Name Sign...

We had this sign made for Rayanna's room with her Chinese name. Rebecka has one with her chinese name hanging above her bed. They are so cute...

Visiting Santa....

Tonight we went to see Santa. The kids all sat on Santa's lap to tell him their list of wants. They went pretty easy on him, the list was not unbearable...LOL. This was Stephanies first time seeing Santa and sitting on his lap, she wasn't sure what to ask for so she said she wanted whatever we gave her. She is so sweet. Thank you Santa!

Update Pictures...

Hi everyone. I woke this morning to a couple new pictures of Rayanna in my E-Mail. There was no written update which dissapoints me since I have not recieved a written update or word from Rayanna about how she feels about us and the adoption. Hopefully that will come soon, but till then we have been getting some pictures to enjoy. I'm hoping to see her with a smiling face soon. We may have to work on that when she gets here. Seems she has had reason to be sad in her life and we are hoping to turn that around. She is so cute and someday soon we will help her to smile. The paper she is holding in one of the pictures is an award she got from Physical Education Class in School. She looks very proud.

AND THEIR OFF! ! !....To Taiwan that is....

Our contracts were FED-EXed from FFC today to Taiwan. We should enter the courts within a couple of weeks. I don't expect to hear anything until we have had a ruling from the courts. I will start counting the weeks on Sunday the 6th of January. Our agency said the average has been about 4-5 months to get through the courts. We made it through the courts with Rebecka in 11 weeks, I'm hoping for that. Wish us luck everyone, and pray we get through the courts in record time. I'll let you know if we hear anything and of course post pictures as soon as we get blessed with another update.

We Are Inching Closer...

Yesterday our contracts arrived from TECO to our agency, FFC. Less than a week, that was fast. Laura from FFC told me they would review the documents and should have them mailed off to Taiwan by Friday. Hopefully not too long before we enter the courts now.

Hi Ho Hi Ho.....It's off to TECO they go!

We recieved our documents via FED-EX at 2:30 today. Eric and I had them signed and notarized and off to TECO by 5:30. That was after making a ton of copies. This is a great big step done. If there are no problems with the contracts and things go smoothly, they should be back to Families For Children by early next week. Then hopefully not to long before we are in the Taiwan courts and waiting on "THE CALL"

Merry Christmas Rayanna

Today I sent out our first gift package for Rayanna. The adoption agency will be sending them to Taiwan soon and she will recieve it just in time for Christmas. I hope Rayanna will be excited to recieve a package from her new Mom and Dad. I included a necklace with a beautiful silver cross. Rebecka wanted me to send Rayanna the same one I sent her, so thats what we did. Rebecka was very excited about that. We all included a personal letter to her also. Rebecka didn't want to write hers in Chinese and after a little encouraging she agreed to do it. I think she is having trouble remembering because Stephanie had to help her with some words. I told Rebecka how important she would be to me to help translate when Rayanna comes home. I also included a small photo alblum which she would be able to keep for herself. Some small Christmas toys and Candy too of course.

Happy Birthday Joe

Today is my oldest sons 15th birthday.
Happy Birthday Joe Shmo!!! We love you man!
Love,
Mom, Eric, Jesse, Rebecka and Stephanie

Our Contracts are in America! ! ! !

We recieved a call at 10:30 last night from Laura at FFC, she was very surprised to open her mail and find our contracts. Yes, thats right everyone, our contracts have arrived in America.

We should recieve them either Monday or Wednesday. I want one of us to be home to get mail in hand as this is the one and only copy of our contracts. After we recieve them , Eric and I will need to get them all notorized and sent off to TECO "Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office" in Miami to be Authenticated. They make sure our contracts are real and legal and give the OK to proceed. I think that went pretty fast with Rebecka, if I remeber right, we recieved the "Authenticated" contracts back in only a few days. Then they will go back to FFC who will send them to Taiwan and we should enter the courts right after that.

This has been a long wait for the contracts, but now we will be one step closer to bringing our daughter home!

Jaclyn

And her name is........

We have finally settled on a name (I think) unless we change our minds (again) I think we have finally agreed on ........
Rayanna Xiao-Mei Carlisle

PICTURES......

We recieved some new pictures from our agency today. It is always exciting to see new pictures of her, but they chopped all her hair off. Oh well, she is still so beautiful and it will grow back.

Laura from our agency returned from Taiwan this week. She got to visit with my daughter and a few other girls at Chung-Yi. We thank her so much for taking these pictures for us. Our daughter is the one in the middle wearing blue. She said Xiao-Mei is very quiet and shy, and the girls wanted to know what time it was in America right then. How cute is that.

