We Are Coming Home!

We got Alexa's visa yesterday and were able to change our plane tickets to leave on Wed. at 11pm! We will be flying into Columbus at 2:15pm on Thursday. We are very excited to be home but are a little sad to leave because we will really miss it here. The people here are so friendly and happy. We are really dreading the 25 hours of travel time and anxious about how Alexa will do on the long plane rides. She doesn't like to sit still for too long:) I'm sorry this is so short and there are no pictures but I have a lot to pack and get ready before we leave. Maybe Nic will be able to post later and add some pictures.

We are fine and having a great time!

Sorry for the delay in posts, but our internet was down for a couple of days and I just got it repaired. No need to worry. Should it happen again please do not be alarmed. Leanne & I can both honestly say we have not once been fearful in any situation. Everyone here is very friendly and we are not worried. I feel safer here than in most big cities in the US! I started this post the other day, but it didn't post because the internet went down. Yesterday we went to Ha Long Bay and I'll try to post some stuff on that later.


What we learned about Miss Alexa so far…
We went to the doctor and got of her checkup for her Visa today. She weighs about 16 pounds & is a little more than 27 inches. No teeth yet, but she likes to chew on stuff. The doctor said for some reason Vietnamese get their teeth later, so not sure when they’ll come in. She has a very small Mongolian spot on her lower back (you wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t looking) which is very uncommon for asian babies. Most asian babies have large Mongolian spots (but they do fade)

She’s typically a very happy baby. Even when she is cranky/hungry if she sees herself in the mirror she will instantly start laughing or giggling. However, she doesn’t really like to have her clothes changed. She’s ok with the pants, but not when you start forcing her arms through!

She always loves to be held. We were shocked to see that in 80-85 degree heat (with very high humidity) she stayed in the baby carrier for 4+ hours 2 days in a row and even took a nap with beeping horns! We have been very blessed with that! (Daddy was more cranky than baby :) However we did find out that she doesn't care for 3 hour car rides when she can't sleep or strech out.

She doesn’t seem to be very needy, but she will decide in an instant when she’s hungry and you better be quick at getting the bottle! And boy does she have a grip. She holds on to her plastic keys for the majority of the day and will only drop them once or twice all day. When we got to dinner the other night we noticed she had brought the tv remote with her!

So far we’ve been lucky that we’ve been able to console her with any problem she’s had. She doesn’t appear to have gone through her grieving period which is very common. Most of the
families we’ve talked to their babies went though it on the 3rd or 4th night. (we’re on day 6)

There wasn’t much scenery in the orphange so she is very interested in the world around her. She really likes to crawl around the apartment hunting for cables or bottles, etc.

Most of the time she is fairly laid back, but once we get about an hour or two from bedtime she gets pretty wound up! We have been very lucky that she has been sleeping 8-9 hours without waking the last several nights. We are hoping it stays that way!

This is going to be pretty short because I'm about to fall asleep but I at least wanted to put some pictures on here for those of you who keep hitting refresh:) A quick update on things: we got Alexa's passport yesterday (that was exciting:) and we have her medical exam tomorrow at 2:30 that we have to get done for her visa. Most of these pictures are when we went to the Old Quarter to shop (we got some great bargains) and walked around town. We met some friends here that we have been hanging out with. They are another couple from Nebraska that adopted a baby girl and we've been having a great time with them.


This is outside a temple.

Nic and Mike with the babies...we bought our new strollers in Old Quarter for $28 (470,000 Dong!)

Lake Hoan Kiem

Alexa was wore out from shopping and had a nap on Daddy at the Ice Cream parlor.

Alexa napping again in our cyclo

One of the ladies selling flowers off her bike.

Talk about a big load.

This picture is for you Carrie...everyone takes their babies on their scooters, even ones younger than this.

The Rogers Family in our cyclo. We weren't sure if we were going to make it out alive. The drivers just cut out in the middle of traffic in the intersections.

YAY!!! KFC...now I will have something to eat:) When we tell people we are from KY they know what we are talking about because of this.

Nic and Alexa in front of Hanoi Hilton which is the prison where John McCain was held. We haven't been in yet because it was closed.

