Disney World 2013

   I can't believe the summer is almost over! Everything seems like it has flown by since our return from China in November. I hope everyone has taken a chance to get away for some kind of vacation with your family this summer. For us, we took the kids to Walt Disney World in Orlando. We had a great time and I thought I would take a chance to share some of that experience with you. I know this blog has mainly been about our adoptions, but now that we are finished with our seconded adoption, I thought I would continue to blog about our lives and observations from our daily lives.

  We were in Orlando for one full week and had a blast. This was my 5th trip to the Magic Kingdom and like the others, this was no disappointment. We love everything Disney and any opportunity we have to visit a park.
   This year, we decided to stay at the new Art of Animation resort. We booked a standard room in the Little Mermaid section (which is the only area with standard rooms). While the room was the size of a normal hotel room, we really enjoined the decor with the touch from Disney's Little Mermaid movie. The outside of the buildings were amazing with larger than life Decor and the entire building being painted to reflect the movie. These design elements were carried out throughout the other sections of the resort as well, with areas themed for The Lion King, Finding Nemo, and Cars. My favorite area was cars as they had life sizes cars from the movie along the main road in Radiator Springs (the sidewalk) that lead to a small pool with Cozy Cone cabanas and a massive entryway that was a three story replica of the Wagon Wheel motel.
   As for entertainment, the resort boasts three pools themed for Little Mermaid, Cars, and Finding Nemo. The Finding Nemo pool, called The Big Blue Pool, is the largest pool at a Disney Resort and features a zero entry end and underwater speakers playing music and conversation inspired by the movie. There is also a small water spout play area next to the pool that is made to resemble playing at the reef.
   If you prefer to stay dry, there is a large arcade in Animation Hall (the main building containing the arcade, check-in, shopping, and the food court), a playground by the Big Blue Pool and a soon to be completed play area in the Lion King Area.
   Other resort activities include games and competitions for all ages, ping pong, and a nightly movie, all taking place at or in The Big Blue Pool.
   We really enjoyed our time at the resort and always were treated very good by the staff. They were all very friendly and helpful for any of our needs. The Art of Animation resort is connected to the Pop Century resort via a bridge across the lake. We ventured over there one day to look around, shop, and dine in their facility. Much to our surprise, we experienced a very different atmosphere. At least for our experience, the staff at Pop Century were not friendly or helpful at all. In the store, I don't think a single Cast Member said a word to us and when we went to the food court area we found the same thing. We seemed to be more of an inconvenience to them instead of a valued guest. It seemed very odd to us as this was the first time we have every felt that way at any Disney property in either Florida or California. After dinner, we headed back across the lake where we were immediately greeted by a Cast Member when we entered Animation Hall.
 
