Fun at the pool

After Kamin woke up from his nap this morning, Lowell took him down to the community pool where Mikaela and Toby were swimming with their aunt and cousins.  (I stayed home and did the dishes and laundry in a quiet house all by myself.  Ahhh...)  As you can see, Kamin and his daddy are getting along very well.  : )  In case you don't know them...  in this first pic in the background from left to right is Toby, cousin Connor, the back of Mikaela's head and Lowell's sister Carmen.  Andy is taking the pictures.

While we are all having lots of fun, our sweet little boy is definitely starting to miss his old home.  He's been fighting going to sleep (which he didn't do at first) and has woken up a few times very, very sad.  We suspect he's dreaming about the home he loved for the last eleven months and missing his family there.  It's so sad, but we know it's part of the process and better for him to cry and grieve the loss than not to.  You can pray for him that he'll get through the grief and that we'll know how to help him and comfort him.  All in due time, we know.  (And yes Mom, we know this too shall pass.)  : )

Kamin's Video

Here's a super short video from our hotel room... : )

If you watch it several times, it will seem longer. : )

Pictures....

So here we go.  First attempt for pics.  And, yes, he is smiling a lot more these days....

Lowell's Post

I promise... pictures are coming today... (exclamation points) : )
Here's Lowell's post about the visit on Monday... written Tuesday morning:

This may be one of the very few times I (Lowell) ever post to Melissa's blog, but she graciously allowed it today! Yesterday, August 25, 2008 (Thai time), we got to visit Kamin's foster family and home. Quite an experience! The day started with Kamin coming to the hotel with the social workers, then us, them, and the other two adopting families from Norway went to a "western" mall, many stories high, and lunch there in the food court. Much like Macy's I would say...

After returning to the hotel, we brought Kamin up to our room for a bit, and enjoyed playing again. He was very tired by this point, and struggling to not let sleep keep him from monitoring these strange people that had dragged him around all over the place! We left soon after with the social workers in a van for the foster family's home, and Kamin finally fell asleep in Mel's arms. Toby joined him soon after, but Mikaela seemed to enjoy the 1+ hour van trip to the house, east of Bangkok just outside the city.

We drove down a very narrow street, and stopped in front of a small cement path leading down between two houses. As we got further, we saw Kamin's foster mom standing there, and he saw her too. He was quite eager to jump into her arms, and we let him go from us for the last time. He was handed around to different family members while we met with the family, and we enjoyed the time, although with some sadness since we knew big changes would be taking place very soon in his life. We sat down together in their living room, and the foster dad joined us, along with one of the granddaughters, then the other a bit later. We asked a bunch of questions, they asked some of us, and the foster mom was asked if she had any concerns about Kamin leaving with us. She said no, since she could see how we were with Toby and Mik - a very gracious comment since she had just met us. Guessing after having 11 foster kids, she can size people up quickly! We gave out our gifts, then walked around a bit to see the property. The family has a rice farm, raises rabbits, and seemed to love our little guy a whole bunch. Tears were shed by us all, yes, including me, and we said goodbye way too quickly. In the van on the way home both Mel and I stated that it seemed like a blurr, and that not enough time was to be had there, but in thinking about it further, realized there probably would never be enough time.

The ride home seemed quick, and we celebrated our last night together as a family of 4 with Burger King, but with high anticipation of today, when Kamin joins us for good. Not sure I am ready to be the daddy of 3, but guessing God is pushing me that direction, so I figure I will just do the faith fall into His hands on this one. Kamin joins us at 11 am this morning, or so, and we will spend the day together for the first time as the NNnnn's family. More soon!

(Sorry, but have been unable to upload pics from the hotel - hopefully will get some on the blog in a few days from Chonburi.)

