Then and Now

What a difference a year makes. Yesterday (August 18, 2009) marked our year anniversary for what the international adoption world marks as "Gotcha Day", which is the first day we met and held our little girl in our arms for the very first time. Many people celebrate with a full blown party just as someone having their first birthday or such but since it was our first day back after a week long trip to WV to visit family and since daddy was not here, we just kind of treated it as a normal day but with that in the back of our mind all day long. Wow...how our lives have changed! While we were a happy couple and lived our day to day lives, Kassidy has brought so much joy in our lives and has given our lives such a greater meaning. It seems everything we do and every decision we make is so much more important and involved because we want to make sure we consider what is best for our family as a whole. All of our relationships together, even Billy and I, have grown to become so much stronger. We will never forget the day we got her and all the emotions swirling around in our mind. Our biggest goal now is getting daddy home and being able to celebrate the next Gotcha Day anniversary as a family together. Cousin Bobbi came back to NC with Kassidy and I to visit for a week before she starts back to school. Yesterday we went to Ms. Amy's house and let the girls play in the pool and then when we got back they played for a little while in Kassidy's splash pool before dinner and bedtime. Here are a few pics of the day's events yesterday with a few pics of a year ago when we got her. We cannot imagine any other child in our lives that would have fit better than our little precious girl and we await all the milestones that will be happening in the future hoping and praying that they do not go by too fast and that we are able to treasure every one of them.