A Few Vacae Pics

Kora excited on the plane to go to Jamaica:

This was just the 'start' of the immigration line:

 A very Merry Welcome to our hotel:

The other part of the lobby:

Todd and Erika excited and relieved that we were staying at such a nice hotel.  Waiting to check in:

Kora sitting on the very tall bench:

I thought this was like our ice cream, it wasn't.  What a disappointment:

BIG knife and fork on the wall of the restaurant:

About stepped on these guys last night in the atrium:

'This' is where your butt goes on the bench in the lobby:

Skip testing the seat out, wasn't a good fit:

They were on one side of me on the beach:

And these two were on the other side of me:

We found Erika's dopleganger.  Before the trip, Erika twisted her ankle and has been hobbling all over the place.  I call her Peggy, so we found another 'Peggy' at the hotel!:

Of course I had to include the rest of the kiddos:

This is how the guys watch Sunday football in Jamaica.  And yes, that's my bed too:

Football continues:

Christmas in Jamaica Man!

After a blizzard at home and two and half days of no power before leaving, we are now in beautiful Jamaica for Christmas!  What a time with the blizzard, it was beautiful until the power went out and we had to endure the cold and no electricity.  Amazing how one takes having electricity for granted until you don't have it.

We sent the kids off to grandma and grandpa's for a night hoping the power would be restored the next day.  The next morning came and it was freezing in the house!  44 degrees upstairs, 54 degrees on the main floor.  As we started getting ready, the power came on!!  How excited we were to have this luxury back.  Time to pack and get things ready for the trip!

We did make it without any hitches to Jamaica.  The immigration line was horrendous, think everyone had the same idea we did.  Once we got thru immigration, we had to find our bus to the hotel.  The bus was full and role was taken to see what hotel everyone was going to.  We would be the last ones to be dropped off.

The first hotel, yeah...I knew looking at it the kids were scared of where the heck we were going to be staying.  I knew they were NOT impressed.  The second and even possibly the third hotel, the kids weren't impressed either.  So then came ours...YES!  Jackpot!  Very nice, very beautiful and everyone was excited including the kids!  And they did admit they were scared of where we were staying, as like me, they have very high standards for vacations and hotels.  We were not disappointed.

Once we got settled into our rooms, we went to dinner.  Wonderful buffet!  Of course, with the long day of travel, the girls showered and relaxed while the boys went to the game room for pool and beer.  It was a very good night but even better waking up knowing we are in Jamaica!

My last full day in Korea is over. I love coming home. Yes, it's emotional and draining, but for me, that's what I love about coming here. I am home, but yet there are so many emotions I feel when I am here. Happy, sad, grateful, bless

ed, touched, loved...but this is why I live the mission for Holt. I want for these kids what I have and was given in life. So know when I post about being sad, it's not about being sad for myself, I'm sad for the children I see here that still deserve a family of their very own. You all know me as being happy and grateful and forever indebted to the Holts and David Kim for their work on our kids' behalf. And thank you to everyone for your support and taking time to read my posts. I hope that I have touched your lives in some way as you have all touched mine. Blessings to all.

I'm back in my hotel room. Alone. Tired. Sick. Emotionally drained. Happy. Sad. Disappointed. Grateful. Blessed. Before I came on this trip, at the last minute I decided to make an arrangement with a long time Holt staff member in Korea to go with me to the City Baby Hospital hoping she could help me find out anymore information regarding my beginnings. The adoption journey is like a roller coas

ter ride, with ups and downs, twists and turns, blind spots and all the while your heart is in your throat. I've shared my story with everyone but my story continues as I search for my first year of life in Korea. I didn't find out much today, as the roller coaster has now taken me to yet another facility in another city, so I decided not to go today. I did find out that I was probably abandoned when I was five months old and in three different facilities prior to being in my orphanage at 15 months of age. My story isn't done, but I have to be patient. I hope to continue this summer with my search so once again, stay tuned.

It Never Gets Easier

This is my sixth Gift Team trip and tenth time visiting an unwed mother's shelter.  Why do I even try to fool myself into thinking this time around it will be different and I won't get h.  I'll take the low road and blame the other people that are with me, they are the ones that start to cry so of course, I cry!

The same questions are asked over and over on each trip so you would think I would be used to the drill.  Yesterday, when we went to the shelter, we started off with the tour and then created our own pottery out of clay.  That was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to have a great time with it.  So with this type of atmosphere, things should be pretty mellow.  Wrong.  Once the Q & A begins, the tears begin.

I am a very strong advocate for adoption, but I will not tell any other woman what her decision should be.  This is a life long decision that this mother has to live with.  I'm only grateful that my birth mother made the decision that she did, whether she gave me up willingly or not so willingly.  I am here today because of her and I love her for giving me life.  I feel the same way about my daughter's birth mother.  I hope I can do her proud raising this beautiful girl and give her every opportunity I possibly can.

These types of visits tend to drain me emotionally, which then leads to me being tired physically.  After getting back to the hotel, we went shopping then I had a late dinner of Korean fried chicken.  Yes, I am addicted to this chicken!!  But being so tired and worn out, I was physically getting sick.  I could feel my sinuses hurting and then my top molars began to hurt...a clear sign that I was or have a sinus infection.  I told hubby that during our video chat...not something he wanted to hear, but I needed him to call my doctor to have a Rx ready for me for when I get home on Saturday.

