Remembering Faith's Homecoming..............

Today on April 30th , 4 years ago, we arrived at home in England bringing Faith home!!! Our flight had been a very long one! Unlike our flight going to China, this flight was very full! Faith slept for the first few hours, but after that she was wide awake! She was also very unhappy sitting down. I had to get up and walk around with her for most of the flight. The flight attendants were so sweet in letting us hang out with them in their area. Of course they were all smitten by Faith. When we arrived in London we didn't have the "big welcome home" greeting most newly adoptive families have. In fact the only person we had greeting us was our shuttle driver! He would be driving us the other 5 hours we still had to go to arrive home in Cornwall where we were stationed. It's funny because at first I thought I would be very disappointed not arriving where all our family and friends could be there to greet us. I can't explain it though, but I found it to be such a warm, special, and comfortable feeling having just our family of 5 arriving home and stepping off the plane. It was such a feeling of completeness. Sure part of me wanted to shout out "Look everyone, this is my new beautiful daughter coming home for the first time!!!!!!!" But with pure exhaustion taking over I don't think I would have had the strength to shout it even if I decided to:) Our shuttle driver was so good to us and made our 5 hour drive home very pleasant even with Faith crying a good part of the time! She was not very happy being in a car seat after getting carried all around China! We stopped once at a rest stop to take a break and get something to eat. The boys did so great the entire trip and I was so proud of them. When we arrived to our house we were greeted by some of our friends and neighbors who were anxiously awaiting Faith's arrival. I remember those first couple weeks being home some what of a blur as we adjusted to the time change, sleep schedules, and just having a third child. Faith was very delayed in both her physical and emotional development so in many ways she was like having an infant. Those were such special times watching her develop and open up and being with her every moment to watch her blossom. Here are just a few photos of Faith those first couple of weeks HOME!!!! Faith's announcement

learning to use her hands.................

we had a small get together with our local adoption group to welcome Faith home

Faith looooves her chair

tummy time

Faith with Sam, our first Golden. Sam passed away a few months later and I am so glad Sam held on so they were able to meet each other.

our little beauty

you can't see the bubbles in this photo, but Faith was catching bubbles

the three of them all ready for bed