Our Journey to Claire

Keeping up with Claire

2010-08-24T13:49:00.002-04:00

Now that "our journey to Claire" is over and we're no longer blogging here, if you want to keep up with our family you can read my husband's blog at:

www.gregadkinsonline.com.

The Very Last Blog Post for Our Journey to Claire

2010-07-18T22:53:00.002-04:00

Today was Claire’s third birthday. It was a hard day for me, because it was a realization of how much we’ve missed in the first three years of her life. When Connor turned three, we had so many memories. We only have five months of memories on her third birthday. I cherished every moment with her today, and I am so excited to see all the memories we make over the next few years. We have a lot of catching up to do!

It’s hard to believe that it has been one year since we received Claire’s referral. One year since that night Greg and I woke up Connor long after he’d gone to bed so we could gather around the computer and wait for the e-mail that held our daughter’s picture. One year since I cried at how beautiful she was and how good it was to see God’s promises kept to our family. We’ve been home for five months, and I can’t believe how much everything has changed. We’ve been so busy, it’s hard to write on the blog or keep up with anything, quite honestly. So many people have told me that I needed to write our whole story, from the beginning through our first weeks at home…the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, this is what this is, our whole story and then “Journey to Claire” will be put to rest because the new journey has begun.

Adoption has always been in the back of my mind. I can remember being in high school and thinking about one day adopting. Throughout my life, I had been around people who had adopted, and it always just seemed like such a beautiful thing. I can remember talking to Greg early in our marriage about the possibility of adoption. He felt a little leery of the idea. He’s the practical one….too expensive…too much risk. I can’t remember at what point in our marriage I began praying for God to change his heart, but I prayed because I knew this was something that I wanted to do.

Connor was three years old, it was the Spring of 2007. Greg and I were feeling that it was time to add to our family. We had decided that we would try to start getting pregnant and then I had a big “God moment.” We were downtown at the Dogwood Arts Festival, walking to watch the parade. I saw a little Chinese girl with her family and it was a feeling I’ve never experienced. I had jokingly, always said I would adopt my next one from China because I had such a terrible pregnancy and delivery. All of the sudden, it wasn’t a joke anymore. God put it on my heart then and there that this was his calling for us. Thank goodness I had sunglasses on because I began to cry and continued to cry the rest of the afternoon. I knew Greg was not fully on board with adoption, so I prayed the rest of the afternoon and evening for God to open up his heart that night. I had decided that night that I would ask him to pray and consider for our family to take this next step. When we talked that night, for the first time he seemed open to the idea. He said we could look into the finances and see how it would work. And then from then on it just seemed to unfold.

When we first set out to adopt, we were being led to China. We chose an agency, went to a seminar, and began the wait for me to turn 29 ½ so we could fill out the application. From April to November we thought our little girl was in China. Strange things kept happening, little “God moments” to keep our focus on China. Even though we could not yet apply due to my age, we kept waiting and kept our focus there. As the months went by, the wait began to get scary. People had been waiting for years to receive a referral from China, and adoption was slowing down. We came to the realization that it could be five years or more until we would receive a referral. We prayed for patience and for God’s guidance, and finally on an afternoon in November, we decided that God was asking us to look elsewhere. We looked at other countries, but nothing felt right. I didn’t get a peace about anything, until a couple of days later, Greg called me at work and told me about the Taiwan program. He called around to different agencies, but their Taiwan programs were closed due to long waits. He randomly called one agency, Shiloh Adoptions, and they informed him that their healthy children program was closed…..but wait she said. She informed Greg she had just received an e-mail about a new healthy children program opening up and gave him a number to call. Greg called and there we were…the first family on this new program’s wait list to adopt from Taiwan. You cannot imagine that evening, sitting there, realizing that God had led us to China for seven months…..had Greg call all those other agencies….just in time for him to make a random phone call, minutes after the agent had received an e-mail about a new program. It had to be one of the amazing orchestrations of God that I had ever experienced. All that time….just to lead us to here. Unbelievable.

We immediately got everything in order and began the long paperchasing process. By April, everything was off to Taiwan, and on April 10, 2008, we logged in at Cathwel orphanage, and began our wait for a healthy infant girl….or so we thought. In December we visited Taiwan and met with the orphanage director. She really encouraged us to accept an older child, or one with special needs. She said because we already had a son, our wait for a healthy girl would be very, very long. We left that day feeling so sad and confused. Throughout my life, throughout my big decisions, I have always prayed for God to show me what his plan is for me and to give me patience to walk in the direction I am supposed to go. That day, I left the orphanage without peace. We were so confused.

We returned to the States and decided to press on and wait. I cried , was angry, and begged God to not let the wait go on. It had not even been a year since we logged onto the waiting list, but it was painful. Connor was getting older and we never wanted our children so far apart. My focus was never on the wait, it was just always asking God why our children had to be so far apart in age. There were days that I thought of dropping off the list and just getting pregnant. There were days it was just too much. We so desperately wanted another child, and we wanted our children to be close in age. Every day we waited was another day Connor was older.

Time went on, June came. I had worked through a lot of anger. I had worked through the feelings of…God, I am obeying your calling. I am doing what you asked, why are you making us wait for so long? Why do our children have to be so far apart in age? I had finally surrendered to God two days earlier. I told him I’d wait, be faithful to his promise, and that I would trust. I was sick in bed and Greg came running up the stairs. It completely startled me because he was supposed to be at work. “We got a referral!” I remember sitting up and the feeling was so surreal. As an adoptive parent, those words are the most important words that you could ever hear. After we rejoiced together, he told me it was not what we had expected, and that the referral was scary and something that we needed to talk and pray about. He told me it was for a little girl about to turn two, born to a mother addicted to heroin, and also HIV positive. This little girl was born HIV positive, but had fought off the antibodies passed to her by her birthmother and was now officially declared healthy and eligible for adoption. She wasn’t even from Cathwel Orphanage. She was from Harmony Home, another orphanage in Taipei that our adoption agency had just visited months earlier. The first words out of my mouth through my tears were, “NO!” This was not what we set out for. We set out for a little infant….a healthy little infant. As the day pressed on, I was so sad and confused. We made a lot of phone calls. Talked to people who had experience with children exposed to drugs. We had a friend who is a doctor look over her medical records. That night I went to bed not knowing what to do.

The next day, I woke up and knew that day we had to make a decision. I think I began praying as soon as my feet hit the floor and I never stopped. As the day pressed on, my heart began to change. I found an old fortune from a fortune cookie that I had eaten from the week we decided to adopt in April of ’07. We had gone out to eat Chinese and celebrate the beginning of our journey. My fortune read, “The one you love is closer than you think.” And here she was, born a few months after we had began the adoption journey. Alive almost this entire time as we waited, only a few years apart from our son. That night as we sat and talked while Connor played at VBS, I told Greg, “ It’s really scary , but I think we’re supposed to do this. “ We agreed that we would try to contact our agent that night. They had just visited a few months earlier and maybe someone had met this Hsiang-Ting and could confirm that she was healthy, and perhaps maybe even had a picture. Our agent had sent off an e-mail to Taiwan to try to figure out which one Hsiang-Ting was, they had all gone by nicknames, so she wasn’t sure.

About 11 p.m. on Friday, June 19^th we received an e-mail forwarded from Taiwan. Our agent had asked if Hana could help her remember who Hsiang-Ting was, as a family with her agency had just received her referral. At the bottom of the e-mail, our agent wrote, how is Mei-Mei? Mei-Mei was a sweet little girl who they had all just fallen in love with during their visit. Hana wrote back, “Hsaing-Ting is Mei-Mei!!!!” I saw the name Mei-Mei and ran upstairs to get my journal. In the Spring of ’07, I had been writing in my journal about the whole adoption. I had even scribbled some girl names that I was considering . In the margin, I began writing out names with Mei or Mai in them. I didn’t want any of them for names for our daughter, but I felt that I needed to write them down for some reason. This moment was the reason. I had written down those names, so that when I saw the name Mei-Mei on my computer screen, I knew that this was our Claire…..this was God telling me, don’t be scared, this is your child, the child I promised you all along. After realizing Hsiang-Ting was Mei-Mei, our agent began to e-mail us pictures and videos. We sat around the computer and saw the most beautiful girl we had ever seen. We couldn’t believe we had finally found our Claire. I remember seeing her picture for the first time, crying, and just saying out loud, “That is Claire! That is our Claire!”

Months went by, as we waited to travel. There were so many problems with court, paperwork, etc. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong for us. Our agency even told us that they had rarely had a family have this many problems. A few weeks before we left, we encountered some huge problems. Some of them got worked out before we left, but we went to Taiwan unknowing of when we would return. We had gotten all of our problems in the States with immigration straightened out, but there were two things that had not gotten taken care of in Taiwan, and while we knew they would be taken care of soon, we went ready to spend two weeks to a month in Taiwan. We were asked to consider putting off our trip until everything was taken care of, but on a conference call with our agency, Greg and I told them that we’d rather be stuck in Taiwan a month with Claire, than at home another month without her.

The day after we got to Taiwan, we spent an entire day at Claire’s orphanage, an amazing experience. It was so obvious how much Claire was loved…how much all of the children were loved. That night when we got back to the hotel, Greg received an e-mail that told us that all of our paperwork problems were fixed, we could go home on time, and that Claire’s birthmother would be a the meeting the next day. Once again, God had worked everything out.

February 6^th, I watched my little girl walk across a hotel lobby. We were so happy and she was so sad and scared. It was such an odd moment. Such happiness coming from us, such sadness coming from a little girl being ripped away from everything that she had known. I loved her instantly. I held her all day and I felt like she was mine all along. It was so surprising to me to feel that way. I felt like her mother from the first second I saw her face on the computer screen.

The first month we were home was very, very hard. She was grieving, adjusting to a new country, trying to learn a new language, trying to get used to strange people, and it made for a lot of very rough days and nights. She frequently had very loud tantrums and woke up with night terrors several times each night. Now, five months later, it is so hard to believe how far she has come. She still has challenging days, but they are far outweighed by the good ones. She is speaking fluent English, loves her family, and is about the prissiest little girl you’ll ever meet. Even though things haven’t been perfect, and toddler adoption comes with many challenges, she is the little girl that I always dreamed of. My mom and dad tell me all the time that I may not have birthed her, but she is me through and through.

Happy Birthday Claire! Mommy loves you! I’m so thankful God made you for us. I am so thankful that God spared your life from a horrible disease. I am so thankful your birthmother loved you enough to send you to the other side of the world to be loved and taken care of. I promise to give you a happy life full of love and many adventures. You were worth the wait, sweet girl!

We've been home for a month!

2010-03-12T11:03:00.005-05:00

Wow! We're so sorry we haven't been better at updating our blog over the past four weeks. It's hard to believe how quickly the time has passed since we've been home. We had good intentions of keeping this up to date but wow... by the time we finally get both kids to bed and the house straightened back up from the daily arrival of Hurricane ConnorClaire, we just haven't had much energy to sit in front of the computer. We are in a continual state of exhaustion right now. It's getting better but I'm not sure we've ever been this tired.

Let us bring you up to date on how things have gone for us since we arrived back in Knoxville. When we last wrote, we were preparing to leave Taiwan. I'll start with our journey home.

OUR RETURN TO KNOXVILLE

Everything started out going really well. We caught an 11:30 pm flight from Taipei to San Francisco and it was fantastic. The kids were so tired by the time we got on the plane, they slept for about 8 of the 11 hours. We were loving life... then we got to San Francisco.

First of all, the immigration line was insane. They made us wait in one line and when we got to the front of that line, they sent us to the back of another. Then they made all of us move to another line. It took over an hour. Not cool. After that we had to pick up our bags to take them through customs which was a guy who looked about 14 glancing at our bags for about half a second and mumbling "you're fine". Good to know they're on top of things. Instead of allowing us to recheck our bags right there, the wonderful San Francisco Airport gave us the privilege of carrying all of our luggage about half a mile through their airport where we had the joy of waiting in another long line to check them in with Delta for our flight to Atlanta. Then the fun really started...

Our flight to Atlanta was supposed to take off at 9:30. At 8:30 they said it was delayed until 11:30 because, get this, they couldn't find the crew. Seriously. Well, big surprise, the missing crew never turned up so the flight was postponed until 9:30 the next morning. I got in line to take care of our free hotel and food vouchers and by the time I reached the front of the line and we made it to the hotel it was 4:00 am. I called our travel agent and she was able to switch us to a different flight to Charlotte but only if we could go back to the airport immediately. So, we had about 45 minutes in the hotel room which was enough time to get a shower, then we rushed back to the airport and finally caught a flight to Charlotte.

We were originally supposed to arrive in Knoxville on Sunday morning at 10:45. Because of the missed flight, we didn't end up getting home until close to 8:00 that night. It was great though... many of our friends and family still were able to come to the airport to welcome us home. After all of the uncertainty leading up to the adoption and during the process, it felt so good to be home with both of our kids.

BEGINNING OUR NEW LIFE

The first week, I'm not going to lie to you, was horrible. Jetlag whipped our tails, Claire was terrified of our dogs, Connor started to act out a little (and immediately had to go back to school), and we were all just generally in a really bad mood. It wasn't really the way we had imagined it but hey, none of our adoption had really gone the way we had imagined it so it wasn't really a surprise.

The good news is, over the past few weeks, things have gotten a whole lot better. Claire is thriving. She blows us away how quickly she has picked up English. She has been able to understand us almost since the very beginning and her comprehension is incredible for someone who had never heard English a month ago. She's learning to say lots of things and her normal vocabulary includes words like "bye bye", "be right back", "eat", "yeah", "no", "shoes", "bow", "doggy", "pizza", "come here", "I love you", "night night", "bottle", "mama", "baba", "Connor", and more. She learns new words every day... all that talk about being a sponge was true. She's amazing.

After a rocky start with the dogs, Claire now absolutely loves them, especially Molly. She wants Molly with her everywhere she goes. She wants Molly to sleep with her, she wants to hold her, she puts Molly in her little shopping cart and pushes her around, she basically terrorizes Molly until she finally just hides under a bed and won't come out. She likes Emmy too but Emmy is too big to pick up and cram in a suitcase and thus, less fun.

Her temper has improved considerably as well. The first week she was tired all the time and we've learned quickly, a well rested Claire is a happy Claire. When she's tired, the smallest little things will set her into some of the most ridiculous conniption fits you've ever seen. I'm talking grade-A grand-mal conniption fits. It's hard for us to figure out how much of this is "she was raised in an orphanage and the loudest screamer got the most attention" and how much of this is "she's a two year old and that's what they do". Probably a little of both.

Fortunately, these fits are down from several a day to one at the most and many days, none at all. As she has become more and more comfortable in her new life, her personality has really begun to shine through. She is really a sweet little girl. She's very compassionate towards others, always wanting to help with things and take care of people. She's extremely silly... always trying to get a laugh out of us. When Connor and Claire get going, look out! They're hilarious together.

MORE TO COME...

We'll have more later but this is all there is time for right now. We've received a lot of questions by email and have tried to answer them all but we wanted to open it up to see if anyone had any questions about the process or how things are going. Leave questions in the comments of this post and in the next post we'll answer some of them. That's all for now! We'll leave you with a few pictures and videos.

Claire at the Disney Store in West Town Mall

Taking Molly for a walk.

Don't you just love her green coat? Too cute!

Trying on a sweater her MiMi made her. This is her "posing for a picture" smile.

She LOVES her big brother... she'd follow him anywhere.

One of the first things we did when we came home was to take Claire to Target to let her buy some toys of her own. She wouldn't put them in the cart but insisted on trying to carry them all through the store. That worked for awhile but here is the point where she started to have trouble.

This is about 2 weeks after we came home and we made her ramen noodles for the first time. She was very excited to get them but seemed confused by both a fork and a spoon so we gave her some chopsticks. That did the trick!

Our Final Video from Taiwan

2010-02-17T16:18:00.001-05:00

Wrapping up and Heading home!

2010-02-12T18:13:00.002-05:00

I had grand ambitions to put together another video for you guys but it looks like that just isn't going to happen. Time kind of ran out on us and when I was going to work on the video I chose to just sleep instead. I'm not sure I've ever been this tired... not so much physically but emotionally it has been an incredibly draining week. We are ready to come home.

Friday was an incredibly emotional day. Things started out easy enough... we took a trip to the lovely Taipei Zoo and even though there was a light rain for most of the day we had a great time. The zoo here is just beautiful and we were able to see a lot of animals you don't see very often in the states including koalas, pandas, and some very unusual monkeys.

After we left the zoo we had arranged for a return visit to the Harmony Home orphanage where Claire had lived for the first 18 months of her life. They had asked us if we could bring her by and allow them to say goodbye to her. Someday maybe we'll look back on it and think it was a good idea but right now, it feels like our first major adoptive parenting mistake.

Claire absolutely flipped out when we first got there... she was just inconsolable... she obviously thought we were leaving her again and we were about to just leave and get her out of there. Then the wonderful woman who founded Harmony Home (Nicole) arrived and Claire immediately recognized her and calmed down. At this point she was able to slowly begin to enjoy her visit. The problem was, over the course of the next hour, she began to call Nicole "mama" and began to ignore Jessica and I.

We knew we were going to be in for it when it was time to go. Fortunately Nicole and Hana were kind enough to give us a ride back to our hotel but sure enough when we took Claire inside and Hana and Nicole didn't follow, she lost it again. We thought we were in for a long night of crying, similar to our first day together, but fortunately she was able to calm down pretty quickly. Within 30 minutes or so she seemed to be back to her normal happy self.

So like I said... on one hand I'm glad that the people who loved Claire for so long (and they obviously just adored her there... one worker tried to get us to trade Claire for a newborn and I'm pretty sure she was serious) had a chance to say goodbye to her. I'm also glad that Claire had one last chance to see her friends... a couple of the children she obviously remembered and it was sweet to see her interact with them. One little girl Claire especially loved... she hugged her several times.

On the other hand, we feel guilty for putting her through the confusion. This has been such a challenging week for her and even though most of the time she is happy, her little world is upside down and we know she is still grieving. To put her in such an emotionally confusing situation without the words to comfort her... I just don't know. There's nothing we can do about it now I guess so I'm not sure what else there is to say.

One kind of cool thing from our return to Harmony Home: We met an American woman who is living in Taiwan right now who adopted a two and a half year old little boy. He lived there at Harmony Home with Claire the entire time she was there and apparently they were good friends. The family is moving back to the US from Taiwan this summer. They live in Pennsylvania but we exchanged information in hopes of keeping in touch. It's pretty cool to think that one of Claire's first playmates will be growing up not too far away from her. Hopefully we can get them together again someday.

It's 7:30 in the morning on Saturday here in Taiwan and our flight leaves tonight at 11:30 pm. Our hotel was gracious enough to give us a 4:00 pm checkout time and I'm thinking it will take every bit of that to get all this stuff packed up. We have an insane amount of luggage... oh my goodness you guys would not even believe it. We were packed completely full on the way here and now we've got another child and all of the clothes she came with to add to the mix. We might have to go buy another bag today somewhere. I'm not even kidding... it's crazy!

We'll certainly keep this blog going for awhile after we get home. There is obviously a lot more of this story to tell. For now though, we're signing off from Taiwan. We are so grateful to all of you who followed along on our journey while we were here. The comments and emails meant a lot to us and it was great to have a connection to home while we were so far away. We were humbled by the incredible amount of prayer and support we had while we were here. Thank you for coming alongside us and experiencing this great joy with our family. We are grateful.

We leave Taiwan at 11:30 pm local time Saturday night. We'll arrive in San Francisco at 9:30 pm Eastern time Saturday night (yes, we're going back in time. Instead of a plane, we're taking a DeLorian) and then we leave for Atlanta at 1:30 AM. We arrive at 6:30 Sunday morning and after a 3 hour layover takeoff for Knoxville at 9:30 with a scheduled arrival of 10:50. We hear there's snow so we're praying that won't be an issue.

That's all for now... See you guys when we get back home.

Connor and Claire

2010-02-11T21:15:00.000-05:00

Day 8 - A wonderful night

2010-02-11T09:41:00.003-05:00

Today was just a wonderful day for the Adkins family here in Taiwan. We had always heard from other adoptive families that when you get your child it will amaze you the ways they fit right into your family. That became very obvious today... we've got a little stinker on our hands. Claire has a fantastic sense of humor and it was on full display today. She was silly all day long.

This morning we went to the National Memorial Hall for a photo shoot we had arranged before we left for Taiwan. We found a local english speaking photographer on Google and he took some family portraits. I'm not sure if we gave him much to work with... Connor had a meltdown (yep, not the toddler we've had for 5 days... the 6 year old we've had since birth) and we had a rough time getting the kids to smile and look in the general direction of the camera. Hopefully something good will come of it.

After that we headed back to the room for lunch and then naptime. We were craving pizza so we asked the front desk if there was anywhere to get pizza in the area. Turns out there was a Pizza Hut and they delivered... 30 minutes later the Adkins family ripped into a large pepperoni pizza in a manner which resembled something you might see on Animal Planet. Best. Pizza. Ever. I hate Pizza Hut too so that's really saying something!

During Claire's nap I went back to AIT to pick up Claire's visa and immigration documents. They come in a sealed envelope and we have to leave them sealed until we get to immigration in San Francisco. I don't know why but I feel like a secret agent delivering these sealed documents. Such mystery and intrigue! I need a fedora.

After nap time we had grand plans to go to the Taipei zoo. Unfortunately when we arrived at the zoo they were closing up for the day... Connor was NOT happy at all. I underestimated his desire to see Pandas. So, we piled into a taxi and went back to the Taipei 101 area and just walked around for awhile. We had Starbucks and a snack from Mister Donut and then walked around the New York, New York mall. We had dinner at an American style restaurant and Claire was just fabulous. She sat in her booster seat the entire meal, ate like a champ, and was in a great mood. One of her favorite games to play with me is to offer me a bite of food (tonight it was french fries) and when I reach out to accept it she snatches it away and eats it herself. She cracks herself up with this and does it again and again. I have to admit, it is pretty funny.

After we made it back to the hotel, the real fun began. Bath time up until tonight had been basically a form of torture. We would put Claire in the tub or the shower and she would scream, thrash, and I'm pretty sure curse in Chinese at us. The past couple of nights had been slightly better... she would scream for a little while and then calm down for the end of it. Well, tonight she saw Connor in the tub and actually went to him and climbed in with him. She stayed in for a good 30 minutes laughing and playing... she didn't want to get out! It was a huge change from the previous few nights and we have no idea what changed. She was so funny... she was splashing us with water, dumping water on Connor's head... all the funny things kids do in the tub. She is such a joy.

