Home At Last

Woohoo! We made it home! After Chris spent all day Saturday in bed with what can only be described as the flu and Shawna still fighting nausea, we loaded up the minivan and headed south to Klamath Falls. We decided not to stop through Medford and potentially share any ailments we had with Gramma and Grampa Fox which was a hard decision as they have been such a blessing during this adoption. But we will see them in less than two weeks for Easter and they are VERY anxious to see their new great granddaughter (lucky number 13 I believe).

We made a quick stop in Salem for gas and Taco Bell and quickly discovered Joy loves those $.99 burritos. A little further down the road a Dairy Queen stop was in order. After being unable to drink some of the awesome slushy drink Katie had ordered because she didn't know how to drink from a straw, Joy carefully watched Katie drink for about a minute. Shawna tried to give Joy some more and with extreme determination, Joy managed to get the hang of the straw within 10 seconds! She was so excited to get to some of that grape slushy nectar!!!

We decided to go over Willamette Pass because the roads appeared dry when Chris checked online earlier that morning but of course a common early spring snow storm was dumping a slushy mix on top by the time we arrived. We made it through that with no problem and didn't stop again until home (and Joy didn't even fuss once the entire trip!).

At home, Joy immediately started walking through the house getting to know her new turf. We ate some dinner that the Morgan's had graciously left in the fridge, then it was more play time. Joy has really come out of her shell, and with the help of some slow introduction to discipline (ie timeouts for unnecessary fussing), she is definitely a happier girl. She loves her big sisters and walks around the house with a permanent smile. She is such a good little girl and as we watched her and the other two girls, we realized that she was the missing piece to our family.

Something else hit us we were watching the kids play. Although their skin was so different, it didn't feel different. I don't know what I'm trying to say exactly, maybe I thought I would initially feel, "Wow, there's a dark skinned child here," but no thoughts of that ever came to be. It's like we were one as a family, there was no difference, only the fact that we had missed her for the first two years of her life. Again, we had no doubt there would be no weird feelings, but to feel an immediate and personal connection was something beyond description (and something we had hoped for since our first meeting over a week ago). We can easily see now why the nurses and nannies at the orphanage love her so much. She has such a contagious and beautiful personality. It's great to have finally left them behind to build the bridge to getting to know each other, and since we left Addis Ababa, the connection and closeness has been tremendous.

She sees us as her caregivers now and shows love without hesitation (especially if she's tired). We are so blessed to have her as part of our family and know God has a special plan for her, us, and her birth family.

So we will relax at home for the next little while and get used to how we each operate, enjoy some sunny days outside, and I'm sure spend a lot of time laughing. This is such an amazing adventure!