Forever grateful to Pakkred

Today was an amazing, though emotional day!  The nannies and teachers at Pakkred Babies Home clearly loved our son deeply while he lived there and they remembered him immediately!  Max was the talk of the babies home as it spread from one area to the other that "Thanakorn is here!!"  They all commented on how handsome is and couldn't wait to hug him.  What do you say to the people who raised your son before you could?  My words felt so inadequate.  I am so thankful we had this time to visit with them and show them how well Max is doing.  This will be a memory the three of us have for a life time!

I told Max, it seems like just yesterday we took the exact same picture as we drove up to meet him for the very first time.

Mae Sim was the head of House 7 when Max was there (the house where Max lived when he was 3).  She and Max were very close and Max remembers her very well.

The sweet nanny who cared for Max in the clinic after his cleft surgery.  She told us a great story about Max sneaking a bottle of milk he wasn't supposed to have after the procedure :)

Max's favorite teacher, Kru Tong (he taught Max preschool).

Sweet Phanu, the little boy Lek now takes care of.

Of course Max found a way to fit some baseball in!

After our visit we made our way to Pattaya and we are now in the same city as Ellie!  At 10am tomorrow morning, the orphanage director will be here to come pick us up and take us to meet her.  I can't believe I will finally see her face to face!  Tonight it was the strangest feeling packing the bag with her things, surreal almost.  Those of you that have been journeying with us since our trip to bring Max home might remember the picture I posted of the toothbrushes.  Well...tonight it happened again :)

 

I get a little teary eyed at the site of four toothbrushes (including one very cute pink one!) sitting together on the counter!  Stephen and I have been blessed beyond what he have ever thought to ask for.  Our God is so good!!! 

Ellie will stay one more night at the orphanage tomorrow, but I will post picture tomorrow of our day spent together!!

Massage and ice cream anyone?

Oh, jet lag has set in big time!  But, today has been wonderfully relaxing so I can't complain too much :)  We are staying with Lek, the amazing volunteer who cared for Max before he came home to us and her husband Edmond.  They were kind enough to have their masseuse come to the house today and both Stephen and I got 2 hour massages!  You read that right.....2 hours!  It was awesome!

Max has been LOVING his time with Lek and Edmond!  He has settled right back into being with them and its clear the three of them have a very special bond!   It is emotional to watch my little boy laugh and play with the two people who so deeply loved and cared for him before we could be with him. 

Tomorrow we are heading to Pakkred, the babies home where Max lived for his first three years.  Max says he's very excited to go and seems to have no reservations.  I know the experience will be a heavy one and we've been praying for a long time that this visit will be a joyful one for Max.  Please be praying with us tomorrow (it will be 10pm Sunday night for you all) that God will protect our sweet boy's heart and that Stephen and I will have the right words for what I am sure are many questions that will come from our visit.  As a family we discuss very openly Max's adoption and the love that his Thai mommy had for him to chose life for him at Pakkred, but I have to imagine there are hundreds of possible questions we've never thought to address.

Thanks for all your love and support!!!  Its been wonderful reading all of your facebook comments and posts on the blog!

This is the lego set that Max would play with when he would come to Lek and Edmond's house years ago!  I LOVE that they kept it!

Swensen's Ice Cream for dessert!!

We made it!!

Yay!  We are here!!!  We are so unbelievably tired and jetlagged, but, we're here and that's all that matters!  Today, the friends we are staying with have two hour massages arranged for us in their home....um yes please!!!  So looking forward to that!

Max was quiet and pensive as we drove through BKK last night.  Granted he couldn't see much in the darkness, but the importance of being back in the country of his birth is not lost on him and I pray this trip is as special to him as it is to us!  He woke up excited and ready to explore!!  Hoping to post some pictures of our day tonight!!  Thanks for all your prayers for safe travels!!

Our window view from the plane.  As we could slowly began to see the city lights of Bangkok below us I couldn't help myself from tearing up.  All four of us are FINALLY in the same country...we are within just two hours of our girl!!!

Blogging from Seoul!

First leg down!  Man oh, man that's a long time on a plane!  Our little rock star did AMAZING!  Max has been nervous about flying ever since we started talking about bringing Ellie home.  The only other time he's been on a plane was when we brought him home, and it wasn't such a pleasant experience for the guy :(  But, this time was totally different!  He was SO brave during take off (the part he was most nervous about) and had a blast watching movies and playing games!

Now, we're killing two hours in Seoul and then its on to BKK!!  Can't wait to go to sleep tonight...or this morning...what ever time it is!!!

And we're off!

Next time I post it will be from Seoul!!  Baby girl, we're coming!!

First stop....Chicago!

Well the adventure has in fact begun!  We ended up bringing four suitcases instead of the three of was hoping for :(  But, we've made it onto the train, back off the train and through crowded Union Station with them and we did ok, so I think we will survive!  It will however be a brand new challenge when we add a potentially squirmy two year old to that mix!!

The train ride did not disappoint for Max!  For the first fifteen minutes he kept saying "this is just so cool!  We're actually on a train!"  Then the rest of the three hour trip was spent doing this....

 

For me, the train ride began like this...

  But eventually became...."babe, we packed the ___ right?"  or "can you just check your bag one more time and quadruple check all our important papers are in there?"  My mind was racing!!  When it wasn't racing though, I was blinking back tears as the realization that we are FINALLY on our way to our girl hit me in a new wave!  Oh I'm a hot mess....but I love it!

We're going to attempt to stay up as late as we can tonight and get only a couple hours of sleep that way we'll be plenty tired when we board the plane in the morning.  As if he wasn't excited enough about this huge trip....this is Max's view from our hotel room

A perfect view of the O Hare run way!  He's been watching planes take off and land all afternoon and he just keeps saying...."oh, maybe that ones ours guys....no, I think its that one!"

Thanks for all the prayers and support!  We love you guys!

Holding our breath

I can't believe it's the night before we head out!  All these months of waiting and here we are!!!  Our big dilemma at the moment is the suitcase situation :)  I'm not a light packer, I'll be the first to admit that...but I'm genuinely trying!  No one, including me wants to lug a ton of super heavy suitcases around the airport!  But on the other hand, we're going to be in country for almost three weeks, and well a girl needs a certain amount of stuff :)  But my sweet hubby reminds me often of the need to be practical so I'll keep the extras to a minimum.  My least favorite time at the airport is when we go to the counter and they weigh the luggage, I literally hold my breath....praying we didn't go over and have to pay the fee :)  well, here's what we have so far

Heading to Chicago on the train in the morning ( Max's favorite part of the whole trip!) and then fly out Friday morning!  We're so close to our girl!!