Another unpleasant part of our time together has been teeth brushing time. You would not believe the blood-curdling howls that can come out of this child! Each time Jessica would brush she acted like we were ripping her toenails out or something. The only silver lining is that it's easy to brush teeth when someone is screaming. Tonight was a different story... she let Jessica do it and seemed to enjoy it. Afterwards she does the cutest little thing... she comes to Connor and I and breathes in our faces so we can smell her fresh breath. You would have to see it but it's adorable.

Oh yeah, she also peed in the potty 2 different times tonight. They told us she was NOT potty trained but it became obvious to us very quickly that she was ready for it. She lets us know immediately after she goes in her diaper and she wants it changed immediately. We figured any kid who can do that ought to be going in the potty. Tonight we were at the mall and Connor had to go so Jessica asked Claire if she needed to go to (Nee-yow nee-yow is how you say pee-pee in Chinese) and Claire nodded. Jessica took her in and put her on the seat and off she went. Exciting stuff, right?

Then tonight at the hotel she did it again. Afterwards, in what can only be described as a classic display of the phenomenon known as "two steps forward, one step back", she peed in the floor of our hotel room.

It's now 11:00 PM here in Taiwan and everyone is sound asleep. Connor had been sleeping on a couch every night but tonight he decided to sleep in the bed with Mommy and Claire. Claire was so excited that Connor was sleeping next to her... she loves to play with his hair and she ran her fingers through his hair until he fell asleep. As soon as Connor was asleep, Claire closed her eyes and fell asleep too.

Today was a good day. It still seems surreal that she is really ours. We know that we still have a lot of work ahead of us... as well as she's doing there are certain to be many, many challenges but we can't help but be encouraged. Each day brings a few small victories and she already feels like she belongs in our family 100%. Her personality is eerily similar to Connor's... they both like to entertain people and both love to make you laugh. They're also both very sweet natured and caring... it seriously is a little freaky how much alike they are. We are just in love with our little girl and getting to know her a little better each day has been such a joy. We can't wait to get home so everyone can meet her. You guys are just going to love her!

Days 6 and 7 - We've been busy!

2010-02-11T00:53:00.005-05:00

Tuesday and Wednesday seemed to fly by in a blur and we haven't been on the computer as much as we were before but here while Jessica and Claire take an afternoon nap, I thought I would try to give you guys a quick update on how things are going. Here are just a few bullet points of what's been going on.

AIT Appointment

Before we left for Taiwan, this appointment was our biggest source of stress. There were so many documents we still needed to get completed and it was seriously in doubt if that would happen. Fortunately, everything worked out just in the nick of time and our AIT appointment was a success. In fact, I'm going back over there in just a couple of hours to pick up Claire's passport and Visa which will allow her to travel home to the United States. What a relief to have all of the paperwork problems behind us!

Taipei 101

On Tuesday night we went to visit Taipei 101 which until about 2 months ago was the world's tallest building (a title now claimed by the Burj Dubai). We had dinner in the food court downstairs and Claire let me feed her for the first time. I fed her vegetables with chopsticks and she seemed pretty happy with that. One moment of excitement was when she dropped one of the vegetables on the food court floor and then picked it up and ate it before we could stop her. Gross! She is a BIG eater, most likely due to the fact that growing up in an orphanage and a foster home, she hasn't had food available to her as often as she might have liked. She will eat until she is sick (literally) so we're having to watch her pretty closely and cut her off. So far her favorite foods are watermelon, grapes, bananas, oranges, french fries, pudding, rice, vegetables, and today (Thursday) she had some pizza! She loved it!

After we ate dinner at the food court, Connor and I went to the top of the building to the observation deck. It was really awesome and we had a great time looking out over the city. We posed for some funny pictures on a green screen they had up there and they photoshopped our pictures to make it look like I was Godzilla and was hanging off the side of the building dangling Connor over the city. When we get home I'll scan it to show you all... it's pretty funny.

Danshui

On Wednesday night we took the MRT train all the way north to the little community of Danshui. It has a nice little park on the waterfront and there are tons of street musicians, artists, carnival games, and little waterfront shops. It's a great place to just walk around and enjoy being outside.

We ate dinner at Dunkin Doughnuts (don't judge! It is HARD to find food all four of us will eat and they had really good ham and cheese croissants... uh, okay and also doughnuts) and then let the kids run around and play for a little while. Connor and Claire had a great time playing... they both have a lot of energy and letting them burn some of it seemed to improve their moods significantly.

After playtime we walked up and down the street giving Jessica and Claire time to do a little shopping and Connor and I a little time to play some of the boardwalk games. I dominated the "hit water balloons with darts" game but failed big time at the claw-grabber game. Connor had a good time looking at the unusual foods being offered by the street vendors. I tried to convince him to try the world famous Danshui "Squid on a Stick" which is exactly what it sounds like. He wasn't having it. Can't say that I blame him... I don't think I could eat something that was starting at me... those squids still had eyes.

A Few Things about Claire

Jessica is still going to write a blog post at some point but who knows when that will be. Claire still wants to be in her arms a good bit of the time. I know you guys are wondering about how she is doing so I thought I would fill you in just a bit on how her adjustment is going.

Overall, she is doing wonderfully but that doesn't mean there aren't some challenges. We have figured out in the few short days we've been with her that she did not come to us from a very disciplined environment. She can be a little wild and she cries passionately when she is told no. Fortunately this doesn't happen much and each day she's getting better at listening. We say "ting ting!" (stop!) and she gives us puppy dog eyes... I think she's used to getting by with things just by being cute. She can be pretty persuasive!

She is slowly warming up to her daddy... each day we have made a little bit of progress. She still won't let me hold her, feed her, or change her diaper in general but she is starting to let me do more and more with her. This is all perfectly normal and it is also a cultural thing. The men in Taiwanese culture don't really treat their children the way American fathers do. I haven't seen any of the dads here EVER touch their children. No pats on the head, no kisses on the cheek... not much of anything really. Men are usually stern with their kids and assume the role of disciplinarian. Add that to the fact that she came to us from a foster home with no father in it and you can understand why she's a little bit cautious around me. I'm slowly seeing little cracks in her defenses... I'm getting her to smile at me more and more.

Her bond with Jessica and Connor is great. We are so glad we brought Connor on this trip. He has been a wonderful big brother. Considering that he's been dealing with jetlag, an upset tummy, and the stress of adding a new sibling to the family, he's been nothing short of amazing. He has been so patient with Claire and is really helping her adjust to life with our family. I can't imagine him not being here.

The other night they were playing and Claire hit Connor in the face hard enough to make him cry. It was basically a sucker punch! Connor cried pretty hard and Claire just stood there with a horrified look on her face and then the sweetest thing happened. She came to Connor and rubbed his cheek with one hand where she had hit him and ran her fingers through his hair with the other. Then she went to the bathroom and got a tissue and wiped his tears with it. She has such a sweet and mothering personality. She likes for everyone in the family to be together all the time and if she detects anything is wrong at all, she tries to figure out a way to fix it.

She also has a very prissy and sassy little personality. Jessica is just in heaven! I'll let Jessica tell you later all about it but I'm already thinking I'm going to be in trouble when we get home because this little girl loves clothes, shoes, and shopping. Uh-oh!

That's all the time I have to write... we're getting ready to head out to the Taipei zoo for the afternoon. We'll have more later. As I wrap up, here are a few pictures from the past couple of days for you to enjoy.

Claire LOVES escalators. We have no idea why but she cracks up laughing every time.

At the Danshui night market

Connor on the streets of Danshui

Burning some energy at the park in Danshui, Taiwan

Connor and Claire playing at lunchtime - Splendor hotel, Kaoshiung City

Claire just loves her big brother and has a very nurturing personality.

The princess LOVES playgrounds!

Too cute!

All the Good Things

2010-02-09T17:20:00.000-05:00

Music: "All the Good Things" by Jill Phillips

Day 5 - Travel and Transition

2010-02-09T03:48:00.004-05:00

Sorry we've slacked off a bit on writing and updates... we have more pictures and videos to share hopefully tomorrow but we've just been so busy and when we haven't been going, we've been absolutely exhausted. We're all drained.

Jessica has a blog post she's going to make whenever she gets a few minutes free but at the rate we're going, that might be after we get back to the states! Claire pretty much insists on being held by Jessica the whole time we're in the hotel room. Once we go out, she's sassy, fun, and independent but at the hotel she's extremely clingy. It makes sense though... just 3 days ago she was taken to a hotel by her foster mother and left with us so we understand her being nervous.

Jessica has so much she wants to share about Claire's personality. It has been a joy to discover new things each day. She is smart, funny, sassy, stubborn, adorable, and especially brave. She has been through a lot of pain in her short little life... she has been taken away from everything she knows 3 different times now and there is certainly evidence of that. This isn't going to be a quick fix... it might take years before she is able to overcome all that she has been through. It's going to take a lot of patience and love... we're anxious to get her home so we can begin working on all of these things.

So, I'm going to let Jessica share a lot of little things about her that we've learned and I'm going to stick to letting you know the sorts of things we have been doing.

Day 5 in Taiwan began in Kaohsiung City. We got up early and went to breakfast at the hotel. The hotel we stayed at was AMAZING... it is commonly referred to by tourists as "The Transformer Hotel" because it looks like a giant robot. It's about 80 stories high and is the tallest building in the city. The breakfast buffet was fabulous... a huge selection of traditional Chinese breakfast foods (they eat some unusual things for breakfast... salad with thousand island dressing is very popular) but they also have tons of fruit and western style foods too. Connor was excited to find they had pancakes and bacon. Claire mostly eats fruit and she can flat put it away... this little girl can EAT!

You guys wouldn't believe the stir we create when we show up to eat in there. I would guess there are several hundred people eating at a time in a huge dining room and when we walk in with our red headed boy and our Taiwanese daughter, heads turn and people stare. It's really funny too... they don't even try to hide their stares... they just stare at us and don't even care if we notice. Connor generally is met with smiles and we have been told several times "he is very handsome". I'm not sure they've ever seen a red headed boy before. We've been here 5 days now and we've only seen one other American couple and zero American children. You just don't see foreign kids here... it's not much of a tourist destination I guess... I mean how many of you have ever heard of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan before now? More interesting than the reaction to Connor is the reaction to Claire. People look at Jessica and Claire like they just stepped off a flying saucer. When Claire calls Jessica "mama" people's jaws literally just fall open and I'm not exaggerating. It is hilarious. In Taiwan, adoption is basically unheard of.

Anyway, back to our day... The hotel has a little playground in a room off of the side of the restaurant similar to what you would see in a McDonalds back home. Connor and Claire had a great time playing in there... she loves to go down the slides, especially with Connor. It's amazing to watch Connor play with the Taiwanese kids... he can't speak a word of Chinese but with kids, it doesn't matter. Within minutes he is able to make friends and play just like he would back home. It's really sweet to see him having this great experience. Being the only red headed American in the entire country hasn't seemed to phase him one bit.

After breakfast and play time, it was time to pack up and head back to Taipei. We were worried about how Claire would do on the high speed train but she did really great. She got a bit antsy towards the end of the trip but overall, it was a success. A two hour train ride is a lot different from an 11 hour flight but it gave us a little hope that maybe the flight won't be all bad.

By the time we got back to Taipei, we were exhausted. Travel with 2 kids and 4 suitcases took a lot out of us... cab rides, escalators, lugging our bags around... it was just a lot. We decided not to really do anything once we got to our new hotel in Taipei (the Fullon hotel, recommended by the Dunn's. It is lovely!). We ordered room service for dinner and then settled in for bed.

Well, we thought we were settling into bed. Claire took her bedtime bottle and then got sick. Big time sick. Think "The Exorcist" and then double it. It just kept coming and coming and coming. Bless her little heart... the new foods we have been giving her are probably confusing her little tummy not to mention the nerves of travel with people she still basically doesn't know. After a traumatic bath (Claire HATES the bathtub with an intense passion. Seriously... she goes boneless and just shrieks!) and a change of the bedsheets, we finally got Claire to go to sleep.

Then about an hour later, Jessica heard someone pacing around the room talking. Connor was sleep walking and having a very bad dream. He was confused and disoriented and didn't know who we were or where he was. It took us a little while to get him calmed down but we finally did and the Adkins family finally all got some sleep.

That's all for now... hopefully later on we'll have a little more video for you to enjoy. Thank you all for the comments on the video we posted yesterday. We're so glad to have so many people following along on our journey and keeping us in your prayers. Keep 'em coming!

Finally some video for you! February 6th, 2010

2010-02-07T10:45:00.002-05:00

Day 4 - A Few Pictures

2010-02-07T08:42:00.005-05:00

We took Claire to Toys R Us and she picked out this jewelry. The necklace and ring light up and she loves wearing it!

Connor thinks Taiwan is A-OK! Seriously, he's having a great time. We asked him tonight if he liked it and he said "It's just like home except everyone looks different and the food is weird."

This afternoon Claire fell asleep in her carrier. Such a sweet little girl!

We spent the afternoon at the "Dream Mall" in Kaohsiung. It was a BLAST and on the roof is a huge outdoor carnival complete with a giant "Hello Kitty" Ferris Wheel. For $2.00 Connor got to climb inside this giant ball and bounce around in a pool. He thought it was awesome.

Proof that Greg is actually here. So far he's been the one behind the camera most of the time. This picture cracks us up... it looks like Connor's being punished. Go sit in your giant ball while I pose for this picture! Now!

Mommy and Claire at the famous Taiwanese restaurant "TGI Fridays".

When signs in Taiwan are written in English, they're usually hilarious. This shop is supposed to be called "That Toy is Funny". You see how things turned out...

At the Dream Mall, they have these giant panda bears you can ride. You get like a five minute ride for fifty cents and you can literally ride them all around the mall. They're on the fifth floor and everywhere you walk there are people coming and going riding on these giant pandas. They have a gas pedal and a forward / reverse switch. Connor LOVED these things.

Seriously, they need to get these at West Towne Mall.

Mommy and Claire playing at a little playground we found in our hotel.

More fun at the playground. It was a great day! We'll have some stories and observations on our daughter for you later.

DAY 3 - A Family of Four

2010-02-07T00:08:00.006-05:00

What an amazing day it was. The day our daughter finally became a part of her forever family. There is plenty to tell and not much time for me to tell it in so I'll get right to it!

We left Taipei at 9:00 and took the High Speed Rail to Kaohsiung City. The bullet train was amazing... crazy fast, very comfortable, and it gave us a great look at the Taiwanese countryside. It's amazing how in places it didn't really look all that different from something you might see in middle America only instead of fields of corn there were fields of rice. It was a great experience.

We didn't arrive in Kaohsiung until 11:00 and we were supposed to meet Claire for the first time at the hotel at only 11:20. All along we had imagined that we would be comfortably settled in our hotel room and there would be a knock at the door. We would open it and there she would be... our daughter.

That's not quite what happened. The foster mom and the social workers beat us to the hotel by a good 15 minutes so when we arrived they were walking around the shopping mall that is on the first level of our hotel (I'll tell you more about this hotel later... it's amazing). We were standing there with our social worker getting ready to go check in when we saw a group of people come around the corner and... there she was. We'll never forget that moment... the little girl out of all of the pictures was right there before our eyes. It took our breath away.

She was curious about us at first but VERY clingy to her foster mom. We all went up to the hotel room together. It was Jessica, Connor and I, our social worker Bernadette, two social workers from Kaohsiung, Claire, her foster mother, and also a boy and a girl who were in foster care with that mom as well. It was quite a crew we had packed into our room... good thing we sprang for the suite for these 2 days in Kaohsiung.

We got out some toys we had brought for Claire and she was really happy about that. She played with Connor and they were doing great while the grown ups talked. We asked the foster mother tons of questions through an interpreter. Mostly boring stuff about diapers, feeding schedules, sleeping schedules, and that sort of thing. Then it was time for the foster mom and the social workers to go. It was tough... the foster mom was a little bit emotional and Claire was a LOT emotional.

When the foster mom finally made it out the door, poor little Claire just lost it. She wailed and sobbed and thrashed and screamed. It was heartbreaking. She knew exactly what was happening as the foster mom had been preparing her. Through our interpreter she told us Claire was crying things like "You aren't my mama" and "I want my auntie". Over and over she went to the door and cried "I want to go look for my auntie".

The good news is that during this time she finally went to Jessica and let her try to comfort her. Jessica held her while she cried and finally after a couple of hours she was able to get her a little bit calm which was a good thing because right about then we had a visit from Claire's birth grandfather, her half-sister, and also her birth mother. We didn't know until that morning that we would be meeting the birth mother... we had been told all along that we would not. We're so glad that we did.

The details of that meeting will remain private... some parts of the story don't need to be spoken. All we'll say is that we're really glad we were able to meet the birth family and also that we were able to get some pictures and video. We think Claire will be grateful for that someday.

After the family left we said our goodbyes with our social worker and all of a sudden, after a whirlwind day of craziness, there we were. Alone in the room, a family of four, together.

The rest of the night was spent hanging out in the room at the hotel. Claire slowly started to come out of her shell a little bit and by the end of the night, we all had earned a few sweet little smiles. She is joined at the hip to Jessica and will not leave her sight. She is already calling her mama and seriously, if Jessica leaves the room, Claire freaks out immediately.

She absolutely LOVES Connor. She has been more affectionate with him than with anyone rubbing his hair and even giving him a couple of hugs.

As for me... well, she's not quite sure what to make of me so far. If she is the one to initiate a little bit of play, she'll tolerate me for a few minutes. If I try to talk to her or touch her though, she will push me away and sometimes even cry. This is not surprising to us at all... it is common in toddler adoption for the child to bond tightly to one parent and somewhat reject the other. All of the books we had read prepared us for this and we're alright with it. It hurts a little but hey, this isn't about me! This little girl had her world turned upside down... she can have all the time she needs. She'll be a daddy's girl before too long I'm sure.

All things considered, Claire did incredibly well on her first day. She ate like a champ (dinner was apples, bananas, cheese bread, and a little bit of a doughnut) and she let Jessica give her a bottle (Asian children tend to stay on formula until they are 2 or 3). She finally fell asleep around 10:30 and slept soundly until about 7:00 the next morning.

Sorry I don't have time to go into more detail... we have absolutely been spending every waking moment with Claire. We'll have much more to tell later and hopefully some video soon as well. I'm slowly working on editing it but I have to do it when Claire is asleep because if she hears her foster mom talking on the tape she cries for her.

Thank you all so much for the continued comments, emails, and prayers. They have meant the world to us.

CLICK EACH PICTURE TO SEE A FULL SIZE VERSION

Jessica and Claire with their matching bracelets.

Connor and Claire looking out our 56nd story window at the city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Claire had a very hard and emotional first day. As joyful as it was for us, it was scary and confusing for her. She is such a brave and resilient little girl.

Connor with Claire's half-sister. They are both six and hit it off immediately. Claire's and her sister look a lot alike... we're so glad to have some pictures!

Just moments after meeting Claire for the very first time.

Connor was so wonderful with her all day long. He is so excited to have a little sister and he has been unbelievably sweet. We are SO GLAD he came with us.

Introducing our daughter, Claire Elizabeth Adkins

2010-02-06T09:37:00.002-05:00

Today was an AMAZING day, full of wonder, joy, and tears. We will tell you all about it... there are so many stories to tell, but for now, we are going to bed. We are beyond exhausted. It's almost 11:00 here local time and Claire is still wide awake and we just haven't had much time to be around the computer. I intend to have a video online for you all to see tomorrow morning sometime (hopefully by Saturday night Eastern time) and we'll try to update the blog with the full story by then too.

Good night!

BREAKING NEWS!

2010-02-05T15:02:00.003-05:00

Great news! We just received word that all of our paperwork has been finalized and we are clear to now come home on the 14th as originally planned! No $1000 airline fee! No living in a hotel for a month! Praise God!

And that's not all... Claire's birth mother has been missing for the past month or so. The social workers had been trying to find her to get one last document signed to ensure we would have no trouble getting Claire's Visa. Turns out that she finally came in to see the social worker and it looks like we have that final document too.

Even when we first received Claire's referral, we were told that we would not meet the birth mother. They told us that she did not want to meet us. In Taiwan most adoptive families meet their child's birth mother so this was a little bit unusual.

Well, we also just received word that Claire's birth mother will possibly be coming today to meet us! I have prayed so hard for this to happen. For us to be able to look her in the eyes and say "thank you" will mean so much... not to mention to have some pictures.

We're just hours away now from holding our daughter for the first time (7 hours and counting...) so please keep praying! We'll try to have a least a small update for you all by the time everyone on the east coast gets up Saturday morning.

Day 2 - An incredible day in four parts

2010-02-05T08:20:00.013-05:00

Part One

For the first 18 months of Claire's life, she lived in a shelter called the Harmony Home. Today it was our privilege to spend most of the day with the children of Harmony Home and also with two amazing women who were Claire's primary caregivers while she lived there.

Hana is a missionary from the Philipines who is working here in Taipei at the home. She has been an amazing help to us as we've waited these past few months. She sent us an extremely detailed email a few months ago telling us everything she knew about Claire's birth mother…. these are details we never would have known if not for Hana. She also was quite obviously extremely fond of Claire.

Hana and Jessica talking at Harmony Home

Today she gave us a CD with close to 200 pictures of Claire we had never seen before. Some of the pictures look like they were taken when Claire was only about a month old. When I think of families who adopt from China and are lucky to receive 3 or 4 tiny little printed out pictures, having this many high quality digital pictures of our daughter's first year and a half of life are an incredible blessing. We are so thankful for Hana!

One of our new pictures - Claire sleeping at Harmony Home

In addition to Hana we also were able to spend a lot of time today with an incredible woman named Nicole. I heard two different people today refer to her as "The Mother Theresa of Taiwan" and I would have to say that I would agree with them. Let me explain why.

Part Two

In the 1980s Nicole had a friend who was infected with HIV. He was unable to find anyone who would provide him with help because at that time, people were still mostly ignorant of how HIV spread and everyone was afraid to be around him. Everyone except Nicole. She took him in and cared for him and pretty soon the word got out among those who were sick that there was a woman in town who would help them. People kept coming and Nicole kept helping and now, twenty-five years later, there are six Harmony Home shelters in Taiwan and over twenty in mainland China.