Just another picture of our pretty baby:)

We will try to update more later and I will see if I can get Nic to add some videos:)

-Leanne

Day 2

We had a pretty good night. Alexa fell asleep about 6pm and didn't wake up until 3 (we were both awake, just waiting since we are still mainly on Ohio time and were wide awake. We gave her a quick bottle and she fell back asleep until 6. We can only hope she stays on a pattern similar to this :) After a successful bath we went down for breakfast and then to the pool. We were surprised at how well she enjoyed the pool & her bath (we didn't get any photos from that, but have some longs videos on the camcorder). I did add couple of shorter videos at the end of this post. (the 30 second videos take about 30 min each to upload, so we'll have to save the larger ones for when we get home)


Her pouty look after getting out of the pool



But happy again after she was dried off

On the way to our first breakfast (suprisingly she never bothered her bow)

She loves her puffs!

She wanted everything on the table!

We found out she could crawl today and she found every cable in the room

Videos

Introducing Miss Alexa Quyen Rogers!!!

Sorry for the delay (for those refreshing every 10 minutes..ahem.. Jolie & Lanette :). It was a VERY long day today and we just got in about an hour ago. It was about 9 hours total. We didn't plan on it taking that long so all we had to eat until tonight was a breakfast bar. The ride to Alexa's town of Hung Yen was a little less than 2 hours each way. However, we had to get some paperwork from a Govt office, then drive to the orphanage and get Alexa. Then back to the Govt office for our ceremony and back to the orphanage again! I'm sure no one is even reading this part so I'll just skip to the pictures that you want to see :)

Here's our Angel:

She is starting to warm up to us. Our inital timing was great as we arrived just before her naptime. She cried nonstop for the first 5-10 minutes so that was great :) I imagine its taking her a while to figure out who these Giant blonde people are :) She soon settled down after getting her bottle. The car ride home was a bit rough as she would mainly cry if she didn't have her bottle in her mouth(even though she wasn't eating it) I assume it was for comfort. But as soon as we got to the hotel room and laid her on the bed she streched out and started playing an smiling.

Our first family photo:

She is definitly very inqusitive and trying to take in all the world around her.

We are supposed to go to the doctor tomorrow for her screening, but overall she appears to be in good health and good spirits all things considered, so that definitly a blessing!

We were very glad to see that she was well loved by her nannies. As it turns out there was only 3 infants in the orphange, but 6 nannies so I'm sure she got all kinds of attention, so hopefully our spoiling won't change her much :)

Well that's all for now, Leanne & Alexa are both asleep and I can barely keep my eyes open.

Change of Plans!

Praise the Lord! We found out our ceremony was moved up and we are going tomorrow morning to get Alexa instead of Tuesday!!! Please pray that everything will go smoothly as we haven't quite adjusted yet. We'll try to post again after the ceremony, but for now we gotta pack!!

What do babies eat anyway? HA, I'm so glad Leanne is here :)

-Nic

Good Morning Vietnam!!

Well after 20 hours in flight and a 36 hour door to door trip (from our door to the hotel door) we made it to Hanoi. It was quite exhausting, but about what we expected. Leanne was a trooper and handled it better than I did. We both did good up until the final flight from Seoul to Hanoi. I had a few stomach issues and I couldn’t keep myself awake. We really wanted to stay awake on that flight since it was from 8pm-mignight Hanoi time.
Our hotel is pretty nice, though we couldn’t see much coming in. Its not quite the nicest room we’ve stayed in, but is by far the largest. Its really more an apartment and has 2 bedrooms, 2 bath, living room, kitchen, laundry, and a balcony.

For those who are unaware, Hanoi is 11 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone so its already Sunday morning here. I can’ t help but feel there should be someway to profit on being in the future. HA!
So for now we are just supposed to sit tight an hang out the next 2 days while we wait to go get Alexa! Not sure what we’ll end up doing, but we’ll try to take some pictures.

-Nic (Leanne's still sleeping :)

We're in Korea!