   Of course our experience in the parks was great as usual. We got buttons saying we were celebrating our 15th anniversary and were amazed at the response from the Cast. As we walked by, they stopped everything they were doing to tell us happy anniversary. It was amazing how much they were paying attention to all of these little details throughout the complex.
   One of the first stops was the new Fantasy Land area. Although it is not complete finished yet, this is a great addition to the park. With new dining options like Be Our Guest (in the Beast's Castle from Beauty and the Beast), to Gaston's and all the former rides along with a new Little Mermaid ride (like the one in California Adventure),  cue area for Dumbo and a second Dumbo ride, and an all new roller coaster for the Seven Dwarfs (which is not complete yet). This is a great area for the whole family and especially the little ones. The rest of the park as well as the other parks were filled with the old favorites and some new additions that are sure to please.
   Each visit, we try to do a couple special dining  events for the kids (and us) to enjoy. This year we had breakfast at Chef Mickey's with all the characters, and a special dessert event at the Magic Kingdom with a great view of the fireworks.
   At Chef Mickey's we had some great Disney food at the all you can eat buffet, great service, and photo ops with Chef Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto and Goofy. The kids had a blast and really enjoyed the personal touches from the characters.
   The dessert party at the Magic Kingdom was probably as much for us as it was for the kids. It takes place on the patio of the Tomorrowland Tarrace. It is a ticketed VIP style event with very limited tickets available. The desserts were amazing creations from the Disney staff and very a highlight of our week. We were able to watch the electrical light parade from our table and have an amazing unobstructed view of the castle and fireworks. Although it began raining, the fireworks went on as promised and we were able to enjoy them from our covered patio area. If you are considering a Disney vacation, I would encourage you to do a few little extras like these to have an even more amazing Disney experience. Also, I would encourage you to look into the Photo Pass Plus option available from the Disney website. We were treated to special pictures all over the park as well as the normal service available to everyone. We also received free pictures at the Pirates League and at Chef Mickeys, which by them selves paid for the Photo Pass Plus. The other option we use is to order the CD that will include all of the park photos along with some other Disney stock photos, and the ability to upload all of our personal pictures that we can edit and personalize. The best part of the CD is that you are then free to use those pictures any way you choose including Facebook, Shutterfly, or printing pictures at places like Walmart. It is well worth the money and allows you to create some amazing lasting memories.
   On this trip, we also took our kids to the new Legoland in Florida. While we did have lots of fun, we did not really feel it was worth the money. The rides are fun, but there is not a lot of them, and if it rains (which it did everyday we were in Orlando) they shut down the entire park. They do have a water park that was very fun and we spent probably more of our time there than at the main park. The food was more expensive than at Disney, and not at all as good as the food at Disney. Our son was very excited to see mini land which was amazing, but after 30 minutes, you have seen enough. He also was looking forward to shopping at the stores to find tons of Lego's not available in most stores. However, the shopping was a huge let down. First of all, if you are a Lego VIP mamber you cannot use your points or gain points for any purchase inside the park because Legoland is not owned by Lego. 2nd, the prices were no better than shopping online or at a retail store. 3rd, if you want variety, skip Legoland and shop at the Lego store at Downtown Disney. Downtown Disney's Lego store has a way better selection of Lego's and the store is owned by Lego so all your VIP perks work there. We even got a small Lego hot dog cart set free with our purchase just for being a VIP member. All in all, I would say Legoland Florida was a fun one time experience. I would not recommend it being added to your repeat Disney or Florida vacations.
   So there you have it. This is our vacation in a nutshell! We had a great time and can't wait for the next Disney vacation.... Maybe back to the West coast next time, although Disneyland Shanghai is slated to open in 2015 and I would love a return trip to China! If planned correctly, we could even hit Disneyland Hong Kong on the way home!

Taking a look back!

    What a difference 6 years makes. Six years ago today we were waiting in a line with many other people. Standing and waiting for what seemed like hours. My heart was racing and I remember trying not to cry. I was tired and yet energized at the same time..... It was a day that changed our lives forever.

   January 29th, 2006 I was sitting in my office trying to finish up for the day when I received a phone call that changed everything. That phone call informed us that someone had forgot to call and they just found out that we had an appointment at the US embassy in Guatemala City Guatemala the morning of Jan. 31st! 

   I don't think we had time to be in shock... I remember hanging up the phone and walking to Pastor Mike's office and informing him that I would need to be gone for the next week. Then we scrambled to purchase plane tickets and pack. Fifteen hours later we were on our way to Guatemala. We landed in Guatemala City at around 8:30 pm. Being our third trip there, at least we did not feel like we were in a strange place with no idea where to go. After picking up our luggage we were off to meet Israel our hired driver. Israel took us to our hotel and told us that Fifo would meet us in the lobby at 6:30 the next morning.  Fifo is the son of our lawyer in Guatemala city, and our liaison for all of our Government appointments.

   We were able to get a decent nights sleep, but we anxiously were awaiting the next morning when we would get to hold Karter again. This time was even more anxious because we knew we would not have to leave Karter in Guatemala when we returned home!

   6:30 am came quickly and we raced to the lobby to get Karter. When we got to the lobby, we found Fifo, but no Karter. Fifo told us that Veronica, Karter's foster mom, was running late and would meet us at the embassy. We left for the embassy and met up with Veronica. It was a very emotional moment as she handed Karter to us. Veronica had taken care of Karter for the first year of his life and loved him like he was her child. She realized that this meant saying good bye for ever... As much as that broke my heart, I could not hide my excitement to take him out of her arms and to hold this child that in a matter of a few moments would officially be our son.

   By 11:30 am, everything was official and Karter was ours! All that remained was a name change when we got home. See, his name at that moment became Abner Josue Vanosdol. We spent the rest of our time in Guatemala loving on our son and beginning to establish the bonds of a forever family! It was a long journey from holding him when he was just three weeks old to waiting another year to get to bring him home, but it was an amazing journey!

