Was there pillaging?

Our house looks a little bit like my Viking ancestors have been rummaging through it. There are piles on all the available surfaces - floor and furniture - so that I'll remember what needs to go with us to Taiwan. Lots of last minute shopping for things we need to take with us.

In addition to that, I have been to Target, Fred Meyer, Goodwill, and five different shoe stores, none of which have sandals in J's size. Is it really too much to ask that stores still sell sandals in August? The velcro on his other pair is giving out. We may resort to black electrical tape. That ought to impress the agency and consulate people of our ability to appropriately care for a child. (McGuiver points?)


Our tickets are confirmed and paid for, after vast searches of websites, many emails to the travel agent vacationing in Taiwan, multitudes of calls to our agency, and even more calls to Roni at work and to my patient mother who wants the credit card miles. We leave at Saturday at 2:00 A.M. on Eva Air, arriving in Taiwan a day later due to the International Date Line. When we come back, our plane lands at an earlier time of day than when we left Taiwan, despite the 13 hours in the air. This amuses me greatly. Hope the amusement helps with the economy leg cramps - there were no seats left in economy deluxe.


But we're coming, D! We hope you know that, and that you will welcome us.

Our AIT appointment is for later in the week, on Friday the 28th, but we wanted to go now so that we can show Taiwan to J for a couple of days, get our systems at least a little into the new time zone, and to give us time to spend the night in Fengyuan where D is if he needs us to.

J is unbelievably excited. He doesn't want to wait until Saturday at all, and keeps demanding that we go "get my D right now!" He carried a picture of D around at daycare all day today and the teachers told me he showed it to every child, teacher and parent who he came near.

New update photos came last night. A video too, but for some reason we got only the sound and not the picture. It was still useful to give us more practice at pronouncing his Taiwanese name correctly. We're miserable at the tones, but we keep trying.


Here are the latest pics:












I didn't do as much prep today as Wednesday's I spend driving my cousin to chemo. I won't be able to do that after this, and I'm rather sad about it. I hate that she is going through this, but it is rare that I get to see her so often, and I like the time we get to talk. We'll have to try it under more pleasant circumstances in the future . . .

I did make it to the TECO office to pick up Roni's visa, and make another couple of futile shoe stops (including violating all my principles by stepping foot in a Walmart.) I also picked up (not at Walmart) a few presents for the agency people and D's foster mother.

Tomorrow I'll spend much of the day at work trying to get the library in order since I'm going to miss the first weeks of school. Whenever school starts - there is still no official first day of school set as contract negotiations aren't going well. It must be making parents crazy not to know when they need to send their kids this late in the summer.

Then Thursday evening and Friday for packing and last minute purchases, and we're off to the airport that night in the saintly Tina's minivan. This woman has picked us up returning from so many countries at so many strange hours that there should be a medal cast for her, but she's so nice she'll likely settle for a Taiwanese teapot.