Ashley...

Our Ashley was born on January 1, 2009, and will be TWO years old this year.  She has been in the loving care of her foster family for nearly her entire life, since she was about 3 months old.  We have been very fortunate to have had many reports on her and her growth and development, along with a number of wonderful photos.  Her story and her pictures show that she is doing very well.

Here is a recent photo of her at home...

She's mobile, confident and as cute as the day is long.  We are indeed lucky to have been matched with such an angel.


More story and photos coming soon.


As for the trip...


We depart Philadelphia on Tuesday Oct. 5 and return home on Wednesday Oct. 27.  We are gathering and accumulating all of the "stuff" required for the journey.  Clothing/medicine/baby supplies/toys/games/chargers/adapters.  Soon we will be pre-packing so that we'll be able to see all the stuff we can't take because we have no more room!  We've done this twice already, so we have a good idea of what we can get away with.


Next we need to prepare the all-important and ever-present documents. Rest assured we'll have the originals, copies of the originals, copies of the copies, scans of everything on (2) USB thumb drives each carried by a different person, and of course backup scans that I'll give to my parents to email to us in case we get into a real jam.  That ought to cover us. (The arming codes for the US nuclear arsenal should have a backup system as redundant as ours!)  Last time out I nearly wore out the zipper on the middle compartment of my backpack because every 30 minutes, Lisa would look at me - and I would know what was coming - and before she she got the words "Do we have the documents?" out, I was elbow-deep in the backpack fishing for the folders.  It seems like overkill, and it probably is, but you never know...


More soon...
C