We're home...........

Back in the USA.......The best part~ My bed............:))
We arrived home on Monday morning at Cleveland airport greeted by many friends and family members. It was so nice to see so many of you that early in the morning! Thanks!
Leaving the airport in our friends van (Bob and Lois Ferrel)......we were welcomed inside their van with photo's everywhere of our time in Brazil as a new family. Streamers, pictures, presents, American flags, etc....with also a beverage selection and snacks! That Lois~ She really knows how to make things special! Thanks guys!
Upon arriving to our house we were greeted with many signs welcoming the "Gouge Family" home and welcoming Donei HOME. From what I hear we had around 60 people at our house to welcome us home and of course with more food than you could imagine! Thank you again to everyone who came and brought food.
Donei is doing well for the most part. He is a bit overwhelmed with everything and we are trying to take things as slowly as we can for him. He has been very gracious and kind to everyone who wants to hug him :)) But there has been a lot of hugs.
Today was a bit more difficult for him as we have needed to move forward by getting him registered with school. He will be attending GlenOak High School in the 9th grade for now. We wish we didn't have to think about school already but  since school has started we are forced to have to move in that direction. He wants to play soccer (and other sports) so we feel putting into public school right now is what is best for him. Plus they have the resources he needs to help him better than homeschooling or private schooling. Please pray for his adjustment that things would go quickly and he would start feeling not so homesick for Brazil.
He has been invited by the soccer coach at GlenOak to practice with the team tomorrow and Donei seems to have been excited about that part. He hasn't been able to play soccer for several weeks now since our constant moving around Brazil to get back.
Tonight we are taking Donei to a soccer game at GlenOak to watch the team play a game. They are playing Jackson High School tonight so it should be a really good game! I hope this helps him not feel so sad. As a mother it just really breaks my heart that he has to go through this adjustment phase......but there is really no other way to get around it. I remember growing up how hard it was every time we had to move and I had to start at another school. Five schools I went to through my school years. It was very hard on me, especially once I reached 9th grade. I didn't have to change countries though only states! So I can only imagine how difficult starting school can be. Of course we all know that within time it will be fine and ultimately what is best for him. Still hard to see him going through the painful stages.
Steve has been teaching Donei how to play the drums today and he has been down stairs practicing for quite awhile now.....good therapy and stress reliever! :)

Doesn't this picture just represent our journey......

What a great day today in Rio de Janeiro! We took a 8 hour tour to see the highlights of Rio. The views were breath taking and very worth the money we spent to see Rio. Donei has turned into our little photographer when going places. He really likes taking pictures and maybe he'll take a photography class at school.

First Day at the Beach/Ocean

We are sitting here in a internet shop because we are having so much trouble with our hotel internet.
Yesterday we made our last stop for the Adoption paperwork at the US Consulate to pick up Donei's passport and Visa. WE ARE DONE with all the paperwork finally!
We then spent the day on the Copacabana Beach. Donei has never been the beach or the Ocean. He loved it (who wouldn't!) He kept asking his Dad to go back out in the water with him all day. The weather is great here. We did have to "warn" or prepare Donei for what might appear on the beach.........there were definitely some thongs!!!!!!!!!! But thank goodness no topless! I think I was the only person in Rio in a one piece bathing suit (with a wrap) :)) I guess these people just don't care what they look like!
We took Donei to the "Outback Steak House" last night for dinner. Again, a first experience with ordering a steak from the menu~! I think it was a little overwhelming for him to be honest, but he ordered a Ribeye and ate all of it, plus cheesy fries appetizers, followed by one of my ribs and chicken breast. Then he had a huge dessert!!!!! This boy can eat! He has definitely put on some pounds since we have arrived in Brazil!
When we were in Curitiba still we went to the Mall and wanted to get dessert. Donei and I decided to go to the "Chocolate Fountain" where they will pour warm chocolate on top of your choice of fruit or other items. So Donei, who absolutely LOVES white chocolate got a bowl of grapes and poured warm white chocolate all over them. As we were eating we were telling him that we had a chocolate fountain at home and we would get the fountain working with warm chocolate and then would sit around the table and dip strawberries, bananas, pretzels, etc.....in it and eat and eat!!!! He laughed and didn't believe us and then when we had finally convinced him that we were telling the truth he said, "Oh no....I'm gonna get so fat!!!!!!" It was pretty funny!
Last two days in Rio and then we are headed home!

