Such a wonderful gift!

I don't even know where to start in sharing all of the wonderful things that our friends and family did to welcome us home.  As I type this we have been home for OVER 2 months and this is the first week that I have to meal plan- before this I have had meals dropped off at my home at least twice a week!  It has been SUCH a blessing to our family and I am so so thankful for all of the support we have had. It has meant the world to us and is truly humbling that people would reach out in so many ways to help us.  Take for instance our neighbor who dropped off a meal and then also gave us this bubble machine!  Ben is obsessed with bubbles and this brought so much joy to his little face!  In China the bubbles was the one thing that helped calm him down on gotcha day so we know what to use in extreme situations!!  We love how animated he is and it's so fun to learn all these new things about him :)  You can see a couple photos from the bubble machine below!

A week away from the frozen tundra

 



 

 

 

Almost 4 years ago we had a generous family send us on an all expense paid vacation to Florida.  And when we got the phone call in December asking us if we would like to go again, I seriously almost cried.  As most of you know, funding an adoption is not cheap.  So vacations are definitely not in our budget for the foreseeable future- hence the almost crying when we got the call!  We feel so incredibly blessed and we are very grateful for the trip. 

So for the past couple months we have been SO anticipating this trip!

And you guys, oh my goodness it was so so nice.  Aside from the fact that we were in a place where it's not 5 degrees for a high, it was so fun to spend time together as a family, hang out with some great friends, and also re- introduce Jake to the beach.  The last time we took Jake to the beach he was a little over a year old, so this time it was really fun to actually build sandcastles with him and swim in the water.  We also took turns doing a date night which was SO nice, ate ice cream, went to the park, got in some of our long runs for the marathon training (I'll run 10 miles in Naples ANY day this time of the year!), had some pretty intense Euchre games, took naps, read, and relaxed.  It was everything we could have possibly wanted in a vacation and more.  And we are so so thankful :)

Also, our friend Luke brought his "Go Pro" with him and took tons of video footage.  He made the first video below of us arriving in FL and I thought I'd share it :)  These cameras are so fun!