Update to come tomorrow...

for now just a picture from today! :)



Aren't my TWO kids the best?!? I really will try to update tomorrow- with 2 kids it's so much harder to get online! ;-) But just to let you know, we are all doing well for the moment!

Korea Day 5- Gotcha Day!

Hello everyone.

Today was a long, emotional day. As I'm sitting her typing this, it is almost 11 pm at night and I am listening to our baby girl cry in her sleep. :( Night time is going to be the hardest, we can already tell. I need to get my thoughts from today out now because I don't want to forget anything. However, I will blog about our trip to the Korean War Memorial that took place this morning later this week because the pictures from this place alone deserve to be seen...


We had a quick lunch this afternoon around 12 pm in our hotel just because we weren't sure when we would actually get to eat again. It was raining pretty hard so when we were done I asked Allen to run up at get our umbrella. As I was waiting for him to come back down, I was surprised to run into one of the Korean ladies who took us to dinner our first full day here. She speaks almost no English but quickly had the hotel staff translate that she wanted to take us to Holt because it was raining and it is hard to find a cab in the city when it's raining... she wanted to ensure that we got there fine. It took almost a full 40 minutes to get through the city to get to Holt. Amazingly, I wasn't at all nervous- worried, but not nervous about picking up our daughter forever. Once we got to Holt our Korean friend told us she would take us back to the hotel too.


We got into Holt and there were a TON of babies with their foster mothers there. We ran into DJ walking up the stairs and she told us to just come with her back down the stairs because she was ready for us. We walked into a waiting area where the babies wait to be seen by Holt's dr. There was our beautiful girl dressed all in pink with her foster mom. We asked the foster mom a few more questions and then I backed off a bit so that the foster mom could hold KatieJoy for the last few minutes. I was so worried about taking our sweet girl from her. A few minutes later it was KatieJoy's turn to go into see the dr. for one last time. I let the foster mom go in without us... Once she came out we talked a bit more and KatieJoy's Omma had DJ translate to us that she wanted us to be sure to bring KatieJoy back for visits as she grew older. I teared up and promised that we would. DJ said that it was time to go so I got the baby carrier on and KatieJoy's Omma put KatieJoy into it. She gave her some last kisses and hugs and then put her little hood on her so that she wouldn't see her crying. She was so stoic about the whole thing but I could tell that she was really hurting watching this sweet girl leave her forever. KatieJoy was screaming bloody murder in my carrier and while I felt so bad for her, I felt terrible for her Omma. Allen and I both hugged her Omma hard and she just let us... she hugged us back and then I grabbed her hand and just squeezed it... all while bawling. I had a hard time walking towards the door out to the car so DJ had to usher me out. I turned back for her Omma and saw a few other foster mom's holding up her Omma and patting her on the back and talking to her in Korean. I assume they were telling her that this is a happy day because they all kept smiling at me as I was seriously struggling with myself to make my feet walk towards the car. How in the world did taking this baby girl from her loving Omma make sense? Especially since she was just looking at me and screaming at me to pretty much let her go...DJ kept ushering me towards the door and down the outside steps into the rain. I kept looking back at her Omma wishing I could say something to make this horrible scene in my head go away. As I walked down the steps there were several more foster moms waving goodbye to me and smiling. It was and still is the hardest scene to get out of my head. I got into our friends car and then Allen and Calen got in behind me. Once the door closed our little girl was going wild. Suddenly we saw a hand wiping away the moisture from the back window and KatieJoy's Omma was there waving and crying and trying so hard to smile. DJ was holding her up. I kept putting my hand to my mouth and almost blowing her kisses all while saying thank you, thank you, thank you. I couldn't stop crying, Allen was crying, KatieJoy was screaming and Calen kept asking me what was wrong. I had a hard time composing myself to tell him that KatieJoy was scared... how do you explain to a 2.5 year old that his new baby sister hated the parents that he loved and adored? I could tell he was trying so hard to process everything. He was such a trooper and just stayed very quiet the whole time.


It took us around 40 to 45 minutes to get back to our hotel. Our poor girl just cried and cried the whole entire time. I finally let her out of the carrier because it seemed she wanted Allen. However, once she got to Allen she kept going towards the window and we figured out that she was looking for her Omma in the last place she remembered seeing her. Absolutely heartbreaking. Our friend kept talking to KatieJoy in Korean to try to calm her down. It didn't really work. Once we got out of the car, our friend helped us in and had the hotel staff do some more translating. She told me that KatieJoy would love me and that to just have patience and love for her. Oh I do, I DO! I hugged our friend goodbye several times and just cried. I finally let go and we parted ways. This woman will always be in my heart for her kindness today. How amazing to have her drive us instead of a cabbie...God is so good to us.


