We just received an email from our adoption agency saying that Javi was released from the hospital on Friday and is now safely back home in the orphanage. He is currently still on antiobiotics, but is now eating and doing much better. His weight is up to 6 lbs. 10 oz.—while that is small (as he turned 10 weeks old on Monday), he is gaining weight, so that is what we are looking for! Thank you all sooooo much for your prayers on our son’s behalf! Keep up the good work and share in the joy of our Father’s answers with us!
Blessing,
The Cases
Filed under: Daily Life Blurbs | Tags: Ezri, Javi, Peanuts, Snoopy's World
Hello, friends!
We just wanted to post a note here to keep you up to speed on us. We are doing fairly well. Jason is busy with school; Melanie is busy with Ezri; and Ezri is just plain busy! She is into all things, all the time, but she’s doing fabulous.
We (Melanie & Ezri) went up north into the New Territories for sort of a day trip yesterday. Where did we venture, you might ask…..answer: Snoopy’s World! http://www.rmlicensing.com/ENG/snoopy/snoopyworld.htm That’s right, you heard correctly, Hong Kong is home to several “Peanuts” character spots, including cafes with the characters sometimes visiting! We took the subway and light-rail trains on about a 45 minute ride to meet a couple of other moms and babies who live in our general area of HK. It was nice, and Ezri finally got to play with another girl her age–a rarity!
Other news….many of you received an update and prayer request on Javi this past week. He had been placed in the hospital due to a respiratory infection and not eating good. We are still awaiting new news on him and praying that he is gaining weight every day. We did receive one other note from our case worker, saying that taking him to the hospital was more of a precautionary measure, to make certain that he did not get worse….so, hopefully that is accurate.
The weather here is trying to change (from hot to not-so-hot), it seems, but is reluctant. It is a bit breezy and around 70 degrees F in the early morning and then into the 80s during the day, usually. Really, the mornings have felt a bit ‘fallish’ over the past couple of days, so that is really nice.
Well, that’s a quick up-to-date on us. We thank you for keeping tabs and please post or send a card or email and let us know how you and yours are doing.
–Melanie, for the Case family
Check out the below links to see Snoopy’s World, Charlie Brown Cafe, and “HK with Kids”–what to do website! Enjoy!
http://www.rmlicensing.com/ENG/snoopy/snoopyworld.htm
http://www.rmlicensing.com/ENG/snoopy/charlie_brown_cafe/html/shop.htm
Filed under: JAVI's Highlights
There is soon to be a new addition to the Case family! Our son, Javier, was born on August 20, 2007 in Guatemala. We are currently in the process of adopting him. When he was born, he weighed only 5 lbs. 8 oz.! He’s a little fella’, but he’s growing steadily.
We appreciate your prayers on Javi’s behalf. (His name is pronounced Ha-vee.) Please pray that God will allow the remainder of the adoption process to go smoothly, without any unanticipated bumps; also pray that Javi grows and develops healthily–both physically and emotionally; pray that God will continue to prepare our family for him, and him for our family.
On Thursday we received an invite from our small group leaders to go to the beach with them and their family. We gladly accepted and were treated to a wonderful day out in HK. We got to ride in a vehicle (minivan) for the first time in 2 months. We got to see some beautiful views of the south side of Hong Kong Island (a first), and best of all we were treated like family. Overall it was a wonderful, if not exhausting day!
