Backyard Fun

The weather was beautiful today! What a blessed time we are having (mind you we still have 4 kids living here and those of you with kids know what i mean! - but we really couldn't have asked for things to run more smoothly) Here are some snapshots of the day!

Zoe has (hopefully) discovered every toy in the house now, so I'm hoping I can start putting them all away tomorrow! hahahahaha - doubtful. =)

She was riding the wheels off of our training wheel bike. I think the training wheels were slowing her down at times. She did fall once and skin her knee pretty good, but she just hopped up, shrugged her shoulders and get back on the bike. She is a real trooper. When we came inside later, she did want a band aid, but no tears at all.

Danica doesn't have anything on Zoe!

This will show you all a little of Zoe's personality. Part way through this clip, I turned the view screen around so she can see the face she is making. Too Funny!

First Meeting Video

Here is some of the video of the first moments (actually the moment of the photo shown below) for a small taste of it!

It was a pretty crazy 30 minutes or so! 4 kids yelling (and one yelling in Chinese), Zoe running all over the house to see everything and us hungry and jet lagged like you wouldn't believe! Enjoy!

Welcome Home Zoe!

Here it is! The first official picture of all 4 kids together! Everyone was VERY EXCITED! Zoe was literally hopping up and down in her seat as we pulled into the driveway and she caught sight of the swingset and backyard. We had her family photo book out that we had sent her last summer and I was pointing to the pictures of the house to tell her we were almost home. She was so pumped to see it for real! The other 3 ran out the back door to see her and then they all ran through the whole house! Of course, the other 3 wanted to show her everything immediately, but we had to stop them for a brief moment to snap this photo in front of the sign the kids made with our friend Jen while we were gone. AWESOME!!! I'm going to try to edit the video of the event and load a small taste of the first meeting! We are a full day into it now and other than regular sibling issues about sharing, things really are going well. Zoe understands a lot of what we say, but still responds in Chinese of course. English words pop out of her unexpectedly at times and we get really excited about that. She is still calling Jared, Shelby and Ryan by the Chinese names for Big Brother, Little Sister (she is 3 mos older than Shelby) and Little Brother. Which is fine, as they are learning to answer to that. And it is only fair, since she has to learn to respond to Zoe instead of her Chinese Name, Tzu-Ying (which sounds kind of like Zuey said really fast).

SISTERS!!! Aren't they cute!?!

More interesting Taipei photos

Thought you would all enjoy this little tidbit! This was the faucet in the shower (which had no shower curtain or door, please note) And yes, one morning I turned on the shower to be blasted in the face with the water and have it spray all over the bathroom because the shower head had turned in the holder. Of course, when Doug came in later, he just said "Did you have a little problem in here?" There was water everywhere - but luckily it was ALL tile, so no big deal. =)

Til then!

We have moved our flight to Friday, so we will be getting up at 4 to leave at 7:30 and arrive home to STL Friday evening! It has been an eventful journey to say the least and I for one am not looking forward to 20 hours or so of flying tomorrow. We are definitely looking forward to being at home with Zoe to get started on her new life with us. At this point, I think she thinks all we do is lay around hotel rooms, take taxi rides and buy her stuff! Wow - is she in for a shock! Haahahahahaha

I'll keep up with blog posts, but they will not be every day and we'll get some more of the photos we took up here for you to view!

See everyone soon!
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Lungshan Temple

We could have taken about a thousand photos here - very amazing. All hand carved, painted, etc. Absolutely beautiful.

The Grand Hotel

This Hotel was built about 50 years ago. Very ornate and a Chinese style. The lobby was all high ceilings, giant red pillars, very beautiful. However, they don't let tourists in there....So we stood in the front and tried to look like we belonged! The last picture is a view from the Grand Hotel, it is on a hill overlooking Taipei.

Sightseeing....

It was raining most of today - we did get to see a few things anyway. This is the President's House. Check out this crazy tree! They were everywhere in the front lawns. The driver did not know the English name for the tree, but it was very cool!

Things you won't see at the grocery store in St. Louis!

I think these pictures speak for themselves.......

Meeting Grace

We met with a friend of Vikki (from our church) today named Grace. She is from Southern Taiwan and took us to Taipei 101 - the tallest building in the world (right now) which also houses the world's fastest elevator.

She was the most wonderful hostess and also took us to an awesome restaurant without an english name and ordered us enough food to feed an army. The building was fascinating, the elevator amazing and the food unbelievable! Thanks to Vikki and Grace!

Here are some photos of the 101 building.

Grace also found us a wonderful cab driver from Taipei whom had lived in San Fransisco for 17 years. His cab was quite interesting, see below. She has arranged for him to help us tomorrow - which will be nice, because having a driver that is supportive of us and Zoe is very helpful.

Day 3? I don't know what day it is!!!

We went to AIT to finish the application for Zoe's Visa and that went fine. 2 hours in a government building - not fun, but no big deal. Zoe played in the play area for most of the time and found a $50 NT piece, so she was happy.

We took her shopping today and found out that she loves frilly, girl clothes - so Shelby and her should be a match made in heaven.

We took more pictures today (of course, because we are tourists and that is our job!) and will be posting later!