Nicole with Claire at Harmony Home

Part of our day today was spent with the children of Harmony Home at a street festival they were having in Taipei to celebrate Chinese New Year. Harmony Home sponsored a booth at this festival to help spread awareness about HIV and how it can be prevented. It was amazing to us to hear stories of how in most Asian countries, HIV is still something that is completely misunderstood and most people are terrified to be around those who are infected. Young people are uneducated on how to avoid contracting it… needles are shared between multiple drug users and from what we were told today, condoms are rarely used by anyone. It is very different from how things are today in the United States.

Let me answer for you now the question you're probably wondering. Yes, Claire's birth mother is HIV positive which is why Claire spent her first 18 months at the Harmony Home. It takes 18 months to confirm if a child born to an infected mother will be positive or negative. Claire was tested regularly over that time and at the end of 18 months was declared to be negative and completely healthy. Let me repeat that: Claire is completely healthy. We praise God every day for saving this precious child's life.

Because of the stigma attached to HIV in Taiwan, if it weren't for the Harmony home, these children would have nowhere else to go. We are grateful beyond words to Nicole for the incredible courage, compassion, and love she has shown over all these years. As a gift for us today, she made us an amazing collage of pictures of Claire with all of her friends from the shelter. It is so comforting to know that even though Claire hasn't been with us for these 2 and a half years, she has been loved and when she leaves Taiwan, there will be people who will remember her and miss her.

At the street festival with the children and volunteers of Harmony Home

Part Three

As wonderful as Hana and Nicole have been and as impressed as I was with both of them, I still haven't told you who made the biggest impression on me today. Let me tell you about one of the most interesting and inspiring people I have ever met. His name is Joseph.

Joseph was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and an Italian father. He went to college at Stanford and then trained to be a plastic surgeon in Charleston, SC. He worked as a plastic surgeon in San Diego and eventually had a successful practice operating on celebrities who wanted to get away from the craziness of L.A. for their procedures. He didn't drop a lot of names but he did mention that he had done a procedure on Janet Jackson's butt. Seriously. I'm not making that up.

Eventually he became the primary plastic surgeon for Playboy magazine. Seriously. I'm not making that up either.

And then one day, Joseph realized that he was made for something better. He quit his job and moved to Taiwan. Even though Joseph couldn't be a day over 45, he is now officially retired.

Today I ate lunch with Joseph. We sat in tiny little chairs trying to squeeze our grown-up sized knees underneath a table made for toddlers. We ate simple food… rice, fried eggs, fish, and vegetables. We sat surrounded by children and all of them absolutely loved this man. He knew them all by name and knew the best parts of all of their personalities. He knew just what to do to make them laugh. He also knew their stories… where they had come from and where they were going. If it weren't for all of the paperwork involved he probably would have convinced us to adopt another 3 or 4 kids right there on the spot. Lord knows he tried.

Joseph is now a full-time volunteer for the Harmony home. He took the pile of money he made doing plastic surgery and now he travels all over Taiwan and China helping to spread awareness about HIV and raising funds for the work that they are doing. "In China, helping people with HIV is illegal" he told me. I asked him if the work he did there was dangerous. "Sure it is" he said. "They could beat me badly or even throw me in prison for the work I do but man, I don't even care. I'm not afraid." I was looking him in the eyes when he said it and he didn't blink and when he says he's not afraid, I believe him.

Oh yeah, and he's also an ordained minister.

It's not everyday that you come eye to eye with someone who is just completely filled with passion for what they are doing. I mean, don't get me wrong, I know a lot of people who love what they do, but this guy was just off the charts. He looked me in the eye and said "I would love to come to your church to talk to your parishioners and get them involved with the work we are doing." He wasn't joking either. He didn't care that we were from a place 28 hours away by plane clear on the other side of the world… all he cared about was finding an ear willing to listen to him talk about his passion. If I could guarantee him that, he said he was willing to come. Amazing.

Oh yeah, and he also does magic tricks. You can ask Connor.

Joseph and a little boy named Xi-Xi at the street festival

Part Three and a half

Something really funny that happened today: We were at the booth setup by Harmony Home at the street festival looking at the t-shirts they were selling when all of a sudden I hear Connor asking if he can have something. I look down to see him holding five individually wrapped rainbow colored condoms. "They're free dad" he said. "No son, I don't think so. Do you know what those are?" He looked at them. "No, but they're free!" Turns out Nicole had given them to Connor and told him they were free and then snuck away to watch us squirm from a distance. Jessica saw her across the crowd watching us and laughing her head off.

She may be the Mother Theresa of Taiwan but the woman has a great sense of humor. I'm all for sex education but not quite yet!

Part Four

So that was how we spent our day and what an amazing day it was. We will forever be grateful that we had the opportunity to get to know the people who loved Claire the most when she was little.

And now, it is time. Tomorrow morning we will get up early, eat a quick breakfast, and take a two hour train ride to the southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung. We will take a taxi to our hotel and then, at 11:20 in the morning, Claire will finally be with us. We're full of more emotions than we could even begin to describe right now... certainly joy but also a little bit of fear if we're being honest. Tomorrow all four of our lives change forever.

I guess tomorrow we'll need to find a new name for the blog because in just over 14 hours, Our Journey to Claire will finally be over. What else is there to say?

We'll leave you for today with a few more pictures.

One side of the beautiful collage Nicole gave us today as a gift.

Do you think they would let us adopt more than one?

We had a great time playing ball with this handsome little guy.

Connor and Xi-Xi at Harmony Home

Connor had his caricature drawn at the street festival by an artist who had clearly never drawn a red headed American boy before. He didn't speak much English and he apparently thought Connor asked to be drawn as an extremely effeminate cowboy. What kind of a cowboy does jazz hands???

Day 1.5 - Jet Lag and Why we Don't Know When We're Coming Home

2010-02-04T16:35:00.002-05:00

Greg here...

It's 5:30 in the morning and Connor and Jessica are sound asleep. My eyes popped open somewhere around 4:00 and I tried to go back to sleep but it just wasn't happening so here I am, wide awake talking to you guys. I hope you don't mind.

The first time we visited Taiwan last year I figured jet lag would be no big deal... I've always been a person who could get by on just a few hours of sleep so I was confident that I could deal with it rather easily. Wrong. Jet lag is my daddy. I'm hopeful that it will be better this time but I guess the fact that I'm wide awake while everyone else sleeps isn't a good sign.

Anyway, I wanted to let everyone know when we hope to be home and also to let you know why we might not be on that flight. As of right now, we are scheduled to return to Knoxville at 10:45 AM on Sunday morning, February 14th. Unfortunately, one of our documents that we need to leave the country has not cleared the court system yet. We are praying hard that happens by no later than next Friday the 12th because if it does not come in, we will not be able to be home on the 14th as we originally had planned.

So you're probably thinking "okay, so if it doesn't come in on Friday the 12th, you can get it Monday the 15th and come home right after that." That's what we thought also but as luck would have it, the next week is Chinese New Year, the biggest holiday in Taiwan and the court systems are closed for a solid week. So, if our documents aren't in by the 12th, we would be here AT BEST for an additional 10 days and quite possibly another 14-17 days which would mean we would be in Taiwan for nearly a month.

We love it here in Taiwan, we really do. It is quite possibly my favorite place on earth other than Knoxville, Tennessee. Still, being here for a month is not something we really need to do right now. Connor needs to be in school, I have a job I need to get home to, and most importantly, I only brought 12 pairs of boxer briefs!

Of course there's a bright side... if we do end up having to stay we will get to enjoy the holiday season here in Taipei. I'm sure we will experience some amazing things, learn even more about this wonderful country, and having the extra time with Claire in her homeland would be special and something we would remember forever. Like I said before, we really do like it here and it will probably be a long time before we'll be able to come back. There would certainly be worse places to be stuck!

Unfortunately, an extra 2 weeks means an extra giant pile of cash we can't really afford. If we have to reschedule our flights there will be a $1000 fee and then on top of that we'll have another 2 weeks worth of hotel expenses. Taipei is a city the size of Chicago or New York and the hotels are more expensive than they are back home. Ten days we can afford... a month not so much. My wallet hurts just thinking about it!

So that's where we stand... a lot of uncertainty. If you're the praying type, please pray that our documents come in immediately. It could literally be anyday so why not today! Once that hurdle is cleared, we will most likely have smooth sailing and should be able to return home as scheduled on the 14th.

Whatever happens, we have a feeling of peace in our hearts knowing that the same God who knew Claire before she was born and then led our family on this amazing journey to find her also has a plan to bring us all back home together. In the grand scheme of things, if that is February 14th or 28th doesn't really matter all that much and we'll be alright either way. Still, pray for the 14th!

DAY 1 - We are in Taiwan!

2010-02-04T11:37:00.003-05:00

There's nothing much to report at this point other than that we are here in Taipei. We left Knoxville at 7:10 Wednesday morning and now 28 hours later, here we are. I'm not gonna lie... it's as long as it sounds!

The good news is that our trip was exactly what we had prayed for... uneventful. All of our flights were on time, our luggage arrived in one piece, and best of all our son Connor was WONDERFUL! He didn't say "Are we there yet" even one time! He slept a good bit of the way and the rest of the time he played his DS (thanks Nana and Grandaddy for the new games) and watched movies. Even on our longest flight (14 hours from Detroit to Tokyo) he was great. That was a major answered prayer!

Connor made a friend at the Tokyo airport while we were waiting to board our flight. Connor was just chatting away with a little Taiwanese boy and we just assumed that the boy didn't speak English but it turned out he did. He and his mom were from Ohio coming home to visit family. I'm not sure what they were talking about but as we left Connor said to him "What are you talking about man, you can't be allergic to movies!" I wish I had heard the beginning of that conversation!

We're off to bed... it's almost midnight right now and we are getting up bright and early to visit the Harmony Home orphanage where Claire lived for the first 18 months of her life. We're very excited to get the chance to see this place and to meet her caretakers there. We have exchanged several emails with Claire's primary caregiver while she was at the orphanage and it is obvious that she loves Claire very much. She has been incredibly helpful sharing details about Claire's story up until now. We're thrilled to have the chance to meet her.

We haven't even taken our cameras out of the case at this point but starting tomorrow, we'll hope to have pictures and video fairly regularly for you all to enjoy.

Goodnight from Taiwan!

What do I say?

2010-01-15T20:26:00.000-05:00

We found out today that while we are in Taiwan we are going to meet Claire's maternal grandfather. Her birth mother does not wish to meet us and has had some fairly serious legal problems. In fact, as of right now the social workers do not even know where she is. I was very surprised in light of that to find out that the grandfather has requested to meet with us and that meeting will happen in our hotel on Saturday, February 6th.

Claire has two half sisters and this man has custody of one of them. We do not know if he will bring her with him to the meeting but we are hopeful.

I've been thinking today of what it is we should say to this man to set his mind at ease. I imagine he wants to meet us to have a chance to say goodbye to his grand-daughter who he will most likely never see again. What a moment that will be... I cannot imagine. I feel the need to have some idea of what I want to say to him before we meet... something that will put his mind at ease... something that will give him comfort that little Hsiang-Ting (Claire) is going to be alright in her new life. Something to let him know that we are kind and loving and that we are going to do everything in our power to give this little girl a wonderful life. I hope he will believe us and go away from our meeting with at least a little bit of peace.

We know next to nothing about this man. We know that Claire's birth mother asked him to take Claire and he told her he could not afford to take one more child. Putting Claire up for international adoption was his idea and Claire's birth mother agreed to it. We owe this man an incredible debt of gratitude. He probably does not speak English and even though I can say "Thank You" in Mandarin (thanks to Ni Hao Kai-Lan) somehow I know that won't even begin to be enough.

Even though I will probably be anxious about this meeting right up until the moment it happens, I am so grateful we are going to have this opportunity.

I think of Connor's early life... In my iPhoto library on my laptop I have over 3000 pictures from just his first 3 years alone. We have pictures of Connor with all of his family, including some who have since passed away. Every picture is a treasure. Those of you with children understand this. With Claire though, it's different. We have 20 pictures from a day in October when a social worker took her to a playground. We have about 10 pictures from a day in April where she played in a park for a little while. We have about 20 pictures taken at random times during her 2nd year of life while she was living in the orphanage... and that's it. No pictures of her birth mother, grandparents, siblings, or friends. Not one. This might be our only chance to have a picture of her with her birth family. What a treasure that will be for her someday.

We Got the Call!!!

2010-01-01T00:28:00.002-05:00

After months of waiting we finally received the call that we've been waiting for this afternoon. We can travel to Taiwan and pick up our daughter the 2nd week of February! We will most likely leave from Knoxville on Wednesday, February 3rd and we will finally hold our daughter in our arms for the first time on Monday morning, February 8th. We're hoping to be home the following weekend... hopefully on Saturday morning.

We are absolutely overjoyed! It's been more than 2 years since we began this journey and now it's finally coming to an end. I'll be honest... I'm ready for this journey to be over so a new one can begin! The best is most certainly yet to come.

We'll have more updates later but for now we have a to-do list a mile long... so much to do before we leave! Plane tickets to buy, hotel rooms to book, a very pink room to put the finishing touches on, and a whole bunch of paperwork to get in order!

Thank you to everyone who has commented on this blog... all of the encouraging words have meant a lot to us. It's been really comforting to know that we haven't been waiting alone.

6 Months!

2009-12-23T10:12:00.002-05:00

On Friday, we reached the 6 month point since referral. Still no news on travel. Still no news on what in the world is going on. We do know that as of a couple weeks ago, our first ruling hadn't even been issued and we had court back in October. We also know that two families who had court the same day as us are traveling to pick up their little ones at the end of this week, which every time I think about is like getting sucker punched right in the stomach. To say we're stressed, sad, and frustrated does not at all put into words what we are feeling. We had so hoped to have our little girl home by the end of the year when we got the referral. When we realized that wasn't going to happen, we just prayed that we would have news of when we could bring her home by the end of the year. Looks like that won't happen either. Christmas is our very favorite time of year, but this year we all feel a hole. We know that is because our family will not all be together this Christmas. It's even harder because this time last year we were getting ready to leave for Taiwan. It's just an overload of what we're missing. We could really use your prayers over the next few days!

My Little Fred Astaire

2009-12-05T22:35:00.003-05:00

Here is Connor dancing with his friend last night at the Kindergarten dance. He loves to dance, just like his momma! Maybe we should get these two on "So You Think You Can Dance."

Thankful

2009-11-17T21:13:00.004-05:00

As far as we know, Claire's first court date went okay. We haven't heard anything back, and we've been holding our breath praying they don't request any additional paperwork. It's still looking like February or March until we travel. I have to admit that the past five months have been about a million times harder than the past two years. Over the course of the process, I have always justified the delay in completing our family by saying God was just waiting for the perfect little girl to come along. Well, now we have been matched, we know who she is, and I just don't understand why it's taking so long to get her home. It's so beyond my control, but I'm not taking it well at all. It's been really hard on me for the past few months managing a stressful job, a son in school, keeping up with my house, going back for my Ed.S, and going through the emotions of trying to complete Claire's adoption. I cry all the time when I'm alone because I miss her so much even though I've never met her. I feel so incomplete.

Despite all of the hardships lately, I am so completely thankful for my sweet and beautiful son who brings a smile to my face every day! Yesterday we were on the way back home back from the grocery store and we were talking about syllables in words. We were naming Thanksgiving words, and he would clap out the syllables. We were having a fun little drive (yes, this is fun to us...yes, I am in education...can you tell?) and I said the word "thankful." After telling me there were two syllables, he named everything he was thankful for.

Here is Connor's list almost word for word as best as I can remember it. I wrote it down as soon as I got home:

I'm Thankful For....

1. Mommy and Daddy. They love me.
2. My family. I love them so much.
3. Toys! They're fun!
4. My friends who play with me.
5. Food. I'm never hungry....well sometimes I get hungry, but I just get food.
6. The nice people I meet. I like when people smile at me.
7. I'm glad we can be free. People in other countries can't be their own boss.
8. The beautiful world where I can run and play, be a super hero, climb in my tree and sit there, and just look around.

He's five and he blows me away! I have no idea what if anything we've done to raise a son with such an incredible heart, but he definitely has one sweet little soul! I love him so much and I am so thankful for my sweet, sweet boy!

First Court Date Scheduled

2009-10-09T19:44:00.003-04:00

We received word today that our first court date is scheduled for October 26th. This was bittersweet news as we were told we would not know where we were in the court process, and by our timeline we assumed we had already had at least our first hearing. We were crushed because it has been our prayer to have her home before the end of the year, and now that will not happen. We most likely will wait another 3 months to travel, possibly more. However, we felt blessed to finally receive some news! Please, please pray for us on October 26th. Pray that the courts do not request any additional paperwork, which would delay us even more!

The past four months have been grueling. I look at my daughter's face every day, many times a day. I know who she is. I know where she is. They won't let me get to her. It's completely out of my hands. I cannot even begin to describe to you how hard this process has been. This has been the longest and most challenging journey of our lives. I know it will all be worth it, and some day we'll finally gain hindsight, but today in the midst of it all, we are feeling sad and helpless. Please say a prayer for us and most of all Claire. Pray for a miracle!!!

Adoption Shirts!

2009-09-29T10:42:00.008-04:00

Our best friends the Watsons are in the middle of their third adoption. They have two domestically adopted children, and are now in the process of adopting an infant boy from Ethiopia. They are selling adoption t-shirts to help them raise money to bring Silas home! Please check out their adoption blog AND the link to the site for their t-shirts. They are only $10 and super cute!

The Watson's Adoption Blog
Adoption Shirts

Another wonderful opportunity to support adoption!

Awesome Fundraiser!!!!

2009-08-31T21:14:00.002-04:00

We had the conclusion of our biggest adoption fundraiser, "Bears for Claire" last night. It was completely overwhelming how many generous people were willing to help! I truly thought we would struggle to reach $1,000 in donations, but once again God was so good to us and we ended up raising a little over $3,000!!!! AMAZING!!! Thank you to everyone who donated your services or prizes and asked for nothing in return! Thank you so much!! If you know me well, you know guilt could be my middle name, and I was so sad last night that I couldn't give every single person that donated a prize of some kind. I wanted everyone to win! I kept telling Greg how nervous I was every time I drew a number for a prize. I truly am so thankful for everyone who helped us, and I pray that someday I have the opportunity to help you!!! Because so many gave so freely to us, we wanted to take part of our donations and give them to help another family adopting a little girl from Taiwan as well (They are naming her Claire too!! Good name!) So, please know, if you participated in any way in "Bears for Claire", you helped two families bring their Claire home! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

Our First Update!

2009-08-26T14:28:00.003-04:00

We received our first update on Claire today from Taiwan. We only received this one little tiny picture but it's so great to see something current. We wish we could know what she's thinking... our first thought was that she looks a little bit sad but maybe that's just how seeing pictures of her growing up makes us feel. Regardless, she's still a cutie and we still can't wait to bring our little girl home! It looks like any hopes we had of her coming home with long hair are out the window as it looks like they're keeping it cut really short. Taiwan in the summertime is very hot from what we hear so that makes sense.

Here are a few highlights from her update:

She's working on potty training at home. That's a good thing!
She's still taking 4 bottles a day. I think this is cultural... children there tend to stay on bottles and formula longer than children here.
Her favorite solid foods are watermelon and papaya. Do they have papaya at Kroger?
It says she is "outgoing and adorable" and she "makes funny face to make people laugh". Sounds like her brother!
It sounds like her language development is coming along well. There is no mention of whether or not she is learning any English but we are not expecting her to have ever heard any English at all when we pick her up.
Other than that, it sounds like she's a typical two year old for the most part... some minor behavior issues that sound just like things Connor did when he was 2. Nothing to worry too much about.

And that's about it. Everyone keeps asking if there's any news so this was exciting to get in the mail today. We're still waiting to find out how our court process is going so we can travel but we're just 2 months past referral. Typical time from referral to travel is 5-8 months. At the absolute earliest we would travel late October / early November but it is MUCH more likely that we would travel in late December or January and quite possibly as late as February / March. That seems like an eternity right now.... these past two months have just crept by.

We're supposed to get an update about every month so hopefully sometime around late September we'll get another update.

Bears for Claire

2009-08-19T20:08:00.005-04:00

Jessica and I are going to be having two adoption fund-raisers this fall to help us cover the costs of our travel to Taiwan to bring Claire home. Airfare could be as high as $10,000 due to the fact that we'll only have 7-14 days notice before we have to travel. We've been able to cover our expenses up until now but that daunting total has left us needing to get creative and so, we are excited to present... Bears for Claire

Here's how it works: Make a donation to our adoption fund and you will receive a "Bear for Claire". For $5.00 you get one bear, for $10.00 you get three bears, and for $25.00 you get eight bears! Each bear enters you to win one of over 20 prizes. We have had some AWESOME prizes donated including:

* A BRAND NEW NINTENDO WII!

* Free Chick Fil-A for a Year!
* Tennessee Football Tickets (box seats)
* A prize package from the Food Network and HGTV
* A prize package from Love 89.1 Radio
* Regal Cinemas Movie Tickets
* Many more! Over 20 prizes!

The drawing will be held on Sunday, August 30th at 7:00 PM. We'll actually be webcasting the drawing so people can watch live.

For all the information you need to participate in our fundraiser, and to purchase you chances to win the Wii and other prizes, please visit:

www.bearsforclaire.blogspot.com

July 18th, 2009.

2009-07-17T15:20:00.002-04:00

(From Greg)

As I write this here in East Tennessee at 11:00 in the morning, on the other side of the world the clock has rolled over and a new day has begun in Taiwan. It is July the 18th and at some point today my daughter Claire will turn two years old.

I was born on October 30th, 1974 a little after 7:00 in the morning. I know this because for years my mom would call me early in the morning on my birthday every year and give me the old "do you know what I was doing at this time 27 years ago???" line. I never knew what to say... "Um... I give up. Were you screaming and cussing out dad?"

Smart alec answers aside, I always appreciated my mom's early morning calls on my birthday... it told me how much she loved me and that not only was the day of my birth worth celebrating but even the moment of my birth was worth remembering. Sure, it's a small thing but a large collection of small things is how a person comes to know that they are loved.

I will probably never know the exact moment of Claire's birth. I'll never know if it was morning, afternoon, or evening... if the sky was sunny or clouded... who witnessed her emergence into this world... what her first moments with her birth mother were like... these things will remain a mystery to me. Adoption is a wonderful thing with a lot to celebrate but there is plenty to mourn as well. When our daughter comes home it will be easy to focus on all that we have gained... but let us not forget all we have lost.