Lowell

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Bye, Bye Bangkok

Hi there everyone. (Hmmm... this is going to be a challenge... I'm using the Owen family laptop and the exclamation point key doesn't seem to work. How do I write this without being able to end my sentences with multiple exclamation points??? Well, you'll just have to believe me that they're there in my head.) I thought I was going to write a really long post tonight, but it turns out that I'm tired (surprise, surprise) and need to go to bed. I should have more time tomorrow so I'm hoping to write more soon. But here's a little info for you while you wait... It's been a really good week. Kamin (or O or whatever you'd like to call him... we haven't settled on a forever name yet...) was placed in our hands for good on Tuesday and Wednesday we were approved by the Thai board to keep him. Monday we got to go visit his foster family and it was so incredibly special. Lowell actually tried to post something here that afternoon and we didn't discover until a little while ago that it didn't work. sorry... If we can find it in his yahoo sent box we'll still post it... but we can't get in until we get on the other computer that has a functioning "one" key. : ) Our meeting with the Thai board on Wed. almost got cancelled because there is some serious political unrest occuring currently on the streets of Bangkok -- some not too far away from where our meeting was. The night before our social worker called us and said we might not have it but in the morning said we were good... The meeting was short and sweet (thanks in part to kamin's stranger anxiety... he didn't want me to sit anywhere close to the board members) and ended with the head lady asking Toby and Mikaela if they wanted to keep Kamin and saying that if we wanted to, we could keep him. : ) Today we were supposed to have our visa interview at the US embassy, but they called us last night and said they don't have all of our paperwork yet (but we've been told it's on its way) so we got to skip that meeting and checked out of our hotel in Bangkok. (We'll have to make a day trip back next week for the visa.) we are so glad to be out of there and to be in a place where we have space for nice walks and the kids can play with their cousins. We're staying in the house right next door to Lowell's sister. Their neighbors are out of town and very happy to let us use their place so here we are. It's been great and feels a bit like a honeymoon for us all, though Kamin is a bit unsettled with the change and the new people. But hopefully it won't be too bad. I still think it's going to be really good for us all to be together here for a while before going home--if for no other reason that he and lowell can bond more, since that's been a slower process (understandably), before Lowell goes back to work when we get home. Kamin is an amazing little boy. He's definitely going to keep me on my toes more than either of my other kids did... He's a lot of fun and we're all loving each other more every day. He has amazed me with how well he's done through all this. I think it's very largely due to Mikaela and Toby being here. He was used to being around other kids so it's been good. I'm definitely feeling the stretch of having a new one and not getting to pay as much attention to the older kids, but I know it won't be like this forever and we'll make it. Well, that ended up being longer than I expected... though there's still much more I'd love to tell you about and hope to soon. I'm too tired to try to post pictures right now but Lowell probably will tomorrow. Maybe I'll even include a picture of the mysterious bite i got on my knee this afternoon that made an artery or vein on my knee swell up and turn into a big bruise. Very strange. I guess it's all part of saying goodbye to Bangkok and hello to Bang Saen. : ) Goodnight everyone... ; ) ~Melissa

"The Best Day Ever"

I'm going to try to figure out how to even begin to describe the last couple of days... I'm sure it will take some time to process it all... but it's been so very good! I actually wrote something to try and post this morning but we never got that far. But what happened after is what you all want to hear about anyway! : ) This morning at around 11:00 we finally got to meet Kamin! It turns out his nickname is "O". : ) Very cute... When they first brought him in to us (with 2 other children being adopted by families from Norway) he was hesitant and a bit unsure of us, but when he started to fuss, the social worker (a young lady) asked if I wanted to hold him and he came right to me! He wasn't exactly happy, but he held on pretty tightly. for the next couple of hours he was in my arms almost the whole time and preferred it if I was standing and walking with him. He ate some lunch with us and let me feed him his bottle and toward the end in our hotel room actually wanted to get down and crawl around on the floor. We could tell that he hadn't gotten a long enough nap in the morning and he almost fell asleep several times, but he was pretty determined not to give in. I am so incredibly grateful that he let me hold him (Lowell was a bit jealous - but he did get him to smile the first time) and I'm also glad I have the baby carrier since another day like today might just make my arm fall off. : ) It turns out the two granddaughters of his foster parents who live with him are 5 and 7, which explains why he was so comfortable with Mikaela. : ) there were several times she came to give him a hug and he very obviously hugged her back. she said after he was gone that today was the best day ever. : ) I'm on a deadline here if I don't want to pay much more for the computer and I want to try to post a picture... Tomorrow we go visit the foster family after another outing. So far so good!!! Thanks for all your prayers and thanks God for answering to wonderfully. : )