Although we are not any closer to having our contracts. I was told before Laura went to Taiwan that we not only were waiting on the birth mother, we were also waiting on paperwork from the Taiwan government to get to Chung-Yi. They are waiting on Household Registration and her Official Birth Certificate. Don't ask me why these things are not already done, I have no answer for that. Our agency said they expect these things to be done soon and THEN they will be ready to send our contracts. So, the story is......WE WAIT>>>>>>>>>>

Still Waiting

I am so frustrated, we sent our pictures via E-mail 2 weeks ago. I've spoken to FFC who says they are still waiting on the birth mothers social worker. I don't understand at all why the delay. They want the birth mother involved, but if she doesn't want to be then I don't know why we are waiting for her. The owners of our adoption agency FFC will be leaving this week to go to Taiwan for 2 weeks. I hope they will see Xiao-Mei while they are there and hopefully get some pictures for us. But I am also afraid I am going to be waiting at least until they come back to get our contracts.

Unexpected Delay

I recieved an E-Mail from my Adoption Agency stating the birth mothers Social Worker was requesting more family pictures before she would give her approval for the adoption. This confuses me a bit since I was under the impression the birth mother has not been involved. I'm not sure what the story is, but I will do as they ask. I've E-Mailed the best family pictures I could find. This is very dissapointing since I was hoping to recieve our contracts any day. Hopefully this will not cause too much of a delay.

Rebecka's Gotcha Day Party

Today we had a big Gotcha Day Party to celebrate with family and friends. It was a great turnout and we had a blast. The kids of course enjoyed the swimming, even thought the water was ice cold. (to me anyway). They really loved decorating the cupcakes in an ice cream cone. Instead of having a cake I decided the kids would really have fun decorating cupcakes that I baked inside ice cream cones. It was a big hit and the kids made one for all the adults too. The girls did each others nails (and some of the guests too) . Thank you so much to Tracy and her girls and Penny and Alli for coming, it was so great to have some adoption friends there to celebrate with us. Thank you to my best friend Shona for being there, and everyone who came to make this day special.

Heres to many more Gotcha Days to celebrate!!!!!!

Stephanie

Introducing Fu-Ning "Stephanie" Chang.

Steph is our exchange student from Taiwan, she is from the same city as Rebecka. She will be staying with us for the school year this year, she is in the 11th grade. We are very happy to have her here and she is a big help to us. The weird thing is She and Rebecka do not speak Chinese to each other. Go Figure. We have alot of fun cooking together making sushi and steamed dumplings . she is also a pro at making the perfect rice.

We are blessed to have her with us and will miss her terrably when we have to say gooodbye next Spring.

Xiao-Mei

Introducing Xiao-Mei. We are using Families For Children for this adoption. We have completed our homestudy and our dossier along with our family letter and photo album. I believe it has all been sent to Taiwan. We are waiting official approval from the orphanage and then we should recieve our documents. So the wait begins....

Rebecka Ai-Ai

Yesterday we celebrated our first Gotcha Day Anniversary with Rebecka. I made her favorite dinner (steak and noodles) and we had a cake and sang..Happy Gotcha Day to you...Happy Gotcha Day to you...Happy Gotcha dayyy tooo Reeebeckkkkaaa...Happy Gotcha Day to you. I bet you've heard the tune before...LOL...pretty ingenous huh?

This saturday we are having a big party to celebrate with family and friends.

The Journey Begins...Again

October 16th, 2007

WE are Eric and Jaclyn from Florida. We have a biological son Jesse (11), and I also have a son Joseph (14). Last year on October 16th 2006 Eric and I picked up our beautiful Taiwanese Princess ,Rebecka Ai-Ai (11) from Chung-Yi Childrens Home. We are now beginning the process of adopting our second daughter from Chung-Yi.

I didn't have a blog when we adopted Rebecka so i'd like to backtrack a little bit.

Eric and I have been married 11 years , and have two wonderful bio boys Joe and Jesse.

We had heard an advertisement on The Joy FM which is a Christian radio station here in Florida, about an adoption agency called Florida Homestudies and Adoption. After hearing the advertisement a few times we started to think about adoption more. Now, let me tell you I don't know what happened it had to be Gods plan for us because I never would have thought of us as the type of family to adopt. I meen we had children of our own and felt (i thought) that our family was complete. God had other plans. Eric came home from work one day with this agency on his mind again after hearing the ad on his way home, he said there was a web site and thought we should check it out. We looked them up , this was a Friday, the next day they were having a seminar in Orlando about adoption, so I called the number and signed us up. We went to the seminar and listened to the information given to us. That Monday I called the agency to ask for more info. I told her maybe, (and I meant maybe) we might think about adopting an older girl. I had done the baby thing two times and was all set with that. The lady told me they just got the file on this little girl and asked if i'd like to see it. We said sure, it won't hurt to look. She E-Mailed is the file and when we opened the picture, we saw the most beautiful little girl we'd ever seen. We fell in love instantly, Eric looked at me and said "thats our daughter". Eight months later Eric and I traveled to Taiwan to pick up our daughter. She has made an amazing adjustment and is very loving and happy to be with us.

Now we have decided to adopt one more time. This time a friend of Rebecka's from Chung-Yi. She is very excited to be getting her friend as her new sister.