I'm able to think a bit more clearly now,

but I'm still walking around with a goofy smile on my face. It has been such a relief to get travel approval. I knew I had been weighed down with the waiting, but didn't fully realize quite how badly it had affected me. Even doing small, everyday things had begun to feel like a burden and I wondered how I was going to manage when K came home and I had to deal with him as well. (In full disclosure though, I'm still not really enjoying cooking dinner in the basement and cleaning up from meals in the basement. I'm afraid the only thing that will help that problem is moving the kitchen back above ground.) Now, even preparing three children for an extended stay at a friend's house and three children for overseas travel doesn't seem that big of a deal. I am just so grateful that we can finally go and bring K home.

And the timing is just about perfect. Even though I would have prefered to bring K home 9 months ago, I have to admit that how everything is working out is really for the best. In my good moments I knew God had everything in hand. It's just as the wait dragged on that it became easier and easier to forget that. So, to remind myself the next time I want to doubt God's timing, here is my list of all the positives about travel happening when it is:

1. J is able to finish teaching the two classes he has right now and doesn't need to find someone to cover for him.

2. I am able to direct the musical that my children's choir is doing in a week and a half. And my choir will be done for the school year. I won't need to figure out how to direct and take care of K at the same time.

3. M and B are able to play their roles in their theater group's performance of, The Man Who Came to Dinner. (Much to the delight of the director, I might add.)

4. TM is much more stable emotionally than he was 9 months ago. He is better able to handle suitcases and trips. That just leaves the Vietnamese language as a trigger which we will need to help him with.

5. The friends who are watching our children brought home a son from China last fall. The delay has allowed him to settle into his new family without the disruption of adding three more children temporarily. The trip is also before their son's cleft surgery so they don't have the added stress of extra children while they help their son through major surgery.

6. We have the money to pay for the trip.

7. We get to travel with another family whose daughter is in K's orphanage. We have corresponded with them over the course of the year and it will be wonderful to meet in person. Plus, our children will have the comfort of seeing each other even after everything else has changed.

8. The remodelling is at a point where we can leave it. Even better, when we return it will be nearly completed and we probably will be able to move into the kitchen.

9. Related to the kitchen...I can't imagine trying to cook in the basement while watching a very active 2 year old at the same time. Do you know how much there is in a basement for a 2 year old to get into!?!

10. K has lived his whole life in a very hot and humid place. When he arrives in the midwest, it will not be in the dead of winter. It seems almost cruel to do that to a child...especially the winter we just survived.

11. I didn't have to worry about a toddler playing in all the construction dust. Yuck!

12. M's (new at Christmas) camera broke a month ago. It was a given to her mainly because of the upcoming trip. I have to say that Kodak was terrific about honoring the warantee and fixed it for free, but it was just returned two weeks ago. Now she'll be able to take it with her.

13. It will be warm enough in Hanoi to use the hotel's outdoor (unheated) pool. This is something that TM specifically talks about. He was happiest when we were swimming and he is very much looking forward to swimming in it again. I just hope we can get rooms in the same hotel, it is sometimes full.

14. I was able to finish the sweater I was knitting for K. (This is no small feat since in January I finished a sweater vest that I had been knitting for J that I had been working on for 10 years.)

So, how's that for a list of positives? We have our plane tickets, and they were not as ridiculously expensive as I was fearing. I am most excited by the terminal we leave from and arrive to. Our main airport is not one that anyone wants to have to use on a regular basis. By using the terminal which we are, we avoid a lot of hassles. Plus we go through customs at our final destination. We don't have to worry about missing flights because customs was a nightmare.

Now I can work on important problems...such as keeping our luggage weight under 40 pounds, and setting up online bill paying accounts, and organizing gifts, and finding costume pieces for M, and buying summer clothes for B who has grown nearly a foot in nine months, and...