Family Day

Well, Family day was June 11th at 3 pm Seoul time (June 11th at midnight Colorado time). What an exciting and exhilerating "birthing" process to get Ava Seong-Yeon Perry home to Colorado!! We met with Ava and her foster mother about 2:00 pm so that she could say her "goodbyes" (still tears us up today). Still isn't easy for her still after 27 children she has cared for. She said that she was very happy to be able to meet us and finally meet the new parents of one of the children she has fostered over the past 8 years. What a wonderful women and we are blessed that she raised Ava for these past months. Ava is so happy and smart and will be a better person because of her foster mother's care. We hope that we can live up to her high fashion standards:-) Thank you very much!!! She brought with her some of Ava's things including the ball and bunny we sent to her. She said she does not sleep with out her bunny and had to wait until that day to bring it. She also made us a wonderful picture book of Ava taken over the last 10 months. It is really nice and she did a very professional job on dressing her up and taking photos. WOW!!! We got another quick rundown on Ava's idiocincracies and food habits and were off to meet Dr. Kim for the final prayer that he does with all of the departing children from their care. It was hard to see Ava and her foster mother be so sad to leave each other. After a while on the way to the airport she slept and was beginning to attach to her forever mommy. We were pretty earlier to catch our flight at 8 pm and hung out in the terminal. She did ok and Leslie walked her around to calm her down. Then we found out our flight was delayed until 9 pm, boy what a journey. Thank goodnes the flight to LAX is faster than the one to Seoul!! We requested a bassinet which came in really handy for storing Ava's toys and formula in front of us... Yes she did NOT want to leave Leslie's body for anything!!! Ava slept most of the trip and was pretty good compared to the LAX to DIA flight (that's all I am going to say about that, except she has a good set of lungs!). We arrived in LA and made our way through customs. They zipped us right through because we had a baby (we love this special baby treatment stuff!) Christie at AAC said that that was not typical though, but thank goodness because we were on a short time line to catch the connecting flight to DIA. It was about 5:30 when we in customs and our flight left at 6:11; and LAX is B-I-G!!! But we made it ok...
We landed in DIA and made it through the terminal with whispers around us saying, "yeah she's not crying now" and we were happy to see Christie from AAC waiting for us. She was so gracious in helping us with our luggage and to get us to our car. Thanks Christie! The struggle to get Ava in the car seat was a challenge, but she was ok once we started to drive. We were all ready to get home, whew! We still are off on our time, but Ava is right on schedule with eating, sleeping, playing, and so on. Very attached to Leslie still and it has been tough for her being in new surroundings and travelling (which is very understandable for Day 1). Well on to day 2 and more playing!! If we had to do it over again, we would not have changed a thing about this whole experience; even with the crash course in parenting and not bringing enough socks!!!
Thanks for your support and take care!
Love the new Perry Family