Claire has now lived two years of her life being bounced around between orphanages and a foster home. As far as she can tell, she has no mother and no father... just caregivers who randomly seem to come and go. Hopefully they are kind to her. I wonder if she loves them... I wonder if they love her. I wonder when she spoke her first word and what it was. Did anyone even hear? Did anyone care? When she took her first steps, did anyone even notice?
I'm thinking of all of the treasured moments of Connor's first two years of life... first words, first laughs, learning to crawl and then walk, his first time going down a slide, and his first time dipping his toes in the ocean. I cherish every one of those memories. I know that a lifetime of memories with Claire are ahead of us as well and I know that there is so much joy to come but that future joy for now is tinged with the sadness of all that we have lost.
Even as I sit here now and think about these things, I have to remember that for as much as I have lost, Claire will have lost even more. As our plane lifts off from Taiwan to journey over the ocean and back home to Tennessee, our little girl will be saying goodbye to every single thing she has ever known. Her friends... her caregivers... her bed... her favorite foods... her language... her homeland... gone.

I don't know what our first days with our new daughter will be like but I do know that she is going to be grieving all that she has lost. I don't know how she is going to do this... some adopted children rage and lash out while others simply withdraw and go quiet. Who could blame them? I am praying even now that we will be equipped to comfort her... to help her through the transition into her new life. How will we do this.... the words of comfort she would understand can only be spoken in a language we do not know. God grant us patience, peace, and wisdom.

So, today my daughter turns two. I have no idea what this day will hold for her... I like to imagine that her foster family in Taiwan will have a celebration. Maybe some of her friends from pre-school will come over and there will be cake and ice cream... perhaps they will sing a song to her and she will end up with icing all over her face. Maybe she will celebrate... or maybe it will be just another day. Like so many other things, I will probably never know.

Here in Tennessee, we celebrated Claire's birthday by having a garage sale. We've spent the last week emptying closets and drawers... shelves and storage tubs. I've never seen so much stuff in our garage and hopefully all of it will be sold. All of the money we make today is going towards buying Claire's bedroom furniture. Connor is sitting at a table selling brownies and drinks with a sign that says "Snacks for my Sissy". Claire is heavy on all of our minds today but we're keeping busy... moving forward... wading our way through this wait the only way we know how. We're a little sad but also incredibly hopeful and excited. We know that next year we will celebrate this day very differently. It's going to be an incredible party... we'll have a lot of lost time to make up for. I can't wait.

Adoption Fundraiser - Family Songs Sampler

2009-07-06T07:52:00.006-04:00

Greg writing here...

What you see above is an album of original songs I have put together called "Family Songs Sampler". It's a collection of songs from 3 of my albums, plus a couple of early home demos. All of the songs in this collection are about family... there are love songs, songs about being a parent, even a song I recorded about adoption (the great Julie Miller song "By Way of Sorrow"). As I've played shows all over the place these past few years, without exception these songs have been the most popular.

Just click on the widget above and you will be given the opportunity to download this entire collection of songs. Noisetrade (the company I'm using to create the widget) gives you the option to either email 5 friends about the music or to make a paypal donation. Any amount is fine... from $1 to $25 and all points in between. We receive 90% of that and we'll be putting every penny of it towards our adoption.

To be clear, you can either make a donation or email 5 friends to let them know about the music so if you want the music for free, you can do that.

Anyway, I'm not super comfortable with the whole fundraising idea... I'd rather have a garage sale. But if you're so inclined, please download the music and either make a small donation or help us to spread the word. Thanks.

Adoption Frequently Asked Questions - Post Referral Edition

2009-07-05T23:56:00.001-04:00

So now that we have received our referral and we know that Claire will be coming home soon, I figured I would take this opportunity to answer a few more of our most frequently asked questions. You can read the original post here.

When will you bring Claire home? There's really no way to know an exact answer to that question. Best case scenario would be October and the worst case scenario would be more like February or March.

Why does it take so long? After receiving our referral on June 18th, we had to sign and date about 7 pages worth of adoption contracts. Those had to be sent to Kansas (where our agency is) and then to Taiwan. Taiwan then sent us a bunch of documents that we had to sign and have notarized and then state certified (which required a trip to Nashville) and those documents are currently at the TECO office in Atlanta which is basically the Taiwanese embassy. Once those documents make their way back to Taiwan we will go into the court system. We'll have an initial hearing where the judge will be presented all of our documents and a social worker acting on our behalf in Taiwan will request permission for us to adopt. From there it's a 10 day waiting period for birth parents to sign off on everything. Then, whenever the judge gets around to it you'll either get a ruling or he'll request more information. I don't know exactly how the system works but it seems like it can either go really quick or really slow... luck of the draw I guess. Once the judge grants a ruling, they'll make an appointment for us to take Claire to get a Visa and that will be our travel date... it's usually about 3-4 weeks after the final ruling.

Where is Claire right now? Claire is in a foster home in Taiwan. She was in an orphanage until April but at that point she moved to foster care. We're excited about this as it means she is more than likely receiving more attention and care. She's even attending preschool!

How were you matched with Claire? Was it random? Did you choose her? Claire's birth mother decided to place Claire for international adoption in late April and then in mid May, they presented her with several potential families and the birth mother chose us. She has requested that we send her 20 pictures and a short video every year for 15 years which we think is great. She will send cards every year on Claire's birthday and at Chinese New Year.

Will we be able to communicate with Claire while we wait? Unfortunately, no. Due to cultural and language barriers, waiting families usually don't communicate with foster families which I can understand. The good news is that we will be able to send her care packages if we like... we're working on getting the first one together now and we're hoping to send it out soon so it will get to her around the time of her birthday (she'll be 2 on July 18th).

What is Claire's name right now? Hsiang-Ting Hung but everyone calls her Mei-Mei.

Will she be able to speak English? We don't know for sure but almost certainly the answer will be no. Obviously this will be challenging at first but based on everything we've read, she should be able to pick up English at an astonishing rate due to her age.

Won't she be so excited to come home to her forever family? I'll post more in depth on this topic later but in short, probably not at first. Claire has grown up around Taiwanese people (mostly women)... and now she's going to be put in the hands of 2 strangers who don't speak her language, who smell funny to her, who don't know how to make her favorite foods, and who look unusual. Most likely, she'll spend a few days freaking completely out! Think about what your child would have done if at 2 and a half years old you sent them to live in Taiwan with strangers... it's going to be an adjustment for sure! There are lots of tricky things to think of here... attachment issues and things like that and I'll probably post more about it later. I'm reading some books on it and trying to educate myself and once I feel like I know a little more I'll write a bit about it.

She's so cute! I bet you can't wait to get her home! You're right! She's adorable and no, we cannot wait to bring her home! These next few months will be excruciating... we have a lot to do though... a room to paint and a nursery to put together so hopefully those things will keep us busy as we wait.

My Babies!

2009-06-26T23:33:00.002-04:00

New Pictures of Claire at 22 months

2009-06-25T12:13:00.004-04:00

We were so fortunate to receive several more recent pictures of our daughter Claire this morning. I believe these pictures were taken around the time she was 22 months old (she's 23 months old right now). We already love her so much... with each new picture we receive our hearts melt just a little bit more. She got her hair cut short, but it's so stinking cute! Check these out!

How on earth are we going to wait 7 or 8 months to bring this little angel home? Seriously folks... the waiting before was hard... this is going to be almost unbearable. Knowing our daughter is growing up without us... there's just no way for that not to be gut wrenching. We're so thankful to have all of these pictures though... many families who adopt internationally only get one or two pictures and we have well over 20 right now, plus some video. Our adoption agency has been absolutely unbelievably awesome.

Introducing Claire Elizabeth Adkins

2009-06-19T23:48:00.005-04:00

Here she is world, after 14 months and 1 week of waiting for a referral! We got the call yesterday morning and have been in constant prayer that God would grant us a peace to say "yes" if this was our Claire! We had originally said we would accept 0-12 months only, and Claire will be 2 next month, so this was not what we were expecting at all. After wrapping our heads around the fact that God's plans were not our plans, this evening we knew we were supposed to say yes, and a couple of hours later were able to get several pictures of our new baby girl!

There is a story to tell of how God showed his hand in all of this, but I'm so overwhelmed right now, I can't even begin to put it into words. I do know that now the hard part begins. Knowing who she is, seeing her face, and not being able to be with her! It will be several months before we can bring her home, so please keep us in prayer.

God is good. God is faithful. God keeps his promises.

Seattle/Vancouver Trip

2009-06-14T12:11:00.007-04:00

Greg and I were able to get away on our own last week and explore Seattle and Vancouver. We had been to Seattle about six years ago during our 3-week trip out west, and loved it so much we were eager to go back. We wanted to go into Vancouver then, but the rental car company charged double if you left the country, so we decided to stick to the states. We were really excited to finally make it up there this time.

We flew into Seattle early Thursday morning and checked into the hotel. We ate a yummy lunch at Cheesecake Factory, explored Pike Place Market, looked at the beautiful flowers, ate some yummy cherries, and of course I made Greg take me to the original Starbucks. We went back to the hotel to rest, and ended up falling asleep way early (like 6:30 Seattle time, 9:30 our time.) It's those Sheraton beds! They are the best. We were also running on two hours of sleep and had been up since 3:30!

Friday we had breakfast by the water, and took a land/water tour of Seattle called, "Ride the Ducks." It was super fun. The tour vehicle turned into a boat and we got to see Seattle from the lake. We saw the house from "Sleepless in Seattle" and I also got to see Seattle Grace Hospital (for all you Grey's Anatomy fans), which is actually Fisher Plaza, not a hospital! After exploring Seattle a little more, we drove to Olympia, Washington for Greg's show, and ended up spending the night in a beautiful mansion on the Puget Sound.

Saturday we were treated to a yummy breakfast, and hung out until early afternoon at the house we stayed in. We then ate Thai food, and walked around Olympia. Greg had another show that night, and we drove back to Seattle pretty late. When we got back to Seattle, the hotel we were staying in was so busy, and we had to wait for our room to be cleaned, even though it was 10:30 at night! Apparently the desk clerk had been getting yelled at all night for them being so busy, but my sweet hubby was so nice about it that they upgraded our room to a beautiful "Executive Corner Suite" and gave us free room service breakfasts every morning we were there. The room was on corner overlooking the city, most of the walls were windows! It was such a great view! See...it's better to be nice than mean!

Sunday, we got up early and ate at Seattle's very own, Top Pot Doughnuts then we attended Mars Hill Church and heard Marc Driscoll teach. It was wonderful! After church we wandered around a market in Fremont and ate at a yummy Greek restaurant. We headed over to Ballard Locks to see the fish ladder and watch salmon swim upstream. It was so weird to watch them swim against the current, and sad! They barely got anywhere in the 30 minutes we watched them. What a sad life, to fight against the current for miles and miles just to get where you're going and die. Sniff...sniff! We explored the Seattle waterfront Sunday evening and went back to take a nap before dinner, and once again ended up falling asleep. We ended up waking up at 10 p.m. and had to order room service. The time adjustment was hard on us!

Monday, we got up early and ordered a yummy room service breakfast and headed into Vancouver up in Canada. We rented bikes and rode around Stanley Park, a huge, beautiful park right on the water. We saw hundreds of starfish all over the shore. It was an amazing sight! After biking, we headed to lunch and then drove around Vancouver. We ended up in a park with one of the most beautiful views of mountains that I've ever seen. It rivaled Glacier National Park, which to me is the most beautiful place I've seen! We then drove up a mountain near where the Winter Olympics will be and looked down on an amazing view of Vancouver. We were exhausted and headed back to Seattle pretty early to get all of our stuff packed up.

We made it home late Tuesday night after a crazy flight from Seattle to Memphis. Apparently there was a tornado over Kansas, which made for a very rough ride home! I'm already terrified of flying, despite of how often I seem to be flying lately, so I pretty much squeezed Greg's hand and prayed until we hit the ground in Memphis. Thankfully Memphis to Knoxville was short and smooth!

We had a great trip, but we missed Connor so much! We kept saying how much he would've loved everything we did, and regretted him not being there with us, although it's always good to get away alone. We are definitely looking forward to our family trip to the beach next weekend!!

We're Still Here!

2009-05-30T20:54:00.002-04:00

I guess we kind of fell off the face of the blog world lately. Things here have been so busy, so much going on! The end of the school year is always insane, and I've been a little under the weather too. The good news is, the school year is over and I'm finally feeling better, so maybe life can return to normal. We've been trying to kick off the summer with a little fun. We've done the Dollywood thing, seen "Up" (fabulous!), hung out a lot downtown, gone to the Reading Festival, played a lot outside, and tomorrow we'll head to Nana and Granddaddy's for our first swim of the summer! We also have been in the process of updating a bunch of our adoption paperwork (it's that time!) and had our annual home visit with our social worker on Tuesday. Apparently we still appear to be suitable parents. : )

Greg and I head to Seattle on Thursday morning, catching an early morning flight. We'll spend several days there and will head up to Vancouver for a day as well. It's fun when someone likes your hubby's music so much that they fly him across the country for a couple of shows, and you get to tag along! We plan to visit some of the places we saw last time, actually go up the Space Needle this time, do a little biking and whale watching, and then explore Vancouver for the first time. It will be fun to spend some time away, just the two of us. Then just a few days after our getaway, we'll make our annual trip down to St. Augustine, which is quite honestly my favorite week of the entire year. We have so much fun and do some serious relaxing! I'm curious to see how many sharks we can catch this year, and I think we'll all be sticking a little closer to shore thanks to last year's shark experience!

I'll try to do a better job of keeping up, as I enjoy my paid 10 week vacation. Yes, my job rules!

What I Learned Last Week

2009-04-13T22:26:00.004-04:00

Saturday was the official one year mark of waiting for Claire, but really this month marks two years of waiting. We decided to adopt in April of '07, with the intention of adopting from China, but then switching to Taiwan in November of '08 to avoid a long wait. China's wait is still ridiculous, but we definitely haven't avoided the long wait.

Last week was for sure, one of the most difficult weeks of my 30 years. We found out Monday that our file had been shown to a birthmother, and that she hadn't chosen us. We also found out that another couple from our agency in our program got a referral. While we are joyful that there is movement in our program, and our file is actively being shown, it was still hard to not be the one getting the referral. I pretty much fell apart on Monday morning, and have slowly put the pieces back together over the past week. I think I'm better now, I'm just so exhausted, and it's not shocking that I have a horrible migraine today. But, I did learn a few things this past week...some adoption related and some not:

1. I have an amazing husband who pushes me and sticks by me when I want to give up. He never lets me get away with anything, and it makes me so mad sometimes. He knows what I'm capable of and the deepest desires of my heart, and he never lets me settle for anything less.

2. I have the sweetest little boy! He told me all week that he was "taking care of me" because I was having a hard week. He also now holds doors for me and any ladies he sees while we're out. He always says, "Ladies first!" It cracks me up! I ran into a former student last week, and Connor just randomly sticks out his hand and shakes the little boy's hand and says, "Nice to meet ya!" Hilarious! He has his moments, he gets a little wound up, but he truly is a really, really great kid!

3. Enrolling your baby for Kindergarten is horrible! You better believe that I teared up right there in that school office! It can't be time!

4. Apparently my hip, knees, and ankles are shot at the ripe ole' age of 30! I started physical therapy for sciatic nerve pain that has been appearing off and on since August. So it seems that being super flexible was beneficial for dancing most of my life, and not so much as I'm getting older. I was told to stop running which totally stinks, because I was shaving time off my mile like crazy and was planning on running a 5K soon. My PT says I might be able to start running again if we can get everything strengthened up. It's a fun day when your therapist brings over other therapists to look at your range of motion, your knees, and your ankles, and they all exclaim, "Wow!"

5. There is NEVER a reason to pay full price for any toiletry item, paper product, cleaning product, etc. if you will just clip coupons from your Sunday paper and watch the sales ads. This week I got all these items for free or under $1: Toothpaste, deoderant, Glade Plug-Ins, various cleaning products, papertowels, washing detergent, razors, etc. etc. etc. I also bought two weeks worth of groceries for $100 and used $40 in coupons!

6. I am ready for a new house! I'm ready for a bigger yard for my kids to run around in! Hopefully the economy starts looking up soon, so we can possibly move in the next two years! I'm ready to be where we're going to be for the next 20 years, and that is definitely not here!

7. I don't know why we were asked to adopt. I don't know why I didn't feel led to just get pregnant two years ago when we wanted to add to our family. I don't know why we've been asked to have our children 6 years or more apart. I don't like not knowing why, and I certainly don't like not getting my way! I do know that I can't wait for the day I get my baby girl's picture and I know the answers to all of those questions!

8. God is real, his timing is definitely not our timing, and you can hate it all you want, but there is nothing you can do but trust.

Finally Found Claire's Nursery!!!!

2009-04-08T10:31:00.004-04:00

I have two things for Claire! I have a precious sweater made by her Mimi, and I have a baby sling. That's it! I haven't allowed myself to buy anything, because it just makes it so hard having all of it around while you are waiting. I told myself that once we hit the one year mark, I'd slowly begin to get some things here and there. I know it's strange, but I guess when you're in this position, you just do as many things as you can to make it easier! We're hitting the one year mark on Saturday, so I had to announce to Greg last night that the shopping will now begin!!

Although I haven't bought anything, I've been looking for Claire's nursery for over a year! I have not been able to find anything that I just love until yesterday! I thought I'd look on the internet on my lunch break, and I can't believe that I found it! It is exactly what I've been looking for, simple and calming...and to top it all off it's monogrammed, and if you know me, you know I adore monogramming! We have to update our homestudy in the Fall, and I'd like to send a new picture book since the pictures they have will be two years old at that point. I'd love to include a picture of her nursery with it! Looks like I've found my summer project!

Adoption Frequently Asked Questions

2009-04-07T11:50:00.001-04:00

Greg again.......

I read one of these on another adoption blog and thought it might be useful for us to have one of these since we get asked a lot of the same questions over and over. Please know, we don't mind you asking and we love talking about our adoption so if you've asked one of these questions, please don't feel like it annoyed us... not at all. We just wanted to put all of these answers in one place.

Why are you adopting from Taiwan?
Our original plan was to adopt from China. Unfortunately as we learned more and more about the China adoption process, it became evident to us that we needed to look in another direction. Wait times in China have gone to over 5 years from start of process to referral (and 5 years is being kind based on the current speed... if they maintain the pace they've had for the past year it would be a 9 year wait). We looked into Taiwan, Nepal, Vietnam, and Korea. After looking over all of them, we felt like Taiwan was the best fit for our family. After visiting Taiwan last December, that decision was 100% confirmed... we fell in love with Taiwan... it feels like home.

When will Claire be here?
We wish we knew! We "officially" got in line on April 11th, 2008. From that date, we were told 18-24 months until referral. That's just a guess... not a guarantee. Some families are currently waiting much longer than that... some less. After referral, it will take anywhere from 4-8 more months before all of the paperwork and court proceedings will be finished. So the soonest we would hope to have Claire home would be early 2010 and the longest would be mid to late 2011. We're praying for early 2010.

How old will Claire be when she comes home?
Good question... when we get the referral she will be anywhere from 2 months to a year old. The average wait to travel is about 6 months so the youngest she would be is probably 8 months and the oldest is about 18. We're really, really hoping for younger. Obviously the older she gets, the more challenging the adjustment period will be.

How will you be matched with Claire?
Almost every country has a different process... I've been surprised at the number of people who think there is a catalog full of babies and we just pick one out. They're confusing that with mail order brides. At Cathwel, the orphanage we are working with in Taiwan, they work with the birth mother to place their child with a family the birth mother is comfortable with. At some point, a birth mom who has just had a little girl will be presented with 4 or 5 families to choose from. Every family has provided a detailed home study, a picture album, and a short one page letter to the birth mother. At some point God willing, our file will be presented and a birth mother will choose us.

Can you guys not just have another kid on your own?
As far as we know, we can. We had Connor without too much trouble and there is no medical issue keeping us from having another child. We have chosen to adopt because we believe it is something God has called us to do. Jessica and I both have felt called to deeper service and when we looked at the world we realized that there were a million problems we didn't have the means to solve but taking in an orphan was something we could do. As far as we're concerned, Claire is already a part of her family... we just haven't met her yet.

How much is this going to cost?
Wow... getting a bit personal aren't you? Well, since you asked I don't mind talking about it. I'll break it down:

* Homestudy - $1000
* Application fee - $200
* Agency fees - $2500
* Homeland Security paperwork (I-600A) - $700
* Various paperwork and up front fees - about $1000
* Orphanage / Taiwan court fees - $10,000
* Travel expenses - $5000

Out of that, we've already spent close to $5000. All we really have coming up is our orphanage fee which we'll pay upon referral... that will be $10,000 all in one chunk. 4-6 months after that we will have to pay to travel... along with an extra plane ticket home for Claire. Grant total... about 20,000. We also took a trip to Taiwan already which set us back about $4,000. So when it's all said and done, this process will be nearly $25,000.

Greg's a pastor, Jessica's a teacher... how can you afford that?
There's a very simple answer to that... we rob liquor stores. Okay, not really... there are two simple answers though. (1) Dave Ramsey. Seriously... do his system. It works. We're almost out of debt and our finances have never been better, even with the economy being so horrible. Ramsey is the man. (2) God will provide. When we started this, we KNEW we couldn't afford it. We still can't... but God has made a way. When we needed $2500 for our agency fee, we didn't have it... until we got a completely unexpected gift from my sweet grandmother. We couldn't afford our trip to Taiwan... until I was hired to design a website which paid for our entire hotel bill for the week we were there. There have been a lot of little things like that... things that just fall into our laps at just the right time. We're currently saving the $10,000 for our orphanage fee. We're nowhere close and I'm not real sure where it's going to come from but I know it will be there. We said it when we started and we'll say it now... if God asked us to do this (and we believe he did), then He will make sure we can pay for it. I still don't know how that's going to work, but so far, it has.

How long will you be in Taiwan when you go to get Claire?
Taiwan only requires that we be there about a week. Once we arrive in Taipei, we'll probably be able to pick up Claire the very next day. We'll have a couple of court appointments that week and after that we can come home.

Will Connor go with you?
If he's six, no. If he's eight, probably.

Okay... that's all the questions I could think of... if you have any other questions you've been wondering about but didn't want to ask, now's your chance. Just leave them in the comments and I'll update this post to include your questions.

