One Year home with the Monkey

For some of you who don't know - Maya is nicknamed the monkey as she can and will climb anything.  Her ability is beyond belief and thus she is just our little monkey.  Today was spent reflecting on the past year with the blessing of Maya.  Talking with the girls about what they remembered most from this day last year and Sydney responded, " I loved how she was so fascinated by my red hair when we first met her mommy",  Mackenzie remembered the first time Maya came to her and wanted to play with her.  We all have fond memories of our special time traveling to China to pick up our specially chosen daughter/sister and it was fun to celebrate today.  We sang Happy Gotcha Day to the tune of Happy Birthday, had a fun dinner of Teriyaki dinner with garlic stir fryed vegetables over a bed of brown rice noodles and then snuggled up as a family to look through Maya's baby book, look at pictures and read all the new things Maya has done, things she has said and all her "firsts".  What a year - traveling home on a very long plane ride, only being home a few days to be packed up and going camping (what were we thinking???), coming home for a few weeks and pack up again for another camping trip, surgery in November, cast for 13 weeks, first parade, first hike, first Christmas, first birthday with her family,  backpacking in and camping, and the list goes on and on.  We are so blessed and thankful for how God has formed and shaped our family.  He is forever stretching and growing our faith.

A little bit of house update:  The house we bought and were set to close on July 8 came into a bit of complications as the seller was in foreclosure and the bank repossessed the home.  Thus the house isn't his to sell, yet we are in a legally binding contract.   Tomorrow is the court date where the judge will decide the fate of the house - does the bank get to keep it and try and sell it or will the bank take it out of foreclosure and allow us to have the house?  I will keep you posted........