When we met Zoe

Here is the video of when Zoe showed up. We were at the orphanage about 1/2 hour before her and her foster mom. The foster mom was really nice and was happy to give us all the information she could. Zoe's birth mom actually gave us/her a nice little photo album of photos of Zoe and her birth family (even a baby picture or two) and a letter to us and a letter to Zoe for when she is older. It was more than we could ask for and will be a good thing for Zoe as she gets older and wants to see. The visit at the orphanage was good. The weather was perfect and we got to see a little bit of the nurseries. But, since Zoe has spent so little time at the orphanage itself, there wasn't much for them to show to us. She ran right to us and proceeded to drag us all around the orphanage like she owned the place and wanted to show it all to us. I don't think we could have asked for more. Sally, our escort, said that it was a good sign that she was so talkative - as she will be more ready to learn our language to get her message across. I think she is already trying to use the language barrier against us as she is trying to get out of going to sleep right now. Haahahahahaha Everytime we say something in Chinese, she giggles. I'm sure we aren't saying it exactly right. I guess hearing her giggle is worth it! It is very cute. Tomorrow, we go to AIT (the American Institute in Taiwan - basically our embassy) to finalize her Visa to come to the US. Once that is done, we'll be doing a little shopping and then napping again, I'm sure, since our Visa Appointment is at 8, and not close by, so we have to get up at 5 - again. ugh.

night - night - sleep tight!

Look what we did today!

We took the High Speed Rail to Southern Taiwan to pick up Zoe at the orphanage. We were there for a couple hours then took it back to Taipei. We are here at the hotel now with her and trying to get her to settle down a little bit and take a nap. We've all been up since 5 AM and are a little wiped out. She has been chattering since we got her and I'm hoping a nap will calm her down a little. Which it has helped so far, even though she isn't asleep yet.

For all of us that were wondering, she appears to be about the same size as Shelby, although I haven't tried any clothes on her as of yet, so we'll see what happens there. As you can guess, we shot a few photos and video today. I'll be loading more this evening as I get a chance.

Here is a live video of her (not) taking a nap for your viewing pleasure! For those of you that are wondering - we are handling the language barrier as best we can. She is very happy to repeat over and over and sometimes we get it and sometimes we don't. We had a Taiwanese Escort today and she helped some, and the hotel staff speak English and are very supportive and helpful - so we continue to teach her and we get what we can.

Day 1 - some sights have been seen....

Ready....Set.....Go! Scooters are EVERYWHERE. including the sidewalk. We have seen up to 3 people on one scooter. It is not unusual to see an adult riding a scooter with a young child standing in front of them in between their arms. Most have helmets, which is good, and there are some quite unusual traffic patterns for people on scooters.


We didn't do a whole lot today. A lot of sleeping. We went (next door) to the breakfast room and the breakfast was ok. I have had worse breakfasts at US hotels, so I guess it was fine. It is so humid here that the salt won't come out of the shaker....no big deal though. The biggest adjustment for me is no Diet Soda to be found. We had to buy some at the supermarket this afternoon.


We ate dinner at a fun little place. You cook the food right at your table. Luckily the manager spoke 2 words of English "beef" and "pork" and we managed to order what looked like the usual. I broke a big rule and ate a very delicious rice dish that had all kinds of things I couldn't identify in it. Plus the broth from the beef was awesome as a soup after we ate the beef. I'm sure they laughed their heads off after we left. Most of the side dishes were too spicy for me (go figure), but the pot of rice made up for it.

Here is a typical street. Everything is very crowded and close. I have seen some alleys filled with cars and scooters parked all different directions and I couldn't imagine how they even turned around, let alone parallel park in there.

We saw a school and a mall today while walking - those pictures are below.



















I don't know if you can tell, but there are little characters hanging in the window - Spongebob and Pooh Bear and Eeyore were all there.



Also - here are some New Taiwan dollars for your viewing pleasure


















Well, we are off to bed. The ride down to pick up Zoe starts early in the morning. We found out when we arrived that the in-country flight we were to take to Tainan was cancelled so we get to take the train instead. We also heard that it might be one of those super fast trains - so that could be an adventure in itself! We'll have much more tomorrow I'm sure!

Miss you All!

We Made It!

We made it! We are all checked in to the hotel and even ventured down the street to buy some water and beer and seaweed crackers. (They are pretty good) And because of the money conversion, we spent like $200 NT, which isn't that much US, but it sure seems crazy, doesn't it!?

The flight(s) were long. 13 hours from Detroit to Osaka and we were sooooooooo tired of sitting in the airplane seats!!

My seat on the 747 didn't recline - go figure. About an hour into the flight, we ended up taking the seat cushion off and reattaching the little cable that makes it recline. Thank goodness. It was uncomfortable enough with a 2 inch recline!

The driver that picked us up at the airport was very nice, and didn't know a word of English, so it was kind of a quiet drive to the hotel. It is Midnight Sunday night here now and we're going to get some sleep. This is a picture of the door to our room (the green one on the left). The door right next to it is the door to the breakfast room/restaurant. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. We'll give it a couple days and let you know! =)

Oh yeah, we did have one small problem - our carryon luggage starting losing a wheel in Detroit, so we went from store to store in the airport trying to find an affordable placement. Since we didn't feel it was neccessary to pay $275 for a TUMI all leather carry on, we ended up finding one at the PGA store!

More tomorrow - hope everyone in the States has a great Sunday!

Here we go!

OK - things are moving along! Suitcases are packed and we are double and triple checking everything. Here's to hoping that all of our air time in the next 36 hours will be smooth and pretty much event free!!!

Thanks to everyone who has offered their help for the upcoming week and who has wished us well!! We truly appreciate it and all of you! If all goes as expected, we should be able to upload something new on Sunday or Monday! Remember - Taiwan is 13 hours ahead of the US!

We almost had a stow-away! Good thing I found her before we started loading all the clothes in there!

Chuck - Take a look at this!

Here is a video of Jared for you to look at! Let us know what you think - plus it is a practice at loading a video!

Getting Started?

So - Here Goes! The trip to get Zoe is officially here! Exciting, and nerve wracking to say the least. We are so ready to go and move into this next phase of life! We hope you enjoy it, too! It should be a fun ride!