Weekend Picture Update

Graham loves his books!
Happy at breakfast time!

Playing the piano with Uncle Jon

Happy Guy!

The boys relaxing on Saturday morning

Just one more....

I couldn't resist adding just one more picture....he's just too darn cute!

Out for an afternoon walk and thankfully getting used to the hat!

Home for 1 Week!

It's hard to believe that exactly one week ago, the three of us were on a plane coming home. Graham screamed for 14 hours and Jeff and I wondered how we were going to console him, or if he would ever come to trust us. The changes in Graham in just one week are simply amazing, and we're so proud of him for what he's working on adjusting to. He's one brave boy to let Jeff and I into his world. Not that we aren't trustworthy people :), but initially, Graham had no idea who we were or that we had been waiting for him for so long.

The first few days home were very, very difficult, but we think we've turned a corner. Graham has gone from waking up every 20 minutes (no exaggeration) during the night, to now just waking just once for a bottle then going back to sleep until 7:30 or 8. Not too bad! Over the past week, here are some things we've learned about our little guy
-hates greenbeans, but LOVES bananas!
-loves any toy that makes noise
-loves to go after any sort of cord....cell phone chargers are his favorite!
-likes to look at his reflection in the oven and dishwasher
-loves to be carried on Mommy or Daddy's back, but still isn't too sure about being carried on the front
-does NOT like to sit in the cart at Target (we're going to have to work on that one!)
-likes to stare at Annie
-loves to go for walks
-loves to be in his walker and move around the kitchen. When the fridge is open, he can't seem to get there fast enough!
-gets very impatient when the food isn't being spooned into his mouth fast enough....let's just say we've got a VERY good eater on our hands!

Here are some more pictures of our little man. As long as people still look, we'll keep the pictures coming!
He loves his crib!

playing with his new xylophone

"Reading" a book! The teacher in me was very pleased to see this! :)

Pictures!

Annie and Graham have already become great friends! If Graham is sleeping in his room, Annie lays outside his door wagging her tail. This is great news considering the fact we were worried about how Annie would react to the new addition to our family.

After a walk, the boys fell asleep watching ESPN together!

All bundled up for an evening walk! If babies could give the evil eye, Graham would definitely be giving me "the look"...he tried everything he could to get this hat off!

His newest obsession is the piano, especially the pedals!

New Pictures of Graham

all wrapped up after bathtime!

VERY messy after eating a teething biscuit! Uncle Peter will be thrilled to know that in this picture he was absolutely enthralled by the airplane in the sky

Checking out his reflection in the dishwasher

Trying to get into the china cabinet....he was successful a few minutes after we took this picture!

Our happy guy in his walker!

Video of Graham's Homecoming!

We're still VERY sleep deprived which is the reason for the delay in a written update. In the meantime though, I thought you might enjoy a video clip (compliments of Grandpa Olson) of our arrival at the airport as well as Graham's first taste of good ol' Gerber food! Enjoy!

We made it!!!

After a very long journey, we're finally home! The flight from Seoul to Chicago was not fun to put it nicely! Let's just say that Graham made sure that we would remember nearly every minute of it! We arrived in Chicago to find out our flight was two hours delayed which just thrilled us. We hadn't slept in 24 hours, and had eaten nothing more than a banana on the plane, so all we really wanted to do was get home. We did arrive safely though, and had quite the homecoming for our little guy at the airport! Thank you to everyone who was able to make it, it really meant a lot to have so many of our constant supporters waiting for us at the finish line! Graham was quite the ham at the airport. He cheered up immediately and was clapping his hands and laughing! It was so nice to see his personality coming through after him being so upset on the flight.

Last night was rough. Graham is really grieving right now. Each time he would wake up, he would see us and scream. I can only imagine how terrified he must be to wake up to strangers in a strange place. We know that this is all part of the process for him, and each day will only get better. The result until then though, are two very sleep deprived parents! I have much more to write, but am lacking on energy right now.

