3 am and all is well...

 
You know, when we collapsed into bed last night, we thought we'd sleep forever. But Zoe woke me up at 2:30 telling me that she couldn't sleep anymore, and that she'd already been next door to visit my parents (!), and that she was enjoying wearing her new hot pink slippers she'd bought yesterday at the Tax Center (one word for the Tax Center: WOW.)

So here I am, knowing that today is the day we SEE our son...not in pictures, or in video snippets, or via updates provided by our agency...but in real life. There have been times in this process that Sam seemed very abstract..the paperwork, the delays, the frustrations, often seemed quite removed from a real living PERSON. Yet now, I know we're occupying the same country and the same time zone (although obviously not the same sleep schedule). Pretty heavy stuff. Obviously not the kind of thoughts that lull a mom back to sleep. So as in the case of any mom, I'll occupy myself with minutiae... until the 4 hours pass until we load up the van and head to Ninh Thuan.

Tricia and Rob and Ben have been terrific travel partners! Their previous trip to get Ben has benefited us immensely! Both kids were real troopers, and there were no unanticipated delays with any of our flights. We met up with Betsy and Nathan when we landed at Hong Kong. Nice, nice people--their Caleb is gonna have some neat parents! We also visited briefly with the Cooks (also very nice!), who have apparently taken in Vietnam for the last week or so. They'll all head towards Vinh Long and Can Tho this morning, and we'll head to Sam's province of Ninh Thuan. Then after our G&R ceremony on the 19th, we'll all meet back here at HCM and continue on together to Hanoi.

I love these 2 pics: bookends to a thrilling 2 day journey to get here..early on, Zoe and my parents, fresh and wired up on ice cream, awaiting our departure from LR. Then the last one: the setting is our beautiful rooftop restaurant at the Rex. Zoe would have been so thrilled with this huge plate of french fries, had she only been awake. Who would have thought this "becoming a sister" business would be so EXHAUSTING?