One year ago today our world changed...it was the first time that we saw the face of our son!! I will never forget the feeling of seeing his precious face and just somehow knowing...this was the boy God was giving to us. I woke up early this morning and pulled up that first picture of Khoa from our agency Dillon International. We had inquired about three little boys listed on their Waiting Child's list. There were no pictures with the descriptions of the little boys, but they all met the requirements that we were looking for.... The same evening Tami from Dillon e-mailed us pictures and medical information for all three boys. Khoa's picture was the first one we saw..and I knew that was him. Our Son! At the time, we were actually signed up with another agency, Vietnamese Orphan's Relief Fund, and our Dossier was already approved and waiting in Hanoi for us to be assigned a child, but within a week, thanks to the hard work of both agencies, we were officially signed with Dillon International and Khoa had a family! We traveled to bring him home just a little over 4 months from the day we saw his face for the first time!
I can't believe it's been a year. What an incredible adventure we've been on. I have to say I feel like the luckiest Mom in the whole world. Rob and I have three healthy, happy, beautiful children. Khoa has been the perfect addition to our family. He has brought such joy to our family. He is so much like his Daddy that it's scary. He is such a tease! His laugh is contagious and when I hear all three of the kids laughing together, it is the best sound in the whole world! Now, don't get me wrong...it's not been all fun and games. It has been a huge adjustment for all of us to have a now four year old running around. The girls have given up a lot to enable us to bring Khoa home. Betsy sometimes feels left out, even as much as we try to make that not happen, it does. I guess the main thing that our family has to remember is that we will have bumps in the road, but that we all love each other and we all KNOW without a doubt that Khoa is suppose to be ours! With God's help, the rest will fall into place.
One of the other wonderful things that we have to thank for the adoption process is all of the new found friends that we have. When you adopt, it is amazing how you bond with other families doing the same. We've met so many wonderful families from all across the U.S. We had the pleasure of actually getting to meet Nicki and her family last night! They are on vacation traveling from Texas to Michigan. We met them for dinner about an hour from our house last night. It was so much fun to get to meet them and their kids. They returned home from Vietnam in the fall of 2006 with their daughter, Addison. What a cutie. Here are a few pictures from our meeting last night. I must say, we have some cute kids! Our oldest wasn't able to go with us because she had to work and Tony, Nicki's husband also has three kids that were not able to come last night either.
