Tomorrow's the Big Day!

Our bags are packed (and there are a lot of them!) and we've gone over all of the lists so many times.....I think this picture says it all!

Typically for Korean adoptions, families do not travel in groups (which is the experience my sister had when she adopted Mia). You simply get on a plane when the Korean Agency tells you your child is ready to leave, and that varies by child. However, so many families from our agency got their travel calls the same day we did and couple more got theirs on Friday and it's turning out to be quite the contingent traveling over to Seoul. We're meeting 1 couple in Chicago, who is on our flight over to Seoul, and 3 others couples (from Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina) at the airport in Seoul and there are more families who left late last week and are already there. It's going to be fun to share this experience with all of them!

Our first meeting with Claire is Wednesday at 9:50 AM (which would be Tuesday, 7:50PM in the US). We'll do our best to post pictures of our first meeting on the blog some time during the day on Wednesday, US time. Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well and keep checking in for updates!

Finally, for those of you wanting to greet us at the airport when we return, here are the flight details:

Tuesday, April 8 @ 2:40pm

Korean Air 7573/NWA 139 from O'Hare (We clear customs in Chicago, so we would meet you at baggage claim.

I'm sure we'll have amazing stories to share when we return!

One week from today........

We will meet Claire!!!!!

We got our travel call this morning and have booked our flights! We will be leaving on Monday morning (3/31) and will arrive in Seoul around 5:00 pm on Tuesday (they are 14 hours ahead of us). Our first meeting with Claire will be on Wednesday!!!!!!!!!!!!! We will be returning on Tuesday, April 8th around 2:40 in the afternoon.

So much to do to get ready to hit the road!!

Stay tuned!

Even Closer.....

Found out this morning that Claire's visa was issued today!!!!!!!!!!!! Our phone could ring at any time telling us it's time to pack our bags and head to Korea!!! Ring, phone, ring :o)! Stay tuned.....

The Easter Bunny Came!

The Easter Bunny paid a visit to Pullen Central and left a trail of Easter eggs and treats from Ben's bedroom....

To the kitchen, where he left a cool Batman Easter basket filled with treats...

and a chocolate basketball bunny who's ears were so tall, they didn't even fit in the box! That was worth waking up at 6:30 AM (although Mama and Papa weren't so sure on the early wake up call)!

Ben and his cousins, Joey and Sam, had a great time at the Easter egg hunt at Granny's house. Because we got several inches of snow over the past few days, the Easter bunny hid the eggs inside Granny's house!

Such a cutie!

We are so very close!

Hey, Everyone-
I thought I'd post a quick adoption update. We are so very close to receiving our "travel call"! The final step in the process on the U.S. side was approved on February 26th and, at that point, we were simply in a waiting mode for Korea to finalize what they needed to do in the process. Thanks to the internet (and several Korean adoption forums), I learned there are ways to keep tracking the paperwork trail and as of last week, there was just one last step that needed to be completed on the Korean side....Claire's visa interview. Of course, she's only 9 months old, so the "visa interview" is a technicality at this point, but that step still needed to be completed. I had been calling the National Visa Hotline daily to see if an interview had been scheduled and as of early last week, it had not, so I called our agency and asked them to check on it. They did and found out that they were going to schedule her interview for late last week. They told them to expect a travel call in 1-2 weeks (and that was last Wednesday).

So...the bottom line is, our phone could ring any day now from our agency telling us that Claire is ready to come home and we need to book our tickets and head to Seoul!!! It's pretty cool because I know of at least 7 families that are all at the same point and a few more that have just recently traveled to Korea to bring their children home. There is a really good chance that some of the families would be traveling at the same time and staying at the same place.

Stay tuned....we'll be sure to let you know when the travel call comes!!!

Floppy Easter!

"Floppy" Easter from Pullen Central!

Which has more color....the eggs or Ben's hands?!

Happy Birthday, KP and Chuck!

Both KP and Chuck have birthdays in February and we hosted a birthday celebration here at Pullen Central. We decided use this occassion to try our hand at Korean cooking, which, with the exception of one questionable noodle dish, turned out delicious!

Look, Mama...I'm using chop sticks!

Granny and Ben sharing their fortunes.

It says, "Happy Birthday!" in Korean.