Daddy's Boy

It is becoming obvious that Jordan is definitely a Daddy's boy. His face lights up whenever Luke enters the room, and he always wants to know what Daddy is up to. He has fallen completely in love with Luke and the feelings are clearly mutual!Taking a trip around the house. I think Jordan would be content to walk the loop around the house all day long!

Enjoying some fun with Daddy before going to bed.

Jordan is always so curious about any foods we eat.

Once he was offered a bite of Luke's dinner of rice and seaweed he couldn't get enough! He gobbled down many spoonfuls and seemed so happy after he had finished eating.

Watching ESPN with Daddy.

Enjoying a little cuddle time before bed.


Dancing with Daddy

Coming Home!

After almost 24 hours of traveling we finally made it home! The trip began with a visit to Eastern where Jordan and his foster mother were waiting. Dr. Kim offered a prayer for Jordan and then we piled into the van and headed to the airport. After a one hour trip to the airport we checked in and waited about another hour to board the flight. Thankfully Jordan slept in his bassinette during most of the 10 hour flight to Seattle. After a very stressful layover in Seattle due to almost missing our plane because of customs, we boarded another plane headed for Denver. In Denver we waited 1 hour on the runway without air conditioning before finally heading for Grand Rapids where we arrived at about 12:30 a.m. It was a very long journey and we were shocked at how well Jordan handled it! Very few tears! When we arrived in Grand Rapids we were surprised to be greeted by some family and friends. Since it was close to one in the morning we didn't expect anyone except my parents, so we were thrilled to see more familiar faces there to greet Jordan home!

Enjoying one more laugh and cuddle with his foster mother.

Crawling around at the airport in Seoul.

Meeting Grandpa and Grandma for the first time. We can't wait for him to meet Grandpa and Grandma Scherkenbach in a few short days!

Now we are home and are trying to settle into a routine. Jordan has loved exploring the house and is so eager to try walking everywhere! He also has adjusted to the time change more easily than I have. He went to sleep at 9:30 last night and didn't wake up until 8:30 this morning! 11 straight hours of sleep! Mommy isn't doing as well with the time change and couldn't fall alseep until 2:00 last night.

Jordan is full of smiles and laughs.

He loves to pull himself up on furniture and has even taken 3 steps on his own!

He loves books, although he is usually more interested in chewing the book than in listening to the story!

Jordan crawls everywhere he can!

Visiting Gwangju

After asking Luke what he thought of the trip to Gwangju this weekend he responded by saying, "It was the trip of a lifetime, and I mean that literally!" And that is so true. It definitely was an unbelievable experience. We were fortunate enough to arrange for an interpreter to accompany us on our trip. She brought her friend along as well so we never had any issues with the language barrier. We took a 3 hour train ride on Saturday afternoon down to Gwangju (apparently I've been spelling the city wrong all this time) and were met at the train station by Mrs. Yoo's husband. Mrs. Yoo is the woman who runs the group home that is located in the spot where Luke's orphanage was located. In fact, Mrs. Yoo is the daughter-in-law of Mrs. Park, the woman who was in charge of the orphanage while Luke was living there. As we headed up to the orphanage we had to drive up a very steep hill and immediately Luke began having memories of living there. Before our trip we had been told that the orphanage was torn down, so we were overwhelmed when we arrived to find that several of the original buildings were still standing. There were so many incredible moments we experienced during our stay in Gwangju that we will share when we arrive home. We also took about 100 pictures (no exaggeration!) during our time there. Here are just a few for you to enjoy.When Mrs. Yoo found out that it was Luke's birthday, she arranged for an impromptu birthday celebration.

Luke was presented with a cake and a gift while Mrs. Yoo and the children living at the group home sang "Happy Birthday" to him.

Here we are with our interpeters,Yoon-Gi and Se-In, on the busy streets of Gwangju.
We have a picture of Luke when he was about 4 years old standing on these very steps or at least on one of the sets of stone steps that were leading up to the orphange.