Here are a few pictures from our homecoming yesterday. I can't take credit for the pictures, they are compliments of Grandpa Olson, so thanks!

If anyone has any pictures of our arrival, I'd love to post them. Email me whatever you have, and I'll post it for everyone to see!

We're coming home!

It's Wednesday evening here in Seoul, and we're packing up to come home! We'll pick up Graham early in the morning then will be on our way to the airport! We're both in shock that tomorrow we're bringing our son home!

We had a really good day today. This morning we did some last minute shopping and this afternoon we met with Graham! When we arrived at the agency, Graham and his foster mother were alredy there. Graham was sleeping and the social worker stepped in to let us know that they'd both be leaving us alone for about an hour. We immediately began to panic a bit.....we're just supposed to sit in this little room with a sleeping baby and help him through his frightening wake up when he see's us rather than his foster mother?!?!? Hmmmmm.....I wish I had a camera in my hands at that very moment because the look of fear and immediate sweat on Jeff's face was priceless! Things actually went very well though! He woke up (ok, I'll be honest, we helped him wake up!) about 10 minutes later. He didn't cry at all. He was just very quite and had a serious look on his face as he tried to figure out who we were. We played for the next 15 minutes and even got some giggles and a smile out of him. That all changed when his foster mother returned though. As soon as he laid eyes on her, the tears started flowing! Once his diaper was changed though, he cheered right back up again!

I feel like I need to say something about Graham's foster mom. She is just wonderful. The love she has for our son is so obvious, and we owe her so much for being there for Graham for the past 7 months. At one point during our visit, she handed us a bag, and the contents were absolutely priceless....a photo album full of picture of his first 7 months, a birthday hanbok, and large professional pictures she had taken of him. She's a very special woman and we're going to make sure that Graham knows what an important role she played in his life.

As we leave tomorrow morning, please keep the following people in your thoughts-Graham's foster mother. I know that tomorrow is going to be very difficult for her. Graham-he is leaving for the journey of a lifetime and doesn't even know it. We can only hope for a smooth transition for him. And finally, Graham's birthmother. We want her to know, that we're going to take great care of him and raise him to be a confident child who will never have to question his self-worth. I wish we could thank her for the most difficult and selfless decision she's ever had to make. She's given us worlds greatest gift and as we raise Graham she will be held in the highest regard.

And, if you have any energy left to send good vibes, please think of Jeff and I, as we're crossing our fingers that we don't have too many exceptionally dirty diapers on the plane! :)

We're thrilled to be at the end of our journey and excited to hopefully see many of you at the airport on Thursday afternoon!

Typhoon!

Seoul is preparing to get hit with a typhoon! It rained all day today as the very outer part of the storm is dumping lots of water on the city. The eye of the storm is supposed to hit China in the next day or so, and eventually downgrade to a tropical storm as it nears Koera. Thankfully, the worst of the storm isn't predicted to hit until after we're on our way home, but we're prepared for a very wet last few days here.

Because of all the rain, we had to find indoor activities. We visited the National Museum which today was also known as "Field Trip Central". Seriously, it seemed as though every middle school student was visiting the museum. Watching these kids run around loudly with their friends and not listening to their teachers brought back flashbacks of visiting the science museum with my own students. Thankfully, those days are over! Other than the rowdy and excited kids, the museum was great! It was enourmous though, and unless we wanted to spend an entire day there, would have never seen it all. By the time we finished at the museum, we were ready to crash, thanks to still feeling the effects of jet lag. All we really wanted to do was sleep, but knowing that wouldn't help us, the compromise was to see a movie at Coex Mall (Sara, if you're reading this-does that bring back memories?). Back at the hotel the only English channels we get are CNN and the animal planet and we've both about had it with "The Crocodile Hunter"! It felt so good to just sit and watch a movie!

