Journey Home

Oh what a long hiatus away from blogger land. I do apologize for our shortage of updates for the last 2 months, but I feel as though we’ve got several pretty good excuses.
We’re back in the Big Chicken now and we’re enjoying it so much. It’s nice to be in our own home again. Two months away was just almost too long. We’ll miss Tony Roma’s, Outback, National Geo, and our wonderful Thai maids, but nothing beats the peacefulness of lounging in our own living room.

And where to begin…
I could go into a long drawn out speech of our labor and delivery experience. But seeing as how that might drive away half of our readers due to too much detail, I’ll spare you those stories. I’ll suffice it to say, it was wonderful. Worth it of course. But I’m glad I don’t have to go through it again any time soon! September 30th, Eden’s birthday (which she also shares with her Uncle Matt!), will always carry some truly special memories.

As we left Bangkok, we both experienced a very surreal moment. One of those where you think to yourself, “Is this really happening?” We were in a taxi being driven from the hospital to the airport by a really nice Thai man. I was holding Eden and Brandon looked at me and said,
“We have a child.”
Why yes we do Brandon.
“And we’re in Thailand.”
Sure enough.
“And we’re going to China?!”
‘fraid so.
And then our nice taxi driver said, “Oh I have music for you.” And popped in a copy of “Blue Suede Shoes.”
I’ll never forget that moment. And someday I look forward to telling Eden all about her first ride to the Bangkok airport, with Elvis playing in the background, and her parents bewildered by what all was taking place.

Today Eden is 25 days old. I have a 25 day old baby.
And my 25 day old baby has accomplished several things that many people never do in a lifetime.
At 1 and a half weeks old she visited the American Embassy.
At 2 and a half weeks old she acquired her first American passport and Chinese visa.
At 3 weeks old she took two international flights and stepped foot (or rather, was carried) on Chinese soil for the first time.
She’s already an international traveler.
Way to go, Eden.
And let me tell you…if ever we are in desperate need for her to take a nap, all we need do is jump on an airplane. That girl is totally zonked during those flights. It was impossible to wake her up. Which of course is a huge blessing and all of our fellow passengers truly appreciated it.
I wish we had taken pictures of her airport experience, but the camera was buried deep underneath all kinds of wonderful stuff we acquired just for having a baby.
Here are some others though.

Portraits

Yesterday some of our good friends were able to come and spend time with us while they were traveling a few days. We spent two days with them and were able to encourage one another and share stories of what has been happening in our lives. Our friends took some pictures of Eden that we would like to share with you. We would like to say thanks to the Wangs for these amazing pictures. Hope you enjoy.

Bath Time!

Pretty in Pink

Lounging around

Lookin at you

My beautiful girls

Hand in hand

Daddy's Girl

These were taken when Eden was 10 days old

Eden is here!

We're so happy to announce that Eden Grace has finally graced us with her presence. She's the most beautiful thing we've ever seen and she seems to be getting cuter each day. She arrived September 30th at 7:37 a.m. weighing in at just over 8 pounds (sorry for the misinfo in our newsletter...converting from kilos can be confusing!) She's 21 inches long and feeding like a champ. We've posted pictures on shutterfly...just click the link to the right "All our pictures."
Blogger isn't loading pictures at the moment so her first picture on the blog will have to wait for now.
We'll hopefully have a little more time in the future to access high speed to keep the pictures coming. We're sitting in a coffee house right now and the song currently on the radio is "Born in the USA!" haha...how ironic.
Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers during this time! Both mom and baby are doing great and it's such a blessing to know you all are thinking of us. It means more than you know!