KatieJoy kept crying on and off for another hour or so and then she finally fell asleep on Allen's chest. Calen just watched a movie and took everything like a champ- thank goodness for fruit snacks! Allen was able to put her down on the bed and she slept for about an hour. We started to get things packed because we weren't sure she would let allen put her down for the rest of the next day or so. However, once she woke up she did amazingly well for the rest of the afternoon/evening. I'm telling you, we could seriously feel your prayers! She instantly let me hold her and take some pictures with her. Calen was able to make her smile and laugh. She explored our room and ate and played with her new toys! She let me dress her in one of her new outfits and played with me by putting her hair bows in and out of her hair. She even came to me a couple of times for comfort.

Finally asleep on daddy...

Isn't she beautiful?

Woke up to daddy and was semi happy Letting me hold her without crying for the first time!

Grainy picture, but I still love it. Calen just grabbed her head and dived in for a kiss!

In her new outfit- I think she is gorgeous but I might be biased!

Playing in the bath with brother for the first time- Calen wasn't so sure about sharing his bath time

Ready for bed or at least we had hoped!

We got mostly packed and then decided to put the kids to bed. Calen was out in 2 minutes flat as he hadn't had a nap the whole day. KatieJoy however started to grieve again and cried and cried, going back and forth between allen and I because she couldn't decide who the lesser of two evils was. Finally she was in Allen's hands and I grabbed the blanket that her foster mom sent with her and put it on allen's shoulder. She stopped crying buried her head into the blanket and after a few minutes she fell asleep. I forgot how terribly traumatizing it is to listen to your new child cry so deeply for their korean family. It is truly something that is one of the hardest sounds in the world to endure because there is nothing you as a parent can do to make it better for your child. How do you explain to a 11 month old that you are their forever family? You don't. Plain and simple. You just have to endure it until they trust you more and more and it eventually goes away...

I am so excited to come home tomorrow. I have really enjoyed Korea this past week. The sites and sounds are all okay- but the people, the people are why I love this country. More specifically the people that raised my children and are missing them tonight as I am rejoicing in the Lord that I finally have my son & daughter in our presence. I am most sad for our daughter's Omma and Appa tonight...how they must be feeling is not something I can relish on too much at one time because it makes me cry. I am praying for them. I know they must believe in what they do because they have done it for 40 babies...but, I can't imagine how hard it is the first night back home without the baby that was there that morning... So please, as you are rejoicing in the Lord for us and praying for our transition as a family of 4, please pray for them also. Specifically, pray that they have peace that we are a good family and that we will love her so very much...

I doubt I will get to blog tomorrow so please be thinking of us as we start flying home in about 16 hours. We love you all so much and are so grateful to God that he has placed each of you in our lives in some manner...

Love Our Family of Four,

~Mandy, Allen, Calen, AND KatieJoy~

Korea Day 4!

Hi Everyone,

This post shouldn't be too long as we didn't do a whole lot yesterday (okay- it will be long because of pictures/explanations but not from me talking about myself the whole time- lol). We kinda feel like we're duds- so many of my bb friends go to so many places when they are in Korea, but with Calen it is a little hard to do all of it since he is a bit overwhelmed by all the people- especially all the people that come up and talk to him in Korean!

So, yesterday we went on our City Tour of Korea with a guide that Holt provided for our family and another family from Boston who is in Korea picking up their son a half hour after us... our guide was so sweet. She is a college student and her name was Ji-Su. She was very easy going with our two families as we both had "crazy" kids that just wanted to run every where. We started our tour off by going on a subway ride to one of the Palaces in Seoul. It was called Deoksugung. I took a million pictures which is probably good because we didn't end up going to the other palace like we were supposed to because it started raining again after we had lunch in Insadong. Our guide was very informative and told us all about the Palace. Apparently this wasn't a main palace for the Royal Family back in the day, but it was a Palace to stay while their main, bigger Palace was being built- tough being a royal, right?!? :)

Main Throne

There are statues like this everywhere in Seoul!

