coconuts and chickens

We went back to Laura beach with snorkel gear and a borrowed metal detector.  After a couple hours of searching for my wedding ring, we headed back empty handed, literally. I guess a part of us will always be in the Marshall Islands ; )

Tuesday night we all went to pasta night at the other hotel.  Just like we did four years ago - but this time we were missing our past travel mates! You create your own and they sauté it for you.  Kate and Tracy ordered glasses of wine, the wine list was short (white or red?) but you can't beat the pour! 

This morning Esme watched from our bungalow deck as they trimmed the coconut trees at our hotel, large palms and a lot of coconuts came crashing to the ground.  The guys opened a few for us and we drank it up and scooped out the meat. They would just climb them the traditional way with hands and bare feet, probably 2 or 3 stories up!

We then took a boat to Eneko (an island 25 minutes away) and spent the afternoon playing in the water, chasing chickens, drinking more coconuts, and relaxing under the palms.   All is good

What we've been up to

We've spent some time with each of the girls respective birth mothers.  We go for walks about the island and have gotten to know the other two families.  One family is at our hotel while the other is a few miles away at MIR.  Today, we went with one of the families to the end of the island (laura beach) which is about an hour drive.  It was fun, but you can add my wedding ring to the "things we lost on our trip" list.  I'm going back tomorrow for the the one-in-a-million chance I will find it.  Gotta try right?  So other than losing the symbol of our love… all is good  - matt  : )

What a difference a night makes!

Yesterday we had our embassy appointment so all of Lucia’s paperwork is now en route to the Philippines for her Visa to be sent back.  We met with our attorney early in the morning since we were all up anyway….

Let’s just say the first night of Lucia being with us was, um, very loud.   The thing about adoption is that mixed with the happiness there is a lot with of sadness.  Watching the birthmom make this selfless decision for her baby is heartbreaking.  Watching and hearing your baby go through their own grieving is also heartbreaking.  Lucia cried throughout our first night together.  Cried.  A. Lot.   Matt and I took turns trying all the tricks.  Esmé slept like a champ through all of it. 

We tried every possible known technique and some not so known (like the things we made up).  It was part sleep deprivation, part just our way of coping but at one point during the night I was laughing so hard at Matt I couldn’t breathe.   

Giving up on sleep we spent the day prepping for the embassy, getting a few last needed documents and went on to the afternoon embassy appointment.  It took a good portion of the day once we got through all of it.  We came back to the hotel with one of the other adoptive families here, stopping at the one coffee shop on the island on the way back.  We had dinner and decided to try to go to bed early since we were gearing up for another tough night.

BUT – night two was incredible!  Lucia was sleeping by 8:00, and we decided we should try to sleep early too so I think Matt and I were asleep by 9 thinking we’d only get an hour or two.  But the first time we heard anything was at 2:00 and Lucia took a bottle and in a half hour was back to sleep!  The other 3 of us were up early and ready and Lucia was still sleeping at 9.  That is 12 hours with just a ½ hour awake for a bottle.   (thanks Cold play lullaby CD!!!  A favorite of Esmé’s when she was a baby too!).

Esmé sure is chatty in the middle of the night.  She woke up during that 2:00 bottle and literally talked for the entire ½ hour.  It was hilarious.  She covered everything from telling me a random story about avocados to things she remembers doing as a baby.  She was good company and as soon as Lucia was back in bed, Esmé was done with her stories and went back to sleep as well.

Today we spent time with our birthmom and her auntie, shopped some of the handicraft stores and walked around.  Dinner was really fun tonight as we chatted with a few yachties and hung out of course at the Tide T able. 

The other cool thing is how many of the waitresses are the same and remember us as well.

Now that we are through all adoption related appointments we will start the fun plans like a trip to Laura Beach and couple of visits to outer islands.

Esmé is still doing great as a big sis.  She loves Lucia so much and is so good with her.   

We are a family of FIVE….. (6 including Wellsy!)

Lucia Eliana Howd becamse Esmé and Max's little sister today (Monday here) when we finalized our adoption shortly after 11:00am Majuro time (5:00pm Sunday, Mother's Day at home).

Everything was uneventful as we each testified in court to become her family.  Even in the best case scenario I don’t think we could have predicted how awesome Esmé would take to her new role.  She is amazing with her, so gentle, kind and excited to have her here.  She is in LOVE!

The best part about adoptions in R M I is that it is about the joining of families, not the “giving” of a child to another family.  So today not only do we celebrate Lucia coming into our family but her birthmom, Selena, is now part of our family too.  And they both fit in perfectly!  We adore Selena and can already tell we will have the same amazing relationship with her that we do with Esmé’s birthmom, Brenda, and the rest of her family.

