to meet him! Now we are in a mad dash to get the room in order, the house in order, the name picked out, the daycare found ,the job decision made...and the list goes on!

This is the best Christmas gift EVER!!!

Costa Rica Adventures!

No news on the adoption front yet, but Paul and I had a great distraction over Thanksgiving. We took a trip to Costa Rica. It was definitely a trip to remember. There were natural wildlife species everywhere such as iguanas, birds and lizards!


Paul was very daring as he not only went on the zipline crossing the Monte Verde cloud forest from tree to tree, hundreds of feet in the air and hundreds of feet wide, but he did it upside down! This still amazes me when I see the pictures.

Our favorite part of the trip was the Arenal Volcano and Hot springs. The springs consisted of many falls into many pools of water It was amazing, relaxing and magical.

We ended the trip on the dry, warm west part of Costa Rica on the beach. aaaahhhh!