My beautiful Korean boy with a Beautiful Korean Palace behind him! :-)

There were lots of these archway door ways throughout the grounds

The Ceiling of the Throne Room... very pretty!
The Throne
All the different buildings were like this- high up on big stones. This little gate led to where they would burn wood underneath the buildings to heat the buildings... Very inovative if you ask me! Oh and this is still the way that Korea heats their rooms- well not with fire anymore but with hot water!
The Roof

This building was like a larger grandeous patio. It's where the Royal's would have tea and relax...

The Garden Room led to their private Garden

The end of our tour Calen just wanted to climb stairs

One of our family pictures from Korea- it's hard to get family pictures when there's no one to take the pictures!

Our group :)

After our Palace tour we had about a 20 minute walk back to Insadong for lunch. It was SUPER windy out as the storm was coming in. All Calen wanted to do was get in the pack and sleep on my back- which was just fine because then we didn't have to worry about him running around. We were told that it was very uncommon for Korea to have this kind of wind...just our luck right?

Sights on the way to lunch

A picture of our Hotel for good measure. :) A few minutes before this picture we passed the US Embassy... stupid me tried to take a picture and then got whistled at by the gaurds- Oops!

Both kids with our awesome guide after our lunch and before the down pour of the day!

After lunch we all parted ways. Allen went back to the hotel room and I stayed in Insadong to try and get all of our souvenior shopping done, which I did! Woohoo! It's amazing how safe it is in Seoul... everyone is super friendly to Americans. At the palace all the children wanted to tell us 'Hi.' and 'How are you doing.'- they just want to practice their English skills which is so cute! It's very nice that Insadong is only a 5 minute walk from our hotel. We stayed in the hotel most of the rest of the afternoon since it was raining so much. Calen was super moody since he had only slept on my back for about 30 minutes- if even that. We thought we'd try to find an Outback Steakhouse for Dinner but that didn't go so well...Once we got dropped off by the Taxi Driver at where Outback supposedly is this is what we saw...

We searched for Outback for about 10 minutes and then settled on McDonald's for dinner instead! Calen was super happy with his hamburger and minus the Pizza Hut we had a few days ago, this was the most he had eaten our whole trip...

The last dinner as a family of 3! :)

Once we got back to the hotel, Calen got a bath, asked for some milk and as we were getting his milk this is what happened...

Poor kid! It was only 9 pm and he was just done. He has done this several times while we've been in korea. He never does this at home! He is such a trooper though... I am so proud of him and how he has behaved while we've been here!

We're hoping to see the Korean War Memorial this morning before heading to Holt to pick up KatieJoy forever! It's so wierd to say that... I can't believe this day is finally here... I hope to at least post one more post about today before we leave, but it will all depend on her. Please be praying for her as I can't imagine what she will be feeling when she watches her Foster Family leave. :(

We love you all,

~Mandy~

Korea Day 3- We met KatieJoy!

We haven't done much yet today except meet our new daughter! :-) We had to be at Holt by 10:30 this morning and decided against the subway because we had all of our gifts with us; also, Calen really doesn't like the subway if it's crowded- I think he feels smashed or something ;-) So we had the hotel get us a cab... thankfully Calen's oldest Korean sister wrote out where to take us in Korean- otherwise we would never have gotten to where we needed to go! (by the way- a 20 minute cab ride here costs less than $9- so for us it is totally worth the money to skip the subway with a 2.5 year old!) While we were riding in the cab I kept thinking about how we would never know if we were being taken to the wrong area of Seoul... I kept pushing the thought from my mind until the cabbie stopped and started pointing somewhere that didn't look like anywhere we needed to be. I had a bit of a panic attack and then thought to myself that Christ would get us to where we needed to go- no questions asked- I kept repeating that to myself! The cabbie got on his phone and made a call to find out where he needed to go and about 2 minutes later we were at Holt- see?! God does take care of us and that is something that I keep finding that I trust more and more while I am in this country- I just have to remind myself every once in a while of HIS greatness!


We were early to Holt so we decided to walk to a bakery that many families talk about... well the cabbie saw us and thought we didn't know where we were going so he stopped and yelled at us to go back and kept pointing to the Holt building! We decided to turn around and just be early because the cab driver was looking at us so sincerely- he had gotten us where we needed to be and wanted us to go in... What cab driver in America would do that?!? So we walked into Holt and right as we walked through the door there was KatieJoy! Bestill my heart... Calen looked at her and asked "who is that?!" We said "That's your baby sister!!!" She was being held by her foster father and he kept pointing at us and telling her "omma" and "appa"- she just slightly smiled at us. We walked up the stairs to find our social worker, DJ, while the foster family stayed downstairs.


