Another possible delay

The paperwork required for the Canadian Embassy here in Hanoi was not translated on time Friday, so we were not able to begin processing Nate's passport. We are supposed to leave here Wed night. We learned of another couple here where it just took them 9 days to get their Cdn passport...

Once again we are sitting here wondering and really wanting to get this boy home.

Stay tuned...

A message from Nate to you

Stylin' Nate

The kid has some photogenic capacity...check these out:

The heat

Not sure if you noticed, but I am sweating alot in the pics and vids. Because its very hot here. It rains most days, and unlike in Canada, it actually gets hotter after the rain.

If anyone from TDH is reading, can you hook us up with our next adoption? I am thinking Iceland would be great.

I hope the air conditioning is working in the new office...

Thanks
Brian

Took Nate to the clinic

He was horribly congested, snotty, coughing, chest rattling, sneezing and generally looking/sounding like most Canadians in the middle of January. That is what it must have been like for him in our apartment with the air con set to the highest temp of 25 degrees after growing up in the tropical heat and humidity at the orphanage.

A great international clinic just down the street, The SOS, with a great Irish doctor. Now we have some medicine to dole out 2x per day.


Oh, and he likes to scratch his face and head, so even though we have filed down his nails, we still have to put little gloves on his hands to protect his scalp.


Here are his new measurements - 36 / 24 / 36


I mean weight - 7.42 KG. Length - 64 cm. Head size - big. Everyone who stops to talk to us thinks he is about 7 months old. You can plot that size on this chart here if you like.


Thats it for now.


B & N & N


p.s. Chris - whats up with the Canucks?
p.p.s. Nicole does not endorse all of the links in this blog.

Now it's time for....more waiting!

That's right, passports and citizenship applications and paperwork is underway. But that is OK because it gives us time to spend with Nate, getting to know him and he gets to know us. How can we get him on our sleep schedule? That is the next task.

We received a few more pictures of the G&R ceremony thanks to M and L, so thought we would share.










Here we sign the register to make it official with Nate looking on rather bored, but damn cute...

The ride home was pretty restful for Nate, it was a big day afterall...

In other related news, Nate had his first poo this morning, it wasn't pretty. No picture, but if anyone wants it, leave a comment and I will capture the next one. More of that to come, we know...

Hope to get home soon.

B & N & N

it's pretty much official at this point...

Well, the day started with very little fan-fare, just like any other day you would expect to be picking up a child for the first time - writhing around on the bathroom floor waiting for my keeper to take me away. That was my morning anyways. Started at about 5:30 and I havent had a bite to eat in over 12 hours.

But enough about me. We got the call about picking up Nate and got the gears in action...Nicole did at least. I stayed in bed until the last possible moment. Sure enough they arrived at 12-ish like they promised and we were off. 2 hours later we are at the orphanage and in a whirlwind, we are changing Nate into his special ceremonial outfit. Good lookin kid, picked his outfit out to match mine. Check out this short vid to check it out:

Then we were back into the van, dodging traffic through the mountains on our way to the Ministry office in Hoa Binh. This is where the official Giving and Receiving ceremony takes place, in a room that looks like this:

There are some official people sitting around, us and another couple waiting their turn as well. They said some words, we signed some papers, they took some pictures, we took some pictures, they coo'd at the babies and we gave them gifts. Then we left, hitting Hanoi rush hour traffic for 5:30. I know what commuters put up with on the QEW, but this is ridiculous. We are back at the apartment, so all that is left is to look at each other with confusion as to what we do next. I know I am tired and still queasy, but we gotta look after this guy now. Help...

Until next time, we are off to figure out how to feed him.

Cheers

Brian