Just like home......of course we never eat Domino's back home but sure enjoyed it now. Donei liked it too!

Father and Son........relaxing...

On top of Sugar Loaf Mountain

The Soccer Stadium that will host the 2014 World Cup

And of course the world known statue of  Christ over looking Rio

We made it to Rio!

Hello Everyone! So thankful we have internet while we are here in Rio. We had a rough couple of days upon arriving in Rio............but praise God we are settled now and having a wonderful time!
Tuesday after leaving our hotel in Curitiba we arrived at the airport (with plenty of time...hahaha) to find out during our check in that they had rescheduled our flight to Rio~ Since my email has been down for almost a month now, I never received a notice from our travel agent stating the change. Why would I think to check on it??? Anyways, we are at the counter to check in at 6:15pm thinking we have plenty of time to find out that our flight had been rescheduled for 640pm instead of 832pm. Needless to say, we arrived at the gate as they were calling "last call" for boarding. It was a pretty quick flight to Rio and being Donei's first flight ever it went very smooth. He loved flying for the most part. He experienced some ear pressure while landing that was pretty intense so we will be giving him ear plugs next time.
We arrived in Rio before 9pm and called for our taxi that was arranged already by the apartment manager we were staying at. Since we arrived earlier than expected, we had to wait for about an hour. When our driver showed up~ He was surprised by the amount of luggage we had and he had to end up calling another driver to help pick us up, so we waited again another half hour. Did they not assume we would be traveling WITH luggage?? Finally after arriving to our apartment that has been arranged by Lino, we were a little taken back by the "appearance" of the apartment and location. Here we are in a foreign country, no cell phone, no internet, told by Lino there was NOTHING else available in Rio in the Copacabana Beach area because there was a Brasil holiday this weekend, so we had no other options being 1130pm.
The apartment building was very old, run down, smelly, and had bugs............In order to take a shower~ You had to light this tank with a match to get the shower hot before showering. Trust me~ We have stayed in some pretty rough places over the years as we've been on many mission trips but here we are now in Rio and we are miserable! Many of you know Steve and how "cheap" he can be.....:) well the next day I spent several hours on the internet searching for something else in Rio. Long story short~ We found a hotel and off we were to pack and get the heck out of the bug infested, pee smelling apartment!!!!
We have a whole new attitude now and have enjoyed Rio!
Internet is challenging here in the hotel but we have it!
Today we are going on a tour called "Rio in a day" to see all the tourist attractions of Rio.
Sorry no pictures today~ Lucky to just get this out! Please excuse my spelling & grammar errors....doing this quickly before we loose internet connection again!
3 more days until USA!

We're off to Rio de Janeiro!!!!

Outside our appt in Curitiba at night time....

Well we're leaving in about an hour to begin our journey to Rio............The last leg of the trip.
We finished up all of our paperwork here in Curitiba and had yet another good bye~ to Lino our favorite Brazilian man! He was so wonderful at helping us with everything while in Brazil. The process went smoothly and we have had no problems completing our paperwork. Went to go take one picture of Lino (Tio Lino~ Uncle Lino~ He has become!) and my batteries died :( urgh...
Yesterday we had to say good bye to the Cochran Family.............another sad good bye! We are so grateful and praise God for allowing us to have them along our journey. We are praying for their permanent visa's to come so they can get their adoption of Lindsay, Jenna and Ben started. They have been waiting for their perm. visa's now for 16months :( Please pray for this process to speed up so they can return to the USA asap with their new family.

Mary, Donei and Mike

We have to be at the US Consulate in Rio tomorrow morning by 7:15am for our interview :( Pretty early especially because we don't arrive in Rio until 10pm tonight and by the time we check into our place and get somewhat settled, we have to be on our way to consulate by 6:30am........
We have been told that we probably won't have internet connection in our place (its actually an appt) so we will have to go to those Internet Cafe` places. We'll do our best to stay connected but just so you all know it may not be as easy to stay in touch these next 5 days.
We are getting excited to start the journey and looking forward to some "Welcome Home" and "Hello's" from family & friends. It will be a nice change from all these painful good byes this last week!
Love you all!!!

walking to the bus station to see the Cochran's off

No tears yet....doing pretty good.....:)

Okay...so now the tears start flowing..........