We found DJ very easily and after apologizing for being early she said the Foster Family is here! and she ushered us into the hallway where we turned around and there they were! KatieJoy was down on the ground waiting for Calen to come say hi. Calen ran up to her and she just laughed at him and smiled! He was so excited to meet her and she acted like she knew who he was already. I wish I had the video camera out for that, but I didn't. We were taken into a small meeting room with 2 small couches and some chairs. Calen immediately took some snacks over to KatieJoy to eat and the foster parents had him put the snacks in her mouth. She was pretty content with eating them :-) And I was just in so much shock staring at her that I had to take a few minutes to get composed enough to start asking the foster mom questions about our sweet girl. So here's the big thing...she has immense stranger anxiety- with anyone. The foster parents were very proud of her because she didn't cry when she met us like she generally does for others. They said that they showed our pictures to her every day and told her that we were her "omma" and "appa" and that she loved to look at the album. So, I'm so glad that I sent those pictures!!! However... that was about how much she liked us- or rather liked me. She could tolerate Allen holding her- she looked around a lot, but didn't mind him so much. She did NOT like me much- didn't want to look at me at all and cried when she did. This is opposite of what happened with Calen so it's hurting my heart a bit right now. Not to mention, she's stuck with me at home for the next month and a half- Allen goes back to work the day after we get back...

KatieJoy with her Appa

KatieJoy with her Omma

Our family all together for the first time!
Daddy's little girl already!


Yep- this is the look I got every time I went near her... :(
Looking for her Omma

My two kids in one picture! :)

We got to hang out a little bit more and learned that she is very healthy now even though she was a preemie. Yeah, healthy is an understatement- this girl is HUGE. I mean totally solid- huge! I am praying that the clothing I brought for her will fit... If not, well, I guess I better hope at least something fits for that plane ride home....

We learned a little bit about her precious Korean Family... they have been doing this a LONG time! Over 20 years and KatieJoy is baby #40! Can you even imagine? I am so grateful to these wonderful people for taking our girl in and loving her since LAST July!!! You see what we're up against? That's a long time to be loved by someone and then have to switch to someone else. The family gave us some gifts- her one year Hanbok, some of her favorite books and her favorite toy. They also gave us a photo album full of pictures of them with her. Looking through this album I really realized just how attached she is to her Appa and Omma. Oh boy is Wednesday going to be difficult. Our social worker, DJ even said she'd be praying for our family.

We layed pretty low the rest of the day. Allen isn't feeling well. Like as in fever and chills not feeling well for the past 2 nights. We did go to Insadong and got some shopping done for others and for our kids. I got a cute Barbie Hanbok and Doll Hanbok for KatieJoy to play with when she's a bit older and then I got both of our children Jade carved Wedding Ducks to give to them when they get older. (This is a Korean tradition that I think is very cute!) I have a little bit more shopping to do tomorrow on our City Tour that Holt provides for us. (Courtney- I will be on the lookout for that post card you requested! I looked tonight but couldn't find one!) If you could keep Allen's illness in your prayers that would be very appreciated...if KatieJoy is only going to want him then he needs to be feeling well! Also, I think it's good to mention here that we think her transition is going to be pretty hard and because of that we are going to keep her pretty close to us. Please don't take offense if we hibernate in our home for a while or if we don't allow her to be held by you. Attachment experts say that the best thing to do is keep her world small for a while to make sure she realizes that we are her parents and that we will be taking care of all her needs. We love you all and want you to all have a relationship with her- just give her a bit of time to get used to her new family and friends...

I should have some good pictures of Korea tomorrow- we get to see a few palaces and some shopping areas on our tour. :-) After that if the rain breaks we hope to hit the Korean War Memorial Mueseum... If we can't do that tomorrow we are hoping to hit it before we pick up KatieJoy for good on Wednesday afternoon.

Love to you all and once again thank you for all your well wishes and prayers- we can definitely feel them!

~Mandy~

Korea Day 2- Emotional Day!

Hi everyone. It is currently 4:46 am in Korea and I was officially up almost an hour ago because apparently I just can't sleep past this hour here. We did hit the bed around 8:45 pm last night though, so thankfully I did get about 7 hours of sleep. Yesterday was one emotional day and we haven't even met KatieJoy yet! WARNING: this is one LONG post!


