Saturday, October 6, 2007

NATIONAL PALACE MUSEUM










Brady hangin out in the stroller before we went into the museum, which was really great, and I'm not a "museum person".











The family picture.










Alan, Brady and I with Mr. Yeh, our driver (on the left) and Ray, from Commonwealth.











Mr. Yeh with Brady. He is SO good with the babies and really helps out as much as he can.

FIRST DAY AS A FAMILY!

Brady's just hanging out on the bed being the happy boy that he is!

Hangin' with Daddy in the Baby Bjorn on our trip to Carrefour to buy a stoller and some other things. (Michael, thanks for the Baby Bjorn...it really was a life saver!!)
Later that evening we walked over to Taipei 101 to get some take out, but Brady fell asleep so we "dined in".

FIRST NAP!

Brady fell asleep in the car on the way back to the hotel after our sightseeing. While the thought of no car seats is kinda scary, I will say I think it totally helps with the whole bonding experience. Over the next several days Brady took many naps in our arms!!

CHANGHUA CITY (Gotcha Day Cont'd)











This is the big Budda statue in Brady's birth city. You can go inside the Budda, but we decided to not push our luck with Brady since we had just met!!























Dad and Brady. Unfortunately the sun was in their eyes, so Brady's not very happy.










The gold statue in the foreground is the 7 dragons. I don't know all the history/meaning behind the Budda and the 7 dragons, so after I do some research I'll add to this post.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

SORRY!!

I know you all are wanting pictures and believe me, I'd LOVE to get them up on the blog, but the internet connection is not very good and it's obviously gotten worse since we first got here because now I can't get any pictures uploaded(and I've tried several times a day and at different times, but no luck)......UUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!! We're all still doing great. Brady is really such a good baby and we couldn't be happier. He basically only cries when he is tired or hungry...and speaking of hungry, that boy can eat!!! I think he could take on Kobiashi (sp?) and give him a real run for his money!!! Brady is very happy and his giggle just makes me laugh even more.

So what have we done since we picked him up on Monday? After we left the foster mom's house we went to a baby store to buy formula, diapers, and such. Then we had Mr. Yeh take us to the city of Changhua, which is Brady's birth city. There is a GIGANTIC buda statue there, so we went there and took some pictures. (In case anyone is wondering, we did not meet the birth parents, they apparently couldn't be there, but we did get a picture of the 3 of them together so that will be nice for Brady to have in his scrapbook.) After Changhua we came back to the hotel and settled in. Tuesday we got up did the breakfast thing and then went to a Wal Mart type store to buy a stroller so we could take Brady for a spin around town!! He LOVES the stroller, so we actually walked over to the Taipei 101 building twice that day...once just to get him out and walk around and the second time was for dinner, which was originally going to be "to go", but Brady fell asleep in the stroller so we were able to "dine in". Wednesday we had our appointment at AIT to get Brady's passport and visa. All went well there, except for the fact that we THOUGHT we had our passports in our document holder but they were actually in the safe in the hotel room and we didn't realize this until we pulled up in front of the building, so Mr. Yeh had to drive us back to the hotel to get them and then back to AIT!! I guess we were there for about an hour or so (and of course they didn't ask us for ONE piece of the MOUNDS of paperwork that we hand carried with us!!). After AIT we went to the National Palace Museum, which was very interesting and again, Brady was awesome....thank goodness for the stroller!! This is a funny story: we headed back to the lobby to find Mr. Yeh and we waved at him in the coffee shop and he comes out with another gentlemen that I don't recognize(who by the way is Asian). As they approach this man says "Alan, hi", "Ray", and Alan says "Oh, hi Ray" and I'm standing there not having a clue who this was, so I figured it was some relative of Alan's that I had never met(yes, this happens at lots of family events and my other "related to the Suan's/Chang's by marriage can back me up on this....their family is quite large) and I'm getting a bit annoyed at this point because Alan hasn't introduced me yet, nor has this guy introduced himself. So, we all start to walk and I say as softly as I can to Alan, "um, who is Ray?" and Alan says, "you know, the guy we had our travel talk with", and I'm like, "OH, Ray from Commonwealth"!!! Lo and behold, Ray is the director of our Agency's Taiwan Program B and he happened to be here to talk with the partnering agency on this end. Anyway, long story long, we ended up having dinner with him and the Co-Founder of CW that night and had a really nice time. (blogettes, I got some info I'll share later, but nothing too earth shattering). Today we went back to AIT to pick up Brady's visa and passport and then we went to the Taipei zoo, but our visit was cut short by rain, which was a bummer, because it was quite nice. We got back to the hotel early and have been just laying low and packing up getting ready for our departure tomorrow night. We've got an early day tomorrow because we are going to Wulai for part of the day. We decided to book our room for an extra night so that we can come back to the room after Wulai and get cleaned up before our 24 hours of flying. So, the next post SHOULD be one with pictures, I just can't guarntee how soon I'll get them up, but I'll do my best to get them up here as soon as possible after we've gotten home. We'll see everyone when we get home!!!

Monday, October 1, 2007

GOTCHA DAY!!! (AKA "BRADY DAY")










Brady was asleep when we arrived at the foster mother's house so this is how we "met him".












The first picture of Mom and Brady together (FINALLY!!).












The first picture of Dad and Brady together (FINALLY!!).














The Suan Family of 3....together at last!! : )

No pictures yet

Sorry to tell everyone that the pictures from GOTCHA DAY will have to wait til later. We've had problems uploading photo's at night here, but seem to be able to upload with no problems in the mornings, so I will post pics as soon as I can in the morning. We're all doing fine, everything went great today and our little boy is sleeping away...and we're right behind him!!!