   Six years later... Karter just celebrated his 7th birthday a couple weeks ago, and I am always amazed to see what he has learned and how he is growing up. Our journey as a family has had its ups and downs like any family does, but I would not trade the journey for anything in the world!

   So today we will celebrate Family Day with Karter and remember this journey together. Only this year we get to include his baby sister... Something that Karter had been praying for months before we started her adoption. He is such an awesome son who has a huge heart and an unconditional love for his family. 

   As I look back, I often wish that some day Veronica could see who Karter has become. You see, without someone like Veronica, I'm not sure Karter would have had a chance, but I believe God put her in the right place to welcome a 3 week old boy into her home not knowing she would be caring for him for an entire year. Her love for him that we saw each of our three trips to Guatemala is what made it easier for us to come home and know he was being well taken care of.

   As the journey continues, I can't wait to see what God has in store for our family! But, on this day... I just want to say... 

   

   WELCOME HOME KARTER! WE LOVE YOU WITH ALL OUR HEART'S! I AM SO PROUD TO HAVE YOU AS A SON!!!!!! WELCOME TO YOUR FOREVER FAMILY!!! 

Now that 2012 is here I'm starting to get more excited, and anxious about our adoption. we still have not been matched with a child, but we are confident that God has that perfect little girl for our family just waiting to join us.
  It is amazing to see how God provides when we follow His will for our lives. I say this because when we we started this process, we had no idea how we were going to come up with the money that it would cost. In case you did not know, adoption is very expensive. You can see the estimated cost and the amount we have raised so far on the thermometer to the right of this post. The amazing thing is that we knew God was leading us into another adoption, and even though we did not have the money, We knew He would provide. As you can see we have raised over $16,000 so far! Over $500 of that has been in the last week by selling things we don't need on the Perryton Pickers group I started. It is amazing, and sad, to see how much stuff we have laying around that we do not even use.
So in a nutshell, although our adoption may not be happening as fast as we would like... We know that God is still in control and His plan is far better than ours. To anyone who has help us out, i want to say a huge thank you! You will never know what it means to us to have friends and family who are so supportive!
Hopefully the next time I blog, i will be able to share some more exciting ways God has provided.

Amazing Friends!

   Normally, Monday morning would not be a good time for me to sit down and write anything that would make much sense, so I hope this day will be different.

  

 The adoption is moving along, and all of our paper work has been sent to China. Now we are waiting for China to log all of our information and then the agency will be able to begin matching us up with a child. Every step puts us one step closer! Although the waiting can be a challenge, we have been blessed with a peace that I could not explain any other way than to say it is God's peace. We have faith that God has the perfect child picked out to be part of our family.

   In the waiting, we have been blessed with some great friends and family who have helped support us. We have been trying to sell anything we can to raise money, and we are doing well. We have a friend who started a Scentsy fundraiser for us, and friends who have handed us money. Yesterday was a day that blew us away as a good friend handed us a check for $5000 for our adoption! It is amazing and fun to watch how people have blessed by blessing us!!

   We have now started selling Tupperware again to help out. We sold it when we were raising money to adopt Karter and had some success at it. This time I really hope we will be able to have a consistent client base that we can sell far beyond this adoption and begin raising money for KartersDream.com which we started to help children around the world find forever families, and we also use it to support our local toys for tots. We have a lot of fun blessing children and families with what God has provided for us. We also use all the profits from my Coke machines, candy machines, and snake machine at Blades and the courthouse to support these efforts, so if you are in Perryton at Blades, Capital Farm Credit, or the Courthouse, get a snack and help a child!

   As we are waiting, we are also have fun getting things ready! The past week, this has included build a giant 80 sq ft playhouse for Karter and Kayman to enjoy. Karter has been very excited to help out, and can't wait to have it finished and show it to his sister. It has been a fun project and has been build mostly out of recycled (FREE) lumber, so it has also been fun for me to design with and reuse materials instead of them going to the landfill.

   Thank you everyone who has been part of this journey! If you would like to donate, you can at the right side of this blog. If you would like to host an online or catalog Tupperware party, just send me an email at jason.vanosdol@gmail.com and I would love to help you out with that!

