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.