Tomorrow afternoon we'll visit with Graham again and we can't wait! We'll take lots of pictures and post them if we can. This site isn't allowing me to add pictures right now, so hopefully by tomorrow the problem is fixed.

Monday in Seoul

I posted a few pictures of Graham earlier today, but here are a few more!

Jeff was holding Graham while he intently studied a toy I was holding

FINALLY in my arms and I couldn't be happier!

Checking out his toy

The very proud new Daddy! The woman in white is Graham's foster mother.

Talking to Graham's social worker about his daily routine.

I'm still working on putting into words the emotions we experienced today. It's hard to believe that earlier today we were holding our son, and even harder to believe that in just a few days we'll be back home! Neither of us got much sleep last night. We're still dealing with major jet lag and the knowledge that we'd soon be holding our son didn't allow for very sound sleep. I actually woke up at 2 am and didn't really get back to sleep after that.

At the advice of our agency, we left the hotel 30 minutes early in order to arrive at our meeting on time. Well, it turns out it was only a 5 minute cab ride from where we are staying so we were very early. We walked down the street, got something to drink, and sat down to wait. We were both shaking and staring at our watches until it was finally time for our appointment. The first thing we did when we arrived was fill out paperwork and receive Graham's travel documents and passport. After that we were ushered into a small room filled with toys. We were told that Graham and his foster mother would be arriving shortly. Jeff started playing with the video camera and we're lucky he did, because not more than a minute later, Graham arrived. I was caught completely off guard to see him, and the foster mother immediately handed him to me. I will never forget that moment! Graham's social worker acted as our translator, as we talked with the foster mother about Graham's daily routine. I can tell you right now, that his bedtime routine has to change....he doesn't go to sleep until midnight, wakes up twice for a bottle, and gets up for the day about 8....I'm not sure that's going to fly in the Olson household! :)

Graham is wonderful though. We think he's just adorable and we're absolutely in love with our little guy! He is definitely smaller than we were expecting. The throne that all his pictures have been taken in is deceiving in size. No worries, he's not the "supersize baby" we were concerned about, he's a very normal size! He's also very loud! When he's happy, he's constantly "talking", it's actually very cute! We were also warned that he loves to be in his walker, pull things off tables, and open drawers. I think I've got my work cut out for me! We spent about 45 minutes with Graham today, and the foster mother teared up many times. Towards the end of the visit she began to cry. She has cared for Graham for the past 8 months, and truly loves him. I'm sure these next few days are going to be very difficult for her as she knows that he'll soon be leaving. We get to see Graham again on Wednesday at 2:00 for a short visit. Then, Thursday morning, we'll meet at the agency, pick up Graham and head to the airport. We're anxious to get home with him!

We spent the rest of the day just wandering around the various outdoor markets. We went hanbok shopping and found a great one for Graham to wear on his 1st birthday. Rorie, if you're reading this, we found you a gorgeous one too! We ended up having dinner at a department store. In Korea, most department stores have "food court" style eating on the top floor. The nice thing about eating at a place like this, is that we can point to the picture to order, which makes our lives much easier!

The dinner that Jeff and I shared. It probably looks strange, and it sounds strange too, but it was actually good. We had an omelet stuffed with rice with a "ketchupy" type sauce spread over the top.

We met Graham!!!!

This was hands down, the most emotional mornings of both of our lives. Surreal, is probably the best way either of us can describe meeting Graham. We really don't have the words to describe the experience yet, we have a lot to process! I'll just say that our son is wonderful, perfect, and everything great! To finally have him in our arms is completely indescribable. For anyone who is waiting up late on Sunday night to see pictures (aka Grandparents!) I'm posting the pictures right now without much written description. It's currently the middle of the day here, but later on tonight I'll write down the details of the day!

Here he is!!

Sleeping on his foster mothers back as we were saying Good-bye for the day

sitting with Daddy and playing with a toy

Graham and Daddy

The first time I held Graham!

