We leave in 10 days

Last Friday was Ben's birthday. We do eat Chinese food on days other than his birthday, but we have made it tradition of taking him to a nicer traditional Chinese restaurant for his birthday dinner. He's come to look forward to this every year :) This year we walked into a new restaurant and about 90% of the folks appeared to be Chinese. We figured that meant the food would be pretty good. Ben scarfed down his wontons and potstickers and we all tried some familiar food and some new foods and passed the food around to share. But, early in our experience, I was a bit taken aback with how it reminded me of being IN China. The language, the feel of the place, the people...I got an overwhelming combination of a flash back and flash forward. I looked over at Ben and he seemed to be just doing his normal Ben thing. I wondered if he felt anything.

I was thinking about Ben's birth mother. And how this day is a significant day for her too. I wondered what she was wondering about today. I was thinking about how Ben has blended into our family so beautifully and how he used to be a stranger, but now he is a tight knit brother and son. I was thinking of how JiaYun is going to be experiencing one of the biggest transitions of her life, with likely not a lot of emotional strength or maturity to manage it all. And how she will be a stranger to us and us to her. I was thinking about how someday we will be eating in a Chinese restaurant with JiaYun and she will feel like a close knit daughter and sister. But for now....we have to enter the 'getting to know' each other stage. I was thinking about how God is a family maker. It is remarkable in that less than 2 weeks, JiaYun will technically and officially be a Hubers. But it is truly God who has begun to and will continue to bond our hearts.

All of this flashed before me in a few short moments last Friday and a few tears welled up. I am sure it is only the beginning of overwhelming emotions to come in the next few months.

Well, on a more practical update: I consider it a success to have a suitcase in our room. Packing at this point looks like randomly tossing items aside into the suitcase as we think of them, for both us and JiaYun. Before bedtime story time, I saw a few hair ties of Annie's and quickly put them in a Ziploc bag and dropped them by the suitcase just last night. In many of the pictures they've shared with us, her hair has a few itty bitty ponytails. Maybe she'll find comfort in having her hair put up like that. Maybe not. But this way, we'll be ready for either :)

Kevin has discovered that we are apparently traveling at one of the most pleasant times of the year, weather wise. That will be delightful as last time, it was quite hot. We managed fine, but this will be a treat.

TJ is super excited to get on a plane. He wanted to know how many take off's he'll experience and when he heard it was 5, he almost jumped through the ceiling. He's excited to interact with JiaYun too :) He will periodically mention, out of the blue, how he can't wait to play with her.

Jude, so articulately shared on our walk to the park today, that he's both excited for us to go and sad for us to go. He talked of the fun he'll have with the Connors and Grandma Sue and Papa T. and also how he'll miss us. He said he'll help take care of Annie too, because he's pretty sure she'll get sad too.

Annie just gives us lots of hugs to store up for when we're gone. She has some toys set aside that she is going to give to JiaYun when she gets here. She's already prepared herself for the possibility that JiaYun might try to get into her stuff. I think she's trying to plan ahead.

And we've started going over the plan more frequently with Ben that it will feel like a long time we're gone, but we assure him we are all coming back.  We state the whole schedule and he always fills in the part about us coming back....so we're hopeful he trusts it to be true, on a deep and visceral level.

Kevin and I are sorting through all the details of what it means for us to be gone. Lots of lists. Lots of trying to check off things on the lists. All while prepping the kids, preparing our hearts, trusting in the Lord and maintaining a posture of flexibility and being ready for anything.

A reminder of our travel dates: October 19th -November 3rd.

We'll try to update the blog as much as possible!

Happy Birthday to you, Ben!