Christmas in Fresno

Abby on the small screen

Here are two links to the two videos we have recieved. One is her original referral video. The other is the video from the update.

Abby 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLBR7SeUG5s
Abby 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx7WhKJQzm4

Christmas Update!!

We are so excited-we didn't think we would get to see Abby again before January but we got an update today!!

Here are some pics of our precious baby:

As measured on 11/25/2008, Abby's height was 20 inches, weight 7 pounds 5 ounces, head size 34cm, chest size 33cm, and she drinks 90cc of milk every 4 hours. Being new parents, we have no idea if this is normal but we are sure she is amazing!

Jonathan's Test

Jonathan took his test today to become a LEED accredited architect and......he passed.

The test was a tough one and he knows good architects who have had trouble passing so we are very thankful that he passed the first time. LEED accreditation is important for architects who are focusing on keeping their architecture as green as possible. His firm is proud of him and, of course, so are we!!

The World of Taiwanese Adoption: What Happens Now?

Everyone has been asking us what is happening between now and when we will travel to Taiwan to pick up baby Abby. Here is a run down of the Taiwanese court process that will legally make Abby our daughter. It gets a little technical but people have been asking and goodness knows I can't explain it all! It adds up to about 5 more months of waiting. Sigh.

District Court Process
a. The family court office reviews the case/petition and a Judge is assigned to the case.
b. Judge reviews and considers the case and schedules a "hearing". Hearings are handled differently depending on the birth family's situation, the judge's schedule, persons representing the birth family and those representing the adoptive family. The time involved in getting a hearing scheduled depends on the judge's calendar/schedule and that of everyone else, required to attend.

What happens during the hearing?
Most often, the hearing just provides a judge with more information about the case and allows him/her to rule on the adoption with confidence. The responsibility of the District Court is to make sure that every issue related to the best interest of the child has been considered. Though lengthy &frustrating at times, the District Court process protects the child, the birth parent, the organization caring for the child, AND in the end protects us as adoptive parents. When the District Court decisions have been made, adoptive families can be confident that the process was handled with consideration and in the best interest of the child.

Next comes the FIRST RULING (Part 1 of first decree)
Once the District Court hearing has been completed and the judge has had time to make a decision to finalize the adoption, he/she issues the first part of the Final Decree. This is a short statement signed by the judge that is forwarded to the parties involved (social services organization on behalf of the adoptive family and the birth family) notifying everyone of his/her decision to finalize the adoption. This first part of the Final Decree must go to each party and there is a waiting period of 10 days before any more can happen to ensure everyone has been notified of the judge's decision. The First Ruling generally comes about a month after the Hearing.

The Second and Final Ruling (Part II of Final Decree)
Once the 10 day waiting period is up, the second part of the Final Decree is forwarded to all parties. When the second part of the decree is received by your child's social service organization, the court process is DONE!

After the Final Ruling we will travel to pick up Abigail!
Families usually travel about 2 weeks after the final ruling but sometimes only a week’s notice is given-yikes!

'Tis the Season

Christmas time is here (to the tune of a Charlie Brown Christmas)! We have been doing fun Christmasy things and talking about what traditions we will start with our new little family. Here is what we have for sure:

Decorating Christmas cookies for us and the neighbors. Don't laugh-we know they don't look like much but it was fun!!

Driving around to look at Christmas lights while listening to Christmas songs. Trust us, the lights look much better than the camera captured. Here is just an example.

Jon and I went to his office Christmas party at the Boathouse downtown. The San Diego harbor lights are so cool. The tall ships are all lit up and it all adds to the magic. (Am I shmaltzy or what?)
We also sang in a Christmas musical for Donna, which was fun. It was a beautiful score about the hope of Christmas.

Jon in New Orleans

Last week Jon "had" to go to New Orleans for an architecture conference. His whole family loves the city of New Orleans and he was able to get some great food and sightseeing in between his conference sessions. He called me from the Cafe Dumonde twice!

The French Quarter:Here is a pic of the cathedral:A great old cemetary in the Garden District:

Happy Thanksgiving

Jon and I decided to drive up to LA and go to Universal Studios together. It was a lot of fun spending time as a couple and a nice distraction from obsessing about the fact that our adoption paperwork was waiting for the Thanksgiving holiday to be done to continue on to Tawain. (was that a run on or what?) Ha ha.