Train ride through the mountains in Brazil

It's hard to believe we will be home in one week from today!
Excited to get planted firmly as a family instead of bouncing around Brazil but at the same time I'm very sad to be leaving in so many ways.
Friday we got everything done for Donei's physical, shots and passport so that took care of most of the paperwork we needed to do in Curitiba. Lino will be wrapping at the paperwork up today and meeting with us later to give us the paperwork to take to Rio. Our flight to Rio (which will be Donei's first plane ride) leaves on Tuesday evening and is about a hour and a half flight. A good  "break him in" flight before the biggie.......The International flight from Rio to Charlotte is around 10hours I think.
Mike and Mary came in on Saturday to Curitiba but what was suppose to be a 4 hour car trip turned into much more than they bargained for! We expected them around noon on Saturday but instead received a phone call from Mary explaining they would be much later than expected........
Along the way the police will randomly pull cars over to inspect, check, whatever~ Well at that moment in time, they were the ones who got pulled over for inspection. They searched their car, made them empty all their luggage to search it, wanted to see all their paperwork about their kids and the car. After about an hour of sitting there the police came out and asked Mike to come with him. Another hour later they were cleaning out their car with their personal belongings because they were impounding their car!!!! Here apparently their was a tax of some sort that had not been paid for the last two years that Mike and Mary had no idea about so they impounded their car! So here they are 3 hours from CLM with 3 children and no car! They had to take the bus then to Curitiba and figure out how to deal with getting this resolved. They have to pay around $R1000 to get their car back. They are attempting to take care of this issue this morning and hopefully be able to take the bus back to where their car is. Aye yie yie! We feel so bad for them............BUT the good news is that we got to spend our last days with the Cochran's before leaving Brazil. We went to "Outback Steak House" on Saturday night.................YUM!!! Sure beats beans and rice! :))

Looking forward to seeing everyone back home next week...........Please continue to pray for us and the adjustment for Donei as he leaves his country.

On the next part of the journey...first step to heading home...

Well we have had a lot of things going on lately here the last few days and just not able to catch the blog site up.

Tuesday Night~ Saying good bye to CLM :(

      We spent Tuesday night by taking out a few of  Donei's friends to dinner in the colony then returned to CLM  for a farewell party for Donei. We had banana split sundae's and we all received presents from the family at CLM. It was SO hard! I still haven't re-cooperated from the good byes. It was really hard for me as his mother to see him struggling..........I had to remove myself from inside and go cry outside. Donei was having a hard time.......its all he's ever known and everyone he's ever been family with. Rumolo ripped my heart out at one point (Donei's closest buddy). He was sobbing hugging Donei.

The reality of it all has hit home for Donei, and although I feel this is what he wants, think about how hard it would be to just pick up and change your life 100%~ New country, new family, new language, new everything. Please pray for Donei and us as we begin the journey home.
At the end of that night it was time to say good bye to Luana...........as I'm typing this out now I'm having a hard time "remembering" the moment without tearing up. She has been protecting her heart I'm pretty sure since the girls left a few weeks ago so she hasn't been around us much, but that was okay because we appeared to be doing the same. But I went into the dinning area and we did our last hug. I was crying, she was crying. Before she left I slid on her wrist my bracelet that has Psalms 37:4 on it "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will fulfill the desires of your heart."
Its always been my favorite scripture and I hope one day my hearts desire to hold Luana again as MY child will happen. I sure don't understand all this with Luana, but again, just trusting God.
We left CLM Wed. at noon to get our bus we took to Curitiba where we will now be until next Tuesday.
We are living in a "flat" in Curitiba downtown area where we will finish some more paperwork.
Tomorrow we have appts for Donei to get one more shot, his physical, and then apply for his passport. Once he arrives in the USA he will automatically become a US citizen. He will then have dual citizenship with Brazil and USA. How cool is that! He will never have to get a Brazilian visa :))

