Wahe's World

Trying to Keep Up Since 2008

Archive for the month “December, 2009”

30 Dec 2009
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2009 In Review (aka the Christmas letter we never sent)

What a quick year! It seems like yesterday that we became parents. And now we will be celebrating Alex’s second birthday next week.  But what did 2009 bring us?

Alex brought us much joy and happiness. We are amazed at how much he grew physically, mentally and emotionally over the past 12 months.  We can’t think of a day that Alex didn’t bring a smile to our faces. The three of us are honored and lucky to call each other a family.  Alex enjoyed swim lessons, a trip to Florida, his first camping trip, geocaching, the Madison Zoo, music and much, much more. In the upcoming year Alex is planning on more swimming, a trip to Arizona and of course becoming a big brother.

Alex’s grandparents would drop anything to come and spend time with Alex so that we could take care of work related or other tasks.  Alex’s best friend to date is his Grandpa Max.  Thankfully we planed ahead when finishing off the lower level so that the grandparents and other visitors have a comfortable place rest.

We developed a deeper appreciation of our family, friends and neighbors.  Their support and kindness has truly been amazing. Our friends and neighbors really came through in supporting our fundraiser for our second adoption. Over 30 families donated items for our garage sale fundraiser. There were many more who came to the sale and bought many of the treasures, donated a little extra and provided kind and supportive words. We are also thankful for the neighbors who not only helped with the fundraiser but also helped take care of our pets when we were out of town, rescue our lost cat and also provided bright smiles and playful words to Alex.

We are proud of our other accomplishments in 2009. Stefan was promoted at work where he is now the Chief Security Office and supervises a great team of 10 IT security professionals. Michelle had many successful sales events and was able to clear through many of her designs. Michelle lost 30 pounds by following the weight watchers regiment.  Stefan lost 15 pounds through exercise and better eating habits. However,  those pounds have found their way back during the holidays. Back to the gym with him!

The best news of the year, of course, came this December when we received the referral for our second son.  We are blessed to have received a referral for a healthy, cute little guy.  We hope to bring him to his new home by mid-June. We will continue to post updates as we receive them.

As 2010 starts we know our lives are in for another change with the addition of Michael (name subject to change). Alex will learn a lot as a big brother and he will also become a teacher (actually he has been teaching us a lot).  Michelle will continue to work on her business while taking care of the two boys. Stefan will have more opportunities to develop his technical and leadership skills at the University of Wisconsin and will continue as a part time instructor at MATC.

We know that 2010 will bring us a lot of joy but will always remember 2009 as a remarkable year for our family.

Posted by swahe in About
03 Dec 2009
9 Comments

And Now We Are Four!!!

Michelle asked me what I wanted for my birthday a few weeks ago.  For once, I really didn’t have an answer.  But Michelle and I both got the greatest gift in the world.  We received a referral for Song Lee earlier this week.  Today we met with our social worker to see his pictures for the first time and to review his paperwork. When we saw the first picture we immediately fell in love with our new son. Pictured is Song Lee at five months.

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More pictures can be viewed at https://wahe.us/blog/v/SongLee/Scan1_0001.jpg.html

After we we wrapped up with our social worker we were off to the next step of the Amazing Paper Chase (Round II).  I have to brag that we probably set a record for completing the paperwork at this stage. This stage entailed the following steps which we completed in 6 hours:

  1. Acquire our adoption bond (insurance)
  2. Complete 16 different documents with various levels of complexity
  3. Stop at the bank
  4. Visit our pediatrician to make sure there wasn’t something we were missing in Song Lee’s medical records.
  5. Deliver the package of paperwork to FedEx by 8:00 tonight to be overnighted to Chicago.

This last step was the most important.  If we got the paperwork to Chicago tomorrow morning, there was a good chance that the agency could get the paperwork off to Seoul the same day. Hopefully this would get us on the list to get our travel call sooner.  The typical travel call comes in 4 to 6 months. So the sooner we get the paperwork to Seoul the sooner the 4 to 6 month clock starts ticking.

Michelle and I were making great time in steps 1 through 3.  Luckily we were able to find a babysitter for Alex to help make all of this possible. We stepped out of the bank at 4:00 needing to be at the doctors office at 4:30. The problem, we were on Madison’s west side, the doctors office was on the east side and it was snowing.  We just needed sunglasses, some candy cigarettes and a police cruiser instead of the minivan to make it a good movie.

This was Madison first snowfall.  As anyone in the upper Midwest could attest, the first snowfall is always the worst to be on the roads in rush hour.  But the saints were smiling onto us. Our doctor was able to push the appointment back. He waited for us to snake along the belt-line to the East Towne complex. It was after 5:00 but it only took him a few moments to review the pictures to give us the thumbs up on Song Lee. He had already reviewed the paperwork. We the talked through all the things we talked about with Alex. But it was good to cover.

We  picked Alex up from the sitter, came home, fed Alex, made sure all our T’s were crossed and I’s were dotted and off to FedEx I ran.  In displaying my appreciation and amazement at the clerks guarantee that the package would get to its location by 8:00 AM tomorrow I realized that the FedEx people do this everyday. Like many things, it’s no longer magic.

Alex has always answered in the affirmative to the question, “do you want a brother?”  He now has a face to put with the concept of “brother.” The picture will be on his dresser next to his two sets of grandparents and his cousins so when he asks “who’z that?” he now will know.

Posted by swahe in Adoptions

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