More pics here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/casesinhk/sets/72157602547850358/show/
Filed under: Daily Life Blurbs
Well, just to share a bit of our lives here with you, Ezri and I will detail yesterday’s day for you here. We began the day at 6:00 am—that’s what time Ezri awakens to start each day–early riser!! And of course got up, ate a bit and played for about 1 1/2 hrs. Meanwhile, we put on a fresh pot of coffee…washed some dishes from the previous night’s dinner and swept the floors. Being a beautiful, blue-skied, breezy day, we decided to go for a walk. So, we got geared up and headed out for some adventure. We walked all in all about one hour’s time—touring from our ‘village’ of Hang Hau to the village over, Po Lam. We went through some parks and playgrounds….and these are a few things we saw on our journey: people dressed in business suits hurrying to the bus terminal or the train; groups of men and women doing morning excercise–tai chi; workers in bread shops busily stocking the cases with fresh breads and goodies; women doing street clean-up in wide-brim straw hats, beginning a day’s work; a few runners and walkers here and there. Really, it was most likely my favorite morning since we’ve arrived here in Hong Kong. It was, I suppose, the fresh air, coupled with seeing lots of people…just a feel of vibrancy to the movements of the morning. It was a nice blessing from our amazing creator, God!
We stopped at a local bakery/cake shop, Maxim’s for a couple of morning doughnut/pastries and then headed home. Once we got to the flat, Jason joined us for breakfast and just a moment of family time. We then commenced to get things together for a day-outing. Ezri and I attend a play group in the downtown area of HK Island on Tuesday mornings around 10:00am. We were off again–on a 30 minute train ride into the city (subway, that is). The train ride was nice…we got a seat right off, so that is nice…then we met several people along the ride (as Ezri always does make friends). One lady noted that I had trimmed her hair right around her ears and said, “Baby boy?”…I said, “No, baby girl.” Then she gestured to the hair and was speaking to me in Chinese about (I think) how she looked boyish because of my cutting her hair in such a way…not being rude, just telling me. (Aside: actually, that has been something quite interesting that has puzzled me ever since arrival here in HK. It seems that people here do not “gender” children by the colors they wear–as we often do in the states (i.e. pink and purples for girls–and bows of course and blues and greens for boys, etc.) and so, you will see little boys with pink shorts and overalls…recently, I couldn’t tell if a 15 month-old whom we met was a boy or girl ….the hair was inconclusive b/c of age…the shirt was purple and pink…the shorts yellow…and the shoes were very ‘boyish’—who knows?!–and many people seem to think Ezri a boy even when I have her in something with bows on the sleeves, pink pacy, pink shoes…etc.–I think the hair is the ticket.)
Miscellaneous HK Pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casesinhk/sets/72157602548495040/show/
Moving on……Once we arrived at Central MTR station, we got off and walked about 7 minutes to our destination. There were 7 other mums and bubs (moms and babies) there, and it was a really nice time for me to talk with other women and for Ezri to play with the other 5 boys and 1 girl (the other girl is only 3 months, so Ezri is mostly learning to play with boys!) Afterwards, two of the other mums asked us to coffee; we found that a splendid idea, and so, the 6 of us (3 moms, 3 babies headed to a nearby starbucks–yum!) It was really great, b/c that is one of the things I’ve missed most–just hanging out with other women…grapping an impromtu coffee and such–a perfect midday moment!
After chatting and hanging out for about an hour–while the kids slept–Ezri and I headed home. We visited daddy, who was studying downstairs in the clubhouse studyroom, played for a few minutes in the indoor playground, riding around on a pooh-bear airplane as if the pilot!, and came up for a nice american lunch of tuna salad sandwich, fresh squeezed lemonade, and ‘ants on a log’! (yummy).
The remainder of the afternoon into evening was spent playing (for Ezri) and one 30-minute nap. She watched one of her favorite videos (Baby McDonald)–while I made a veggie and rice stew for Jason and myself–and then had peas and cheese for dinner…hopped in her favorite spot of the bath tub..splashed about and got cleaned up….got out and lotioned up and dressed for bed, played a bit more, and before long, she was heading to bed at around 7:30 pm.
