1st Day in Manila

Rolly - our contact here - actually lives 3 hours away from Manila. He has a small room in Manila that he uses during the week, but travels home to be with his family during the weekends. So, after he met us last night (11 pm flight) he drove home to be with his family.

Since he wasn't going to be around today, Rolly wasn't keen on us exploring much of Manila on our own. But we did go over to the shopping center across the street. It was very Western. Many more American restaurants (McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, Kenny Rogers Roasters, Dippin Dots and more). So, although we ate fast food, we did at eat the Filipino chain, Jolibee. Barbecue chicken and rice, pizza, etc. We also watched a youth scrabble tournament - the Luzon qualifying rounds for the World Youth Scrabble tournament - and did a little shopping.

Basically, we're just trying to stay awake today so we're not completely wiped out when we meet James.

Rolly will meet us tonight at 6 pm along with another Pearl S Buck staff member. We'll review our plans for tomorrow (the big day!) and probably have dinner. He'll also travel with us to Dumaguete City. We're very excited and a bit nervous for tomorrow.

More later, hopefully with some photos when we finish uploading them!

p.s. - it is very warm and humid here, but not as much as it's been in Pennsylvania lately.

in Manila

We made it to Manila! We're at the hotel; it's almost 1 am but of course we'll still awake. We saw our first jeepney on the way from the airport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeepney .

The hotel is nice, so we'll probably relax here and in the area tomorrow; just want to adjust to the time change. Meeting with our contact tomorrow night to go over the plans for Monday.

We'll post more later!

in Seoul

We're currently at the Seoul airport, waiting for our next - and last - flight of the day to Manila. We started by heading to the Philadelphia airport at 4:30 am ET on Friday, July 30. Philly - San Francisco, then San Francisco to Seoul. The last flight was almost 12 hours - a bit much but everything turned out ok.

Our agency's representative, Rolly, in Manila will meet us at the airport. We'll have Sunday to adjust to the time and do a little bit of sight seeing. Then Monday afternoon we're off to Dumaguete City and to meet James. Rolly will be with us during this part of the trip also.

Hopefully the internet will cooperate on all parts of this trip and we'll continue to post here!

Tentative travel plans

We're tentatively scheduled to travel Friday, June 30 and return the following weekend. We will have firm plans by Wednesday.

Yahoo!

We'll post to this blog while we're away, assuming technology cooperates.

Thanks to everyone for your support!

Amy, Keith, Maggie and James

Quick Update

Hi everyone - just a quick update. The latest is that we're waiting for James Matthew's passport to be finalized. After this happens, our agency's rep can make his visa and visa medical appointments. When these dates are set we will have a better idea of when we travel.

Trying to be patient :)

Happy Birthday James Matthew!

Last Sunday, May 9th, James Matthew turned 2! His birthday was also Mother's Day, so it was extra special for me. We certainly thought of James often on the 9th, even starting the night before - "James is just getting up today, on his birthday!"... "I bet James is having cake now".  Maggie seemed to have fun imagining what he was doing. We think/hope he received our packages in time for his special day.

On Saturday we received our 1-600 approval, which means his paperwork is now at the National Visa Center. Tomorrow I will call the NVC to get his case number, which allows Pearl S Buck International's representative in the Philippines to schedule his visa medical other appointments.

We hope to travel sometime in June or early July!

Patience is a virtue

I'm a planner. Yes, I am starting preliminary research for our 2011 summer vacation. Ok, maybe I'm a bit of a control freak. So, I was a bit undone when trying to send James Matthew his first package from us.

Our agency and ICAB both encouraged us to prepare a photo album for our son, showing pictures of each of us, our house, his room, etc. James Matthew's caregivers will use the album to introduce us to him. Hopefully when we travel to see him, he may remember us from the photos.

But yikes - we didn't have his room ready! We were waiting for our referral to see if we were going to be blessed with a boy or a girl and how old the child would be before prepping the room. There was probably some self-preservation in our delay as well. The wait for James Matthew was hard. Walking by an empty child's room with no end in sight would have been harder.

So, during the week prior to Easter, I took some vacation time while Keith and Maggie were at home on spring break so we could work on his bedroom and get the photo album and his birthday gifts in the mail asap. On April 1st, after packing and repacking his package at least 3 times, I headed to the post office - a package in hand and a bundle of nerves. I almost broke down talking to the postman - I was stressed. 6-10 business days until delivery to our agency's office in the Philippines.

In the meantime, I ordered a larger, nicer photo album (the first package contained only a few photos) which I mailed about a week and 1/2 later.

Late one Saturday night we discovered that neither package had arrived in PI. On Sunday morning after church, we scrambled to Target and then to FedEx in an attempt to recreate package #1. After a brief meltdown on the phone with FedEx a week later, we were relieved to discover that package #3 had arrived to our contact in PI. Whew! The package would arrive to James Matthew in time!

The funny thing - ALL 3 packages arrived on the same day. Crazy!

Lesson learned - patience is a virtue. I think I need cede control a bit. I'll try to remember that. Now back to planning that vacation...