Here are the War of the Worlds and Psycho movie sets we saw:

Here are Jon and I at the Kwik-E-Mart. Thank you, come again!:

Paperwork Dance

So we finally have the paperwork out of our hands. It was not easy. First the whole packet was sent to the wrong address so that set us back a day or two. Then when we were downtown getting everything notarized and authenticated we found out that we had to send one thing to Sacramento and it would take 2-3 weeks!!

Thank God for my parents! They offered to drive to Sacramento and walk the document into the capitol to get authenticated so we overnighted it to them. When I finally had the whole packet back and was at Kinko's copying it all without taking out any staples (they are weird about this and it was over 80 pages!) I noticed that Jon's name was mispelled on one form!

Well, I almost had a breakdown! I had to wait for the next morning to call up to JOH and they said to leave it-as long as the notary had our names right, it should be fine. So I finally FedExed everything out Tuesday night. Sigh

What's In A Name?

We have decided on a name for our duaghter. She will be named Abigail Heng-Chen Wetmore, or Abby for short!

Abigail is a Hebrew name meaning "Father's joy". She is already making both her father and her mother joyful but we also hope she will be a joy to her Heavenly father as we teach her about God and how to walk in His ways. We love the story of Abigail in the Bible. 1 Samuel 25

Heng- is pronounced the same as similar looking word that means "eternity". But this particular character has its root tied to a very famous ancient fable, and it is the name of the beautiful, immortal Moon goddess. She represents eternity and elegance. So, in essence, the word communicates the idea of a beautiful lady.

Chen- It's literal meaning is "flourishing vegation" and communicates the meaning of abundance.

Wetmore-The surname of a family who has been praying that God would bring the perfect baby to complete their family and is now thrilled to be able to name her!

Our Daughter

Another possible title for this entry: EIEIEIEIIEIIEIEIIE!!!!!!!!!

We are thrilled to announce our little girl referral!! We are so excited and still in a little bit of shock.

Friday, Nov. 14th I was driving home when Jon called me and asked me if I was somewhere I could pull over. I was almost to the house so I said I would be right in. I suspected we had moved on the wait list, because that is always BIG news at our house.

When I pulled in the drive, Jon ran out to meet me. I asked, "Was there a referral?" Jon nodded and said, "There was a referral-it was OURS!!"

Well we just held each other and looked at our little girl's face for the first time. Sigh. I have no words to describe it and I have a Master's in Literacy!

Here are the facts:

Given Name: Li, Heng-Chen (Li is the family surname)

Birthday: October 24th

Weight: 5 lbs. 7 oz.

Height: 18 in.

Check out our adorable baby girl:

Who's Who?

We thought we would do a "Who's who" post so that when we talk about our family-you can have a face to put with a name. These are just some of the beloved people who are in our lives and are anxiously awaiting our little girl along with us.

Jon's family who live in Seattle: 
Sara and her parents who live in Fresno:

Here we are with Jamey, our brother who lives in Phoenix and works at ASU:

Here is our sister, Rachel and her guy, Jonah at Disneyland:

Here are some shots of Mom's horse in Fresno. His name is Gabe and we all went to love on him when Jonah was visiting this summer.

Of course there are more family members and friends praying for our new baby but these were just our immediate ones!

We are so excited to be near the top of the waiting list for a baby girl from Taiwan. Jon and I have been married for almost nine years and we've decided to add to our family through adoption instead of biologically. We will be quite a "United Nations" family with my Mexican heritage, Jon's Irish heritage, and our daughter hailing from Taiwan!

We live in sunny San Diego (the above picture was taken in February!) where Jon works as an architect and I work in the Academic Support Program at Santa Fe Christian School. Go you Eagles! We live close enough to Jon's firm that he is able to bike to work every day. My commute is a bit long but I work at Solana Beach and I can stare at the ocean every day so I am happy! We have a cat loaded with personality-pic to follow soon- and my sister lives with us.
We are super involved at our church, Emmanual Faith, and we feel like God has totally blessed us.

A New Blog is Born!

This blog is an account of how we go from a two-member family (not counting our cat Zorro!) to a three member family (and beyond??).