Adoption Update

2009-04-06T16:38:00.001-04:00

Greg writing........

This coming Saturday is a big day in our adoption wait... this Saturday will be April 11th which will mark 1 year of waiting from our initial log-in date at Cathwel Services where we will be adopting from in Taiwan. When we started this process, we were told it would take us 18-24 months to get a referral (a referral is when we are matched with a child in Taiwan... we'll get pictures and a short video of the child) and then another 4-8 months after that before all of the court processes and paperwork would be finished so we could go and bring her home.

I'll be honest... these 12 months have not been all that difficult... until recently. There is one great discourager for those waiting for adoptions and I've been guilty of drinking from that fountain a bit too often lately... I'm talking about internet adoption forums.

Over on the Taiwan adoption groups, it seems that many people who were told 18-24 months (by different agencies... not ours) have now been waiting well beyond 24 months... some as many as 30-31 months and still don't have a referral. If you were in my shoes, this would be incredibly discouraging to you... you kind of prepare yourself for how long you think you can wait and 24 months to us is an eternity... the thought of waiting longer than that is almost unbearable.

What makes it so tough is that we're watching Connor grow up before our eyes. He's 5 years old now... if our wait stretches to the worst case scenario of let's say 36 months... add 6 months before we travel and that's 42 months... 30 months from now. Connor will be about to turn 8. That's not what we had in mind for our family. We realized that our kids were going to be pretty far apart but the thought of it going any further than we had originally anticipated is tough to swallow.

So yeah... lately the wait has been weighing heavily on us. It's so hard not knowing how long it's going to be... and knowing that some people out there are waiting 30 months plus is heartbreaking. I won't lie... we've thought about just trying to get pregnant and dropping out of the program.

However... God has a way of giving hope to the hopeless and I believe that came to us today. We found out this morning that another family from our agency received a healthy infant girl referral this past Friday... they waited only 8 months... the little girl is 2 months old. That's pretty huge... the biggest part of that news is that we found out that our dossier has been shown to a birth mother at least once. We weren't chosen, but we were presented. We didn't expect this to happen for many more months... for it to be happening already is a very good sign.

It's a rollercoaster... even the good news (like what we found out today) can leave you feeling worse. As the time creeps on, it seems like it occupies more and more of our thoughts. There's such an obvious hole in our family... Jessica and I both want to be parents again and Connor is such a sweet and wonderful kid... he's going to be an incredible big brother for Claire... even he can sense that our family is incomplete. The longer this goes, the more painful that missing piece of our family seems to become.

We'll continue to keep you posted on any news. Please pray for us to have peace as we wait and pray for our referral to come sooner rather than later... and join us as we celebrate having one year of waiting behind us. We're glad to have that one finished and as the Counting Crows once said... "there's reason to believe... maybe this year will be better than the last."

Disney!

2009-03-22T20:03:00.003-04:00

We had a great trip to Disney. We discovered that the trip is much more enjoyable and easier to recover from if you fly instead of driving twelve hours on both ends. Connor really enjoyed his first plane ride! I think we are forever spoiled! Hopefully Allegiant Air will keep offering awesome deals so we never have to make that drive again!

At the last minute, my mom decided to come with us, so we decided to try to find a last minute deal on a house. We were so blessed to find a really nice 4 bedroom house just a few minutes from Disney for less than we were going to pay for the hotel room! We really enjoyed having the space. We always say we are going to stay at a Disney resort the next trip, but we always end up getting a house. It is always such a better deal!

Day one at Disney was on Monday. It was an early morning since our flight got in pretty late, and we had a long drive from the airport. We spent the entire day at the Magic Kingdom, and by the entire day, I mean 14 hours! We had so much fun! It is still Connor's favorite park, and I know he's going to outgrow it soon. The thought makes me sad!

Day two was split between Hollywood Studios (which we still kept calling MGM, much to the employees' objection) and Epcot. Connor's goal before we even left was to get picked for the Jedi Training Camp at MGM. He was so excited to be chosen to fight Darth Vader and it pretty much made his whole trip. He even told me today, "Mom, you need to print off a picture of me fighting Darth Vader because no one at school is going to believe me!" We got to ride the new Toy Story ride, which was so much fun! We hung out at Epcot that evening, and of course no trip to Disney is complete without getting a box full of pastries in France. YUMMY! So glad that's only a once a year thing or we'd be in trouble!

Day three, Greg and I celebrated our ninth anniversary. Connor started feeling pretty yucky on Tuesday, so Nana, Mimi, and Connor stayed behind at the house and rested. Greg and I took the Magic Kingdom's "Keys to the Kingdom Tour" and it was so neat! We got to see all the behind the scenes stuff, rode a couple of rides, and found out all kind of interesting information. It was five hours well spent! That night we all went to Downtown Disney to eat at Wolfgang Puck's, do a little souvenir shopping, and we enjoyed some margaritas down by the water.

Day four, our last day, was Thursday. We split the day between Epcot and Magic Kingdom. We raced to Epcot that morning to get fast passes for Soarin' my absolute favorite ride in all of Disney! We all rode Spaceship Earth for the first time, and Connor randomly said it was his favorite ride in all of Disney. Very strange choice! We spent the evening at Magic Kingdom, got some pics with Mickey and Minnie, and headed out early since we had to catch an early flight. We stopped at Cracker Barrel for a yummy dinner and raced home to pack. We had to be up at 3:30 a.m. to leave for the airport in time to catch our flight. It was ridiculous! However, it was nice curling up in my own bed at 10 a.m. on Friday and going back to sleep!

Every year at Disney just gets better! We had a great fourth annual trip and were so glad Nana joined us this year! We had a great time!

Another Update....

2009-03-13T07:55:00.005-04:00

We leave for the annual Disney trip in two days and we are so excited! We changed our original plans, and ended up renting a house in Orlando to stay for the week. Originally we were just going to stay for a couple of days and go to my mother-in-law's house for a few days, but my mother-in-law has a client who is going to get us some free tickets. Who can turn down changing a 2 day Disney trip into a 4 day Disney trip...not us! Also, my mom decided to join us at the last minute, and we are so excited for her to go to Disney for the first time. Connor is going to have so much fun with his Nana and Mimi. I wonder if he'll notice Daddy and Mommy are even there!

I finally made a decision about school.....I'm going back! I sent in my deposit to hold my place in the program yesterday. It is a year-long program. I'll begin in August and end next summer. The program is fixing to completely change, so I needed to get in while the administrative endorsement was easier to get. Just when I was getting my student loans paid down, I have to take out more! It's so stressful, but something that I feel like if I'm going to do it, I need to do it now.

Everyone keeps asking us about the adoption. No, we haven't heard anything. No, we won't hear anything for probably about two years. Right now people are waiting for the average of 30 months for a referral, then add 8-10 more months for court papers to go through before they can even travel to get their child. We're approaching our 1 year mark in a few weeks. I am beyond frustrated with the adoption lately, and quite honestly if it weren't for Greg encouraging me to hang in there, I would have given up two months ago after returning from Taiwan and the reality check we were given by the orphanage director. I never wanted my kids 7 or 8 years apart and we decided not to go with China for that reason. I am not pretending anymore that I'm not frustrated or angry because I am. I'm ready to go ahead and get pregnant again, so, if God has a plan, I hope he gives me some encouragement soon, because quite frankly, I'm ready to surrender. It's hard when you do what you feel God has asked you to do and feel like you have been totally abandoned. Two years ago we felt the calling to adopt, we've been faithful and patient, but there is just a limit that I'm reaching where I am starting to really feel completely hopeless. Connor desperately wants a sibling and I do not want to wait three more years for a baby to come into our home. I've been holding all of this in for a while, only talking to my closest friends, but I just don't understand it all.

So, I've been trying to distract myself from adoption depression with different things! Part of the reason I'm going back to grad school again...distraction. I've also been working out like crazy, and now have a new obsession with Pilates. How you cannot break a sweat but get an unbelievable workout, I don't understand, but this is definitely for me! Working out has helped to eliminate almost all the pain that I was feeling on the right side of my body. I'm still having a few problems with my sciatic nerve, but it's definitely improving! Greg is doing an awesome job on his health kick too! I'm so proud of him! He's lost five pounds. Connor loves going to the gym as well, and goes to "Kid's Club." It's been really fun to get healthy as a family. Another distraction I've found lately is with coupons. If you know me, you know I love a good deal, but lately I've been actively trying to see how much money I can save. It's like a game to me, and I'm having fun! Everything from eating out to groceries to stores, I'm getting some good deals!

Well, our next update will be from Disney! I can't wait to see Mickey! We'll let you know how Connor's first plane ride goes! Hope everyone has a great Spring Break!

What's Been Happening.......

2009-02-28T14:02:00.002-05:00

We've been busy as usual this Feburay! Here's what's been going on:

We had a really fun Valentine's weekend with friends! Connor also had a fun Valentine's weekend with friends. Michelle was brave enough to keep him, Atley, and Ava for a few days, while the Watsons and us escaped to Kentucky and met up with the Haneys and Belows for a little getaway.

Connor had his five year check-up and failed three hearing tests, so we had to see an audiologist. He passed all hearing tests at the audiologist, but failed the articulation test. So, after filling out five million pieces of paper, we should be hearing something in the next week about him beginning a speech therapy program. He is going through an early intervention program that Knox County Schools has set up, so it's free, which is a HUGE blessing! Hopefully, he'll make progress before beginning Kindergarten in the fall!

Connor has also started gymnastics, which he absolutely loves! Every Tuesday he comes running out of class screaming, "I DID AWESOME!" He's quite the little monkey! He'll begin swimming lessons soon as well! He still wants to continue with soccer in the fall, but is content to do these things in the meantime.

The three of us also joined a Fitness Center. We're trying to get healthier! I haven't been able to run in forever because of some leg problems, and pounding asphalt is really painful, but I've found some different cardio machines at the gym that are working for me. Connor has had a blast in the pool, hot tub, and on the rock climbing wall! I think Connor and I are more excited about it than Greg, but he is graciously coming along for the ride!

After a lot of prayer, I have decided to give up Thirty-One because there are just not enough hours in my day! I had a great Fall with sales, made some great money towards the adoption, but at this point in time, just don't know how to balance it all! I am also praying about going back to school for my Ed.S right now. I have no idea what the right thing to do is, but I feel like it would be easier to do it now than when Claire gets here. I'm continuing to pray and won't make any decisions until I get I get more discernment.

I think Greg is the only normal one around here. I don't think he needs therapy or is giving up a side job or anything! He's our rock and our drama free family member!

We are excited to head to Disney in just two weeks! The three of us are ready to get out of K-town for a while! Our annual Disney trip is always the highlight of our year! I can't tell if Connor is looking forward to his first plane ride more or Disney!

Well, that's what's been going on in the month of February! Just a normal, crazy, month here for the Adkins family!

Help A Child Visit Washington D.C.

2009-02-11T15:56:00.004-05:00

I made this plug last year, and I'm making it again!!!

Each year, the best of the fifth graders in our school system are asked to be members of the safety patrol. These are great students who work hard and show good citizenship. Every summer they have the amazing opportunity to take a trip with other Knox Co. safety patrol members. I chaperoned this trip many, many years ago and I had so much fun. It truly is a wonderful opportunity for the students!

Most of you know I work at a low income school. The cost of the trip is $410 per student. This is a very large cost, and most of our students can't afford it. We are trying to raise money through businesses and staff donations, but we need your help! Would you consider giving even a small amount to help send these kids to Washington? I know these are crazy economic times, but if you can spare even $5 dollars, please send it to:

Mooreland Heights Elementary
5315 Magazine Road
Knoxville, TN 37920
Attn: Jessica Adkins

If you'd like to send a check, you can make checks out to Jessica Adkins or Rachel Jett. We will divide the money evenly among the needy students and directly pay their fee to the travel agency.

Connor's Birthday Photoshoot

2009-01-31T16:38:00.006-05:00

Thanks to Sarah for the awesome pictures for Connor's 5th birthday! Please visit her website and book her for your next photoshoot! She's super sweet and takes great pictures!

Here are a few of our favorites. Click here to see the whole album!

The Party!

2009-01-28T20:17:00.009-05:00

Connor's birthday party was Saturday. Usually his parties are a little big, and I do all the food, gift bags, etc. myself. On Christmas Eve, it hit me that we were going to be gone for a week and a half, and I knew life would be crazy busy after we returned, so after opening presents, I called up Smart Toys and Books and told them I'd love to book a Star Wars party and was thrilled when they said they'd take care of EVERYTHING! It was money well spent, although it did feel a little strange Friday night with nothing to prepare for! We turned out to have more guests than we anticipated (14 Junior Jedis plus Connor), and the room was a little cramped and a little chaotic for my taste (I was trying to not act like a former teacher, but it was hard!) Connor said he had a blast, and it was wonderful to see how many friends my little social butterfly has! They played lots of games, dressed up as Jedis, ate a cool R2-D2 cake, and most importantly, had a giant lightsaber fight! Connor agreed to collect food to donate to a food pantry in lou of birthday gifts, and we collected a pretty decent sized box of food, plus about $28 in cash that we will give to the pantry so they can buy additional food. It was a great birthday for our little man....or I guess our big man now....sniff...sniff!

Happy 5th Birthday, Connor!

2009-01-23T20:51:00.007-05:00

Here's what I remember about five years ago today....pain like I've never experienced, combined with puking on my doctor twice, add some more pain, and then the sight of the most beautiful creature I had ever seen of my life. I also remember these words....."Ten pounds point zero once ounce" followed by the shouts of my mother and mother-in-law..."Jessica!" "Are you kidding me??" I love to tell people he was ten pounds when he was born. As a skinny minnie as he is now, it's hard to believe, plus I'm not exactly built to house a ten pounder. I also love that fact that my sweet boy was sleeping through the night in a matter of two weeks due to all that extra body fat!!

There are so many things I love about Connor. Things that just amaze me everyday. His memory is crazy! He remembers things we don't think he should, things we think he's too young to remember. He has the funniest sense of humor, and we can already see he will be the class clown! He is so witty for a five year old! He has a innate musical ability already, just like his daddy. He watched the movie WallE twice, then got the soundtrack, and could tell me what scene every single song was from. He hears and understands music, just like his daddy! He's such a bright little boy with so much potential. He can built things from Legos by following the package direction pictures, with minimal assistance from Daddy. He's already reading simple sight word books, writing some, and using vocabulary words beyond his years. I am proud of and love all these things about Connor, but what I am proud of the most about Connor is that he has the most kind and tender heart that I could ever ask for. He truly cares about others, and he just loves with everything in him. This is my child who was excited when we asked him if he would be willing to forego presents at his party, and instead have his friends bring food for a food pantry. He responded by saying, "Sure, I'd love to help people with no food. I have a ton of toys, anyways!" I can only pray that he keeps his compassion through his whole life, and I will feel successful as a Mom!

I think what Connor wants more than anything for his birthday is a little sister! He prays for her nightly, asking God to keep her safe and bring her home soon. Always adding in..."We REALLY want to take care of her!"

I love you, Connor! Thank for you changing my world this past five years. I'm a better person than I ever was because you love me so much. I'm so proud to be your mommy, sweet boy!

(If you want to read a hilarious story about one of Connor's presents, click here to visit Greg's blog)

Taiwan Pics.....Finally!

2009-01-20T10:44:00.003-05:00

We keep meaning to post a slideshow of our pics, but we have been pretty busy and tired since we got back. I got a snow day today, so I thought I'd finally post. Enjoy!

Last Blog from Taiwan

2009-01-04T09:08:00.006-05:00

It's amazing what a difference a week makes. Tonight as we walked back to the hotel, I felt like I could stay here even longer. A week ago, when I walked the same street, I was absolutely terrified! The first time I stepped on the busy streets of Taipei on Tuesday, I wanted to run home! It was so scary, and the culture shock was overwhelming. I was wondering how in the world to communicate, what in the world I was going to eat, and honestly wanted to catch the first flight back to the U.S. While I still haven't gotten used to everyone staring at me, every other part of Taiwan has grown on us both. This is an amazing city with wonderful and kind people who have been so good to us. It is a place that Greg and I look very much forward to visiting frequently in the coming years. It's amazing that in such a big city, we've always felt extremely safe. To end our time here, I wanted to share a few more random things that we've noticed during our time here.

I saw rice for the first time tonight. Most people here eat noodles. You can't walk into a Chinese restaurant in the U.S. without getting rice, so I found this fascinating. We still didn't see an egg roll! The food here is incredibly cheap! Once we were comfortable enough after a couple of days to actually go into restaurants and try to order, we ate some really great food. We soon learned that most people do speak a little English and like Jodie, our cooking instructor told us, "If you want to spend money to eat, they'll find a way to handle you!" The one thing that has cracked us up is that you have to ask for a check, they won't bring it to you. There is absolutely no rush placed upon you here, and while it is a huge, busy city, at the same time people here are very relaxed and easy going. While everything is cheaper here, Starbucks is still the same price, and just like in the U.S., they are on every corner! Another interesting food fact, in U.S. the McDonald's have hot apple pies, here they are hot pineapple pies and they are quite delicious! There is also very rarely ice served in drinks. There are a ton of food options here, and you cannot even walk down a street without seeing several restaurants and many food vendors. Sometimes, some of the sights and especially the smells have gotten to me.

There are many, many people who live here in the city of Taipei! The people are not at all what I expected. They love to "bop around" and shop and eat, and even at 9 p.m. on a Sunday night, the streets and subways are packed. They all have little dogs that they dress up in outfits. They wear a lot of American clothing, and sometimes clothing with hilarious English translations. The children are extremely well-behaved, never loud or causing a scene. The people are also quiet and calm and things are very peaceful, despite the fact it's a large city.

There's probably more to say, but I'll let Greg finish it out. Overall, we really have loved this country, and though we are so eager to get home to see Connor, we are excited about returning, and seeing even more of the country. Hopefully on the next visit, we'll be able to bring a new member of the Adkins family home with us. As we were leaving the orphanage yesterday, Sister Rosa said to us, "I don't know how to say it in English, but in Chinese it means, more than destiny, more than fate." I think Greg and I both know in our hearts that it means whatever plan is laid for us by our God, who we will continue to be faithful to, despite how hard the wait is, and despite how much we want to control things. He is in control, and He knows our Claire.

Please pray for safe travel as we travel home tomorrow. Thanks for following us on this adventure.

Taiwan Journal #9 - Back to Cathwel

2009-01-03T20:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning we went back to Cathwel for a second visit. They're technically closed for the holiday but Sister Rosa said we could come back to spend some time with the children and we were really excited to get to do that.

We arrived a little after 10:00 and gave Sister Rosa the rest of the money that was donated by everyone at Powell Church... it came out to $15,000 (settle down... that's about $500 US) and she seemed to be very moved by this gift. She wanted me to thank everyone there for having faith in what they were doing. She insisted on getting our address so she could send us a card... she's really sweet.

After we gave her the gift she asked if we wanted to spend some time with the babies and we told her we did so we scrubbed in (you have to wear scrubs and get washed up before you can go in with the babies) and went into the baby room. The area where the babies are is split into 2 rooms with seven or eight babies in each room... there were about five people working there with the children. We spent about an hour and a half holding them and playing with them and they let us give some of them their bottle (we do it a little differently in America so they had to keep showing us how they do it). Fortunately on Saturdays, there's a woman named Susan who works there at Cathwel who grew up in Manhattan so she was able to talk to us quite a bit. She put some of our fears from our first visit at ease telling us that she has seen many, many children be adopted by families who already have children.

I could go on and on about the children... they are just beyond precious. Most of the children we were playing with had already been adopted and were just waiting to go home... there are some very lucky families somewhere out there in the world. There was one little girl in particular who just completely melted both of our hearts. She was just so sweet. Really all of the kids seemed to be really happy and they all were very anxious to be held and played with.

To anyone reading this who is adopting through Cathwel, the one thing I would have to say to you is that your child is being incredibly well cared for. We've heard stories of many Chinese orphanages where there are 50 kids with 2 workers and they never get held or anything... that's far from the case here at Cathwel. They are well staffed and the workers there really are great with the kids... you can tell that it's genuine and they really love the babies. They seem to all get a lot of attention, everything is incredibly clean, and the babies are happy... it's still an orphanage, but I can't imagine a better setup for the kids. They're really doing a great job.

One interesting thing that happened... while we were there with the kids another couple came in... it was an American man who had a Taiwanese wife and they were from Columbus, Ohio. They were here visiting and are thinking of starting the adoption process. It was neat to meet another family from the US and I would guess after spending some time with the babies they're probably about ready to sign up!

We didn't want to wear out our welcome so after about 90 minutes with the babies we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel. I think after this second visit, Jessica and I both feel a little more at ease with the whole process. The waiting is probably going to be a bit harder now having spent time with these precious little ones but that's alright. When our referral finally comes and we have to endure that long 8 months of waiting to travel while all of our court papers are prepared, we'll be able to imagine where Claire is, what she's doing, and who is taking care of her, and we'll know that she's being loved... that alone was worth the cost of this trip.

(any families adopting from Cathwel who have any questions at all, please feel free to email us and we'd be glad to answer any questions.

Taiwan Journal #8 - Jetlag Makes Blogging Hard!

2009-01-03T17:18:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone,

Sorry we haven't done a better job of documenting everything that's going on over here... this jetlag business has been a little tougher than we both thought it would. When we get back to the hotel every night, we are usually just exhausted and it's been all we can do to stay awake. Everytime I sit down to write something I end up dozing off!

We've been having a great time though... I'll try to hit a couple of highlights of what we've been up to the past few days.

On Thursday (New Year's Day) we signed up for a bus tour of the Northern Taiwan coast. On the brochure it had pictures of busloads of tourists so we figured a bus would come to get us and we would do this tour with about 30 - 40 other people. Instead when 1:30 came and it was time for our tour bus to pick us up a man came into the hotel lobby and introduced himself as Chong and led us to the backseat of a minivan. Turns out we were the only ones who signed up for this tour so it was just us!

We were a little nervous at first... I mean, how good can the tour be if no one wants to take it but Chong put our fears to rest very quickly. He spoke very good English and pretty much as soon as we drove away from the hotel he began sharing interesting things about Taiwan with us. He had a great sense of humor and he finally explained why everyone here drives scooters. I asked if he drove a scooter and he said he did... he said "you drive car, city controls you... you drive scooter, you control city." From what we've seen that is most certainly true!

