He has teeth!

We received some new pictures of Jordan today. That is always good news. The bad news is it is looking like the Giving and Receiving ceremony will not be until around October 17th. It is very hard to stay upbeat with continued disappointment, but there is really nothing we can do but wait. So we will just share our new pictures of Jordan and enjoy looking at them.

Learn to look at the positive (it isn't always easy)

It isn't always easy to look at the bright side. Sometimes we just plain don't want to look at the bright side because we would prefer to wallow in self-pity. I would guess that just about any family going through the adoption process will come to a point where they will want to have a pity party. Probably most of us have had many pity parties. Let's face it, international adoption is not for the faint hearted. Our first adoption was not exactly smooth, so when we discovered we would travel in August (referral 4/27), we were elated. On August 24 I was frantically trying to figure out what last minute items I needed to put in the suitcase before we left for the airport when our phone rang. It was our agency with bad news. There was a paperwork issue in Vietnam and they did not want us to travel. At first we thought it would be a few day delay. Eventually we learned we would not travel until October. A change in the law had created problems and a part of the process would have to be redone. Trust me, I have not wanted to find the positive in this delay. I am losing leave time, Jordan is growing older every day, and what a tremendous let down when we thought we were almost there. After a couple of hard days, I decided to find one positive and immediately thought of the weather. I had been following Hanoi weather since the first of August and it was not a pretty picture. Mid 90 tempreatures with daily thundershowers and 100% humidity. Oh, and lows in the 80's or high 70's here and there. Sounds pretty miserable. I looked up the weather in Hanoi for October and it is much improved. It wills till be warm, but much more tolerable and the rainy season will more or less be over. So I now have a list of positives. Well, it is kind of short, but it is the best I could come up with.
1. Weather will be better
2. Work issues - there have been some problems that I have had to attend to and I guess it was a good thing I was still here. Things are going much smoother then they would have had I been gone.
3. More time with Johnathon before he is "dethroned" as the only child. Johnathon seems ready for Jordan and talks about him everyday, but a few more special times together can't hurt. I am waiting to see what happens when he realizes Jordan is here to stay.
That is the extent of my list, but it has helped to think about it. I am sure I should follow this practice more often in life.

Kind of getting into this blog thing

I am kind of proud of myself. I figured out how to add pictures, a welcome, and a helpful link list. Hopefully this blog will prove to be helpful to other families in process by the time I am done with it. Is it October yet? (our travel month)

A first time for everything

I guess I have finally succombed to the fact that I am living in the 21st century, hence I should have a blog (or so they say). After being asked no fewer then a 100 times if we have a blog in relation to our upcoming trip to Vietnam, and realizing my email list for our trip is out of control, I finally decided perhaps this was something I could do. Having no earthly idea how to run a blog, I did what one should always do when facing an unanswered question - I googled it. Quite simply, "how to start a blog." And here we are, in no less then 10 minutes. Now you realize why this blog is entirely boring. I don't know what I am doing and am only moderately technical. I didn't like the questions I was to answer for my profile, so here it is in a nutshell. We are John, Kim, and Johnathon, currently 2countries1family, waiting very impatiently to travel to Vietnam and become 3countries1family. Johnathon came home from Korea on Februarly 3, 2006 and is an active 2 1/2 yr old. We never cease to be amazed at what God has given us in this precious gift. Jordan, 10 months old, is waiting for us in an orphanage in northern Vietnam. We were officially "matched" with Jordan on April 27 and have been riding the adoption roller coaster ever since. Thank you for following our journey. We currently hope to travel the first or second week of October.