Today we went sightseeing in Curitiba on a Train ride through the mountains. We were told by several people it was a must~ and it was! One of those breathtaking adventures I'm so glad we went to see. It last for 4 hours and they had a bilingual guide and served snacks and drinks constantly. We had a great time together the three of us. You then have to take a bus back to Curitiba which then was another 1 1/2hour. So it was a long day. Mike and Mary Cochran will be coming to Curitiba on Saturday for the weekend with us to do our last time together before we leave for Rio on Aug 31st.............Looking forward to seeing them~ We have missed them so much already since leaving CLM where they were our neighbors.
Love you all and missing home (a little)....... :)

The "Official" day..........Donei Michael Gouge

Picture with the Judge who did our court hearing

These days are getting away from me and I realize I haven't written on our blog for a few days..........

Donei is now "officially" our son by Brazilian requirements and we signed papers after our court hearing yesterday to make him now Donei Michael Gouge :))
Happy Day for Steve and I! It was a long year and a half and we have called him our son for the last 16 months.
We are packing up here at CLM today and getting ready to leave for Curitiba by bus tomorrow around noon. The bus will be around 4-5 hours traveling until we reach our destination. We will be in Curitiba until next Tuesday the 31st~
Mike and Mary will be coming to Curitiba on Saturday to Sunday to hang with us one last time until we have to say good bye to the Cochran's. Not looking forward to saying good bye to them because we don't know when the next time we will see them will be~ :(

Outside the courthouse after the papers were signed

Saying good bye to Donei's good friends Alex & Rosana

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Alex, Donei and Rosana

Tonight we are taking out Rumolo and Aline for dinner with us. They are Donei's closest friends here and we thought it would be nice to have one last dinner with him to say good bye.

Update~ My email (Tammy's) has NOT been working for the past few weeks and we can't seem to fix it, so if you want to email me try this email tammy.gouge@yahoo.com

Too Precious........
So I'm inside making dinner and the basketball court is right outside our back door (that is the house we are staying in here at CLM, the green one). Donei came in to get our camera to do some video recording with Rumolo......having fun and being silly~
So Steve goes outside to watch them playing around and Donei decides to give his dad a
"This is for my Dad" basketball dunk.............I heard this from the kitchen and about started to cry...it touched me. So when Steve came in to tell me about it, I told him I already heard and saw the whole thing and how it was very touching to me. He said he about got choked up too with emotion...............Maybe Cleveland's next LeBron??? :)

Went into the city yesterday to have just some time with us and Donei~ We needed to go shopping for some gifts again (we keep thinking of more people that we should have Donei buy for).
Rumolo~ One of Donei's closest friend (WHO NEEDS A FAMILY!!! HINT HINT) is turning 15 next week and Donei wanted to buy him a present, so we bought Romulo a basketball that Donei can give him.
He also wanted to buy Aline (I think she is 16-17years old) and present just because they are good friends.
He isn't a good shopper but I think he is getting use to shopping more~ He's never really had the opportunity to shop before so its all new to him. It was a fun day in the city for us.
He showed us around town where he has played soccer, we tried to find his place of employment he worked at for a few months but they moved recently and couldn't find it.
We had to do some errands while in town for the adoption paperwork then we had dinner at "Royale" his favorite place to eat.
Then he needed a hair cut and wanted to go to his friends Andrea and Victors Hair shop so we stopped by there. No appts around here needed! You just show up at their house and they have little salons in the front of their houses. They are good friends of Donei's from church. Very nice couple!
Donei wanted to go all out and get a "design" shaved into his hair so it turned into a two hour hair cut! Didn't matter though we had a great time with his friends and just being together.
I kept teasing Donei before we went that he should get "I LOVE MY MOM" shaved into his head........Didn't work! :(

Victor & Andreia  with Donei

He's a funny boy!!!

Happy Birthday Luana................She turned 9 years old today!

