One Year

our little man...then and now

Two days ago, on June 2, we celebrated our one-year anniversary as a family of three. This was the day that our case was heard in the Ethiopian courts to complete our adoption process. On the one hand, it feels like the last year has flown by...I still vividly remember never letting my phone out of my sight and checking email every five minutes to see if there was any news from our case manager, until I finally got the call at 3pm letting me know that Juan Pablo was officially our son. On the other hand, it's hard to believe that only a year ago he was still living in an Ethiopian orphanage. It seems like he's been with us forever.

We celebrated the day with dinner at Red Sea Ethiopian Cuisine. It was delicious, and brought back many wondeful memories of all the great food and great hospitality that we experienced during our trip to Addis Ababa last July. We were also happy to discover that Juan Pablo still likes Ethiopian food, though he had us worried for a little while there. He didn't start eating until the rest of our plates had been cleared away, but that's because he was too busy playing with his new set of plastic animals to be interested in injera and awaze tibbs. After dinner, we came back to our house for cupcakes (or in Juan Pablo's case, frosting). It's amazing to look back on the last year and see how much our little man has changed...he's grown and gained weight, learned to crawl, walk, run and climb, he's incredibly active, has an amazing vocabulary and a great sense of humor, he's funny, sweet, very bright and very curious about everything. And our lives have changed immensely as well. Juan Pablo has brought us more joy than we could have imagined and increased our capacity to love beyond what we ever thought was possible. We are so blessed.