Our Family News: January gifts

January has been filled with a multitude of gifts for our family: gifts of time, gifts of love, and gifts gifts. At the beginning of the month, Hubby and I brought in some grandparents and got away for a weekend of relaxing, reading, sleeping in, and just hanging out with each other. This was the first time since we brought J home, over 8 months ago, that one of us had not been with him at night! I think we waited 2 hours before calling home to see how Grandma and Grandpa were holding up. I also think our child ate more that weekend than he had eaten for us the entire previous week!! Grandma K is really good at getting our picky eater to eat whatever she puts on his plate. Mommy and Daddy had a good time up in Madison; we dressed up and went out to eat at a couple of nicer restaurants, we slept in until 8am (last time we did that was before we had dogs!), we missed our little boy like crazy, and we read. A lot. The week before we went, I bought myself a gift and was hoping that it would be delivered before our departure. The day before, guess what showed up at our front door? My new Kin*dle!!!!! This is absolutely one of the best things I have ever gotten myself. I am an avid reader and, going on trips, would probably end up packing 5 books or so, which obviously takes up space. Well, now I just download new books to my Kin*dle and I could be ready to go for weeks! Now I just need to find the time to read everything I've downloaded so far...ha! Love, love, love it!

We have also received a couple other very special gifts in the mail this month. A friend who traveled to pick up her daughter before Christmas brought back a gift for us from the adoption agency. It was a small photo album with professionally mounted pictures of J's dol (first birthday party, which is a very big deal in Korean culture) and a couple with his foster mother. We had a heads-up from our friend that she had brought this back to the States with her, but since it took so long to go through our agency here and then get to us, I thought maybe she had been mistaken about which little Korean cutie was in the pictures. We're so happy she was right, though!!

But I can even top that happiness...

The following week, I got a phone call from our agency, wanting to know if our address was still correct, as they had a letter from J's foster mother to send to us. Wow! After having to wait an entire two days to get the letter, we got it and found out that they have most likely been checking out our blog as she thanked us for the "videos filled with his great smile." We have never sent video clips to them. So I must have been right a few posts ago that they are the hits on here from Seoul! It is such a treasure to have this letter for J, so that he knows how much his foster family loves him.

And our last gift (so far) was buying plane tickets to go to Florida to visit some good friends before J turns two and we have to start paying full price!! I know, I know, I've gotten lots of "you're flying?!?! I don't think I'd want to get on another plane yet!" But, you know, after getting through the flight back from Korea, I think we can manage flying anywhere with him...and J is such a good little traveler, I think it will all be okay. We will be seeing a friend of Hubby's, who has twin boys a little older than J; he's really starting to imitate us, so I wonder what he will pick up from them while we're there? Should be fun. The other family we're going to see is the one who was over in Korea the same time we were to pick up their son and who was on the same flight with us back to Chicago. I am looking forward to getting the two boys together again; J is just 11 days younger than their son. I wonder if they ever saw each other when they were with their foster families? I can't wait to see them all again; that was such an emotional week to share with each other and I hope we can always be close.

More video of our happy little boy: