Home....Forever.

We made it!!! The day has finally come. We have been home for nearly 11 hours. The trip home was an amazing time for bonding. Jude did fabulous. He gazed into my eyes for half the flight home :)....I gazed back, and the other half he slept. Oh yeah, he spent some time walking the plane with dad but only cried once when landing in the U.S. because his ears were popping. Lots of cuddles, laughs, love, snuggles. Simply amazing. 

Arriving at the airport was incredible. Big brother and big sister were able to meet us at the gate and walk us to our family. I was SHOCKED that our families are so big. It may have looked bigger because we had paparazzi there photographing, videoing, holding banners, and sobbing tears of joy. 

When we went down the escalator, I have never seen such a crowd. Our friends showed up like you would not believe. It was so amazing, of course I cried a little but tried to keep it together as to not overwhelm little guy even more. 

Honestly, I feel like everyone of you there today (and many who couldn't be there) really have been an intregal part of this journey. I think that we have all been through the ups and downs of adoption together, as friends, family, people who love each other. I don't think I can think of a time where I have felt more loved and overwhelmed by God's great mercy, grace, and overwhelming love for us, shown through His people.

We are doing well at home, exhausted, but doing well. Jude and Mommy took a nap for about 2 hours b/c mommy is on night duty tonight. Jude woke up crying, the grieving cry, and it is heartbreaking. He wouldn't open his eyes and so I just patted him and told him it was okay to be sad, mommy and daddy are here, and we love him. He went back to sleep and then we had to wake him up, because it was getting late. We took him in the living room and once he opened his eyes and saw the 8 eyes staring back at him and smiling, he responded well as if to say "Oh, yeah, I recognize you people....you sure are good babysitters :)"

Jude really has done incredibly well. He is (very obviously, of course) still going to have some major adjustments, but the beginning has gone better than we could have asked or imagined. He does seem to recognize the lady with the short hair who kisses him nonstop and hasn't really stopped touching him for the last two days and he kinda likes me and prefers I do not leave the room. He is also fond of his daddy (he's the best at getting him to laugh and mile), the red head, and his brother is totally his new best buddy. 

We love you all and hope to keep you updated as we continue on our journey. 

P.S: Shout out to all those who did amazingly nice things for us today. Today at the airport was a bit crazy and surreal, so I didn't get to express how much we love, love, love each and every one of you so much. You all rock as friends. 

Travel Update

Hello everyone. It's me, Lindsay. I spoke with Sunny at 8:50 a.m. this morning and they said they arrived in the United States safely and on time. They had just passed through Immigration which was said to go very smoothly. She said the flight went well - they had an entire row to theirselves. She said Jude did great! He slept about half the time.

I just received a text at 9:50 saying that their flight (which is taking off at 9:55) is on time to depart which means they will arrive at 12:15. Sunny has asked that friends arrive at 12:30-12:35 in baggage claim.

I will text everyone with more details.

Even small prayers answered....

We get Jude in about 20 minutes, so I am freaking out. But, thought you all might like to see some baby pics of him that we got from his foster mothers and from the social worker. Amazing. I had prayed for pictures b/c they are so important to me and here they are....

ps. this is most likely my last post until back in the U.S. ....we are going to be a little busy cuddlying our boy.

Deep, Deep Love

Although we did not get to see Jude yesterday, this photo was on my other camera....yummy, I love this little guy and we get him FOREVER in just a few hours!!!
Jude's birth place (above).
Amazing women at Eastern. Really amazing, given from God.
This (above) is a picture of the hospital where Jude was born. Honestly, I am still a little speechless about the whole experience. Maybe later I can think of words to describe our wonderful day.
Yesterday was such an amazingly beautiful day. I could not blog about it yesterday, however, because I was left speechless...without words to say really.

We were able to see the hospital where Jude was born. Amazing. We were also able to see the nursery where he slept his first day of life. Breathtaking. We were able to find out a little bit more about his birth family. Unimaginable wonderful.

Yesterday was the best day of our trip (other than meeting Jude, of course), and one of the most memorable days of our entire lives. We will never forget.

We can tell Jude that his birthmother and all those caring for him loved him with a love, a deep, deep love that cannot be explained. We can tell him this without doubt, not a made up story, but the story of his life. Truly, truly I am praising God for the miracle he has performed during this entire trip. God is good, all the time.

Seeing His face again...

Our meeting with our little guy was just beautiful today. He is such an incredible baby. We know that his personality may change, but from what we can tell right now he is just a very content baby, very curious...like he is studying everything around him but very, very content and peaceful.

We met with Jude's first foster mother and her daughter and they are so wonderful. Amazing people. For most of the meeting we did not have a translator, so we talked through her daughter's broken english. They were just amazing people and we immediately had a wonderful connection...like they are family. The same way we had with Jude's current foster mother.

Mrs. Park (first foster mother) was so in love with him, her face just lit up when she was telling us about his first 5months of life. When she saw him, she just kept kissing and kissing him.He was so sweet to sit there and stare into her eyes.
Mrs.Kim is just simply amazing with Jee Han. She is so incredibly loving, gentle, and patient. She responds to his every little noise and is always touching him kindly in some way or another. Not one of these pictures is posed, by the way....she really just does keep loving on him and loving on him. I love her.

Jude kept looking at us just like this over and over. Again, it was really like he recognized us...thinking, hmmm...I know you, remind me how I know you again?
I am so thankful that we got to go to the burn hospital where Jude spent several weeks. All the nurses had fallen in love with him. They all remembered him and kept saying "Jee Han, Jee Han, Jee Han!"

To Creed and Rinn, from Korea

Skating on the ice pond...
Creed, you would love these rides...so fun. Not as much fun without you.
Rinny, you would LOVE this bird. You would have wanted to hug and kiss it.

Daddy enjoying Korean corn dog.
We love you.
Mommy and Daddy being funny...

Friends in Korea....

Above is Mr. Shin, one of the wonderful front desk monitors. He is so great. We walked in one evening and he started pulling up chairs for us to watch the Korean version of "America's Got Talent." It was hilarious. He speaks great english and wanted to practice with us. We became fast friends.

These are our friends, the Sambersons, who are receiving their child, Gannon. Yippee. Can you believe we just randomly ran into them at Itaewon market? Crazy, in a city so large that we would happen upon them! We are staying at Eastern with them and it is great to see familiar faces.

Ran into these guys who pastor a church here in the Seoul area.The guy by Micah lives in South Carolina and is moving to lead worship at a church in Austin. How amazing is that? He was here with his buddies and going to lead worship in Seoul.
Sweet girls we met on the bus. They spoke English to us and taught us some Korean. We fell in love with their laughter.
Seoul is a beautiful city.