But today, I wasn't in pain anymore!  My sinus finally unplugged and wasn't hurting and my teeth weren't hurting either.  I took it easy in the morning tho and stayed in bed til the very last minute before getting ready for the day.  I didn't eat breakfast which I broke the cardinal rule of eat every meal this trip for energy!!  But I did fine today.  So onto what happened today...

Today was our trip to Ilsan to tour and host a Christmas party for the 300 residents living there.  I just love Ilsan, it has this atmosphere for me of 'coming home' and I wasn't even at Ilsan as a child.  But there's just something about the family atmosphere and everyone working together to help each resident become a better version of who they are.  I feel so blessed every time I see the staff and caregivers, without them, Ilsan would not be possible.

The Christmas party was held in the chapel rather than in the gym because of the snowy conditions makes it more difficult to get some of the residents to the gym.  It was different but our team members were scattered amongst the residents rather than all of us at a head table.  It was nice being right with them and share in festivities.  It's amazing that all the faults I see in myself, I can push aside and tell myself how blessed I am and just be me.  Maybe that's why I was able to sing my part of the song without hesitation.  No judging goes on at Ilsan, we are all family there.  Ilsan is home for everyone.

Mini Me's

Yesterday was the day we went to the orphanage to bring Christmas joy to all the kids living there.  This is the reason why I do this trip.  I want these kids to have a Christmas like they deserve and they look forward to us coming every year.

I see familiar faces as the kids start performing.  It breaks my heart to see them still there and not with their own families or other forever families.  But I do know they are taken care of loved by all the staff. There were currently 45 children there, infants to age 7.

After Santa and the Mrs. passed out presents, we were able to give them candy and the rest of the presents we bought from the toy store.  How fun it was to see the excitement in the eyes of the kids.  I went to the little girls' room and started helping with the presents and giving out gummy worms.  Man, could some of these little ones eat!

Little by little, the girls warmed up to us being in the room and would soon sit on our laps or next to us. I just adored all these little girls, as I always see myself in their eyes, I was one of them many years ago, in an orphanage, not understanding what was going on, but just trying to survive.  These little girls also had haircuts that I had at their age.  Each had their own distinct personalities and each were so eager to play with the new toys.

I stayed in this room the majority of the time we were there, it's hard for me to break away from little girls because I want for them what I have.  My heart truly cries out for them.  For those faces I no longer see, I wonder where they are now.  Are they with their families, in another orphanage, or did they go live another forever family?  Wherever they are, they are continuously in my prayers and my wish for them is that they are happy and live their lives to the fullest no matter what.

Back in the Saddle

As in, I'm back in Korea!  What can I say, but I love Korea and I love coming back as much as I can.  I'm traveling with the Holt Gift Team again.  This wasn't planned until I was in Portland and my good friend Debbie stated she was going this year and that I should go too.  Well...I first had to wait and see if I had to serve on a jury and I wouldn't know until after 5:00pm November 5th.  I made the call on Nov. 5th and nope, I didn't have to serve so the decision was made that I was headed to Korea in three weeks!

I flew into San Francisco November 30th so I wouldn't have to be rushed December 1st to catch the international flight to Seoul.  Good move so I didn't feel anxiety or panic having to worry about connections and good thing since San Francisco had been having rain since Thursday so flights were already delayed in and out of SFO.

December 1st and it was time to head to the airport to catch the 10:40am flight to Seoul.  Everyone met up and ate breakfast together then headed back to the gate to wait to board.  All went smoothly until take off.  We departed  late, but was at least on the runway...for 3 hours!  I couldn't believe we were still on the runway!  I took out my phone to text home to let hubby know what was going, he couldn't believe it either, I should have been in the air three hours already!  

I had hubby look online to see what was being said.  Stated something to do with cargo load, but that didn't make sense.  The announcement came on saying something about getting the numbers correct...what?  Then we started to head back to the gate...not looking good!  Guess we needed a mechanic to come look at the plane.

Guess the problem had been fixed and we were off again, yeah!  Back to the runway...not so fast, we began turning around again!  So we sat for a bit until the announcement came on saying the paperwork wasn't coming thru the database and we had to wait for the final paperwork for the FAA.  We were approaching 3 1/2 hours of delay now.  I wasn't feeling very confident we would actually take off because the crew would have to be rotated to a whole new crew but then again, there wouldn't be another plane available for an international flight, right?

Just when I was giving up hope, we were taking off this time....but I wasn't going to really be happy until I saw us really take off...and we did!  There was a lot more turbulence this time around than I remember with the other flights and with all that had happened prior to take off, i really did some heavy praying that all was ok.

I watched one movie on the plane as we did not have the individual screens on this flight so after the one movie, I listened to my music and tried to sleep.  I was in the window seat so I was pretty much stuck there for almost the entire time, but I did manage to get to the restroom two times.  

We landed in Seoul around 7:00pm Korea time, three hours late, but at least we were finally here!!

So onto the week of busy activities.  Today was the Holt office visit, toured the brand new office building which was very nice.  While we were at the Post Adoption Services building, I got some great news that I was going to be able to do something Friday afternoon that I had been wanting to do for a long time...I'll save that for later when it happens so stay tuned!!