What an awesome trip! And we haven’t even made it to Vietnam yet! We are sitting in South Korea waiting for our flight to Hanoi. We left this morning at 7:45 am from Columbus and flew to New York (JFK) It was a beautiful day for flying with sunny, smooth skies. We got to the see Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Central Park, and Yankee stadium from the plane ( I had never seen any of those before) After a couple hours in NY, we boarded our Korean Air plane. It was the biggest plane either of us have ever ridden in. Each row had 10 seats (3 then 4 then 3) and it even had an upper deck. In an interesting turn our flight pattern took us over the arctic circle. We could see some glaciers and a few frozen rivers. I’m assuming it shortens the trip since the Earth is smaller at that part. We both were impressed with Korean Air for the flight. When we boarded each seat had a pillow, blanket, headphones, toothpaste, toothbrush, socks, and a night mask. They also brought us steamed towels and facial cleanser. We rode in economy, but it was a lot better than US economy. Our seats reclined probably twice as much as a normal seat and every seat had a personal video system. Which were awesome… we literally had about 30 US movies to choose from and they were all pretty new. We could also watch a couple of TV shows, listen to music, or play games. Leanne & I even played Yahtzee against each other over the network. We were fed two pretty good meals during the 15 hour flight. For lunch we had roast beef, mashed potatoes, roll, potato salad with shrimp, and fruit. For dinner we had pasta, vegetable medley, roll, and cheesecake. They also had a snack service every couple of hours with drink and peanuts, fruit, or stuffed hot roll. Overall I’d say the 15 hour flight wasn’t too bad, but I probably got a total of maybe 3-4 hours sleep. ( I couldn’t quit playing with all the flight information and reading the maps but…I also watched 2 movies and a couple of shows.) Leanne is very tried because she couldn't sleep all that well, but we have 2 days to get settled in Hanoi once we arrive.

-Nic

We Are Leaving In The Morning!

I still can't believe it but we are actually flying out tomorrow at 7:45am! It's so amazing to me that in just a couple of days we will meet our precious baby girl. God is so wonderful and He has finally brought this day about. I wonder how our first meeting with her will go. Will she connect with us right away or will she be afraid of us? Will she be tiny or big? Will she look the same as her pictures or will she have totally changed in the last 3 months? I just can't wait to find out.

Here are a couple pictures of Alexa's Nursery. It is all done and just waiting for her.

This is just a few of the dresses that we couldn't resist buying for our princess.

I can't quit buying hair bows. I justify it by saying that it's the one thing I can buy Alexa that it doesn't matter what size she is when we get her:)

Next time we post we should be on our way or in Vietnam!

We Have Our Travel Dates!

Yay! We are going to fly out on October 18th and were told we could fly back on October 31st!!! It's so exciting that I don't even know what to do. It seemed like that was plenty of time and then I looked at the calender and noticed we only have one more weekend before we leave...that is just crazy! It's so hard to comprehend that we will be holding our baby in two weeks. We still have so much to do but I am looking forward to it.

We went shopping last night to get a bunch of medicines and bottles and practical stuff for Alexa for the trip and it was like Christmas:) I had so much fun going through it all last night and today and going through her clothes to decide what to pack. I still have a few more things to get and we need to install our car seats and baby proof the house. Plus, we have a lot to do regarding getting our paperwork ready. I have to make a bunch of copies and organize it all. Nic is mostly working on the airline tickets and is a little nervous about that. We've been warned against a few airlines so we are trying to make sure to pick a good one but it's hard to find a perfect itinerary. The travel agent was supposed to email some itineraries tonight but we never got them so we are stressing a little since we need to get these booked. We have our visas though and once we book our tickets we can relax a little bit and look forward to meeting our baby:)

We Are Still In Shock!

I can't even believe it. Nic woke me up this morning before he left for work to tell me some amazing news. We have USCIS approval to travel!!! I still don't even hardly believe it...it's a miracle that we got it this soon. We were told by the USCIS that it usually takes 60 working days and our agency told us not to be disappointed if it even took longer since they are behind but God is good and has blessed us and we got approval in 9 days! Of course, now I'm in a panic thinking, wow am I ready for this and we have so much to do that I'm overwhelmed. It may be a week or so before we actually get our travel dates and then could be a week or more after that before we actually travel but with how fast this last part happened I'm not taking any chances. I'm so excited and happy and blessed and now I am relieved to know we are approved and that we will have Alexa home before Thanksgiving and we should be with her in Vietnam in a couple of weeks. I just can't wait to hold her in my arms.

We have a lot to do to prepare to bring her home. I have to get medications for her for our trip, find a pediatrician, add her to our insurance, pack, put up baby gates on our stairs and baby proof the house, just to name a few things...YAY! I'm loving every second of it:)