Looking Good

We had our first pediatrician visit today and everything looks real good. He is literally off the charts for length and 95% percentile for weight and head circumference. We tried to do his blood tests, but they had a hard time finding his vein in his chubby little arm. So, we'll have to go to a blood lab this week. We got a lot of our questions answered and overall the pediatrician thought he was doing great. Gabe was such a good boy the whole visit. He's very curious and was checking everything out and charmed all the nurses and waiting families in the meantime.
Sorry this is the only pic, but when a guy is active, curious and concentrating on 'cruising' he doesn't have time for a photo session, apparently.

*my work email is not working lately, so if you usually email me there...I haven't gotten it. Please email me at joanna1355@hotmail.com

Sweet Gabe

Gotta start with the pics, since that's what you came for. Things are going progressively better each day with Gabe. The first few days were pretty rough, but today got much better. We got a much calmer boy, some glorious smiles and a few giggles. It's just great to see his personality come out a bit more each day.
The jet-lag on all 3 of us has been bru-tal. I know how lousy I was feeling and I'm back in my home that I'm comfortable in, I can only imagine how much Gabe is struggling. We see the pediatrician on Monday and I'm anxious to ask her a few questions.
Thanks for all the emails, calls, text messages, gifts, blog comments, etc. I'm trying to catch up, but please know that we appreciate all the support and well wishes.

Home, Safe and Sound

You guys were getting used to the daily posts, weren't you? Sorry to have left you hanging...but it's been a pretty busy couple of days. The night in the hotel went pretty well. He cried for the first 2 hours there, but then fell asleep for 8 hours that night. The plane ride was good the first 5 hrs, but then a poopy diaper got us all out of whack. We were all tired and out of sorts and he could not stop crying. As many of my blog friends have said, a nice woman (who had the bulkhead seat) took him for the last 3 hours of the flight. It was hard to not be able to comfort him, but we were grateful someone was able to help him (and us) out. We were happy to finally make it home and were joyfully greeted by our parents at the airport.
When we first got home there were lots of tears from Gabe. This wasn't the home he was used to, and it's the 3rd new place he's been taken to in 2 days. He's had a lot to adjust to. He had a short nap yesterday and did sleep last night in various blocks of time...sometimes for 3o mins, sometimes for 4 hours. He's still grieving the loss of his foster family, that's clear. But he also reaches for us, is comforted by us and looks in our eyes.
Hopefully I can get some pictures up in the next few days. Thanks for all your support over the past week...it was so great to have all of you calming us and cheering for us back home.
We are finally home and a family...forever!

Morning Calm

In a few short hours we will finally become a family. To try to manage the anticipation, we went to the Bongeunsa Temple this morning. As we walked up you could hear the monks chanting as the people in the various temples worshiped. We slowly strolled the grounds, taking in all the beauty of the temples and the melodic chants. It was impossible to not feel a sense of peace.

Second Meeting

We had our second meeting with Gabe today and it was wonderful to see him again! He let us hold him right away, then cried for his foster mother. We got to play with him longer today and even provoked a few smiles, he seems to be feeling better too. He is VERY attached to his foster mother and would cry very hard when she left the room. We are bracing ourselves for a exceptionally hard day tomorrow and flight home. Speaking of, when we called the airline they said it's a totally full flight. We hope if we get to the airport early they can maybe make some changes for us. If not, let's hope the person in the window seat is a 60 year old Korean woman that resembles Gabe's foster mother.

Touring Seoul-Part 2

Today was another full day of sight-seeing in Seoul. Our first stop was N Seoul Tower where we took the cable car up the hill to the tower. Once there, we went up to the top of the tower and saw all the wonderful views of the sprawling city.




A fun tradition at the tower is to add your 'locks of love' to the fences around the lower observation deck. We brought three locks from home and locked our forever love for me, Dave, and Gabe on the fence.



There was also a Teddy Bear Museum at the tower, that we decided to check out. It was pretty cute, actually. It basically told the history of Korea through teddy bear scenes.


After all the fun activities at the Tower, we headed to Namsongal Hanok Village. The grounds were very nicely landscaped and it was fun to explore the traditional homes.


From there it was off to The War Memorial of Korea. The building and the grounds are stunning. Walking around the grounds there are many statues and plaques that give you a tangible sense of how many men and women lost their lives fighting for the freedom of South Korea.




