Little Brothers!

Nathanael and Luke first met Isaac on Thursday morning, June 19.  Since our Wednesday flight was delayed, they stayed with the Cooks one more night, and Jessi brought them to us Thursday morning. All smiles, all of them!

Sunday, June 22

This is our first Sunday as a family of six!

Derrick is wearing the barong that Pastor John gave him.  My dress is one I bought at the market at Tiengge - Tiengge.  The boys all have on Manila or Philippines shirts.

HOME!

We finally made it home!  We calculated our total hours of travel from waking up at 2am to get to the airport until the moment we arrived home:  34 hours and a few minutes!  Welcome Home becomes the best friend of Welcome Jet Lag.... Ugh!

Surprise!  Our friends, Brian and Marti Harriss and Kids who live near St. Louis, greeted us at the airport (Marti took pics that she will forward to us later).  They have five awesome girls and just adopted siblings, Lyza and Ezra, in April.  Isaac, Lyza and Ezra became friends when they were on the same hosting trip last summer.  What a fun surprise to see them all! They even became our personal shuttle service to long term parking!  Thank you, Harriss family, for welcoming us home - which was no easy task since you had to constantly track our delayed flight - and for encouraging Isaac by seeing his friends.

Surprise!  We walked into our house to see that it had been sprinkled with signs from friends at church welcoming Isaac!  I am sure I noticed some groceries on the counter, too!  What a thoughtful and loving gesture from our friends and the youth at church!

Now that we are home, we are far from saying "whew, we are finally done."  This is more like "alright, here we go.  Let's get started!"  We are so blessed by our family and friends who are already playing an important role in Isaac's life!  

Thank you all!  

(The big yellow banner is what people signed at our adoption fundraiser in March.)

Oh so close to home - but stuck in Detroit

Our flight has been delayed several times... Now we are at 7:10.  It was supposed to be 3:20.  Oh well.  I wouldn't want to be flying in the middle of these storms anyway.  I'm sure we will take a few joy rides on the tram to kill time.

Our flight from Manila had several episodes of turbulence so I wasn't feeling so good when we arrived in Detroit.  Then we had to wait awhile in the immigration area to get Isaac officially admitted into the country- that was an interesting experience, listening to the officers interview other immigrants (and observing that we probably didn't want to interrupt them to ask a question (GROUCHY!), and having to go to the bathroom with nowhere to go, and wondering where our checked bags would be once we got done in immigration, and hoping we would make it to the gate in time for our flight...

DELAYED due to weather!!

Let's see.. Barely slept during 16 hours of flying (4 to Nagoya and 12 to Detroit), not feeling so good, have to wait wait wait some more... An airport floor looks pretty comfy right now!

Oh, such sleepy boys!

Look who else is sleeping!  I guess that leaves ONE responsible one to watch all our things and to listen for the call to board...

**NOTE:  Sorry for the confusion.  This picture is actually a set-up.  Isaac is really sleeping, and the other two think they are funny!!

Waiting at NAIA - Manila Airport...

Isaac is comfortably sleeping during our wait to board.  I guess he is sleeping now so that he can watch 16 hours of non-stop movies on the plane!