Eleven Years ................................

Eleven years ago, I said yes. Yes to a life with a very young, handsome, stubborn and talented young man. I was young, so very young, more stubborn than he, and we loved each other. We were ready to conquer the world together, build a life, a family, a home.

We hit the ground running…poor sucker he had NO IDEA what he was in for, marrying me.

This vid is just our family, it was not made to be inspiring, many of these pictures have stories upon stories behind them, some of the best moments of my life, some that haunt me just by looking at them…yet this is OUR STORY, our family thus far, the raw, and the beautiful.

It begins and ends at the same place, the same doors, on the same day, ten years later.

This ironically is also our angle son’s birthday. Nothing is by chance, is it?

My dear friend Jen offered to put this slide show together to show after our family’s sealing, in May of last year. It turned out more beautiful than imagined. Sometimes I can watch it, sometimes I can’t.  The incredible MIKE TERRY, photographer of the Salt Lake Deseret News, allowed me these pictures, he and so many others were there documenting, but he did it with grace and respect, always understanding the real humanity of what was taking place.

The first song is the first 9 years of our life. For people that want back story here is our time line:

May 12 2000:  I married my Love.

August 2000: I was in a terrible car accident and miscarried our first child

June 2001: Our first Miracle baby (after 10 months of bed rest) Bug-Bug was born

* many heart breaking miscarriages*

8 failed adoptions

November 2003: We adopted Scooby at 3 days old

February 2005: Expecting Twins (bed rest again)

April 2005: miscarried one of the Twins

September 2005: “Peanut butter” made his Celebrity appearance.

….and I had a dream that would change everything…about a little brown girl running hand in hand with a little blonde boy…..so we went to find her.

August 2006: (on my 27^th birthday) I emailed the Orphanage about adoption.

October 2006: Adoption began: Referral for Divalicious was given

November 2006: Referral for Gibson Jack was given.

April 2007 : Easter Sunday, Gibson passed away from dehydration

* four days later, with his already packed suitcase we traveled to Haiti to meet Diva.

April 2007:  In Haiti we fell in love with Chatter-box and Cookie. Diva and Cookie were 18 months, Chatter only 3.

May 12 2007:  On what would have been Gibsons 1^st birthday, we planted a tree in his name, and the kids wrote and drew letters, and we sent them to him on white balloons.

June 2007: I took the Child Referral and Update Specialist position as an adoption coordinator for my children’s Orphanage.

Oct 2007:  My third trip to Haiti, now leading parents and volunteers, we met and fell in love with Papillion, just barley 14….paper work was in Haiti by that January.

* years and trips, and miscarriages later: kids were still not home.

August 2008: Scooby was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes

Oct 2008:  Bugs traveled to Haiti with us to meet her brothers and Sisters.
We found and FELL head over heals in LOVE with a 7 lb, 22 day old beautiful baby boy, "Dude" we ALL were toast....we started his adoption as well.

* kids files still stuck in IBESR (had been for two years)

November 2009 I traveled to Haiti with parents and Volunteers…

Novemeber 2009 While flying home, Baby Faith was born and Hubs went to get her from the hospital.

SIX WEEKS LATER:

January 2010 The Haitian Earthquake

For 28 hours we had no idea whether our children had survived. We finally herd word that the Orphanage at the epicenter of the Earthquake still stood, all the children had survived.

I don’t have the words yet for that. We went. We did not sleep, really, for a month, maybe two. I saw and lived things, things that I can’t, not yet say, or talk about. We were protected, guided and held up by Gods tender hands. Angles, Celestial and Earthly surrounded us and our cause. Lady (most time in hidious orange shirt) with the brown long hair...thats me,green shirted skinny guy...my hubs.  "All" of my children came home (and by “Mine” I mean the 50 children that I LOVED, worked with and depended on me to take them to safety, to their Mom’s and Dad’s, brothers and sisters… they came home to their forever families. Some more broken, and damaged and scared then others, but they lived, when many, too many to count, did not.

The rest is about us healing and learning to be a family.

The song “Black and White” aka “Bock-a- WHA” is my Haitian kids favorite songs…they LOVE Michael Jackson and it makes me smile to know half of these pictures probably had that song playing in the background….we are a home of music, miracles and healing.

Happy May 12^th, in our home it is more than a Wedding Anniversary, more than a Day we are committed to being a forever Family, more than a birthday cake that Gibson will not blow the candles out…. It is a day we remember all that we have lived, loved and survived to get us here……