Homecoming-A-Versary!!

July 3rd, 2007

We got up early, finished packing and headed to the airport!! We were finally beginning our journey home!! I can't tell you how many times Gary and I kept looking at each other in disbelieve - is this really happening? Our adoption had been plagued with mishaps the whole way and although the last three weeks on our extended pick-up were much shorter than we had anticipated, we had continued our trend of mishaps:

- Embassy doctor's appointment visit lasted over 5 hours because our attorney after having told us the correct doctor to go to, went to some other office.

- At that doctor's appointment, the twins picked up some nasty virus (what do you do for 5 hours, but crawl around and play with office toys?) and Logan got so sick, he lost 2 whole pounds!

- We were abandoned at the Embassy appointment and had no clue how to navigate through our paperwork, luckily we met some generous facilitators who helped us out!

But on the morning of July 3rd, 2007 we woke up like it was Christmas morning, full of anticipation for what the day would bring!

During the long wait at the airport we weighed the boys on the luggage scale:

Austin 19.5 lbs and Logan 17.8 lbs (at 14 months old! so tiny, but other than being sick, very healthy!)While Logan slept:

Austin entertained a local Soccer team, they were all enthralled with him!

We were so fortunate - we flew on Buddy passes again, were upgraded to First Class and had the whole section to ourselves!! The flight attendant even made a make-shift playpen for us with her food cart! Traveling with these two gorgeous little fellas elevated us to RockStar status( and that hasn't stopped even today!)

As luck would have it, we were hit with one more HUGE snag before bringing our journey full circle. We landed in Charlotte, NC around 8PM, went through immigration and missed our connecting flight by mere seconds. We then missed another flight out that would have taken us only about 45 minutes from home. At 11PM that night, we knew we were NOT making it home and wearily made our way to yet another hotel for (I'm not kidding) 2.5 hours of sleep. We were starving, exhausted, close to running out of diapers and baby food and SO ready to be home!

July 4th, 7:30AM flight home. Woo-Hoo! WE MADE IT! Our welcome party had kept up with our many flight changes and despite the early 8:40am arrival, we were swept off our feet with hugs and tears and answered prayers when we stepped off the plane.

And I'm tearing up now, remembering what I had dreamed about for so long. The first time they crossed the threshold of their new home. Their little feet racing over our floors - the little pitter patter I had only imagined up until today, little hands exploring their new toys, sleeping in their bed (not their cribs, yet!), playing with their brothers....oh, it just all seemed so surreal to me!

July 4th - Our Homecoming-A-Versary!

Our new life together had begun!

And what a year it's been. Far exceeding any expectations or dreams I had ever had. That God would bless us so abundantly is amazing to me.