Breakfast...my new favorite meal!

I am not a big breakfast eater in general.  However, after our exotic dinner experience last night, I had a new appreciation for the breakfast buffet when I awoke at 1 am again STARVING!  I had to pull out a belt today because one pair of jeans I brought is starting to fall off!  Anyway, while there are many unidentifiable...and in my opinion, NON-breakfast choices available, there are enough things I recognize and can/will eat!!  Yahoo!!!!  I pretty much carb-load!  I ate lots of these delicious "steamed-twist buns", crispy bacon, stir-fried noodles and veggies and pear-kiwi danish.  I ate until I felt like I would explode, because I now realize it is likely to be the only meal I really eat each day.  Mia is getting a little too skinny for my taste, so I told her she had to eat as much as possible at breakfast as well.  She ate a hard boiled egg, lots of scrambled eggs...even scrambled, they are a bit orange, tons of bacon, watermelon, cantaloupe, and a new favorite: croissants!  She chugged 3 full glasses of the milk we discovered yesterday that tastes similar to what we are used to.  Charles ate some food I could identify, but I will let him tell you the odd items below in a bit.  I am learning not to look at his plate so I will not get nauseated.  Sad, but true.  I will tell you he drank CUCUMBER JUICE with breakfast.  (wow)  Side note about the scrambled eggs. Yesterday, Charles asked the egg chef guy for scrambled eggs for Mia.  He got some version of orange, sunny-side up instead.  I went back and asked for scrambled again a little later, adding hand motions.  He did NOT understand, and a waitress came over.  She did not understand either, but joined me in my game of charades with hand motions.  Like an idiot, I kept repeating the word "scrambled" as if it would suddenly be understood after repetition.  REALLY?!  I know better.  He figured it out and made them!  This morning when I asked him for scrambled eggs and briefly did the motions...he immediately smiled, said yes in English and whipped those eggs for about 3 solid minutes before cooking them.  He was very proud that he understood what I wanted and I was super excited as well.  We had a smile-fest with each other while I waited for the eggs.

 

On the sleep front, or should I say the LACK of sleep front for me, Mia was out at 8pm and woke up about 5:30 this morning.  Charles and I went to bed at 9pm.  He woke up at 5:30, asking Mia and I WHY we were awake...to which I replied HOW are you asleep????  I woke up at 00:05 on the bedside clock.  I could not figure out what the heck time that meant and was disturbed to find out this morning it meant 5 minutes past midnight.  I woke up for good at 1 am again.  I was up until after 3 am, then dozed for a few minutes at a time betweem 3 and 5.  I stayed awake all day yesterday after waking up at 1am, and I was SURE I would sleep all night with no help from Ambien.  Apparently, no matter how tired I am, my internal clock is not fooled yet.  Guess I will rely on that to sleep tonight.   Arrrgg!  Also, I kept thinking how that was the last night we would sleep as a family of 3.  That led me to thinking about how my Kennedy was sleeping for the last time in the orphanage.  I know she is excited.  Sue...Erin's mom (who was just adopted in September), emailed to tell me she woke up at 2 am US Saturday morning to find Erin online with Kennedy.  Kennedy was saying that she was being adopted the next day and she was excited!  I also know that she must be nervous, scared and a little sad to know she will soon leave everyone and everything she knows.  Please pray that we can comfort her and that she will have a smooth transition into our family.  I can hardly believe today is the day!!!  I wish we didn't have to wait until 5pm!!

 

Last night, I prepared the gifts we brought for the orphanage director, assistant director, caregivers and civil affairs officials.  We will bring the gifts today for the orphanage staff, and tomorrow we will take the ones for the civil affairs staff when we return to complete the adoption legally on Monday.  The gifts are just small tokens of appreciation.  We were told all are female that we will encounter.  I hope so, because we are giving everyone pretty note cards, a pen, a Houston post card, lipstick, mascara, (you know ladies...lips and lashes are critical)body-mist and m&m's. For the director and the caregivers, we included sterling silver heart necklaces that I got on major sale at Kohl's.  For Esther, who we think is the assistant director...we got a sterling silver neclkace that is different from the others.  It is a symbol for family tree.  We included a special note thanking her for loving Kennedy so much and for helping our family grow.  She is very close and special to Kennedy.

 

Mia has a special gift for Kennedy when we meet today.  She has matching sterling silver "Sisters" necklaces for the two of them.  (also from the sale at Kohl's...$50 bucks when not on sale, so I am very proud of my $15 dollar purchases!)  Mia is really excited and wrote in the special journal her sweet teacher made for her about how excited she is that she will meet her sister today at 5:00!  She keeps asking where her "Mrs. Montagne journal" is every day!!!  So proud of my little writer!

 

Well, I want Charles to add in his breakfast selections now, but guess what!??  He is asleep again!  Taking his 8:50 am nap.  GEEZ, I wish I could sleep like that man of mine!!!  It is really quiet in here, so I think Mia may have just nodded off too.  AHHHHH...sweet silence.  She has tried to fill EVERY dead airspace with her voice.  She keeps saying she misses Texas and wants to get Kennedy and get right on the plane home.  Me too, honey.  Wish we could.

 

Charles will have to post his own message when he awakes from his beauty sleep.  I think he actually took pictures of his weird meal this morning to post for y'all.  After he posts that, the next post should be of pics from our "Gotcha Day" with our beautiful, precious Kennedy!!!!!!!!!  I just got CHILLS!!!  I think Charles plans to video tape the meeting, but we will see if that works out.  If so, I am sure he will post a clip.  Stay tuned!  We get her at 5pm, so that will be 3am in Texas.  We will be gone for awhile and probably go to dinner as well due to our meeting time.  It will take us awhile to post, so be patient.  I know several of you who will be checking every hour until you see it!  Maybe we can post a few pics right away, and work on the post later or something!   BTW, we get in to Houston around 5:30ish on Saturday evening, December 11.  Some of you may want to meet us at the airport, so you can email me or leave a comment with your email address so we can email you if you don't know my email address.  We do not want to post that specific info on the blog.  ;)  My mom works for the airline, and she and my dad are hoping to fly to L.A. to meet us on the 10th when we arrive and have to spend the night.  Kennedy will gain her US citizenship when we pass through immigration there at the airport.  It would be such a comfort to see my parents at the gate, so pray for the flights to be wide open so they will make it there!  Gotta say, after the Walmart experience yesterday, I miss my mommy more than ever!  (...said the 40 year old woman...)