We are home!

Just wanted to let you all know we are back HOME!!! Thank you so much for praying! I doubt it would have happened else wise. It is so good to be home! Rylyn did pretty well on the long flight home. She slept about 6 of the 16 hours on the flight from Hong Kong to JFK. After about 30 hours of total travel time she was wide awake by night time. We arrived home the 13th around 11:30pm our time (11:30am her time) and she was ready to play. It was nice having my parents and Greg's dad here to help. Rylyn is adjusting slowly. Her schedule is thrown off but we are working hard on getting her back and the sync of things. She went to the Foothills doctor today and did pretty well. She broke out in a big rash on the long plane ride which we thought was due to food allergies but it turned out to be bad dry skin. Rylyn can't wait to meet you! Bev (the woman who runs the orphanage) says she should be a movie star when she gets older because she is all drama. She is just precious. (Even when she keeps mommy and daddy up from 1-6am because she wants to play). ; )

Thank you all again!!

-betsey, greg and rylyn

No government shut down

God is so good. We received news last night that the American government decided 1 hour before the deadline not to shut down. A HUGE answered prayer! Tomorrow we will drive to Taipei to get Rylyn's physical and hopefully have her AIT appointment as well to get her visa. We are still planning on coming home on the 13th as long as we don't have any more bumps in the road. We are trusting that God will come through as he has so many times already through this process. I will try to post pictures soon if possible. Please continue to pray!

More craziness

Wow...this has been one of the most emotionally draining experiences of our lives. Up and down, up and down. We were told yesterday that the clerk who needed to do the final paper, her husband died yesterday so she wouldn't be working for the next few days. We prayed hard... and found that she had a replacement clerk coming and he was very understanding. Ted spoke with him and he said he would try to get Rylyn's papers ready asap. We were able to get her final papers tonight from the court house. This means Rylyn is officially ours! Yay! We are very thankful for that. The thing that is up in the air now is the American government is talking about having parts/offices close down this coming Monday. If this happens we won't be able to bring Rylyn home until the government reopens. The reason we wouldn't be able to bring her into the US. Is because we wouldn't be able to complete her AIT appointment scheduled on the 12th. The AIT appointment allows us to get her visa to bring her back to the us. If the US government does decide to close down as it has done 5 times in the past...it usually doesn't reopen for 6 weeks. The government does this to save money. The last time this happened was when Clinton was president. Please, please, please, pray that the government will NOT close down on Monday. We are continuing to pray hard but very much need your prayers so we can bring our baby girl home. A lot has to happen for things to work out and for us to bring her home on the 13th. Thank you for praying so much for us.

betsey and greg

Arriving in Taiwan

After 28 plus hours we made it to the orphanage. We arrived to the home around 1:00am. We got to see our daughter and she is as beautiful as ever! We got some good news. We still haven't heard about the final paper that the birth mom said she sign so be praying for that but, Ted got an early approval to get Rylyn's passport done. He should be working on that today. We got to meet two of the birth parents of the babies here today because they are having their court dates. We have got to play with the babies all day. We took Rylyn and two other babies to the doctor today to get their shots. They all did very well. We woke up early today and met Rylyn. It was amazing. She has taken to us very well. She has been very smiley and hasn't cried really at all. It's crazy that this day is finally here!!! Please keep praying for us to be able to bring her home on the 13th. Love you!

Update...

Whew...lots of information to soak in such a short amount of time. Yesterday we were very discouraged after finding out the news that Rylyn's birth mom had not yet signed the final paper that the court needs and the orphanage needs to get Rylyn's passport and physical done. We were told that the post office tried delivering the paper three times and left a notice on her door to pick up the papers from the post office and we were told she had not yet gone to pick up the papers. The orphanage told us since legally the were unable to go to the birth mom's house, they couldn't do much. Ted called us this morning and told us that they did get in contact with the birth mom and she said she HAD just signed the papers. They have a holiday in Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday so they are hoping to get the papers by the end of the week. We may have to change our return flight by a day or two but PRAISE JESUS that everything seems to be coming together. We are leaving on Sunday night to fly to Charlotte and on Monday morning we fly out to go see our baby girl. We cannot thank you enough for the hundreds of family and friends praying for us and our journey. This has been a very trying time and we are learning more and more that God is good no matter what.