The papers are in the mail - Part 2

Ok, so it's the same title on a new post... but it's true. It's not quite like the saying "the check's in the mail" but sometimes it can feel that way. Now all of our paperwork is being sent for authentication by the various US agencies with a final destination to the Chinese Consulate's office in Houston. There are so many steps involved, but we are quickly arriving at the end of the paper trail! Once the documents are approved by the Consulate, all we have to do is wait!!

Since we are adopting through China's waiting child program, Heather and I got to spend a couple hours looking through their list of waiting children a few days ago. (If you don't know, this program is primarily for kids with special needs.) After looking through about 75 kids, my heart was very heavy. It was very sad to me to see little kids with some very major problems and to think they may not ever find a family to love them. I wish we had the means to help all of them, but we can't.

We did find one little girl who stole our hearts, but when we tried to lock her file (basically reserve her for us), she had already been scooped up by another family. That was sad news for us, but at the same time, I know God already has a little girl in China just waiting to become Kayman. I keep thinking back to our process in adopting Karter and realizing that if we hadn't run into delays in that process... we would not have our Karter!

God has a plan for our family, and I really have no place to question that. We just can't wait to see how it all works out and when our family will include one more!

If you would like to help us meet our goal, please take a moment to click on the donate button to the right of this page. All gifts will be greatly appreciated and will go directly to our adoption. If you do donate, you will see that it shows you gave to KartersDream.com. This is a site we started with the hope of someday being able to turn it into a foundation to help other children find their forever home!

If you have help us out, thank you so much! It has been amazing to see how much our friends and family help out. We could never express how much each and every one of you mean to us!

The papers are in the mail

Our paperwork has been mailed to Homeland Security and we are not waiting on a fingerprint appointment.

With every step the anticipation continues to grow in our family. Heather and I cannot wait to be able to put a picture with the name for our little girl, and Karter is so excited that everyday he comes up with something else he will teach, show, tell, or buy for his sister. It's so exciting to see his excitement throughout this process.

Now we are continuing to sell what ever we can to raise money. Our goal is to go throughout this entire adoption completely debt free. We know that with the help of our friends, family, and complete strangers, we can see this goal accomplished.

Many of you who will read this have purchased a cookbook from us that we published full of recipes from family and friends. We thank each and every one of you! every dollar collected puts us one step closer to our goal. If you have not purchased a cookbook, we still have a few available for $15. You can email me, catch me on facebook, or leave a comment to this blog with your information and I will contact you.

I have also started a group on facebook called Perryton Pickers for people in our area to buy, sell, trade, or give away things in our area. Everything I list for sale on there will go directly to our adoption as well.

Another way you can help out is simple by clicking on the donate button to the right of this blog. It will take you to Paypal where you can make a donation directly to our adoption. The donation will say it was made to Karters Dream which is the beginnings of a foundation we are hoping to use to help adoptions and kids in need around the world. Right now, all of the money collected goes to help us bring home Kayman.

We thank each and everyone of you, and ask that you would continue to pray for our family. Please be sure to check back often to see what's going on. You can also see our fundraising process on the Thermometer on the right side of this blog. I can't wait to see it completely full! and hopefully even more than we need so we can bless another family.

One step closer

We finished our home study this past Friday which puts us one step closer to welcoming a little girl into our family. The Social Worker said she plans to have it all complete in two weeks. Once that is finished up, we will be able to get fingerprinted and begin looking at available children. It's strange to think that we can basically pick out our child from a catalog, but that is kind of what we will be doing. I am just trusting that God will lead us to the perfect fit for our family. He already knows who she is... Now we just have to listen to His will.

Karter is very excited to get a sister, and is now thinking he needs a sister and a brother. He really doesn't understand why we tell him for now we are just trying to get him a sister. Of coarse he promises to share all of his toys with his sister, but we'll see how that works! The one thing he told us he would not share is his puppy!

It makes me more excited to see and hear his excitement grow as we get farther along in the adoption process. Many of you may not know, but Karter has been talking about and praying for his sister for probably about two years. He always leaves a seat for her in the car when we go on trips, and often picks out toys for her to play with. He have really enjoyed getting to help decorate her room and start looking at things at the store for her. In fact, we are planning a trip to build-a-bear to make a stuffed animal for her. He can't wait!

The adoption process is long and hard, but it is very exciting to think that soon we will have a daughter! Karter has been such a blessing in our lives, and I know Kayman will just add to that blessing. I just can't wait to jump on a plane and go get her!