One year ago . . .

Abera came home! I can't believe it has already been a year and I can't believe it has only been a year. As I think back to the agonizing wait for the referral and the arduous trip to Ethiopia, it seems like a blip in time.

Abe has so enriched our lives and is such a joy to everyone in our family. Well, most of the time he is a joy-sometimes he has that whole toddler thing going on and is not so much a joy. Last night he just picked up two handfuls of dog food and threw them at me. I wasn't feeling joy right then.

But then he does cute and wonderful things like his morning routine with Grace. Every morning when he sees Grace stumble downstairs in her sleepy fog, he races over to her and says "hi!" and wraps his arms around her legs to give her a great big hug. She pats him on the head and he beams up at her.

Sometimes we have folks say to us that Abe is lucky that we adopted him. And I always respond that we are the lucky ones. Because in the mundane and special times like the kids' morning routine, I know that he has made our lives far better than we have made his.

Referral picture-the before.

The after!