Before we left on Sunday Mrs. Yoo took us on a short tour of Gwangju. She was so excited that Luke was there and wanted to show him everything! Notice how narrow the streets are!

Changdeokgung Palace (Part 2)

Here are some pictures from our visit to the Changdeokgung Palace. We had a wonderful time despite the very hot weather. Luke and I at the entrance to the palace.


A view inside one of the buildings of the palace.

Our tour guide is pictured here in traditional Korean clothing. She must have been so hot!



After visiting the palace Luke and I spent some time at the Insadong Market. We found some great souveniers, but we were so hot and tired by this point in the day!

Changdeokgung Palace

Surprise! This is Lucas writing for the first time here in beautiful Korea. Its everything I expected and more. I love this city, pictures and words really cant do it justice. Today was our first real touristy day. We finally have recovered from the jet lag, I thought I could tough it out, but I couldnt. Anyways, we saw the palace Changdeokgung today and took a tour. Its really an amazing place and we were really glad we did it. It took about an hour and 20 minutes so we really got our 3 bucks worth. The history is amazing with that palace, its one of 5 in Seoul but apparently its the biggest and best one.

We finally figured out the subway system today, or I should say Kristin figured it out and I just went where she told me. We have run into several americans and canadians and australians, that spoke english, so thats been fun, but the language barrier is very difficult. We can say thank you very much and Hello, how are you. Thats it. Most people here dont speak english and I truly feel like a foreigner. The people are very polite here and are very gracious. Emily you would love it here. I think of you a lot as I pass by because so many of the women look like you. Gee, really? Also, I thought I would be taller here in Korea, but I'm not! I'm still short even here! That was a surprise to me.

We also visited our first street market today and that was a blast, so much to see and look at, it was sensory overload, but an amazing experience. also there is food everywhere, street venders with all kinds of tasty and exotic foods. You have to be careful, cause if you eat something that doesnt agree with you, which happened to me, you feel weird all day, so I'm toning down the adventure eating.

Hope you all are doing well, we will be back soon and have more jet lag, but little JT will be with us and that is such a joy I cant even express it to you.

Love Lucas and Kristin

Making plans

So far this trip we have been pretty much consumed with meeting Jordan and getting over the jet lag. On Tuesday and Wednesday it was very, very rainy here and we had to buy umbrellas. Even with the umbrellas we were soaking wet after walking the streets of Seoul. So after lunch on Wednesday afternoon we decided to go back to our hotel to take a short nap because we were still trying to get adjusted to the time difference. We intended to take a 30 minute nap or so, but ended up sleeping for 7 hours!! We completely fell into a deep sleep and were shocked to wake up and find that it was dark outside. Yesterday we managed to stay up the whole day but still went to bed early at 9:00. After meeting with Dr. Kim, having lunch with the Eastern staff, and meeting Jordan, we hung out with some new friends who are also adopting from Korea for the rest of the day. The big news is that yesterday Luke managed to arrange a trip for us to Kwaangju. We are going to visit the daycare center that is in the spot where his orphanage once stood. Someone at Dillon kindly set us up with an organization here in Seoul that provides volunteers to travel with Korean adoptees to their birth cities. So tomorrow a gal from this organization (along with her friend) is accompanying us on our trip to Kwaangju. We are taking the train out of Seoul and spending the night there. The lady who runs the daycare center has spoken with Luke several times now and she is so excited to show him around. She is arranging for hotel rooms for us for Saturday night. It should be an interesting adventure!

We hope to visit some markets today and try to bravely navigate the subway system. Saturday and Sunday is our trip to Kwaangju and then Monday we will leave to bring Jordan home!

2nd meeting with Jordan

This will be a quick post because we are due to meet up with some friends we have made here very soon. I knew you would be interested to see more pictures, so I wanted to at least post a few of the photos we took this afternoon. Jordan played with us for about a half hour this afternoon and we even managed to coax a few smiles out of him. I hope to post more later letting you know what else we've been up to. Until then, enjoy these pictures of our new son!This yellow ball was his favorite toy! The ball, like every other toy, went straight into his mouth!