Today it’s been exactly 8 months since we arrived home with Cooper. 8 months ago when we started our plane journey home, and Cooper had the worst plane ride ever, I didn’t think I’d survive the 23-hour flight. There were a couple times when I seriously considered the possibility of using a parachute. LOL But it’s amazing at what 8 months can do. Now I can look back at that time and smile and – almost – even laugh about it.
We’ve had some adventures these past few months, and like a good book, I’ll tell you about today and where we’re at, and then I’ll spend the next several blog posts filling you in on where we’ve been.
My favorite part about this whole journey is seeing how much Cooper loves his family. And I’m not really trying to brag about ourselves here, but really our entire extended family. Cooper lives for family gatherings, birthday parties, really any family event. He talks about his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. constantly. He is beside himself when I tell him that we are going to visit family. Or when a family member’s vehicle pulls in our driveway, there’s no way to contain the jumping up and down and shrieks of excitement.
If any of you out there are considering adoption, I can’t tell you enough how amazing it is. I still have such a hard time wrapping my brain around the thought that less than a year ago, we hadn’t met Cooper and he hadn’t even met his forever family yet. I can’t even fathom how different his life and ours could have been. So today, I just wanted to take a little trip down memory lane. Many of you probably haven’t seen any of these pics yet, since we didn’t post pics of Cooper until Gothca Day. So allow me to reminisce a bit…
Our very first meeting with Cooper on August 4th, 2009:
(Doesn’t he look so excited to see his Mama & Dada? 
)
First picture with Dada – and no Ken was not posing, that was his natural reaction. That’s why I love this picture so much.
First picture with Mama (I’m just pretending I’m calmer than Ken).
And here’s Cooper and Dada just last week. I’m not sure why they both have such serious expressions, but it was the most recent photo I could find and I found it interesting to compare it with the photo of the two of them above.
And here they are swimming at the hotel we stayed at last week.
Like I said, so much has happened in the past 8 months. It’s been a really great time of bonding and an awesome journey…
