Christmas 2010

Christmas festivities! (M. opening presents from family and friends near and far, visits with grandparents and great grandparents, and lots of fun play time with Uncle Jon).

This season always brings a lot of business for our family and every year we hope for it to be different from the last. We hope for more calm moments of enjoying the season, for more times of reflecting on the true gifts given, remembering our personal and spiritual moments of awaiting the arrival of a child and all of the hope, peace, joy and love that brought us. Taking time to remember all that we have experienced over the past year...

So here are some highlights of our 2010 year.....

• Continuing to experience a lot of "firsts" with M. (snowshoeing, basketball games, birthday parties, haircuts, sprinkler runs, gardening, camping trips, school, holiday performances....)
• Celebrating our first birthday with M. who turned 3!
• Dedicating M. the day after his birthday with close friends and family.
• Taking our first family vacation trip! We spent a week in San Diego with Auntie Jessie and Uncle Gunnar and had a blast going to the zoo, Sea World, whale watching tours, and enjoying Ethiopian food!
• Hiking, hiking and more hiking.
• Readoption day!
• Micah spent a week in Alaska with his brother - a dream come true!
• Visiting family and friends over the summer.
• Remodeling our bathroom successfully on our own - with a little help from a plumber. :)
• SaraJane started at a different Elementary school and was given a wonderful opportunity to work with English Language Learning students - a dream come true!
• And the best of all - spending our first full year together as a family with our little man. He has grown so much within the past year in so many ways. We are daily amazed at the joy he brings us and how quickly everything comes to him. He continually reminds us of his loving heart and willingness to offer up smiles and hugs. There were so many wonderful moments and memories created that will be treasured for a lifetime.

On a not so positive note, we said goodbye to A LOT of very dear friends.... It was very hard on all of us, but we anxiously await the moments we will see them again. We miss them all tremendously and Laramie feels quite a bit different without them here.

We feel so grateful for the abundant amount of blessings thrown our way each and everyday and look forward to all that will come our way in 2011!