Celebrating Our First Year Together

One year ago today we boarded a plane (well several planes) and headed to to Guangzhou, China to meet our son. We left Orlando around 1 pm on October 10, 2008 and arrived in Guangzhou on October 12th at 6 in the morning. It was the longest flight ever, but we met some interesting people and had good flying experience overall. We will actually celebrate our 1 year anniversary this Tuesday, October 13th, but we wanted to head out to Epcot to take pictures in the China pavilion so we needed to celebrate a few days early. This morning we headed over to Grandma's at 10 o'clock and timed our arrival to Epcot for 11 o'clock when the World Show Case opens. Because of the Food & Wine festival about a million other people had the same idea, but it turned out to be a pretty good day and we got some good pictures.
After taking a few pictures of Isaac in his "come bounce with me" t-shirt we decided to change him into his traditional Chinese outfit for a few more pictures. He was so cute wandering along the little path that he attracted a few admirers, and sometimes it was difficult to get a shot without other people in it.

Here we are inside the Temple of Heaven. I had the hardest time getting this photo. I had 5 or 6 pictures of the pillar with an arm, a leg, or a blur. At least I got one with my handsome little guy. One of the gentlemen working at the Temple of Heaven remembered us from previous visits. He came up and visited with us for a few minutes. Isaac was a little shy at first, but eventually gave him a high five. I wanted to get a picture, but he was being so shy I didn't want to scare him or have the young man from Hong Kong think I was crazy. :o)
I had hoped to get a picture or two of Isaac near the life size replica of the Terracotta Warriors, but he was afraid of them. We settled on taking a picture WITH Mommy next to the smaller scale warriors. After our photo shoot we went to have lunch at the Nine Dragons restaurant. The food was delicious! I can never make it to the China pavilion without shopping. Isaac and Daddy had a good time coloring. While at the Fun Spot we met a family who is preparing to meet their daughter in China later this month. We were excited to meet a family on their journey as we celebrated our family today. It reminded me of when we met several couples celebrating anniversaries when we went on our honeymoon in 2004. It seemed serindipitous to meet so many couples celebrating love & family when we were celebrating the start to our marriage and it seemed equally fortunate to meet this family today. 10/13/200810/10/2009

What a difference a year makes!! He's changed in so many ways! He's gone from being a baby to a little boy!! It's hard to believe that he hasn't spent every second of his life with us. Sometimes, it's hard to imagine our lives without him in it, what did we do with ourselves before he joined our family?!