The drive out of Taipei to the northern coast took about an hour and I'll have to say, the coastline here was really amazing. The landscape reminded me a lot of the Highway 101 / Big Sur area in California but the water here was much more violent... the waves were the biggest we've ever seen.

High up on the mountain overlooking the coast was the town of Jioufen which is an old gold mining town that is now famous for its teahouses overlooking the water. Our tour driver said he had never seen it as crowded as it was... New Year's Day is a national holiday here and it seems like the whole island had gone to the coast. We spent about an hour walking through the packed streets before heading back to Taipei... it was really cool. We'll probably do a whole separate post about the markets / shopping here in Taiwan.

We were craving some American type food when we got back from our tour so we headed down to the Taipei 101 area where we found a German / American bar type place... it felt like a fairly typical American brewery style restaurant and best of all, they had an english menu available. It was pretty exciting to find a chicken artichoke pizza and southwestern eggrolls so far from home!

We walked around a little downtown after dinner and we explored the Eslite bookstore which is like their version of Borders but it's seriously like Borders on crack. It was 7 stories tall and every floor had like 5 or 6 other stores as well... it was kind of like a bookstore surrounded on all sides by a mall. They even had a place where they offered music lessons and we saw a fairly young boy receiving painting lessons. This place was seriously huge and really nice. I would have bought a book but there were all in Chinese!

We were pretty tired after this (and it was only like 9:00) so we headed back to the hotel and went to bed. This jetlag is seriously kicking our tails... we normally are night owls but here we have been getting just completely exhausted by around 9 or 10 every night. I can't imagine how goofed up we're going to be when we get home.

Okay... more to come! Thanks for reading.

2009-01-03T17:09:00.001-05:00

Taiwan Journal #7 - Top 8 Foods We've Seen Eaten on Sticks

2009-01-02T03:53:00.003-05:00

Here in Taiwan there are many, many street markets. They're everywhere, they're fun, they're crowded, and there are LOTS of unusual foods served by street vendors. We've only been brave enough to try a few (giant fried chicken which was kind of gross and pork dumplings which were amazing) but we hope to get a little bit braver to try some more...

Back home when we're at the fair, there's nothing better than snacks on a stick... corn dogs, corn on the cob, pickles, whatever. Here in Taiwan, they have also discovered the joy of serving food on a stick. Here is a list of the things we've seen eaten on a stick.

8. candy coated strawberries

7. candy coated cherry tomatoes (like a candied apple except it's a tomato... weird)

6. tofu

5. corn-dog

4. fish balls

3. crab legs

2. grilled squid

1. octopus tentacles

Taiwan Video #4 - Jodie's Cooking Class

2009-01-01T20:51:00.001-05:00

Taiwan Journal #6 - Jodie's Cooking Class

2009-01-01T20:14:00.001-05:00

On Wednesday, we had an amazing experience taking a private cooking class with Jodie Tsao. We heard about her class on Trip Advisor and it was rated very highly so we contacted her and set it up and we're so glad we did... it was just awesome!

Jodie speaks perfect English even though she is from Taiwan. She has traveled all over the world... she said that her cooking style blends native Taiwanese cooking with concepts she learned while traveling in Italy. She has been on TV a couple of times, most notably on a Discovery channel program about Asian food. We're going to try to find that on a rerun sometime!

The class was held in her home... she lives in a mountain suburb just outside of Taipei with an incredible view looking down over a valley into the city down below. It was so neat to be able to spend some time in someone's home. She had us remove our shoes and wear slippers which is customary in most asian cultures but other than that, her home wasn't much different from anyone's back home.

The class lasted about 4 hours and for the first couple of hours, she taught us about the basic ingredients of Taiwanese cooking. Jodie is a total foodie... she gets really excited about organic, natural ingredients... she talked a lot about how when you eat healthier how much better it makes you feel. It's hard to argue with that. She taught us about different kinds of sesame seeds, sesame oils, different kinds of salts and sugars used in Taiwanese cooking, different kinds of vinegars, different styles of soy sauce... it sounds kind of dull but she was so passionate that it made it really interesting.

After that we started cooking... it was a total blast. We made spicy szechuan pineapple, white sesame paste and black sesame paste (both were awesome as a vegetable dip, salad dressing, or on noodles), spicy szechuan cucumbers, chinese green onion pancakes (delicious... we told Connor about them though and the thought of onion pancakes grossed him out! He wanted to know if we made chocolate chip), and Jessica's favorite, she taught us how to make authentic Hot and Sour soup. She's ruined us though... after eating her soup, the kind you get in American Chinese restaurants just can't compare. If you've ever eaten it and wondered what all that stuff is, now we can tell you!

The cooking was a lot of fun but the best part was just talking to and getting to know Jodie. We learned more about Taiwan and its culture in a few hours with her than we'll probably learn the whole rest of our trip combined. Jodie asked a lot about the United States as well and I think she was very surprised by some of the things we told her. She said in Taiwan they view all Americans as being very rich and also very strong or powerful. She made it sound like they were a little bit intimidated or afraid of us. She was really surprised to find out that the rich only make up a small percentage... there are a lot more homeless people in the US than there are here... we haven't seen any here in Taiwan and she said that you generally don't. I told her about how many people come through our church food pantry or call asking for help with their bills and that seemed to really surprise her.

I was able to shoot just a little bit of video of the class... I'll try to put that together and show you some of it sometime later today. It was a great experience and if you're ever in Taiwan, we strongly recommend taking Jodie's Cooking Class... you can find her website right here.

Taiwan Video #3 - Random footage of our first 2 days here

2009-01-01T19:33:00.000-05:00

Taiwan Journal #5-Jessica's Random Observations About Taiwan

2009-01-01T18:00:00.004-05:00

Greg posted his observations so far, so I thought I'd post some too! Here's what I've noticed!

1. All the young people here dress incredibly stylish! It's insane, even the men alway look like they stepped out of a magazine. The girls are so cute, and even though they dress well, they are modest. No one here dresses sloppily!

2. It is so cold here right now! I packed just terribly wrong! I wish I had my coat and sweaters with me! I've been freezing. Every time I get ready to walk outside without being bundled up, the concierge, bellman, and front desk workers all come to me worried about the cold. "Don't you need your jacket?" they all say. They are so kind!

3. Some men here carry their wives/girlfriends purses for them. It is not uncommon at all to be walking in the mall or on the street and seeing the men carrying purses. It's very kind! I even saw a little boy with his mother's purse last night!

4. Men also carry "man bags". Most men here have these stylish little bags that they wear as well!

5. The food here is incredibly, incredibly different. It has been very challenging for this picky eater! Some of the smells that I've encountered as I've walked past food stands have literally left me about to throw up! There have been two nights here that I've not even eaten dinner. It has been much more challenging than I thought.

6. Everyone, especially the young girls stare, point, and sometimes even giggle at us! One girls sat down right beside me, and just leaned her head on her hand and stared at me for at least five minutes. In America, this would be considered so rude, but here, everyone does it! It has been VERY hard for me!

7. I've traveled all over the United States, to all of the big cities. I've been to many, many malls! I've never seen a mall as nice at the one in Taipei 101. It's huge, clean, and incredibly nice. Name any high-end store that I'd never be able to afford and they have it. Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Armani, etc. etc. etc.! Five floors full of stores with socks I couldn't even afford, and tons of people everywhere! The residents of Taipei have some money!

8. It gets dark here around 5 p.m. It's so weird! Greg and I usually stay up late, but because of the early sunsets, we're usually exhausted by 9 p.m.!

9. The night markets are insane! They are so cheap and so crowded! It's hard to be in the mood to shop in the crowds though, and as your walking past stands selling roasted locusts for a tasty snack.

10. Everyone here has been so nice to us and helpful. They have tried to accommodate us as best as they can. We've found more and more people who speak a little English as we stay longer. The first day was really rough for us, but it has gotten better every day.

We have had two encounters with two different Taiwanese people who have taught us a great deal! We'll post about our wonderful private cooking class, and our private tour of the Taipei coastline next! Stay tuned!

Taiwan Video #2 - Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T16:54:00.003-05:00

We celebrated the New Year at 11:00 AM Eastern time for all of you back home... we're 13 hours ahead. This video is a basically uncut shot of what we saw. Seriously, it was way cooler than Times Square! Enjoy!

Taiwan Journal #4 - Random Observations about Taiwan

2008-12-31T06:30:00.001-05:00

(Greg again...)

1. This is not a place that gets a lot of American tourists. Yesterday we were out in the city for most of the day and saw a total of 5 white people and we're pretty sure most of them were European. Jessica especially has been getting stared at a LOT! We found out today that Taiwanese men are very attracted to pretty blonde american women because of the popularity of Hollywood movies here. So yeah... Jessica's basically a rock star over here. She's really hates being stared at so it's been tough for her.

2. Taiwan is a much more "green" nation than the US. That's probably not surprising but here, recycling is everywhere. In fact, if you don't recycle your garbage, you get fined. When the garbage man comes each week, not only do they expect you to have your trash sorted, they also have 2 buckets they empty... one for compost waste and another for all other food waste. Leftover noodles... uneaten meat... whatever... throw it in a bucket and the trash truck will take it. We were told they use it to feed pigs and other animals. They don't waste anything at all! I'm pretty sure they do all of this because they have to... Taiwan is a very small island with a LOT of people... I'd hate to think what it would look like if they didn't recycle.

3. EVERYONE and I do mean everyone drives a scooter here. On the road it's pretty much nothing but city buses, taxi cabs, and scooters and the scooters outnumber all of those probably 5 to one. As you can well imagine, the streets are total chaos... I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to drive here. We've been sticking to taxis and riding the public transportation trains (MRT) and that's been suiting us just fine. I'll try to get some video going of the scooter madness.

4. We were under the impression before we came that almost everyone here speaks at least a little English. We were under a wrong impression. At our hotel, they speak wonderful English. Everywhere else, none. I'm starting to get pretty good at pointing to what I want on menus and signs. We would be completely lost were it not for our wonderful hotel staff here at the Riviera... whenever we are going out, they write down all of the places we want to go on little cards in Chinese... we show those to taxi drivers or anyone else and they help us get where we're going. Fortunately, all of the street signs, bus signs, and MRT signs are both in Chinese and English. I'm not sure why though, it doesn't seem like anyone here really speaks it and seriously, we are yet to meet another American 2 days into our trip. We did meet 2 people this morning from Canada but heck, they probably spoke French.

5. The people here are VERY friendly. Taipei is a lot like many big American cities... parts of it feel very similar to New York with one difference... everyone is very, very nice. Even with the language barrier and with us pretty much sticking out like sore thumbs, everyone has been incredibly friendly towards us and very, very welcoming.

Okay... we're headed out for the evening... much more later including hopefully some pictures and video. Sorry we've been slow getting that together... it takes a long time and we're staying pretty busy!

Taiwan Journal #3 - A Little Rain...

2008-12-31T06:10:00.002-05:00

(Greg writing here...)

Our first full day in Taiwan... I wish I could say that today was a great day but that wouldn't be honest... today was very, very hard.

Our first order of business today was to visit the Cathwel Orphanage. We were obviously very excited to visit with Sister Rosa and to be able to spend some time with the children. We were also excited to deliver all of the supplies we collected from Powell Church and also the additional supplies we purchased with donations people gave us. We got there a little after 10:00 in the morning and gave Sister Rosa all of the clothes, diapers, medicine, and bottles. She seemed amazed at how much stuff there was... we brought the biggest suitcase we have and it was crammed completely full. She wanted us to thank everyone at church for being so generous. She seemed to be deeply appreciative for the gifts.

After giving her these gifts she asked if we wanted to talk for a little while about our adoption process. We sat down in her office and began to discuss our adoption process a little bit. I don't really want to get too deep into the specifics of our conversation here on the blog but I will say that she confirmed that our wait is going to be every bit as long as we thought it might possibly be. Because we have requested a healthy infant girl, we will probably be facing the longest wait of all... that's nothing different from what we've been hearing it but to hear it straight from the person who would know best, it was hard not to be discouraged a little bit. There's more too it than that but I'll save it for another time...

The good news is that after our conversation, Sister Rosa asked us if we wanted to go on a tour and to spend some time with the children. We started off in the nursery where there were probably 10-15 babies... some as little as a month and some up to almost a year old. They were all together in one room and seemed to be very well cared for. All of the sisters we met at the orphanage were very, very nice and seemed to really love the kids. I'm having a hard time shaking the image of one little girl who waved to me when she saw me... she couldn't have been more than 9 or 10 months old but she held her hand up and waved at me like she knew me.

After the nursery we spent some time with the 1-2 year old children. This room was somewhat chaotic... there were probably 15-20 children here and many of them had special needs. Jessica and I were able to go in and sit in the floor and just play with the kids for a good while... I can't really even process or put into words quite yet what it was like to be with these children. They were all so precious and sweet and fortunately, most of them are waiting to be picked up by their adoptive families. Sister Rosa would point to the children and say "she's going to America... he's going to the Netherlands... she's going to Germany... he's going to Sweden..." I wish one of them were going to Tennessee!

I wish I could show you some pictures or some video from our time at Cathwel but we didn't want to be rude or invasive so we left the cameras in our backpack. We'll be going back another day though and we may be able to shoot some pictures then.

After our trip to Cathwel, we both were just feeling kind of spent... the reality of being among the orphans, feeling how wide our hearts opened up being around the kids, and then realizing that it could be another 2 to 3 years before we're able to bring Claire home... it felt a little bit like being punched in the stomach... it took the wind out of us both.

We did a little bit of sightseeing in the afternoon (including wandering around looking for a restaurant with an English menu and finally settling on... McDonalds which we must say, tastes exactly the same here as it does at home) and we visited the largest Bhuddist temple in Taipei. The temple was very interesting... you'll see some video of that later.

We went back to the hotel around 5:00 and laid down to take a short nap... we woke up and it was midnight! I guess our bodies weren't quite adjusted to Taiwan time.

So, our first day was a little rough... it was good to get to visit Cathwel, even with the reality of the wait that lies before us sinking in the way it did. I'm looking forward to visiting again later in the week. As I'm writing this, it's 7:00 pm on our 2nd day here... I'll post more after we get home from the New Year's Eve festivities we are going to see... today was a much better day!

Taiwan Video #1 - The Journey

2008-12-31T06:09:00.001-05:00

We made it!

2008-12-29T11:34:00.006-05:00

(This is Jessica, reclaiming my blog!)

50 hours after leaving Knoxville, we finally made it to Taipei! It is 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning here. We're trying to get settled and into bed. We are supposed to meet Sister Rosa at the Cathwel Orphanage tomorrow at 10 a.m. for a visit, and to take all of the donations that we brought with us. I'm excited and nervous to go to the orphanage tomorrow. It's a strange feeling!

Our travel was smooth after our 24 hour delay in Dallas. We had a hard time with American Airlines, and it seemed that the right hand had no idea what the left hand was doing. Every agent told us something different, so we got very frustrated! Despite it all, we are thankful to be here, safe and sound in Taiwan! Thank you so much for your prayers, they definitely helped! I am always such a nervous flyer, and I did better on this trip than any other, which is a miracle! The highlight of our day was flying over pretty much the entire state of Alaska. It took about 2 hours for us to fly over it. It was so beautiful and looked so cold! We got to see beautiful mountains and glaciers. It was amazing! Greg filmed video of it, which we'll post later on!

Tokyo airport was amazing, so clean! We rented a dayroom there and grabbed a quick shower and nap. We went to McDonald's to get a snack and it was crazy expensive! We got one medium coke and one medium fry to share and it was $8. The dollar isn't worth much there!

Well, that's all for now. We are excited about our first day in Taiwan tomorrow, and will post our adventures tomorrow night! Thank you again for your prayers, and please continue to pray for safe travels and protection for us!

Taiwan Journal #1 - This is Not Going According to Plan

2008-12-28T00:13:00.001-05:00

(hi everyone, this is Greg writing...)

The fact that I have internet access right now when I should be on a plane should let you know that things aren't going exactly according to plan right now. Here's what's up...

We drove to Nashville last night so we could catch our early morning flight to Dallas. We only had a 40 minute layover in Dallas so we knew it would be tight... 40 minutes to catch a flight to Tokyo had us pretty nervous. Our flight this morning took off from Nashville on time and everything was going just fine until...

"This is your captain speaking... there are some sudden thunderstorms that have come up over Dallas and we're going to have to divert... we'll fly around the storms to Waco and fly in behind the storms... shouldn't be too much of a problem".

Okay, so maybe a lot of flights are experiencing this and they'll just delay the flight to Tokyo to wait for us. We might have to run through the airport but hey, that will be exciting. We'll be fine.

"This is your captain, guess what everybody? I'll be darned but we're fresh out of jet fuel if you can believe it. Tell ya what, we'll just land here on this airstrip 5 minutes from the real airport and refuel and we'll have you there in a jiffy, okay? Great. Thanks for your patience."

Awesome... anyway, long story short, we get to Dallas about 45 minutes after our plane to Tokyo took off. Wanna guess how many flights there are from Dallas to Tokyo each day? If you guessed one, you win the other half of the room service pizza sitting at the foot of my bed in the Courtyard Mariott right now.

So we're stuck for 24 hours here in Dallas in an area that could only be described as a barren wasteland of abandoned factories, warehouses, vacant lots, railroad yards, and as luck would have it, a Courtyard Mariott. We're surrounded by what looks like the set to an episode of "24". I'm pretty sure I just heard Jack Bauer scream "We're running out of time!" from behind one of the factories that completely surround this hotel.

The ONLY piece of good news from the day is that American Airlines agreed to let us stay an extra day in Taiwan since we lost a full 24 hours getting there. So, instead of getting home at around 11:00 pm next Sunday, we'll now be returning home at around 6:00 next Monday. We'll be flying back through Tokyo and Los Angeles instead of Dallas which is fine with me... I don't care if I ever come to Dallas again.

Merry Christmas and Adios!

2008-12-25T21:00:00.003-05:00

We leave tomorrow for Taiwan! I can't even believe it's time! I'm still not packed, but I swear I'm going upstairs to take care of that in a minute. Talk about procrastination! We're planning on doing a little bit of shopping in the morning and then we head out to Nashville. We fly out early Saturday morning with stops in Dallas and Tokyo, before Taipei.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We had both sides of our family here this morning, and enjoyed a yummy Christmas lunch, that I thankfully pulled off without any disasters. I'm usually a good cook, but I kept thinking, if I mess something up, it's not like I can just run out and grab something else! Since Greg and I were dating, we have always had the tradition of going to a movie and eating out Chinese food on Christmas evening, and we have had so much fun carrying that on with Connor! Tonight we spent some great time as a family, enjoying our last evening together for several days!

This will be our last post for a few days. We'll be out of communication completely for about 24 hours. We'll hopefully post again on Monday evening (Monday morning here at home). Please pray for us as we travel to the other side of the world, and please pray for our family back home! Please pray for protection for not only us, but for Connor and everyone else here helping to take care of him. Check back for exciting pictures and video of our great adventure! My fortune cookie tonight read, "A pleasant surprise is in store for you soon in the coming week." We'll see!

Enjoy our holiday pics from the past two days! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It's About That Time!

2008-12-21T22:16:00.006-05:00

I can't believe Christmas is this week! Time has flown by. I am so thankful that I started Christmas shopping early this year, even though I still have had a hard time getting it all done. I feel like I've been wrapping presents for days. Hopefully, that will get finished up tomorrow, as well as trying to get the house cleaned up and ready. Then add in the grocery shopping to feed 10 people Christmas lunch, which I'm actually very excited about, and trying to pack up to leave the country the day after Christmas. It's hard trying not to be stressed in the midst of it all, but I am in great anticipation about the good things on the other side of it all.

I cannot believe we leave for Taiwan early Saturday morning. We drive to Nashville Friday night to spend the night, and then head to the airport at about 5 a.m. We finally make it to Taiwan Sunday morning our time, Sunday evening Taiwan time, after a short layover in Dallas, and a 4 hour layover in Tokyo. It's hard to believe this time next week we'll be on the other side of the world! We are scheduled to make our first visit to the orphanage Monday morning and have a huge suitcase full of donations thanks to Powell Church. Monday evening, we will explore Taipei. Tuesday we are scheduled for private cooking lessons which will last a good portion of the day, and Wednesday we plan to enjoy ringing in the New Year at Taipei 101, which looks to be an amazing fireworks show. We also plan on making several more trips to the orphanage, visiting a hot springs, and hopefully making it to some parks and museums. We have so much to pack in! I am having some slight anxiety about being on the other side of the world from my baby boy, but I know he is in good hands with Mimi, and the rest of his grandparents are right here to help too if needed. It's just a little scary as a momma!

Here are some Christmas pics of Connor getting into the Christmas spirit. I think he's ready! Also included are pictures of Connor, Atley, and Ava rockin' out at the Ralph's World concert last weekend. They had front row seats and thought they were pretty cool little cats! We had a great time!

Connor Coloring

2008-12-14T14:30:00.002-05:00

Christmas Time is Here!

2008-12-06T12:15:00.003-05:00

Possibly The Youngest Running Away from Home Note Ever.....

2008-11-29T16:43:00.002-05:00

Today I have been doing nothing but cleaning and decorating for Christmas since 8 a.m. I pretty much change most of my downstairs decorations for the holidays. I absolutely love Christmas!! Connor has been very consumed with drawing and writing for the past couple of weeks. I knew that today I would be very busy, so I bought him a floor drawing pad so he wouldn't get too bored during my cleaning and decorating frenzy. I was in the middle of cleaning the dining room and Connor comes in to find me with a huge sheet of paper held close to his chest. "Mom" he says. "I have a very sad note for you" He produces this:

(Mommy translation: "Mom, I am leaving. --Connor" )

I think he might have gotten a little bored today! He told me he was taking his Daddy on a boy's only trip to "Snagalooga." (Another Mommy translation: "Chattanooga"). We were supposed to go Friday but he came down with a massive ear infection and an upper respiratory infection and we've been trying to make him take it easy, despite the fact that he refuses to believe he's sick! So, he's not even five and already planning to leave home. Oh, how I can't wait for the teenage years!

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

2008-11-22T18:24:00.003-05:00

My very favorite Christmas song is, "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and let me tell you, it's COLD outside!!!

Greg had a commitment last night, so I had promised Connor a couple of weeks ago, knowing Daddy had plans, that I would take him to Dollywood on Friday. I thought we'd get up there before it got crazy crowded for Christmas, and figured that this time of year it would be chilly, but not crazy cold. Boy, was I wrong! It was extremely cold yesterday here in Knoxville, and even colder up in the mountains. I couldn't even talk anyone else in to joining us, and got the "you're crazy" a few times.

