We met!

And of course, we fell in love.
We were told to meet our social worker in the lobby of the agency at 10:00. We got there early and at about five minutes to 10:00 a toddler and a foster mom walked by us. She was holding the child's hand and spun him toward us so we could see his face. It was Max! The foster mom obviously recognized us right away and stopped so we could see him. He looked a little sleepy (we learned later that he woke up at 5:00 am this morning). He started to cry a little. The foster mom stepped into an open doorway to get the social worker, but she left Max on the floor by us. I couldn't just leave him there, so risking further tears I picked him up. To my surprise, he stopped crying, laid his head on my shoulder, and snuggled right in. That's when I fell in love.
The social worker moved us into the room in which parents meet their babies and told us we had to fill out some paperwork before we played with him. I reluctantly set him down. His foster mom put him inside a Little Tikes-type car while we got Max's passport and visa. We still managed to sneak in a game or two of peek-a-boo while Kurt filled out some paperwork.
Then we were able to get on the floor with him and try to engage him with the toys while simultaneously grilling the foster mom with questions about sleeping, feeding, and soothing. Kurt played with him a lot and got him to roll balls with him and even got Max to sit on his lap for awhile. That's when Kurt fell in love.
The time went by much too quickly and before we knew it, we had to say good-bye. Max gave us both high-fives and waved bye-bye.
It was really hard to walk away. Our social worker whisked us away. We were scheduled to meet with Dr. Kim and the other families that are here to bring their children home. We (and the other parents) were also honored guests at a luncheon where we were served some terrific Korean food. (This a great country to be in if you are gluten- free!)
Now all of our meetings are done. We get to take custody of Max the day before we fly and we can't wait!
We met two other couples who have invited us to join them on a food tour tonight. An adult Korean adoptee will tour us through several restaurants and teach us about Korean food. It is only about 3:00 in the afternoon here and we have already had such an amazing day. It will be great to get out tonight and see a bit of Seoul.
If I have the days right, my Gleason Lake friends will be having their Open House tonight. Good luck to you!
(Amy, is that detailed enough for you?)
And who is posting under the name of Ladyslipper? We can't figure it out.
For those of you who are struggling with the technology, I feel your pain. Kurt has to assist with everything I do on this thing. We can read and send email by the way. That is it for now. We send lots of love to all of you back home!
Dede (and Kurt)

We made it!

We arrived at the Eastern Social Welfare Society at about 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 31st.  Our initial flight to Chicago was delayed about 40 minutes.  Fortunately, we had enough time to catch our connecting flight to South Korea.  We flew direct from Chicago to Seoul on Korean Air and the flight couldn't have been any better.

After arriving at the agency and after getting our things unpacked, we set out to find some bottled water and to get something to eat.  We're pretty tired since we've been up for more than 26 hours (we did sleep some on the plane). So, we weren't feeling very adventurous.  We found a 7-Eleven near the agency and spotted a chicken place. We picked up some fried chicken and brought it back to the agency's kitchen to eat.  We had a slight scare when we got back to the agency when we discovered the first 2 outside doors were locked.  Luckily, the 3rd door was still open.

The second challenge of the night was to figure out how to get logged into this blog.  This initially was a challenge since half of the screen was in Korean (solved this problem too).

Tomorrow we meet Max for the first time at 10a.m.  So, we'd better get to bed.  Talk with you soon.
Kurt (and Dede)

Off we go...

One last post before we head out tomorrow.  We fly to Chicago tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m and then from there straight to Seoul.  We arrive in Seoul at 4:30 in the afternoon on the 31st (my birthday ends somewhere over the ocean). 

We'll be staying at the adoption agency's guest house.  They have about 6 rooms, so there is a chance we'll meet other families.  If everything goes as planned, we will meet Max and his foster mother on September 1st at 10a.m. (~8 p.m. 8/31 local time). 

We want to thank everyone for their support and well wishes.  See you soon.

-Kurt (and Dede)

First Post

Hi All,
I decided to set up a blog to try to keep everyone up to date with our trip to bring Max home.  I decided to call our blog OurLittleTree.  As some of you might recall, we first used the tree analogy in a letter we sent to announce we're growing our family through adoption.

The analogy started when Dede ran into the book Perspectives on a Grafted Tree:  Thoughts for Those Touched by Adoption compiled by Patricia Irwin Johnston.

I thought I'd share the last portion of our announcement letter one more time because it means so much to us.

There was an apple tree in the Vogt Family front yard.  It had begun bearing fruit referred to as “Grandma Vogt’s apples.”  Then Dad began grafting other types of apples onto the tree.  We watched as he would prepare a limb on the main tree to accept a tiny new branch.  The new branch needed special care at first.  Eventually, each new branch became one more limb on the tree.  In its heyday, that apple tree sported many different kinds of blossoms, leaves, and apples.  They all needed protection from squirrels and worms, but otherwise, the apples all grew happily together on one tree. We are grafting onto our family tree.