Donei with his friend Clayton

We are down to our last week here at CLM............Our final court hearing is scheduled for next Monday the 23rd and we will have to be in Curitiba (4 hours away) on the 24th. Going to Curitiba next week will begin our slow journey home. We will have to stay in Curitiba for 7 days until we leave for Rio on the 31st. In Rio we have to receive Donie's visa from the consulate which is scheduled on Sept. 1st to get things going and then we will pick it up on Sept 3rd. We leave for home on Sept 5th and will be arriving in Cleveland on Sept 6th @ 930am.
Wow! Hard to fathom what the next few weeks will look like.

Today is little Luana's birthday.............:(


Here at CLM because there are so many birthdays with all these kids, missionaries, etc.....they usually group several birthdays together and always celebrate on Sundays big dinner day (they prepare meat on Sundays).
So on Saturday Mary Cochran and I spent the afternoon in the kitchen preparing a very large cake made from scratch! We had to bake 4 (four) 9X13 pans to make the cake large enough to serve over 50 people.
The birthday was for not only Luana but for Lindsay Cochran also.
We had a good time making the cake and Mike Cochran added such a beautiful touch with his creative decorating help! That man has so many talents we still continue to see come out!!!!!
Sunday was I admit an emotional day for me as we celebrated Luana's birthday. I was hoping to celebrate her birthday as being part of our family this year................I was holding it together pretty good until Mary Cochran was asked to pray for the girls...........of course Mary & I both are very emotional and Mary started to break down which caused me to break down.............Mary loves Luana so much and she wants to see Luana in our family just as much as we do........that way like Donei~ she will always be in their lives. I came back to the house to lay down for awhile because now I have a "crying headache" .......I had a lot of those this last year! :))
Awhile longer Steve walks in with Luana and she comes into the bedroom and gets in bed with me and we cuddled for at least 45min............It felt so good holding her in my arms.........

Things are going beautifully with Donei and its just amazing how much we have bonded as a family~ He is so much like his Dad its not even funny! Same sense of humor (sorry to some who are rolling their eyes!) :))
A lot of the same "likes" in life. God has truly blessed US with a wonderful son.
I was writing in my journal the other day and reflecting about our journey that started over a year ago~
When I lay all the facts out about everything is sure doesn't measure up with what you would "think" things should be like~ That is the beauty of what God's plans look like so many times~ My loosing you?
For instance~ We visited CLM last year for two weeks. I really didn't have much one on one with Donei at all, Donei and Steve spent more time together working around CLM. It was that very thing that blessed me and started my love for Donei. I watched them interact together, work alongside together, I had pictured them THEN as father and son. That blessed me to watch that~ So we leave CLM in April 2009 with NO contact with Donei (or Luana) for over a year................We only lived through Mike and Mary for emails, pictures, stories, etc......we sent gifts and letters again through Mike and Mary........yet we longed for these kids, cried (mostly me!) for these kids, worked hard to prepare for these kids. So how would anyone be able to feel so in love with a child they really only knew for 2 weeks?
I am in awe at what the Lord has done in our lives! We will never be the same! Why am I so amazed at what God has done in my family? I know he is the Lord of ALL creation and he is in the "Heart Business," yet I stand amazed at how he has brought our family together. GOD has been preparing our hearts for over a year~ Preparing our hearts for becoming a family, He united our hearts as a mother/son as a father/son and sisters/brother and as ONE FAMILY~
When I was writing all this in my journal I even stopped to ask myself~ Do you really love him as much as your daughters or am I just living in a fairy tale? I made myself stop and just feel my heart................I said, "Alyssa" and I felt my love for Alyssa in my heart..........I said, "Stephanie" and again I felt my love for Stephanie in my heart......I then said, "Donei" and my heart felt exactly the same feeling.................He is my son!
I believe every time I cried and prayed for him these last 15 months since I last saw him, that God was taking my tears and pouring them back into my heart to fill my heart with love for him. It is only from God~ who can duplicate this supernatural kind of love~
Yes, we are in the honeymoon stage of life right now (as people need to remind us of this all the time.......why?) but you know what~ I am going to praise God for where we are now and enjoy every moment!

My boy loves driving the tractor around the farm......we keep joking about how instead of a car for his 16th birthday we're gonna buy him a tractor!