Despite the weather, I wanted to keep my promise, so we wore about fifteen layers and headed out. We had so much fun! As soon as we got there, we filled the biggest mug that we had with hot chocolate to keep us warm. There was no one in the park, and we pretty much walked right onto everything. We watched Polar Express in 4D twice, rode a few rides, visited Santa in his workshop, and got a window seat at a restaurant so that we could eat our dinner, drink our warm beverages, and watch the parade from inside. My very favorite part of the night was when we took the train ride. We cuddled up in our blanket, had our big mug of hot chocolate, and rode up the mountain looking at all the beautiful Christmas lights and listening to Christmas music. It definitely put me in the Christmas mood! Connor had a giant smile on his face the whole time. I think that train ride might be one of my favorite memories as a mommy!

I am now ready for the holidays...as soon as I thaw out!

When It Rains.....

2008-11-09T10:39:00.002-05:00

Our family has had an extremely hard past two weeks. Greg's grandfather was hospitalized, and passed away on Friday after spending two weeks in the hospital. In the midst of his sickness, his wife, was put into an Alzheimer's home on Tuesday. Needless to say, this has just been a very difficult time for the Adkins family. They live here in Knoxville, and Greg has always been close to them. We always spent the holidays with them, and this year will just not be the same.

Greg was supposed to be in Las Vegas for work Friday through Monday. He switched planes in Atlanta and found out on the runway that his Papaw wasn't going to make it through the day. He had to fly all the way to Vegas and then turn around and fly back yesterday. He finally made it home late last night. The receiving of friends is tonight and the burial is tomorrow. Please pray for everyone during this difficult time.

It seems so minor to mention in regards to death, but I have spent the past couple of weeks living in the doctors office. I have been in chronic pain for the past two months, and it had gotten to the point where I was unable to sleep at night. I had been having extremely bad leg pain and constant headaches and migraines. I finally began physical therapy on Wednesday and I already feel like a different person. I am still on some anti-inflammatory medication, but I was at the point where I was taking two to three hydrocodone a day and was still in pain and a complete zombie. I am so glad to be off of that now! I had a headache on Thursday, I guess from the soreness that therapy caused, but I haven't had one since. It is such a blessing!

We leave for Taiwan in just seven weeks and are beginning the process of gathering supplies for the orphanage. I have been reading a very interesting Tawian travel book called, "Taiwan: Culture Shock" and learning a lot about its history, culture, and things that I want to do and see. I am so excited about the trip, just not flying for 20 hours!

Connor is doing great. He had a very fun Halloween as you can see from the pictures below. He's had a great Fall filled with lots of fun family adventures. Yesterday we went to Disney on Ice, and he loved it! It was no substitute for our annual Disney trip but at least we got in some Disney this Fall! He's getting so big, and I cannot believe he is able to read and write. He is obsessed with books and Legos right now. He's always building and reading. Five years have passed way too quickly! However, I feel very confident that he is socially and academically ready to go into Kindergarten next year. I am so glad that his birthday is in January, because it will really be to his advantage to be one of the older kids. As well as he's doing however, he's so ready for his little sister! He talks about her all the time, and we're all ready for another little one to join our family. Although we know that day is still many months away, we still pray for her to join us sooner than we expected. We still have peace knowing everything is in His perfect timing, and despite the hardships of the past couple of weeks, still know that He is in control and will carry us through.

The Adkins Family Goes to Washington

2008-11-02T20:28:00.003-05:00

Virginia Creeper Trail

2008-10-23T11:08:00.003-04:00

One of our favorite things to do is biking. Greg and I have always enjoyed it, and we are so glad that Connor loves it too! We found a place years ago that is one of the most beautiful and peaceful places we've ever been, the Creeper Trail in Virginia. It is 17 miles that will take your breath away as you try to take in the beauty of God's creation. It is not a difficult ride, and we highly recommend it!

We were so excited yesterday to finally be able to share this with Connor! He rode in the bike trailer and collected stuff in his "Nature Box" that we had made the night before. He loved finding leaves, acorns, rocks, and moss and that kept him entertained along the way. He is our outdoors boy, so he loved it as much as us! He actually fell asleep in the trailer the last few miles! I told you it was peaceful!

Enjoy the slideshow!

My Silly Little Man

2008-10-17T21:11:00.002-04:00

How could you not love him?

6 Months!

2008-10-12T23:54:00.006-04:00

I lied. I thought the next post would be soccer pics, but I still haven't had time to even load those pics on the computer. Life has been ridiculous lately and managing work and home is about to kill me. I hate October because work is always insanely busy, but I love October because it is just the most beautiful month of the year. If you need an understanding of how insane my life is right now, here's a quick illustration. The other day I was extremely sick. I thought I'd come down with a stomach bug. And then I came to the realization that "Oh, you've slept about 6 hours in two days, and all you've put in your body in the past 24 hours is a Venti Caramel Macchiato and a bag of Skittles." Is it any wonder?

Anyways, at least this weekend was good. Greg made it home from Atlanta and had a wonderful trip. Maybe someday I can go to Catalyst with him. I've always wanted to go, but I just can't slip away from work for two days this time of year. He was back in time for Family Night which consisted of greasy pizza (Me and the health food lately. What happened to my organic diet?) and Chuck E. Cheese. It made the little man happy , so that was all that mattered. Nana and Granddaddy took all the grandkids unexpectedly to Chuck E. Cheese again on Saturday (Connor thought he was something special...all those game two days in a row!) and Greg and I managed to have our first date night in months! Saturday was the six month anniversary of officially being logged in at Cathwell Orphange, and we always celebrate adoption milestones with a yummy Chinese dinner. We decided to go out for sushi. Greg loves it, but I have texture issues, so I've always made fun of sushi eaters, but I got cooked sushi and veggie sushi and I have to say it was quite yummy! We then had a delicious dessert at the Melting Pot. We got to have real conversation that didn't involve interruptions from a bored four-year old, and it was so nice. Too many times I get caught up in all the craziness of life and being a working mom, and I just forget what I great husband that I have.

Fall Break is one week away and I can't wait to just be a mom and wife for a week. I'm a little excited about laundry, cooking, and cleaning, because I haven't gotten to do much of that in the past couple of weeks! And as much as I'm heartbroken that we won't be taking our annual October Disney trip, I'm so excited to not be going non-stop on a crazy vacation for a week where I come home more exhausted than when I left. I'm not sure there can be a point of more exhausted than I am. Greg says I'm like this every October, but this fall just feels the worst of all. I am so longing to simplify things and get rid of the chaos. Greg and I have talked so much about this lately, and I'm to the point now where I know things just can't continue the way they are. But where do you start and what is there to let go? It's so hard! The verse I've been saying over and over every day lately is "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28). Maybe there is some rest in our future!

I keep feeling like something is on the horizon for our family that is going to be big, because I feel like Satan is really trying to beat me down the past couple of weeks. Some really hurtful actions and words have been coming at me from every direction, even in the most unexpected places. I am trying to keep my eyes on Christ and my faithfulness to Him. Maybe Satan is just trying to wear me down before Taiwan. I'm not sure what it is, but it is starting to affect me, so I ask for your prayer that God will just protect me and help me to keep my focus. Pray for our upcoming trip in just two months and for the remainder of our long wait.

Oooooops!

2008-09-21T23:48:00.004-04:00

I didn't mean to not post for this long, life has been so busy. I used to love that life was busy, and I would get so restless if we didn't have a million things going on. Now, I just want some rest and for things to slow down....but, there's not an end in sight!

Things are great with us. We have had a wonderful start to the fall. Connor has been playing soccer and we've really enjoyed seeing his progress. Although, it has amazed us that the two most competitive people in the world managed to have a son who is not competitive at all! Connor is our social butterfly who is more interested in making his friends laugh and entertaining his team rather than scoring any goals. That being said, he has scored two goals, and has made a lot of progress. He told me tonight that he was really sad he only has two games left. I am going to post soccer pictures on my next post. He has decided that he'd like to do gymnastics in the winter and tee ball in the spring. He's got big plans to keep us busy, go figure!

My Thirty-One business has really taken off. I keep praying for God to open up the doors and give me the time and energy to follow through. It has been such a blessing to be able to earn money for the adoption. We have not been successful with any of the grants due to our income, so this is our primary source of earning the remainder of the money. I am still booking shows and trying to make online sales off my website.

I am really enjoying my new job. It is a huge change for me, but I am really enjoying being the "behind the scenes" person. I miss having a classroom, but I do not miss everything that came with it. My new job is extremely busy and at times overwhelming, but it truly has allowed me to be a better wife and mother and much, much, much less stressed which is something that I prayed for for so long. I was beginning to wonder if He was listening, but I continue to learn more each day about my timing not being the perfect timing.

Greg has a busy fall as well. He's traveling to Atlanta and Vegas (poor guy), hosting an Andrew Perterson concert, running sound for the CAK musical, and finishing up coaching Connor's soccer team.

We're all a little sad that we aren't making our annual Disney trip in October....well, we may be more than a little sad. Connor just said last night, "Mom when we go trick-or-treating at Mickey's House....." I think we have spoiled him into thinking that every kid goes trick-or-treating at Disney, every year. We are so blessed to have been able to take our four-year old three times to Disney, and hope that we can return next October! However, Greg and I are very much looking forward to our trip to Taiwan in December. We are finally starting to think about what we can take to the orphanage and hopefully we'll start nailing down an itinerary in the next few weeks. We are also planning a couple of little side trips during Fall Break to Chattanooga and also a biking trip to Virginia (one of our very favorite things to do).

So, life is busy but going great. We continue to be so blessed, but I do not take any of it for granted. I say a prayer of thanks every day, many times a day for God's goodness upon our family. May we continue to live out His purpose for our lives.

Adoption Fundraiser

2008-08-30T23:14:00.006-04:00

I wanted to adopt early in our marriage, but Greg kept brushing me off saying, "Where's that money coming from? We don't make that kind of money?" Well, I never had a good comeback for that, so I let it go. After a lot of prayer, he and I both realized that if this is what God wanted us to do, He could make it happen, and he certainly has. We were able to come up with the first part of the money that we needed for our adoption with some creativity, generous family members, and Greg's shows and music sales. And now, here we are trying to come up with the second half, so we will resort to more prayer and some creativity once more!

I have become an Independent Consultant with "Thirty-One Gifts," a Christian based company that specializes in personalized items. It is a fairly new and growing company based out of Chattanooga. It was a complete "God thing" of how I heard about it! I absolutely loved the products, and originally just intended to buy a couple of things because the prices were so reasonable. And then I found out that if I became a consultant, I could make 25% off of every sale and put it into our adoption fund to help bring home my precious baby girl.

So, PLEASE check-out my site: www.mythirtyone.com/jessicaadkins There are some really cute products, and monogrammed bags starting at only $17!! Almost every product can be personalized, and the monogramming is FREE! If you are interested in hosting a party, you can earn lots of free products while you are helping to bring Claire home! You can do an in-home party, catalog party, or even an online party. Even if you don't live in Knoxville, you can do a catalog or online party and still help our cause. If you don't want to host a party, you can always shop online at my website! Take a look and let me know if you like what you see!

If you live in Knoxville, I am having an "Open House" event at my mom's in Farragut on Thursday, September 25th at 6:30 p.m. (**Note change of date!!) Let me know if you'd like to come and see what we have!

Celebrating 30!

2008-08-24T21:47:00.002-04:00

Reflecting on Thirty Years!

2008-08-22T21:10:00.006-04:00

Today, I turned the big 3-0. It would've been a lot more exciting if I hadn't spent the entire week on my back with one of the worst stomach bugs that I've ever had! Every time I think it's passing, it comes back full force! I think I may have turned the corner tonight, and was able to eat solid food at my birthday dinner with my family. Hopefully I'll be in full swing for the big luau Greg and my parents are throwing for me tomorrow!

I have had lots of conversations this week with friends about turning thirty. Some have asked me if I'm where I thought I'd be, or if I had any regrets, and it got me to thinking. Here are my thoughts:

Children: I always thought that I'd have more than one child by thirty, but we're working on that! I feel so blessed to have my precious Connor (even though he's been a little rascal this week!). Sometimes I'll just be staring at him and he'll say, "Why are you looking at me Mom?" I catch myself just looking at him sometimes, amazed at how handsome, big, and smart he is. Even though sometimes I don't understand why we've been asked to wait so long to add to our family, I know we are being faithful to God's plan, so I know He must just have an amazing little girl waiting for us!

Career: I'm really proud of my career, and feel like I've worked really hard to get to where I am. I feel honored to be in my position at such a young age, and feel so blessed that so many people have put their faith and trust in me. People keep asking me if I want to keep moving up in administration, but I have no idea. I've always seen myself teaching at a college level, never as a head principal, but we'll see what God has planned!

Marriage: I've been married eight and a half years, and these days, that's something I am so proud of. My husband is the most kind and least selfish person that I think I've ever met! There are so many times that I just think to myself, "Why does he put up with me?" Greg is genuine, caring, and has such a gentle spirit. He's an amazing and unbelievable father. He has been able to open up new worlds for me in so many ways. He's changed my thinking, my attitude, and how I see things. He's taken me to so many beautiful places all over the country, and even a few outside of the U.S. I love how much we love traveling, and how we place such an importance on family vacation time. I just love him so much!

Faith: I think it took me thirty years to finally get over myself! I have learned so much this past year about the way I want to live the rest of my life, and what kind of impact I want to have on this world. I think growing up, I probably saw myself at thirty having a safe, comfortable life, and now that's the exact opposite of what I want. I want to make a difference, I want to step outside of myself and do something, not just feel compassion, but actually do something with it. A line from my favorite worship song says for God to "Break my heart from what breaks yours". This has been my prayer for the past year, and I feel so blessed to have become part of a community that seeks this in their lives as well.

So, is my life the way I saw it as a dreamy eyed highschool girl? Absolutely not! But I am so thankful that it's not what I dreamed of. It's so much more and much, much more meaningful. I'm so hopeful as I begin looking forward to the things to come, and to see what I can do with the rest of my life! My prayer is for God to just show me what to do next!

A Very Long Week!

2008-08-07T21:57:00.004-04:00

This was the first official week of my new job. I have worked 12 hours every day getting everything ready for the year to begin. Most of my week has been consumed with taking inventory of and delivering the school's new Social Studies curriculum, textbooks, and other materials. IT TOOK FOREVER! Greg took pity on me on Wednesday and helped me deliver the last of it to the teachers. Thank God for husbands who are willing to give up their day off to help their emotional and exhausted wives!

Today was the first "normal" day. I actually got several things done and feel a lot better about things. I finally got my new office set up. I decorated it in black and pink polka dots, mainly because it makes me think of this blog and Claire!

I miss my friends at Dogwood terribly! I have stopped by a couple of days to visit. I am so thankful that God placed me not too far away! I literally can be at Dogwood in five minutes, and it is on my way home every night.

I am getting to know the staff at my new school and I really like them. Tonight was our "Meet the Teacher" night and I was very impressed with the turnout. I have also been really impressed with the genuineness of the principal and the way he runs the school. I am excited to get the year started, and I'm excited about this new opportunity. I really feel like this new position is a great match for me, and quite honestly do not regret not being in the classroom at all.

I am hoping to work normal days and be a better mom and wife next week! Now, I just need some sleep!

One Long Chapter Ends, A New Chapter Begins

2008-07-28T00:09:00.010-04:00

In the Fall of 2000, I walked through the front doors of Dogwood Elementary, a naive pre-intern. I was so annoyed that the University was making me intern all the way across town. We were supposed to be assigned to our "base schools" according to our zip codes. Brickey was one of our program's schools, and it was literally one mile from my house, but here I was driving 20 minutes across town to work at this inner city school, not the nice suburban school, all because UT had not changed my address and my zip code when I had moved the winter before.

I remember being so overwhelmed my first week by what I saw. I came face to face with true poverty. I found my journal a while back and read what I had written. It was so interesting to see how much it had shocked me at first, because sadly, over the past eight years, I have grown accustomed to it. I am used to working with kids so in need that my heart just breaks all day for them. I quickly came to love Dogwood, and was so thankful that God had put me there. I ended up interning full-time there, and have taught third grade my entire teaching career there. I love that school, the staff, and those kids with all my heart, and it pains me to know that tomorrow I will pack up my classroom and begin a new job.

I have accepted a position as a Curriculum and Instructional Facilitator at Mooreland Heights Elementary, very close to Dogwood. It is a "promotion" and my job description is very lengthy, and hard to explain. Greg still doesn't get it. I will miss my third-grade team so much. They are not only amazing teachers, wonderful colleagues, but true friends. They have assured me that I will remain an "honorary third grade team member." I have made so many friendships, gone through some hard times, great times, a lot of stress, and had a lot of fun during my time there. I am excited about my new job, but scared of change. I prayed for God to put me where he wanted me, even if that meant staying in the classroom, so I know that this is what I am supposed to do.

Every day I was so thankful that God was going to give me the opportunity to minster to, love, and teach a group of kids each day that needed me so much. I think that will be the hardest thing for me to give up, the joy of teaching, and the joy of seeing kids loving learning. Thankfully, my new job still allows me to get into the classroom at times. I am so excited to do new and different things, and to see how God can use my talents and skills in new ways.

Here are some pictures of my awesome team at Dogwood who I will miss more than I can even express! I know that our friendship will still continue, but I will miss seeing them every day, laughing with them, and being able to hear how loud they are all the way down the hall from inside my classroom!! My intern from this past school year is moving into my classroom and taking my place (in the pictures below, she is the super cute brunette in the white shirt.....I hate standing next to her!) I love knowing exactly who is in my classroom and taking my place. She will do a fantastic job, and I know the team is so excited to keep her as a part of the third grade! Please pray for me as I begin this new chapter in my life.

It's been a good week....It's about to get even better!

2008-07-17T10:15:00.004-04:00

I have had a GREAT week! It's been so nice! Even though I had to sit in workshops on Monday and Tuesday for work, I got to see all my co-workers. I haven't seen them since May, and I missed them!

Monday, I got to get rid of my nightmare car and I got a good ole' dependable Honda Pilot! I have heard such great things about them, so I am hoping that we made a good choice, although the gas mileage is already killing me. I went from a car that got 26/34 mpg to a car that gets like 15/21.

Tuesday evening, our third grade team had game night, and we had a lot of fun. I don't think any other group of people can make me laugh like them. They're loud and hilarious. We had a really great time, and I didn't even get home until after midnight...it's been a LONG time since I stayed out that late. I am getting old!

Wednesday, I got to spend some time with my best friend from middle and high school, and her adorable little girl. It was really great to catch up. I am so busy, and I hate how I lose touch so easily with people. Life just gets so crazy, and then you haven't seen someone in three years. It's ridiculous, but I have vowed to do better! After swimming with them, Mom and I went to Target and shopped for "The Family Christmas Shop." Right when we got there, they were marking down aisles upon aisles of toys to clearance, and we got two carts piled high with stuff. My small group had given me some money, and then mom and I bought some too. We had such a great time shopping! Connor got into it too, and told the cashier upon her inquiry of all the toys, "They're for kids who don't have any toys." He is so sweet!

As soon as I shower and pack, we're dropping Connor off and Nana and Granddaddy's and we're headed to the Haney's in Nashville to meet up with them and the Watson's. We're spending a few days at Nancy's parent's lakehouse in Kentucky. It is such a beautiful place, and I am so thankful that her family is so kind to have shared it with us so many times! I am so excited to end a good week with great friends, and I am sure with a lot of laughing! I am always thankful for my life, but this week has just been filled with so many blessings. It's been such a good week, and if I know my best friends, it's about to get better!

Goodbye.....You Stupid, Stupid Car!

2008-07-15T13:12:00.004-04:00

Looks nice, doesn't it....don't be fooled! I'm pretty sure this is the car Satan himself drives! Starting two weeks after I got this car, it started tearing up. Power windows, engine, gaskets, seals, strange noises, interior peeling (radio, gear shift, etc.) I have had a lot of cars since I was 16, but this by far was the WORST! The only good things about it were that it was nice to look at, fun to drive with the turbo engine, and it got unbelievable gas mileage. But, who cares when every time you crank it, the computer screen comes on telling you that something else is broken. As of yesterday afternoon, it is someone else's problem. Thanks for a stressful two years!

Never, ever, ever buy a Saab 9-3!!!!

And now I will step down from my soapbox!

Summer Fun!

2008-07-06T14:49:00.006-04:00

We've been having lots of fun since the beach! Of course, we are staying so busy, but I love doing so much fun stuff with Connor. Once school starts back, my life is out of control crazy, usually until October.

We've gone to Big Ed's (I hadn't been since highschool), the Secret City Festival in Oak Ridge, picked blackberries, and had a blast on the 4th with family and friends. We've also been going to the library every Tuesday, Dollywood and/or Splash Country every Wednesday, and anything else I can find to keep us busy on the other days. I think we might've had a couple of days at home, but neither of us like that very much.

Enjoy the slideshow.

Taiwan

2008-06-28T20:05:00.003-04:00

Well, after a lot of prayer and a lot of thought about finances, we bought our tickets to Taiwan today. I am so excited, I can't stop smiling! We leave for Taipei December 27th and will return January 4th. During that week, we will explore the country and try to learn as much as we can about our daughter's heritage. We will also spend time in her orphanage, doing anything that they need us to do, and hopefully get to know the people who will be taking care of our daughter until we are allowed to go get her.

I will turn thirty in August and I've never been on a foreign mission trip before, so this is like my own little mission trip! We are very excited and feel so blessed to have this opportunity to visit Taiwan before we go over to get Claire. Yay God! Thank you so much for making this happen!

My New Best Friend

2008-06-24T11:16:00.004-04:00

This is my new best friend.....

Why you ask? Because Connor is the WORST about getting up fifteen times after he's put to bed for EVERY excuse you can think of. I'm thirsty, I need to poop, I need one more hug, I didn't brush my teeth good enough....you get the idea.