Sunday in Seoul

Our day started early....4 am to be exact! Jet lag has definitely set in, and it's not fun! So what do people do in a strange city at 4 am? Fantasy football on the internet for Jeff of course! Waking up at 4 means that we were ready to crash by early afternoon, but we forced ourselves to keep moving. We left the hotel by 9, grabbed some breakfast, and began our trek to the Seoul Tower. This "trek" included our attempts to navigate the subway system and make our way to the tower. We got off at the wrong stop, which resulted in a very long walk straight up a hill. It turns out it was the wrong hill we walked up, so we went down and started again. We finally found our way and enjoyed a wonderful view of the city from the top of the tower. After the tower we walked to Namdaemun market for some shopping. Namdaemun is a huge outdoor market that sells everything under the sun-clothes, toys, food, as well as live animals that will soon become food...it's never dull walking up and down the streets in this area! By this time, we were very tired, but knew that we couldn't go back to the hotel or we'd fall asleep, thus prolonging our jet lag. We wanted to explore an area called Insadong and we've both been there before so we didn't think we'd have a problem finding it. We were WRONG! I'm not sure if it was our exhaustion or the fact that we're not able to focus on much of anything right now in anticipation for Monday morning, but we got lost. Actually, we got very lost. Lost for at least 90 minutes in the rain. We must have looked pretty pathetic standing at a busy intersection in the rain, studying our map with bloodshot tired eyes, because someone took pity on us and pointed us in the right direction. By this point, we were both wet, our feet were killing us, we were hungry, and we were getting more tired by the minute. We got lucky though, because we stumbled upon a McDonalds. Now, you're probably wondering why we're eating at McDonalds in Korea with all sorts of exotic foods to sample. Let me tell you though, in Korea, McDonalds is apparently the place to be seen! Decorated with leather chairs, it was filled with men in suits, and women all dressed up. It was kind of strange but the food was familiar and filled us up!

I don't think either of us realized just how difficult it is to navigate Seoul and communicate effectively with no knowledge of the language. Today was a tough day with regards to those issues. It's funny because cashiers seem to assume Jeff should speak Korean and understand what they're saying. When they talk to us, we both just stare with blank faces. They will then usually repeat themselves loudly and slowly. Finally, they will often point to the Korean characters on paper along with obscenely loud volume and equally slow speed ....like that suddenly makes it all clear for us! I want them to know, volume and speed have nothing to do with our inability to speak or understand Korean!

Just a very random and quick FYI for anyone who might be traveling to Seoul in the near future....the 80's are alive and thriving here! Apparently, I didn't get the message to bring my stirrup pants and leggings with me. I swear, all the girls and women are wearing leggings-under shorts, under skirts, under jeans, under a dress....it looks like an old Madonna video!

One last note....for some reason the blog won't let me upload pictures right now :( Cross your fingers that it works tomorrow so you can see our first family picture as a family of three! Pictures or not though, we'll definitely update the blog and let everyone know how our meeting went! We're in shock that in just 13 hours we'll be holding Graham. It's overwhelmingly wonderful and emotional and lots of other indescribable feelings, that our wait to finally become parents is now down to a matter of hours.

We've arrived in Seoul!

It is 8:25 Saturday night in Seoul, and we're just starting to settle in for the night. After being up for close to 30 hours straight, nothing sounds better than getting some sleep! The flight from Chicago to Seoul was long, but Korean Air does everything they can to make the situation better. Jeff was THRILLED to see that not only did each seat have its own tv with approximately 50 current movies and tv shows to choose from, but each seat also had video games play! He was very happy to say the least! When we landed in Seoul we got stuck in the slowest customs line ever but finally made it through without any problems. The airport is way out of the city, so we still had over an hours drive to get to our hotel. Can you see why we're so wiped out? We have tomorrow free to explore, then Monday morning we meet Graham! It's still so unbelievable that we're actually in Korea and that in about 30 hours we'll be holding our son!!!