 

 

Maria Joanna (18years old) with Steve. Maria has been washing our clothes for us while at CLM.

Fathers Day Coffee Mug that says "Super Pai" which means Super Dad in Portuguese

 Celebrating Fathers Day In Brazil (Aug 8th) at the Pizzaria while traveling to the Waterfalls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breakfast at the Hotel in The Foz (Waterfalls)

The Primo's at the Bird Park near the Foz

My dear sweet friend Mary and me~ Who I am going to miss dearly when we leave :(

My handsome son looking all "cool" with this bird until it came towards him! :)

Not to be confused with "Big Mama's House!"

My beautiful daughters......who we miss dearly

Walking in Brazil........looking out over the hills

Little Lu on our walk......

OK, this is Steve, I was told that it was my turn to write a little something on the blog so you have to listen to me...sorry.
We had a very successful day today in Brazil. We were able to get everything accomplished that we set out to do which is not an easy thing here. Most of the time your appointments are canceled or lost and no one tells you until you drive there...I love that part!!!!
We got Donei's blood work done, chest x- ray, visit with the psychologist, first visit back to the case worker, lunch with the Cochran's and we even had time to stop at the candy store in  Guarapuava . We joked that if we were gambling folks we should buy a lottery ticket because it was our lucky day. I will most likely have to hide the candy that we bought because Donei will eat it all. We got his favorite candy and he told me last time that once he starts....he can't stop. He already ate the cookies that he bought for me on the way home from the city. We both have the same problem, we have a sweet tooth. He and I have spent many a night in front of the fridge downing cookies and milk. That seems to be one among many of the things we love to do together....that's my boy!
We are going to take an adult break tonight and go into the colony with just Mike and Mary to a German owned restaurant. We were going to do this last Friday but changed our plans when Donei's younger brother Andy, came into town to visit and say goodbye. We are looking forward to some adult time with Mike and Mary since we have not had any time away since we arrived. For those of you that do not have kids must think that I am awful and for those of you that do have kids.....need I say more?
We have missed so very much not having Alyssa and Steph here. They have played a important part of this journey and we have had to adjust to them not being here. It took Donei only about 10 seconds to rearrange the girls old room and make it his room. Bigger bed, more space, large screen TV....it's all true except the TV part. He already acts like a little brother. We all are looking forward to seeing the girls again and I am counting down the days.
Poor Alyssa, she is having a hard time being back home. She feels like she is torn between two world, Brazil and Ohio. I know exactly what she is going through because Tammy and I have experienced it and those of you that have come to CLM more than likely  have experienced it. This place has a way of calling you back and if you don't believe me, guess where I am writing this blog from......
Oh those Cochran kids....Last night we had them over to make a card and have a cake so that when Mike and Mary came home from celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary, we would give them a surprise party. I am not sure why but these times always turn into a food fight and I get the worst of it. I decided to get out the face paint and do some hearts on the girls. They had a different idea so Jenna and Lindsay worked their masterpiece on my face. I have learned to just let those two have their way because if I don't, it only will be worse for me. I will have Tammy post the pics of my face and you can be the judge if it is a masterpiece. Don't tell them but I do love them very much!
We just had a new team arrive here from Columbus Ohio to work around CLM. We met them yesterday and they are a great bunch of folks. I told them to be cautious because if they are not careful they just might fall in love with about 30 kids and again, if you don't believe me....guess where I am writing this blog from.
I do understand that we are not all called to adopt but I would encourage everyone to think and pray about making a visit trip to CLM. The journey that we started over 1 1/2 years ago has changed our family in so many wonderful ways and I would think that we all have a little room for change in our lives. The big picture is that we are looking forward to what the future had in store and seeing how God will use this in others.
Thanks for putting up with me this time. Tam will probably be back on the next posting.

Tammy, Lindsay and Jenna Cochran

Making Happy Anniversary sign for Mike and Mary

Jenna & Lindsay decided to face paint on Steve

The finished project by Jenna & Lindsay

Ben and Donei

Cutting of the cake ........

Happy Anniversary Mike & Mary with their three muskateers

Wedding toast....with Milk! :)

Donei with his psychologist Lenita....saying good bye