We got up and headed to breakfast around 9 am to hang out with some other families from our adoption bb. It was a quick visit with both families as Robin and her family were making their way home that day. We took a couple of quick snapshots of the two of us together and then headed back up to our room to prepare to be picked up by Calen's Foster Family.

Let me tell you... getting to hang out with the Foster Family for an entire day is a privlege... this is not something that most families get to do when they visit Korea with their children. A normal visit would have been for us to meet at Holt with the foster mom for about a 1/2 hour. We spent time with the ENTIRE family from around 11 am to 6:30 pm! Very blessed is what Allen and I were yesterday... The oldest sister met us at our hotel and her boyfriend drove up about 10 minutes later to take us to the family's home. The sister spoke very little english but did her best to communicate what they had planned that day. I can't even explain to you how much it doesn't matter that we don't speak the same language here...somehow, through God's grace, we are able to get our point across just fine and understand one another- it is the most amazing experiance. Anyhow, her boyfriend picked us up and he was our translater for the day. He said that he learned English from middle school on and studied for a year in Canada for his job.

Calen's "Korean" family's house (this is what we refer to them as in our home- our Korean Family) was about 30 minutes away from our hotel. We got to see an entirely different side of Seoul while driving... same style buildings and all that but just awesome to get to go somewhere that we probably wouldn't have on our own. Once we got to the family's home we were taken up and the family ran out to see Calen- they were so excited to see him!!! His omma (mom in korean) tried to scoop him up in her arms but Calen was a lot apprehensive and wouldn't let her. She was very gracious and the whole family let him get used to them for a while as they cooked us an entire feast for lunch! I am not kidding when I say that we were treated like family. The family made us something called Bibimbop along with several other side dishes. Allen was in heaven as he had wanted Bibimbop the moment we had walked off the plane! It was delicious!

During lunch we communicated back and forth about what Calen had been like in their home. We learned so many things from them that we had not known before... things that you can only learn from an entire family telling you things that they remembered about their special son/brother. We learned that Calen was a favorite amongst our agency's staff, that he was a little celebrity in their neighborhood, that he would crawl all around their home making the sisters follow him to play. We learned that the sisters all had a curfew because Calen would not sleep until they were all home with him. These sisters were in their mid to late 20's when Calen lived with them and they abided by these rules because they loved and adored him so very much! We learned many other things too- but the curfew thing killed me off...

After lunch they presented us US with presents! They had invited us into their home, picked us up, drove us there, made us a feast and then they had presents for us! I about dropped to the floor bawling but I held it together. They gave Calen a beautiful new Hanbok for his 4 year birthday and they gave us some traditional Korean bookmarks along with a traditonal Korean light that will have some very special place in my home once we get back to California. I was so glad that I had taken time to think about some gifts that they would like... I only wish I could have done more for them along with gotten the oldest and youngest sisters boyfriends something... I might have to put a care package together soon! Once dessert and gift exchanges ended, we learned that the sisters and boyfriends wanted to take us some place special in Korea. We were all for it! However, here is where it got emotional. This meant that I had to leave their home... I had to leave the woman who took care of Calen before he joined his Forever Family. Calen went up to give her a hug because he had finally warmed up to the idea of being there... he finally relaxed and it was almost as if his body had remembered where he was. He melted into her arms when she hugged him... she talked to him softly in Korean and started to cry quiet tears, his sisters were all softly crying too. I teared up but didn't start to bawl. Yet. We talked a bit more while getting ready to leave and everyone calmed down- no more tears just smiles and laughter. Then it was time to go. I went to hug his omma and tell her thank you for all she had done for our son and our family and I lost it. She hugged me very tightly and we both were crying. I finally let go of her and she of me and when I looked around the room there wasn't a dry eye in the place. Allen was even crying... crying harder than I had seen him cry in a very long time. How do you thank a family for their hospitality and love for your son who they cared for as their own? HOW? I still don't know- other than knowing that bringing Calen with us to Korea for the soul purpose of seeing our Korean Family was the BEST decision we could ever have made. We finally made it down the stairs to the cars and then hugged a few more times with some more tears and thank you's... It was so very hard for me to leave Omma Song.

Us with our Korean Family- aren't they wonderful!?!

