Sitka

We did not sign up for any tours for today. We just decided to walk around town and sight see. There’s a historic Russian Orthodox church right in the middle of downtown. I wanted to go in and see it but they wanted $5 per person. I guess not.

We explored the shops, a Christmas shop, the Ben Franklin (lots of souvenirs here – normal and silly), I walked into a quilt shop for a couple of minutes, saw a yarn shop (way too expensive!), ran into Dave & Barb & the kids. We walked a ways with them into another shop but we got done before they did so we moved on.

About this time Meighan was beginning to get tired – OVER tired! I had seen a sign for “Alaska Dream Ice Cream Bars.” We checked it out. They are ice cream on a stick HAND DIPPED (in front of you) in Belgian chocolate or white chocolate and rolled in crushed nuts and toffee. Mmmmmmmm!

We finished our ice cream and Tony picked Meighan up who was fighting going to sleep. Almost back to the tender loading area, she finally fell asleep and slept until we got back to our room. Of course she woke up when he laid her down. Oh, well. A little nap is better than no nap!

Tonight was another formal night in the dining room and the night Mom & Dad wanted to celebrate their anniversary and take a formal picture. The meal took FOREVER. When we finally were done, we went to take pictures at two different places. We wanted to give them our gift earlier rather than later but they wanted to go see the show in the lounge. So we did that and then we all came to our stateroom. Lindsay & Tyler showed up and we had them open their scrapbook. They were very surprised. We told them it’s not done yet because there’s more cards to add (that they received at their anniversary time in April).

(The following post was written in a notebook but not actually posted on the blog until we received our referral because we didn’t tell our family that we were in process. We waited until we had the referral for our son before we published on the blog because we wanted to do this “covertly” and have it be a surprise to as many people as possible.)

(Added Aug. 7) Lindsay & Tyler wanted to get back to their friends but we had one more thing we wanted to do. We kept the video running and asked what everyone’s favorite part of the cruise was so far. Barb liked the whale watching, Lindsay like meeting new friends, Dave & Tyler like the zip line they would be doing tomorrow(!), Mom like spending time with all of us, Dad liked sleeping! Then Tony thanked them for taking us all on the cruise and letting us relax a while. Then he turned the camera on me but I said to keep it on Mom & Dad. I said “Well, we didn’t get to see many whales on Tuesday because we were taking phone calls and checking emails and (showing them the picture) this is our son!”

Mom’s reaction was TOTAL surprise. Of course we hadn’t told them we were in process and we’d kind of made the fundraising savings account LOOK like we didn’t have much saved yet. NOW it looks WAY better because we got the adoption tax credit refund and on Friday before we left, we received a letter from Show Hope that we’d gotten a grant—a significant grant—and the two together will cover the next amount we have to pay Holt! It’s a GOD THING! Now all we need is travel money and post-adoption report money!

Dad said “Ask me again what my favorite part of the cruise is!”

We all went up to the Observation Deck so they could see the other pictures of Le An. Wow! This is a lot lifted off my shoulders! I’ve been wanting to tell them we were in process for a while but still wanted the referral to be a surprise.