We spent a lot of time at the War Memorial. I suggest all wives keep their husbands moving through the museum at a quicker pace. Next up was the toy district. Since it was Sunday and it was a national day of mourning for the former president Kim Dae-jung many places were closed or packing up to close. But, we found the Pororo the Penguin doll we were looking for!


By now it was time to head home, but we stumbled across this River Walk and had a nice stroll first.

Tomorrow we go back to the agency for their staff lunch and to spend more time with Gabe!

Touring Seoul-Part 1

Our first day touring Seoul was jam-packed. We started at Gyeongbokgung Palace, which was pretty impressive. For those that remember the lesson, you'll know that it was the king's primary residence during the Joseon dynasty. We took a free English guided tour around the grounds.



After we toured the grounds of the palace, we went to the National Folk Museum which is also on the property.

We had been at the palace and the museum for about 3 hours and we needed a hearty Korean meal...
After lunch we headed to Changdeokgung Palace, which has a 'secret garden' at the back of palace. You used to be able to explore the palace and garden freely, but too many people damaged the grounds over the years so you must take a guided tour. The English tour wasn't for an hour, so we joined the Korean tour and it was just fine.

After Changdeoukgung we headed to Insadong, which is a long shopping street with small side streets that veer off and you can explore. We bought some unique items here and some funny little items too. After awhile though you start to see a lot of the same stuff and there is a fine line between cool stuff from Korea and Korean junk. I'm excited though to review all the 'cool stuff from Korea' we picked up.

After Insadong we were beat...we had been out about 9hours and as you know I had gotten up at 5am. So we took the subway back to the hotel and just had a light dinner at the lobby bar at the hotel.
We had a wonderful day! The Korean palaces were spectacular and something I didn't know I would ever see in my life. We are really enjoying Seoul and feel like we are really getting to know the vibe of the city and how to navigate it. Though every day our thoughts are consumed with Gabe and that we'll be a family VERY soon.
Today we are heading to Seoul Tower, the Korean War Memorial, Itaewon (for the scroll guy!), and hopefully the toy district if we have time.

Hustle Doo!

We hit the Doosan Bears vs the Samsung Lions game last night. When you go to the ticket booth, you are asked which teams section would you like to sit in. Since it was a Doosan Bears home game, we are now officially Doosan Bears fans. The title of the post is the Bears battle cry, that I think Dave may incorporate into daily use. Dave bought a very cool Doosan Bears hat before the game, that has the SoKo flag on the side and a number on the back. There were a few numbers to choose from but we decided on "14," basically because that's Paul Konerko's number. As they were doing the opening lineups we paid attention to see whose number we bought. And wouldn't you know...it's Young Min Ko! Every time the players come up to bat the fans bang their 'thunder sticks' and chant the players name. So we had our sticks and cheered "Go Young Min!" with the crowd.

*I wrote this part of the post this morning at 5am and was going to include the rest of today's activities with it...but I'm just too darn tired. I'll post about today's activities when I wake up, which will be this afternoon for you guys.

Our Boy

We just got back from meeting Gabe and he is just perfect. He has a lot of energy, is a very determined little guy, very strong, and according to his foster mother, very smart. Unfortunately he had a cold today and missed his morning nap, so he was a bit tired. He let me hold him and snuggled with me right away. We played for about 45 mins with his foster mother and father. They love him very much and said they will have a hard time letting him go, but that they know we are a nice couple and have a nice family. We showed them some pictures of our family and they got a kick out of me speaking some Korean phrases to Young Min.
Ok...here's what you want to see. We actually didn't get THAT many photos. There is a fine line between enjoying the moment and taking lots of pics.




We're about to grab some lunch and then are going to a baseball game tonight. Tomorrow and Sunday we will tour Seoul, and then Monday we have our second meeting with Gabe!

We Made It!

We've checked in, had an adventurous yet delicious, dinner at an authentic Japanese restaurant and are about to hit the hay. We were fine during our 13 hour flight over here...a little movie watching, Pororo cartoon viewing, sleeping, be-bim-bop eatin', head-to-head yahtzee playin' and some thinkin' got us through.
After all the dreaming of this moment, all the stories of my friend's trips here, and all the blogs...it hit me that this is it...it's OUR life, OUR trip to Korea, OUR son, and now it's OUR reality. Pretty cool. It's not just in my dreams any more, it's real life. And tomorrow, it gets a whole lot more real. We just keep saying to each other "can you believe we meet our son tomorrow?" We simply cannot wait!!!

To tide you over until the main event, here is a picture of us at the airport and a view from our hotel room.


Until tomorrow...