Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distand land.

Proverbs 25:25

Our prayers were answered! After nearly having a nervous breakdown and almost driving my husband insane as well, we received a call this afternoon that we have our log in date!!!!!!!!!!! Our LID is August 29th. To say that we're excited would be a HUGE understatement. I was at the center when Kimberly called me and I'm so thankful we didn't have a client at the time. I was jumping up and down and squealing like a 5 year old who just got a puppy for her birthday! This has been an unbelievably awesome day!

Let me try to explain what this means in case I didn't last night. I was so upset I honestly don't remember if I did or not. Now that we have our LID, the next thing we'll be waiting for is our G&R date, or giving and receiving date. That will be the date of the official ceremony where we are given custody of our daughter by the Vietnamese government. We expect to get our G&R date between 8 and 12 weeks from our LID. That means we could have our G&R as early as October 24th! Of course it could even come earlier, but it most certainly could come later, too. The last group from Dillon who got their G&R's waiting 12 weeks. Please pray with us that we are able to bring Olivia home ASAP!!! We would be thrilled to be with her for Halloween! I better take a bag of sugarless candy with me to Vietnam just in case :<)

Speaking of sugarless candy, can you still bring gum on a plane with you? I'm still puzzled about what is and isn't ok. I'm very concerned about not being able to take my treasured strawberry lipgloss with me on board! My checked baggage is simply too far away! How will I live through a 17 hour flight without any lip gloss?!? I suppose if Mike can live 2+ weeks without a pocket knife surely I can manage a day without lipgloss!

By the way, we're 99% sure that we've decided to let Jake stay with JuJu and Daddy Don while we go to bring Olivia home. I've been trying my best to remind myself that I need to think about what's best for Jake and not for me. Jake would no doubt we happier here playing and being spoiled by his grandparents than flying around the world and riding on bumpy buses in a 3rd world country. It will be so incredibly difficult, but we know God will take care of our family on both sides of the world until we can all be FINALLY together!

I can't tell you how much we covet your prayers. I don't think we've ever needed them as much in our lives - for Olivia, us and Jake. Please please please pray for Olivia's health and well being, for speedy paperwork and travel, for Jake to be happy and healthy and for us not to loose our minds without him! Mike and I could also use a few prayers for patience too please! Oh and while you're sending up prayers, feel free to pray for God to provide financing to get us half way across the world! He has been so faithful to provide for us! We are so so so blessed!

Frustration

I'm on the verge of pulling my hair out. I realize that this has been an incredibly long journey and we're almost to the end and God has perfect timing, etc. but we're SO CLOSE to finally having Olivia home that the waiting has gotten much much harder. Our agency told us last week that our dossier would be hand delivered to the government agency that does adoptions in Hanoi on Monday morning which was Sunday afternoon our time. They said we should expect a log in date (LID) either this week or next. I've been BEYOND excited about this, because it's the last thing we'll wait for before we get our travel approval (TA.) I've been patiently (well - maybe not so patiently) waiting for our LID for several weeks now. Knowing that our dossier was being delivered Monday was VERY exciting!

I still haven't heard about our LID, but I wasn't getting too terribly worried yet. That was until I logged onto the Dillon forum tonight. Three other families received an email Tuesday night with LID's of August 29th. We didn't receive an email. Did someone just hit me with a bat? Gosh - it sure feels like it. Oh my gosh. I just want to scream!!!!! I want our LID. Not just sort of, not just kinda - but I want it desperately. I can't put into words what the waiting is getting to be like. For most of the families going through Dillon they've received TA about 8 weeks after they received their LID. That's why it's so important. Our LID will put everything in motion for us to be able to go to Vietnam. I actually take back what I said before. I don't want it desperately - I NEED it. If anyone out there has spare time on their hands, please pray pray pray for us to get our LID and TA and most importantly our DAUGHTER!!!!!