Ode to Whirlpool

Have you ever just stood and gazed at your refrigerator? I’m not talking about standing there with the door open as you try to decide what to munch on for an afternoon snack. I’m talking about standing there in admiration of the enormous ice box, the contraption that keeps your ice cream at the perfect temp, the shiny magnetic silver exterior (or in lots of cases creamy ivory…or in rare cases, like the first fridge I can recall my parents owning, mustard yellow). Most people probably don’t take the time to admire the everyday refrigerator, but allow me to just say…you should.
Our refrigerator in China does exactly what your fridge in America does. It keeps stuff cold. Only our fridge is about the size of one of those that college students tote off to their dorm room for storing leftover pizza. (with the exception that it is about double in height of one of those because it also has a handy little freezer section) Don’t get me wrong, we’re not complaining about our cute dorm refrigerator. We realize there are plenty of places around the world without fridges at all. But our adventure yesterday to the Asian equivalent of a Sears was a reminder of the beauty of those good ole, giant, made-in-America Whirlpool refrigerators. The walls were lined with the monstrous “ice boxes.” You could take your pick of color, freezer on top, freezer on bottom, double door, single door, ice maker in the door, ice maker inside, etc… We walked through the maze of refrigerators like kids at Disneyworld; overwhelmed, excited, and not knowing which way to go first.
We opened just about every fridge in that store and each time we gasped in amazement at the amount of space in each one.
“Look! A whole carton of eggs could fit in this egg shelf!”
“Our Gatorade bottles could actually stand UPRIGHT in this one!”
At one point I think I let out one of those giddy Junior High girly giggles as Brandon opened the freezer part of an ice-making giant silver one. I could just picture all the things I could keep frozen! I could imagine myself going to Fu Mart without having to think to myself… “wait a minute, do we have room in the fridge for two cartons of milk today, or just one?”
And then just a few yards away from the fridge section stood a gleaming white Whirlpool washer and dryer set. It was like seeing Romeo & Juliet, peanut butter & jelly, OJ Simpson & an orange jumpsuit. Two things that together mean so much more than apart. To see them sitting there beside each other just seemed like a happy ending to a fairy tale, no washer should ever be left without its counterpart. Yet, our washer in China, while it does as good of a job as any washer in America (only it takes 2 hours instead of quick 30 minutes) is missing its best friend. The other half is no where to be found…at least not in our city anyways. But none the less, our clothes get clean, dry, and do perfectly fine not know the fluffy perfection they are missing out on.
So friends, all this to say… Pat your clothes dryer on the back for doing the job in one hour all the while catching all that pesky lint. Or the next time you slam shut the door of your refrigerator in disgust of the 5 gargantuan shelves of leftovers, think of us and give your Whirlpool a little smile in admiration.

2 babies, and neither one is ours

Apparently Bangkok is a popular place for having babies. Since our arrival we've met two more couples in similar situations as us who are here solely for the purpose of welcoming their first born into the world. We've had a lot of fun hanging out with them in the past few weeks...and here is where I'd post a picture of four pregnant women but our internet isn't complying for the moment. But now I am the only one remaining with a baby still INSIDE my belly. All the others have been born healthily and happily. And it's driving us crazy! :) It has made us even more excited for Eden's arrival!
One of the mothers swears that it was her big chunk of steak at Outback the day before she went into labor...the other swears it was some apple pie & climbing 17 flights of stairs. Of course, climbing 17 flights of stairs might force anyone into labor regardless of being pregnant or not. Not sure I'm willing to go there.
So as Eden's due date approaches, we're considering indulging ourselves even more on steak, apple pie, & what not in order to bring her into this world. Although, at our last ultrasound our doctor estimated that Eden is already at 8 pounds. So maybe I should lay off the apple pie! It was funny...he said, "Wow she's at 3.3 kg." To which I responded, "I have no idea how big that is...Brandon do some quick conversion!" Then the doc said, "That's perfectly normal for a woman your size." I thought to myself, did my doctor just pull a fat joke on me?!! Then he corrected himself and said, "Well, that's really big for a Thai woman, but for a western woman that's perfectly normal." So she may dwarf the Thai babies laying next to her in the nursery but she'll be beautiful anyways.

My parents will be arriving late Sunday night to begin their cross-cultural experience of two weeks and to begin spoiling our first born. :) Brandon's will arrive about one week after that & will get to see us and their first grandbaby for a week or so. Be thinking of them as they travel, eat new foods, and experience all that Bangkok has to offer!

sight seeing...

Saturday we ventured out to downtown Bangkok to check out the Royal Palace and a few other sites. It was a nice outing...a little too hot for a pregnant woman and too much walking, but Eden is still hangin out in there, so I guess I didn't push it too much.

It was neat seeing some of the elaborate buildings, but at the same time a little depressing to see such idolatry. But for a culture so engrained with Buddhism, we shouldn't have expected anything less.

Sorry our blogs have been short lately. Our time on the internet is pretty limited. We'll be sure and make up for it when we're back in Chiner!

Siam Ocean World

We went to the coolest aquarium ever this week. well...the coolest one we've ever been to anyways. Minus Sea World of course. It was on the bottom floor of a mall...shopping and seeing fish, what could be better?!

Here's Brandon petting a big friendly boa in the "rain forrest" section of the aquarium. I was much less brave...

There were fish in this car! I don't know how. I don't know why. But there were fish in the car.

Being very shark-like:

In a little over a month they are supposed to have a hammer head shark display! So maybe if Eden is really late (sheesh we hope not!) we'll get to see some hammer heads as well!

We haven't done a whole lot of site seeing around Bangkok, and I'm not sure we will. Call me a chicken, but I like being a close distance from the hospital at all times. Plus, Buddhist temples & what not aren't high on our list of must-sees. But we're enjoying our time here!