Last week, I was at the Dollar Tree and Connor was spending three dollars that he had gotten from his great-grandmother. I found these book lights and thought, hey, this would be great for him to read in bed at night. So, for the past week, he has been allowed to read one book in bed with his book light after we have tucked him in and said prayers, and then he must turn it off on his own and go to sleep. And it WORKS! No more getting up, no more excuses! By the time I get up there to check on him, his book is beside his bed, his book light is turned off and laid on top of it, and he is fast asleep! I think he is like his momma, and just needs to wind down a bit to fall asleep. I usually have to read at night to wind down. I cannot just fall asleep laying there, unlike Greg who is snoring loud enough to wake up all of Knoxville ten seconds after his head hits the pillow. So, that's pretty much the best dollar I've ever spent in my life! I am thinking of buying a whole set for my classroom, and letting my students have special reading time with them. I thought they'd love to turn off the lights and read with the book lights every now and again. I'm going to Dollar Tree again today to buy all they have!

St. Augustine Slide Show

2008-06-20T00:38:00.002-04:00

Florida Fun in St. Augustine

2008-06-12T09:37:00.003-04:00

This vacation has been awesome! One of our most fun and relaxing ever. Pretty much all we've done is sleep, play, eat, laugh, read, and then repeat. Of course, I have some stories for you.

On Sunday, Connor wanted to buy a hermit crab. He decided to name him Shane. On Monday, he decided Shane was lonely, so he bought another crab and named him Howie. (No, I have no idea where those names came from). This morning, I had to break the news to him that Shane had gone to "Crab Heaven". He was really sad, and was asking all kinds of hilarious questions about "Crab Heaven." "Well, people heaven is up there, so is crab heaven down there? " "Why is his shell still here if he's up in crab heaven?' My mother-in-law had her face in a towel because she was laughing so hard. So, today we will bury Shane down by the beach, and return to get another hermit crab (that I'm pretty sure we'll kill too). Connor plans to name the new crab, "Shane Jr." I have no idea where he comes up with this stuff!

Every summer, Greg gets highights in his hair, for my sake only. I always think it looks nice after the beach. This year his Mom, really wanted them to show up, and well, they really show up alright. I think it looks fine, but he's freaking out a little. He looks like a surfer. It's really funny, and I'm sure all the boys will ridicule him to death. But, at least he still has hair to highlight!

Tuesday night, Greg and I dropped Mimi and Connor off at the movies and went out to eat. After dinner, we walked out to the pier and watched all the locals fishing. They caught a ton of sharks, so we thought we'd give it a whirl on Wednesday. So, we all hung out at the pier most of the day yesterday. Greg caught a baby hammerhead shark and a trout. We watched a guy pull in a four foot bullshark. Totally freaked me out! By the time we took a break and went back, someone had pulled in another four foot bullshark, and about the same size hammerhead shark. We saw tons of stingrays in the water, about a dozen dolphins, and a jellyfish that looked about the size of Connor's head. Needless to say, since all this occurred very close to the shore, our family's ocean adventures are over. We're sticking by the pool! Creepy!

Last night we went to an awesome restaurant that this cute little local retired couple recommended. It was called Mango Mango's. They had unbelievable Caribbean food. It is our new favorite down here, and can't wait to eat there again next year! Tomorrow is our last day, and we're planning on getting up early and eating breakfast at a little beach front restaurant called Beachcombers. I can't believe we only have two days left. It has gone by so quickly, but there's still more fun to be had, so I should get outside!

So Outta Here!

2008-06-06T17:39:00.002-04:00

This has been a really long week! I have been in training for the past three days because the state of Tennessee is changing all their learning expectations for students, and I got the joy of learning about it all so I can go back and tell our school about it. Yes, it was as exciting as it sounded. I kept thinking of everything that I had to get done, so I was completely antsy. That on top of the fact that I am not used to sitting for seven hours straight!

We are leaving super early in the morning for Florida. We are all so excited to get out of here! I'm getting ready to start packing up the car after I post. We are planning on doing nothing but playing, relaxing, reading, laughing, and more relaxing! We always have a great time down there!

Connor has been very funny this week. He is so literal, and I think he might grow up to be a lawyer like his "G" because he seems to find the loophole in everything I tell him lately. First example, we went to Sonic for a slush and they gave him a mint. After he finished his slush, he wanted to open his mint and eat it as we were driving down the interstate. I explained to him that I didn't like him eating in the car because if he were to accidentally choke, I couldn't get to him quickly. So, he found the loophole. He opened the mint, held it between two fingers, and proceeded to lick the entire thing until it was gone. Today, we were coming out of CVS. We were coming towards the end of the sidewalk, and were standing right in front of my car. He almost stepped off the sidewalk, and I told him he knew that he couldn't go in the parking lot without holding a hand. So, he clasped both of his hands together and said, "I"m holding my hand" with a giggle. I gave him "the look" and he then took my hand. Loopholes.....

I'll post some pics from the beach as soon as we get some! See you in a week, Knoxville!

PLEASE HELP ME!!!

2008-06-02T10:56:00.003-04:00

Now that it is summer and I actually have time to cook something other than quick meals, I don't know what to cook! I am so sick of cooking the same stuff!

What meals are your family's favorites?

Please help me get out of this rut! Post your favorite recipes!

Dollywood and Bass Pro Shop

2008-05-29T22:16:00.002-04:00

Yee-Haw! Did I get youns attention?

Today was fun....really, really, really fun! We were supposed to go to Dollywood yesterday, but the weather called for rain, so I didn't go and was just planning on postponing it to next week. I woke up this morning and thought, what the heck, let's go! So, we got up early, got there right when it was opening, and it was SO CROWDED! Luckily, no one wants to ride all the rides that Connor is able to ride, so it wasn't too bad for us. He did get to ride the "Blazing Fury" for the first time and loved it. When we got off, he told the ride attendant, "That ride was AWESOME!" He is hilarious!

After a seven hour day at Dollywood, we stopped for dinner, and got reenergized with carbs and sugary beverages. I decided to stop at Bass Pro Shop because everyone says it's cool. Connor is all boy, and really into all that stuff, and I didn't have anywhere else to be, so I thought I'd let him explore. He loved it! We spent almost two hours in there....and guess what, there is a Starbucks right in the middle! What more could I ask for? So, we enjoyed hot chocolate and coffee while walking around looking at boats and "driving" them, his speed boat sounds were hilarious. (Connor and his mommy really want a boat!) We also crawled in tents and had a fake campout, explored all the fishing stuff, got freaked out at all the taxidermy, and the employees picked Connor to help them feed all the fish. It really was a little boy's heaven! He said that he decided it was the coolest store ever, and I loved it because he was just so darn happy in there!

Today was the best day I've had in a very long time. Four is such a great age! I am so glad I'm not teaching summer school and I'm getting to enjoy being a mom this summer. I'm excited to see what we can do tomorrow!

I Feel Like A Real Live Mom

2008-05-28T21:20:00.003-04:00

My life from August until May: tired, exhausted, moody, the fastest dinners possible, in bed by 10 p.m., up no later than 6 a.m. Basically, 20 third graders getting most of my time, and my family is left with the exhausted mess that walks through the door around 5 p.m. and crashes on the couch no later than 10 p.m.

Oh, but summers.....I get to be a real live Mom and it's so exciting! Here was my day today....good stuff!

8:30- Brew some coffee in my pajamas, make Connor oatmeal, check e-mail while Connor watches cartoons.
9:00-11:00- Have "school" with Connor. Help him learn some new sight words, practice writing on lined paper, practice on some worksheets, color, sing, play some games.
11-11:45- Clean up the house a little, do some laundry, etc.
11:45-12- Make some healthy lunch
12-12:30- Finally shower and lay Connor down for a nap
12:30-3- I'm not sure what I did during this time....I should've been doing something productive, but I didn't.
3:00- Get Connor up from his nap, dressed, snack time, etc.,
3:30 -Go to Sonic for slushes!
4:00- Hang out with Greg at work
4:15-5- Go to the library and check out books
5:00-5:30- Make dinner
5:30- Talk Connor into eating Honey Lime Mahi Mahi and steamed broccoli
6:00- Make homemade peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies
6:30-8- Go for a walk with Connor while he rides his bike
8-0:30- Story time, play time
9:30- Connor bath time and bed
10:00- Curl up with a good book

Aaaahhh.... I feel rested, my house is under control, laundry is going, dishes are clean, I don't feel like I am being pulled in a thousand different directions, I don't feel like I am about to have a panic attack at any moment because I don't feel like I am doing anything well because there is just way too much going on.

Hmmm....I wonder at what point I will get bored : )

Hair cuts, Taiwan, and Alarm Clocks

2008-05-27T08:45:00.002-04:00

I pretty much stink at posting lately. I dropped my Nikon back in the spring and it has been getting "all fixed up" in New York, so I haven't had any pics to post. I know pictures are much more interesting than my writing, so I just haven't posted. $300 later, the Nikon is fixed, so I should have lots of summer posts.

The girls had a great trip to the lake. We did nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, and it was fabulous! School has been out since Thursday, and I have just been relaxing! It always takes me about a week to get productive! Today I am taking Connor to school so I can get the house under control again. Scrubbing bathrooms and floors is a lot easier to do without a four year old's "help."

I got all of my hair cut off last week, which turned out to be a disaster. Next time you want a drastic hair cut, don't try a new stylist (duh, you might say). I was at the salon for five hours (no, I swear I'm not exaggerating). Despite me telling this stylist that you HAVE to use bleach on my hair because it will turn orange with blonde color, they used color and had to completely redo it. I loved the part when this stylist asked me if I wanted to come back another day to fix it..ummm...I'm not leaving the salon like this, sorry. The color got fixed, and is fine. The cut I am getting used to, even though it is the worst hair cut I've ever had, completely uneven, and one side is longer than the other. I think Greg could have cut it! When I fix it you can't tell, but I am hoping my wonderful mother-in-law can clean up the mess when I see her. (I should've let her do it in the first place, but I just wanted the hair gone! It was on my last nerve!) Anyways, I am in search of a new salon! I have been going to that one forever, but needless to say, I will never go back! Okay, that was way too much talk about hair....Connor did say, "Mommy you look prettier with long hair, I don't like your short hair...boys and long hair...geez!

If you read Greg's blog, you might've read that we are going to try to go to Taiwan over Christmas break. We are wanting to work in the orphanage, get to know the staff there, and experience some of the culture. We really want to be able to give back to the orphanage that will take care of our daughter while we are waiting to get her, and when we travel to get her, we won't be completely lost in a foreign country with a baby! I am really, really praying that this will come through. We both feel like this is what we're supposed to do, we just need money to buy airfare pretty soon before it starts getting more expensive. We are fixing to start ebaying like crazy and have a we're having a huge garage sale this weekend. We are watching our spending like crazy (I'm really not very good at it!), but I know it will be worth it in the end. I do miss my Starbucks beverages!

A few Sundays ago, we overslept for church, so Connor and I made muffins and coffee and had home church. We've actually done this a couple of times. I just read a bible story to him, and we make some crafts (Connor calls this "doing some gluing".) Well, Sunday I wake up about an hour late, my alarm clock turned off, and my little boy giggling. He said, "Mommy, it's time to make muffins and have home church." The little sneak turned off my alarm clock so we could have church at home. I think it's sweet that he thinks that is so fun, but we had to have a LONG talk about turning off Mommy's alarm. He is such a mess....a sweet mess.

On Sunday, Connor and my niece had a campout at my parents' house. They had so much fun! Greg and I had no idea what to do with ourselves without Connor. We ended up going to Border's, out to eat, took a walk, and came home and played Scrabble. Yes, we are an exciting couple! I can't even remember what we did before Connor. I think we must've been bored and well-rested!

Well, this week begins my summer with Connor! It's hard to believe this time next summer I will be getting ready to send him to Kindergarten. I have lots of fun stuff planned and I am so excited to spend so much time with him! But first.....I must get my house clean and under control!

Long Time, No Blogging!

2008-05-14T20:08:00.006-04:00

I just realized it's been a couple of weeks since I posted. You can tell it's the end of the school year, because things are insanely busy. I'm slowly working towards the bottom of the paperwork pile. Hopefully I'll get there soon!

This past week has been extremely hard. I found out Friday that one of my former students took his own life. Going to his funeral on Monday was one of the saddest and hardest things that I've ever done. He was a great kid, so much fun to teach, so witty, and extremely intelligent. I spent seven hours a day with him for 180 days, I saw him more in those 180 days than my own family, so needless to say, I have been devastated. I have had such a hard time dealing with his death. First, I was just shocked and heartbroken, then I was mad, so mad that this eleven year old little boy was gone! Now, I just miss him and hope he knew how special I thought he was......it's been a hard week! I have cried and cried, I've punched some pillows, and I just might have thrown some stuff. I know this is an experience that will stay with me my entire life.

On the good news side (Thank you, God that there is some good stuff to talk about), I have five and a half days left of work! Can you hear me screaming and jumping up and down? In all my years of teaching, I've never been this over it! Get me outta there!

Also, more good news....girl's weekend at the lake begins in less than 48 hours! Can you hear me screaming and jumping up and down again? Lots of reading, relaxing, sleeping, and laughing will be taking place. This trip was perfect timing!

Oh, and some more good news, the beach is only three and a half weeks away! Aaaaaaahhh....I can taste summer! Being a teacher rules...well, during June and July anyways.

Picture Post

2008-05-04T13:30:00.006-04:00

Things have been so busy that I haven't even had a chance to download any pics from the camera. While the boys are taking their Sunday afternoon nap, I thought I'd catch up. Here's what we've been up to the past few weeks!

Connor was actually very excited for his first visit to the dentist! He looked forward to it all week!

He of course had everyone in smiles. They couldn't believe how well he did for his very first trip! They said they'd never had a four-year old take a perfect x-ray!

No cavities! I did awesome!

This is what happens when I work late....I come home and Connor has spelled his name out on the table with his dinner and left it for me to see! It was pretty much dried to the table by the time I got home...disgusting to clean, sweet that he left it for me to see!

In the gardens at Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.

Getaways are very, very good for a marriage!

So glad to be out of Knoxville for two days and staying at a beautiful hotel!

Connor's Bedtime Thoughts

2008-04-30T22:06:00.002-04:00

Sometimes Connor isn't as tired as he should be at the end of the day, and he just lays in his bed and we talk. Most of the time, he just asks us questions, he always says, "I just want to know everything." For the past two nights he has been terrified of going to heaven. He has said, "I don't want to go to heaven. I want you to go with me. Jesus is going to make me die." Yeah, try to reason that out with a four-year old.

On a lighter note, tonight's question for us was, "When did you buy this house?" Greg said, "Right before you were born and you were still in Mommy's belly." Connor then asked, "How did you carry it home from the store?" We laughed pretty hard and tried to explain that you don't buy everything from a store. You never know what kind of questions you'll get at bed time from a curious little four-year old.

The Adkins Family Goes Green

2008-04-23T08:59:00.006-04:00

Back around Christmas, I really started to thinking about the environment. I am far from the "tree hugger" type and my idea of "roughing it" is staying at a hotel not named the Sheraton or the Hilton. I started thinking about it after watching some environmental documentaries, and basically just really pondering what I was teaching Connor and the legacy I was leaving behind for my children. I also was horrified at the health statistics I had been reading about cancer and respiratory problems caused by enviormental factors. Then, I started learning about everything from a religious perspective. I think Christians sometimes have the mindset, "Jesus is coming back, so who cares if we use up the Earth." I have learned that this attitude is just terribly wrong! God has given us stewardship over his creation, and whether or not you think all of these statistics are a lie (if you think this, please do some research), you still need to take care of what God has given you. I've learned that everyone can do something, even if it is something you think is insignificant. I never in a million years thought Greg would jump on board. I must admit, in the beginning, everytime I recycled something he called me a hippie. I would tell him to turn off a light, and he would say, "one light doesn't matter." Even he is making a change! I'm really proud of him!

The Adkins family is a crazy busy family living on a pretty tight little budget, so I will share with you the changes we've made:

1- First and foremost, we have set up a recycling center in our garage. We have gotten some free recycling bins, but I also went to the dollar store and got some cheap trashcans as well. Connor thinks it's a game to figure out where things belong in the recycling center. He also is constantly asking about trash, "Can I recycle that?" We make trips to the recycling center in Powell when our bins get full and he loves throwing all the stuff in the giant dumpsters. If a four year old can do it......

2- We have cut our energy consumption! We haven't had our thermostat on in weeks because it has been beautiful outside. We only have lights on when absolutely necessary. We have unplugged all of those "phantom power" sources such as toasters, can openers, cell phone chargers, etc. We only have something plugged in when it is in use. We have our entertainment center and computer on a powerstrip, and turn the whole thing off when not in use. We have been trying to wash our clothes in cold water, and hang dry when possible. We are also in the process of changing over all of our bulbs to CFL's. It is an investment, but absolutely saves money over the long run! We're doing a few at a time!

3- Water- I cannot part with my long,hot showers. Call me selfish. That is my time every morning. I'll come around eventually! I'm trying to teach Connor to turn off the water when brushing teeth. I'm also trying to remember that you only need the faucet turned on enough that a pencil size flow comes from the faucet. You don't need the water full force when washing hands or brushing teeth.

4- Food- I'm trying to buy as many organic products as our grocery budget can afford. Yes, they can be pricey, but I am willing to cut other areas of our lives to not put chemicals in my family's bodies. Yesterday, I bought a gallon of organic milk on sale at Ingles for only $4.69. I would highly recommend, if you do nothing else, replace your meat, eggs, milk, and produce with organic products. Also, now that Spring is here, we will begin to buy products that are locally grown.

5- Coffee- I am addicted to coffee....very addicted. I have started to only buy "Fair Trade", "Triple Certified" coffee. Starbucks does not brew this kind of coffee unless you ask. Bad for me, good for Greg's wallet as I try to break my Starbucks addiction.

6- Driving- We have have tried to combine our trips, so we're not driving so much. I'm in West Knoxville every Sunday for church, so I try to save my errands out there for Sundays. Greg and I have done a lot better about riding together to places, and enduring each other's errands while we're out instead of running them seperately. It has definitely taken more patience on his part! We will still work on decreasing our driving, but it's hard to take alternative transportation with kids. You will never see me with my child on one of those seats that attach to the back of your bike. So dangerous!

Our future goals- We hope to begin composting eventually. I will also try to increase my purchasing of organic products as I run out of the ones I have. My next goal is to replace all of our cleaning products and toiletries with safer, more natural products. We are also planning to buy a water filter after payday, so I can cut out the bottled water. More than anything, we will just try to buy less and consume less, simplify our lives a little. That means saving more money, which equals more to give away.

So, that's how our family has gone green! Are you up for the challenge?

Connor Quote of the Week

2008-04-17T20:20:00.003-04:00

This is the conversation that took place tonight as we were pulling into the garage:

Connor: "I love you, Momma!"
Mommy: "I love you, Connor Andrew Adkins!"
Connor: "No, Momma! Don't call me by all those names....that means I'm in BIG FAT TROUBLE!"

A Year of Change

2008-04-14T21:35:00.004-04:00

This weekend will be the one year mark of what I call my "Year of Change." One year ago, I had the closest, most real encounter with God than I ever have in my life. One year ago this weekend is when I felt the calling to adopt, and basically everywhere I turned for an entire week, I was shown God's presence. I have not been the same since. In the past year, my entire relationship with God has changed so much. I don't even know how to describe what I've been through.

A few weeks ago, Mark asked our small group to come with six words that described our life so far. My six words were: "Trying too hard to impress others." My whole life has been wrapped up in myself, the car I drive, the house I live in, and the clothes I wear. I was always trying to impress my teachers, parents, friends, students, and bosses. As a naturally competitive person, most of my adult life has felt empty and filled with discontent, always striving to keep up with "The Joneses." The past year, I have finally found peace and contentment, honestly because I finally feel like I am trying my hardest to live out God's purpose and plan in my life. I am less concerned with myself and what others think, and more concerned with showing people God in my life, and trying to be faithful in doing what I'm called to do. In the past year I have tried so hard to cut out the negativity in my life and everyday conversations. I've prayed for God to bring the right people in and take those who will bring me down out, until I am strong enough be a better example to them. I drive to and from work everyday in silence, spending time in prayer, praying for my family, my day, my actions, and my students. I am learning to take care of God's creation and trying to teach my son the same, not because it's the cool "Hollywood" thing right now, but because it is what He made for us, and we have destroyed so much of it in our selfishness. I am learning that I don't matter, but what I can do with my life does. I am learning how to be a much better wife, even though I am still far from perfect. I still haven't figured out how not to be tired, I'm still working on that!

I think what I have realized more than anything is that I feel like I finally have a purpose that is bigger than the money I make or fitting in, but I know that I will always struggle to overcome the mindset that our culture has imprinted on my mind. I have been overwhelmed with the realization of the temporariness of our time here on Earth and feel such a strong push to use every moment of my life for a bigger purpose. I know God has put me in my job for a reason. Everyday I get to work with underprivileged children, and I feel like I do a really good job of connecting with them, teaching them, and loving them. I know that not everyone was created to be an inner city teacher, so every day I kind of feel special that I was chosen to do this. I am so excited to adopt a little girl who needs a home (maybe a little boy someday too, shhhh....don't tell Greg). I don't understand why I was chosen to do this, sometimes I feel a little unworthy of such a huge calling. Everyday I find some new reason to be terrified, and everyday I hear, "I know what I'm doing, just relax." All these things in the past year I have discovered in humbleness, and my prayer is that people see that it is genuine, and in no way a platform to raise me up higher than themselves.

So much has changed in a year, and I am so excited to see what this next year will bring. I am open to whatever I am called to do, even though that scares me a little. I am hoping to continue to grow and looking forward to see what I can write next year! This year, I have spent a lot of time working on myself, so I am hoping that this next year, I can work on building more meaningful relationships and spending more time with people I love. Mark asked me what my new six words were, and I told him I didn't know yet. The more I've thought about it, the more I hope the six words for the next part of my life are "Always seeking His plan in humbleness."

Now That's Fast!

2008-04-10T21:12:00.002-04:00

We got word today that our dossier has arrived in Taiwan. It was A LOT faster than we expected! They are hoping that the orphanage will have it by Monday. When you are so used to waiting forever for everything in adoption world, that kind of turnaround is amazing!

Still..... a lot of waiting to do!

On Our Way to Taiwan!

2008-04-08T11:44:00.003-04:00

From: Angela Beemer
Date: April 8, 2008 11:17:19 AM EDT
To: Greg Adkins
Cc: Stephanie Carpenter
Subject: Dossier

Greg and Jessica,

We are pleased to announce that as of today your dossier is on it's way! We are excited and praying for you and your family!!

Thanks,
Angela

Angela Beemer
Administrative Assistant
Shiloh Adoptions