Perhaps I've vented enough for tonight. I'll try to share some happiness! Yes there is some! I've started decorating Olivia room at long last! Her bed is made and adorable. She has a lovely new rug to spend afternoons on having tea parties with her dolls. I bought material today to make her curtains. There are lots of darling pillows and a cute white book shelf with flowers on it. A wicker chair I painted white that will have a lovely pillow on it matching the curtains after I make all of it in the next day or two, but MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!! her chandelier!!! I decided many months ago that a princess like Olivia deserved a crystal chandelier in her room. Everyone thinks I'm nutty of course, but once you see it, you'll change your minds! It's gorgeous! I scoured the internet and looked on Ebay for weeks before I finally came across an amazing deal. If you know me at all, you know that I don't buy anything if it's not a great deal! I finally came across one that was perfect except for one small detail. It had gold detail. Yuck and poo. I bid on it anyway because it was an amazing deal and I got it. I paid $50 for a Swarvoski chandelier. Perhaps this doesn't mean much to most of you, but I assure you it's a fantastic deal! It's been sitting in our bedroom for 4 or 5 months, but I got it out yesterday, took it apart and painted all of the non-crystal parts white. We put it back together and Mike put it up in her room this evening. It's absolutely positively GORGEOUS!!! I'm so thrilled with it. It's perfect. Once her room is all done, I'll post some pictures. Mike assures me that she'll hate all of this fancy stuff and want her room done in camouflage, but I'm betting she'll be happy to have a fancy room and save the camo to wear hunting. She can always hang her first buck in her room to hold her purses!

NEW PICTURES!!!

We were so excited this morning when our social worker, Kimberly, called us to say she was emailing us lots of new pictures of Olivia! We received 9 in all and will be receiving a VIDEO of her next week!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are so incredibly excited about getting a video of our sweet girl! The director of the Vietnam program, Jynger, has been in Vietnam for the last two weeks with the first two families from our agency to pick their children up. They have had some INS problems and are having to stay over another week. Please be in prayer for them and their families as one family and Jynger have left their small children at home in the states and are missing them terribly. Whether or not to take Jake with us to Vietnam has been such a huge struggle. We still haven't decided for sure yet. I just can't imagine being away from him for two weeks much less three. I also worry a great deal about taking Jake to a 3rd world country and not having enough attention to go around for him and our new daughter, who definitely deserves our undivided attention for at least the first couple of weeks. Attachment is a very serious issue especially considering Olivia is already over 2 years old. It's incredibly important that she bond with us early. It will be difficult to give her 100% attention with Jake there also. Oh all the decisions are frustrating!

Anyway, here are some of the new pictures of Olivia. We hope you enjoy them. They have definitely brightened up our day!

Olivia Frances Thi Munn

We were thrilled to receive a new picture of Olivia this week! We now have three pictures of her and not one of her smiling! I can't wait to see her beautiful smile in person. Hopefully it will only be another 2 or 3 months before we finally hold our angelic girl in our arms. I've been busy this week buying her lots of clothes! I had been compiling a wardrobe for her over the last two years and now that we actually have her age, a lot of the clothes I had purchased or inherited were too small. I've been scouring the 75% off sale rack at Stage since we got our referral! I just wish I knew what size shoe she wears!

HOME SWEET HOME

If you check this blog with any regularity, you've probably noticed we've been MIA for several weeks! As soon as Jake's pneumonia was finally getting better, Mike started having pain in his lower back on the right side. This is a very bad sign. This pain can only mean one thing - another kidney stone. He managed on his own for a couple of days before we ended up in the ER. Our doctor wanted to admit him, but he was insistent on toughing it out at home. If it weren't for my wonderful sister, Cerra, and her briefcase full of meds (she has a terrible bone disease called a vascular necrosis) Mike couldn't have made it.

By a great miracle from God, Mike's kidney stone finally passed ending our family's bad health streak. Well, except for the fact that he also had bronchitis. He healed from that pretty quickly though. We were even able to go to our friend Vincent's wedding in Montana as we had planned. Mike, Jake and I drove 5,200 miles in 10 days and covered 11 states. We had a great trip! We spent 3 of those days in San Diego with Uncle Joby (aka my brother, Joe.) We saw lots of sights on our trip, but Jake especially loved the beach and the San Diego Zoo! He loved the pandas most. We had a caricature done of Jake at the zoo and his picture has a panda in it. The artist also drew one of Olivia from her photo. It's one of her at the beach. They're so cute! I'll try to remember to take a picture of them to post.

We're all very happy to be home, especially Jake. The last couple of days we were on the road, he had started to refer to the backseat as his "room." We definitely knew it was time to go home then! He was such an angel though. Even with all of the time we spent driving, he never complained once. We are such lucky parents. Now, if we could only get our daughter home, we could finally be a complete family!