Staying Busy

Today is the big day. Today we will meet Button! So naturally I woke up at 2:45am. At this point, I'm really nothing more than a shivering chihuahua. I hope I can pull it together enough to hold the kid. Oh wow, I'm super excited! Poor Brian has been practically baby-sitting me since we arrived and now we are getting a real toddler.

We had a wonderful day yesterday. Since we've both been here before and blessed enough to tour the "Big Bangkok Hot-Spots" we decided we would just spend the day running some errands and making sure we had all our P's and Q's in place for "BUTTON DAY". After a lovely breakfast in the garden we took advantage of the hotel's complimentary shuttle to the skytrain. Fortunately, the shuttle drops guests off at the Sala Deng stop, which is right in the heart of the Silom District of Bangkok (the area I am most familiar with) so we shopped up and down both sides of the street enjoying the early morning cool and calm that only jet-lagged tourists discover. We got delicious ice coffees at the Doi Tung shop. While in Thailand, please frequent the Doi Tung shops. They have lovely gifts, delicious edibles and all of the proceeds go to help the hilltribe minorities! After that we rode the skytrain 2 stops (20 baht) to the Siam Center to check out the mall and look for some things we accidentally forgot and others we still needed to buy.

We bought wrapping paper for our gifts for the social workers and Button's foster family. The Thai's do the most magnificent wrapping paper and bows and the girl helping me was so excited about the options for "making cute". The end result was not cheap but we did indeed make cute. After that, we wondered through a fantastic toy store looking for presents for the little girl we sponsor at House of Grace in Chiang Rai. We are going there for a few days when we are done in BKK and we will get to visit with her as usual. We want to make sure that she knows that despite our new parental status we still love her absolutely and she can always count on us. The girls in the home have so little and I don't want her to feel she is loosing...again. So from Brian a pink doctor's kit because little girls can grow up to be doctors too and from me an Asian Barbie because little girls can grow up to be fashion conscious doctors!

Then we rode back to the Sala Deng stop and ate lunch at the "Bug and Bee" a darling little fusion restaurant which serves Thai food wrapped up in crepes. They also have a variety of cold fruit drinks. I know it sounds like an odd idea but when I saw the sign I said to Brian, "That's either really bad or really good but don't you think we must try it?" So we did and it was delicious! We shared the Thai Tuna salad in cold crepe and the curry puffs in hot crepe and a lime soda.

After lunch Brian declared that I had to spend at least 3 hours napping because my eyeballs were starting to twirl so I was put to bed. When I woke up my sweet husband had made us dinner reservations for a fancy night out in honor of our last "No babysitter needed date night." How cute is he? He took me to the Oriental Hotel, which is one of the oldest and loveliest spots in Bangkok. They have 9 restaurants to choose from and their French theme is consistently voted one of the best restaurants in all of Asia. We, however, ate at the traditional Thai restaurant on the riverfront. The weather was perfect with a soft breeze all evening and the food was delicious. A very fun part of eating here is that you arrive at the hotel but then The Oriental's complimentary lighted barge takes you across the river and you eat on the other side.

Well, that brings you up to speed and my next post should have Button details in it!
--Rosemary

P.S. If some of you are wondering about the very specific details in this blog they are for other pre-adoptive families who will be traveling after us and staying in this exact hotel, looking for places to eat, needing to use the skytrain and trying to cope with the new surroundings. Reading each other's blogs is one of our best ways to prepare for this wonderful but complicated trip.