We'll update again tomorrow after a good nights sleep and a day of exploring!


We've been up for 24 hours at this point and we're still smiling!

Landing in Seoul

The view from our hotel room

We took a walk down the street in attempts to find something fast and easy to eat. This is the scene we were met with...very intimidating when you can't read a single sign or understand what anyone is saying!

Travel Details and Graham Update

As I'm sure you can imagine, the past 24 hours have been nothing short of a whirlwind at the Olson house! Thanks to a wonderful travel agent, we were able to book our flights to Seoul with no problems. It was so nice to let someone else take care of the details, because I was not even close to thinking straight! It still hasn't really sunk in, that in just 19 hours we will be on our way to get Graham! We leave Minneapolis tomorrow morning and fly to Chicago, then directly to Seoul. We land in Seoul on Saturday night and will have Sunday to explore. Monday morning at 10:00 (Sunday, 8 pm, Minneapolis time) we get to meet Graham!!!! At that time, we'll also get more details about the rest of the time we're there.

In the midst of our crazy day yesterday, we also received the translated update on Graham, and we're thrilled to report that he's doing just great! There has been lots of discussion regarding Graham and his "healthy eating habits" which result in his seemingly large size. Well, as of the end of August, he was approximately 18 pounds. Still not small by any means, but definitely not the "supersize" baby we were imagining carrying home! We also found out that he "babbles constantly", "likes to listen to children's music", "has a lot of curiosity about new toys", "likes to push his walker around ", and "yells when he's in a good mood"...it sounds like he's got quite the personality! We are soooooooo anxious to actually get him into our arms!

This will be the last update for a day or two, the next one will come from Seoul! Check back often, we'll add lots of pictures and keep everyone posted of whats going on.

Hopefully, we'll see lots of you on Thursday when we arrive back in Minneapolis!

!!!!!!!!!!TRAVEL CALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I stop shaking, get organized enough to make travel arrangments, and get my thoughts together, I'll add an update. But, for now, I just wanted to let everyone know that Graham is ready to come home!!!!!!!

New Pictures of Graham aka "Jumbo Baby"!

We received a wonderful surprise today.....a new picture of Graham! Along with this photo, Eastern (our Korean agency) also sent a written report. The report is currently being translated, and we should have it early next week. We're assuming we'll get a weight update (this will make shopping for clothes much easier!) as well as descriptions of his daily routines and milestones reached. We're unable to accurately guess how much he weighs at this point, but we know he's big and definitely still enjoying his food! We were so happy to see that he's still got those adorable squishy cheeks....we can't wait to get our hands on them! And how adorable are those rolls on his arms! Don't lose that baby fat too fast, Graham!

We're still, impatiently, waiting for our travel call. We do know that all we're waiting for at this point is for the US Embassy to issue his visa. Why do governments have to be so slow? There is a little boy in Korea getting way too big, way too fast, and it's time for him to be at home!

When we receive our weight update next week, I'll be sure to update this site. Feel free to leave us a comment and take a guess as to how much our "supersize baby" actually weighs. Someday, it will be fun for Graham to look at this...I'm sure he'd get a good laugh out of all this!

Not prepared...

We were not prepared for how horrible things would feel this late in the game. We were warned by our social worker and various program directors at our agency that the waiting would get very hard. We thought to ourselves, how much worse can it feel than waiting an eternity for a referral? Well, be assured, it got worse. We now realize that no matter what we had been told, there was no way we could have been prepared to deal with such raw emotion. It's killing us to know that Graham is living on the other side of the world. We're envious, and probably even jealous, of the fact that his foster mother gets to hug and kiss him each night, wake up to him each morning, and fill her days with everything baby. We, on the other hand, are here, wondering what all that is like. Please keep Graham in your thoughts and prayers. We know he is loved over in Korea, but we also know that he needs to come home to his Mom and Dad.