After court we took Selena to lunch then came back to the bungalow to have a little time before we need to get the birth certificate updated and a passport for Lucia.  We gave Lucia a bath and Esmé rocked her to sleep. 

In about a ½ hour we will go to our celebration dinner that will include the 2 other adopting families and all of our birth families. Also part of our dinner will be our attorney, our adoption facilitator and the women from the adoption authority.  The best part this time is all of these people have been our friends since our last trip.

Tomorrow is our embassy appointment where we will complete Lucia’s paperwork to get her Visa to travel home.  Once we finish our appointment and mail everything off we will be playing on the island for the next few weeks as we wait for it to be shipped, processed and returned to us here.  It will probably be about 4 weeks until then.   

Today while we were in court finalizing the adoption of our youngest (and last!) baby, our first was crossing the stage at SCSU to get his bachelors degree.   Matt and I are sick about not being there with Max, but we had Grandpa David as our stand-in and we will celebrate big once we are home.

Thanks for your emails and comments.  We love hearing from everyone! 

Reuniting with Esmé’s birth family

Last night Esmé’s birthmom, Brenda, and her youngest son, Kibjen, (Esme’s brother) stopped by to see us.  Brenda and Esmé were both so excited and Kibjen was sooooo shy he never said a word.  Brenda said he had been counting down the days until we were here so I’m sure he was just a bit overwhelmed, but was still happy to see Esmé.   We talk regularly and have built a great relationship over the past 4 years, so it was so nice to spend the next hour catching up in person for a change.    

We then walked over to see the co-op elementary school performance where each grade puts on a dance.  It was a great night over all!

Here we go....again!

Only 3 1/2 years between posts isn't too bad, is it?  We had always meant to keep this ongoing as a family blog but like most things, life just gets in the way of such plans.

Here we are the exact same time of year, only 4 years later, and we are blogging from our bungalow in RMI.  We had a great trip here, spending two nights in Honolulu.  It's amazing how much that helps with the adjustment to time.  We did that last time as well and it helped so much so we wanted to do the same, especially for Esmé.  She was incredible on the flights.  She always has been a good traveler so I was never worried and we just packed many plane activities and we were set!

We left Mpls on Monday to have Mon & Tues in Honolulu then took the Wednesday flight to RMI. Of course since we crossed the date line, Wed was a short day for us and it was Thursday when we landed.  Landing this time was so different.  It was filled with excitement to see those that we know and had none of the questions that came with the trip last time.    Plenty of uncertainty still, but just of a different kind.

We got checked in to our bungalow (I swear it hasn't been more than 2 years we were here last, yet I know that Esmé is 4 so simple math tells me it was actually 4 years since our last stay on the island.  How can that be?!)  We met baby Lucia and the birthmom after just a couple of hours of getting checked in.   Both of them are beautiful and sweet!  We spent some time together and then we tried to do some errands but were we all so tired that they weren't very successful.  We came back to the bungalow, Esmé fell asleep, we arranged a few things to get settled in and went to sleep around 5/5:30pm local time.  We had been awake for a ridiculous amount of hours prior (I lost count) so it felt good to just sleep!  Oh in there some where we of course took in our first meal at the Tide Table!  Happy to return to our home away from home restaurant.

Today we spent a lot of time together with our birthmom and Lucia as we did all of our adoption needed errands.  Passport photo, doctors office, etc. At the Dr's today Lucia weighed 11 lbs.  But let's just say this was with her clothes on, a diaper that felt pretty wet, a scale that is a tad outdated and Dr P who laid her down on the antiquated scale, moved the red marker and said "close enough" even as it rested to one side.  :)

Then, we hung out with dear friend and our attorney, Gordon, just to spend time together and catch up.   We always have so much fun together.  Lots of laughs and stories.  Our court prep with him will be this weekend sometime.

Tonight we went to the Co-op School kids show at the R*R*E (resort where we are staying).  We saw it when we were here last time and it was just as fun tonight!  And maybe even more so since we got to see Esmé watching it tonight and she loved it!  Her view last time from the baby bjorn wasn't as great.

We will be updating the blog throughout the trip (and even probably go back and add a couple of posts that we started but haven't uploaded.)  Like last time it will be both of us posting.  Matt is usually a better poster so I like to leave it to him.  :)

Here's a few photos of our first two days! (Lots of our photos are of a sleeping baby so we need to get some of her sweet face to upload.  She is so cute!).

I'm exhausted and sitting here listening to Matt & Esmé sleeping.  I need get some sleep as there are only a couple of those nights left.

More soon!!
-K