Calen with the whole family, including both boyfriends! :)

Once in the cars (we had to take 2) Allen and I were still silently crying and tearing up. Our Korean family was so kind... they just let us do what we had to. Calen was just fine and didn't even notice how we were feeling- thank goodness! Once Allen and I pulled it together they told us where we were going. They drove us all the way out of Seoul almost all the way to the North Korean border to a place that most tourists didn't know of because it was about an hour away from Seoul. It was called Heyri- prounounced like Hey-e-di- and this place was a HOT spot for families! I don't even know what to compare this place to back in the US... it was huge- I mean probably miles huge and all spread out on these hills. It was basically a place for the Arts... lots of art mueseums and kid friend places to play. I wish I could explain it better than that, but I don't think I can. We were told that this was a place that the family thought would be neat for us to see because it wasn't the normal thing to do when in Korea. They were totally right! I loved it- how did they know that I loved the Arts so much? We spent the entire afternoon just walking around and letting Calen hang out with this precious family. They all doted on him the entire time... it was so amazing to witness. They wouldn't let us buy anything the entire day... they invited us so it is customary to pay for everything from Calen's little "donkey" ride to our sweet treats at the end of the day. I was so humbled yesterday... and comfortable at the same time. I felt as if I had known these women and men my entire life- the language barrier was not an issue- just being with one another meant the world to all of us...

First sign I saw that I loved at Heyri- it says "At here, I hope you can be proud of yourself because you are Korean."

Some of the Buildings

Some of the Art

Calen's "donkey" ride :)

A popular Kid's cartoon in Korea- her name means Strawberry
Calen's Sisters

I know this isn't the most wonderful picture- but I love it. This is Calen's youngest sister's boyfriend and he helped care for Calen too. Apparently they loved each other and he worked so hard to get Calen's affection yesterday and Calen wouldn't give it until the end... the pure happiness on his face meant the world to me yesterday- this is one of my FAV pictures from yesterday and probably our whole trip...

I don't think I'm making the emotions of what yesterday was like clear and I'm sorry. I wish you could see my face as I think about it- either I'm glowing from the amazingness of it or I'm crying. See, I really don't think I'm putting the right words to this...

Once it was time to go, we had to say goodbye to the middle and younger sister and her boyfriend as they had driven in another car. That was hard again for me, but I just teared up- I didn't bawl... We drove back to the hotel with the oldest sister and her boyfriend and it took a little over an hour because of traffic. Traffic in Seoul is Crazy! Seriously, I've never been to New York but it's what I imagine New York to be like (we were told yesterday that 16 million people live in Seoul!). While we drove I took some pictures from the car of the Han river and it's barbed wire fences surronding it. Remember I said we were close to North Korea? Well, there was all this barbed wire that had been set up nearly 30 years ago and is still there today as a caution to keep out North Korean spies. There were even some bunkers and little outpost buildings that had South Korean military with GUNS in them for safety. It was pretty amazing to see that.

There are buildings like this everywhere! We were told they are apartments and that in Korea you buy and apartment like you would a house in America.

The Han River is HUGE and there are many many beautiful bridges that cross it.

The Outposts with Soldiers along the river- see the barbed wire?
Once we got back to our hotel we had one more set of goodbyes. These were a little easier just because we were so tired, but hard to watch them drive away just the same. We had Pizza Hut delievered to our room thanks to the front desk ordering for us just because we were so tired we didn't want to have to find a place to eat. It was delicious- actually way better than in the states! :)

After our day yesterday, Allen and I realized just what we were up against this week. We had to do this all over again with KatieJoy in just a few days. These families love on our children until it's time for them to go home to their Forever Families, but they don't ever stop thinking about them or loving them. Most amazing thing in the world to witness. Again, I just don't have the right words... We get to meet KatieJoy in a little less than 5 hours. Please be praying for us! We are so excited and yet so emotional about what we will be doing to her and her Korean Family this week. I have a good friend that told me to remember that this is what's in God's plan for our little ones lives and that it has to be fulfilled- that is what I'm stowing away in my heart right now- that God see's the big picture on Calen's and KatieJoy's lives and that we are the MOST privleged people in the world to get to raise these children as our own. Thank you Lord for your most amazing gifts that are our Korean born children and thank you for amazing Korean Families that we get to become apart of through our children and the wonderful care that Holt International provides...

Yesterday was one of the most memorable days of my life and I will treasure it my heart always!

We love you all,

~Mandy~