First days' pictures

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Ihave decided to go back and recreate our entire trip, as I have very little recollection of the entire time-it was such a blur due to the paperwork nightmares, and lack of sleep, and the little boy who turned our lives and plans upside-down. Mainly due to the stress of the paperwork, we feel that the trip was completely blurred in our minds, and hopefully by reliving it day-by-day here, we can really begin to feel like we were there, it did all happen, and we did really see and do a few things while there.
Starting with the airplane trip-which my children were so delighted to take part in, as you can see-they thought it was all quite grand at this time-even the meals were an adventure for them, and I really give both of them credit they did a very good job of staying busy and also sleeping while flying. Considering our flight left Seattle at 1am, I did not expect quite so many smiles from the children, but they are very resilient, and held up much better than expected.


Next is the gifts we took along for TWCA workers, for the foster family, for other babies at TWCA, for our drivers, and even one for little Leo! I was especially proud of the Wisconsin cutout frame which we gave to the foster family-we fit in photos of Tyler, of Wisconsin, and of our farm.

Next is our memories of our first night in Taipei, and we are all so thankful the Schaefers were there yet, and could show us around. We had supper at that yummy dumpling place(forgot to get photos there) and then went exploring for awhile. The children were very taken with Leo, he is such a happy little boy, and we really loved sharing our first night with Katie and Alex-I feel they will be kindred spirits all our life-and how much easier Chuck felt about everything after Alex showed him the ropes of getting around town. We are forever indebted to you guys-love ya!!

Next are the first few pictures of Taichung-the home of Tyler, his foster family, and TWCA. Our driver Mr. Yeh rolled back his roof window and encouraged me to take photos along the way. We have a few of downtown sites, and one of the baby store everyone else had to visit for formula and baby essentials. We never had to get there as we got everything from Tyler's foster mom that he was using, including bottles, formula, a nuk, all his clothes and underwear, and all his toys. Unlike a lot of other families, we did think he was very familiar with the toys-he wore many of the clothes we had sent over, and I still have 3 disposable cameras with photos to develop that will be really fun to see what is on them.

Next post will be more gotcha day photos!
Blessings
Chris