Long day?…It continues. Jason arrived home from class around 8:00pm and I had our dinner ready. We supped and chatted about his coursework that he was pondering. Afterwards, I cleaned up the table and dishes…and then decided to tackle cleaning under some cabinet areas in the kitchen (that I’d been neglecting). When I was finishing this work, I walked into the bathroom…and what did I see other than a roach!!!! Huge! I immediately screamed. I ran out and said, “Please, kill it!!”…Jason was doing his school work and said, “Just grab something and kill it…come on.” So, I grabbed a pot from the kitchen and a paper towel….not so sure about either, and went back in (to the bathroom, that is). [It should be noted that I am a complete woose when it comes to both roaches and mice. I will do what I have to do, but it someone else will do it in my stead, I'd much rather them do so!] After attempting to kill it with the pot and missing..it scurried over to the shower wall! I tried to slam it again, and it jumped out toward me just as I went in for the kill!! I screamed pretty loud and sort of squeeled too, I think–as I jumped to place my feet on the side walls of the tub—so as not to be attacked by the beastly creature! Then in stepped my night in shining armor, Jason, and took the sauce pan from me. With a couple of agile tries, and after beating the roach 3 times (smashing him to a flatness) he was defeated!!! Praise God for a husband who is much braver than I am!!! ———- Well, at this time, I had intended on going to bed, as it was already around 11:00pm; however, this roach incident woke me up a bit, so I commenced to sweep all the floors and then took a shower–the roach had left me feeling less than sanitary. I finally ‘hit the sack’ just before the clock struck 1:00am.
This is an example of a full day! Mind you, every day of ours is not like this one. Take today, for example. Ezri and I have had a more-or-less laid back day…playing, eating, mopping floors, doing dishes, a trip to a local store (to purchase ‘roach motels’) and we are just now leaving to meet Jason for dinner.
Hope you enjoyed reading about our day. Let us know what your days are like….we’d welcome an entertaining story, or just the minutia of everyday life!
–Melanie for the Cases
Filed under: Daily Life Blurbs
Things we like about Hong Kong:
The view of the islands from HKUST.
The way people love babies, especially blued-eyed expats, like Ezri. She’s practically a Rock-Star here.
The Shogun pork burger from McDonalds. It’s back and it’s tasty. Only $22HK for a fries, burger and drink.
Iced Milk-Tea, Iced Coffee, it’s everywhre, it’s fabolous.
Things we don’t like about HK:
No baby changing stations anywhere.
The foul smell that emanates from the washer/dryer everytime you try to use the dry cycle.
Having to go to two groceries in order to find sour cream.
Well today I was back at school, I go from 8am to 9:30pm on Wednesdays. We were off last week for the Mid-Autumn festival, so Tuesday and Wednesday were holidays last week and most everything was closed. Monday, October 1st was National Day and everything was pretty much closed again so it’s been a pretty laid back week other than trying to keep up with my school work. Learning to do research is very demanding and causes me to spend a majority of my time throughout the week reading and preparing for class. Things are on the upswing here, we continue to feel more settled, we have our visas for the next year, I have my HKID and Mel is going for hers tomorrow. We have our first month of bills under our belt and it looks like we should have enough money to pay them, lol, and we recieved our first months award from the university and it turned out to be a bit more than I had budgeted for. The university is better and more reputable than I had even hoped for and I really enjoy all my classes. http://citm.utdallas.edu/utdrankings/RankingWorldwide_static.aspx
There is a learning curve so to speak moving further into management and research away from engineering, but so far I really feel at peace that this is the direction in which God’s wants me to move. I’m learning something new everyday and I love it although it does require patience and there are some growing pains. Oh, I almost forget to mention that we may have indeed found a place to call our church home. www.islandecc.com We attended last week and we think this is it. They preach the Gospel, have a modern worship style, and they encourage participation in small groups that meet throughout the week, which is what we were looking for. We’re attending a small group on Saturday and feel like that if it goes well it will certainly be a confirmation from God. Well it’s late and I’m ready to hit the sack. Baai-baai! (bye-bye in cantonese)
Jason on behalf of the Case family
We’ll post some pictures and clips soon!
