Re-Entry and Introductions

Cousin Kathy welcoming us
 home
at Charlotte Airport

We made it home ! What a trip - I think Katherine probably said it best when she compared the journey home to birthing a child; 'its no fun while you are doing it but the end result quickly makes the memory of the pain fade quickly'. We arrived into the Charlotte airport right at 11pm Saturday night and were pleasantly surprised to see cousin Kathy waiting to welcome us and to meet Kirby. She probably didn't realize what a big help she was as we gathered all of our luggage and waited with Kat and Kirby as I went into the night to try a remember where I left our car. Not too much longer, we were under way on our last leg of our trip home. We knew placing Kirby into a car seat for the first time for our 1 1/2 hour drive would not be a good thing especially after being confined for most of the last 30 hours. We nailed this one - about the time we hit Blacksburg, she was done with the car seat and at that time it was much safer for her to ride the rest of the way home on Mom's lap than risk Baba having a wreck.

Kirby meets her brothers and sister
for the very first time.

As we rounded the corner home about 1am, I began to cry as the totality of what God placed in our hearts years earlier was now coming to a point of our forever family meeting for the first time. It is difficult to describe the pure joy and thankfulness I was experiencing but to say the least, it is a time in my life I will never forget - God writes the best stories. As we rolled into the drive way, the first thing we say was a big pink bow on our mailbox and another one on the front door along with a poster made by our children welcoming all of us home. It wasn't until the next day we fully realized many friends had decorated the house and prepared meals for us to last the week - we thank you from the bottom of our hearts!!! We enjoyed about 2 hours together as a complete family before we all fell into our beds and enjoyed a nice comfortable bed and some overdue sleep.

By the time the three travelers woke up, the older children had gotten up and gone to Sunday school and Church. The rest of the day was a very sweet time of family and friends stopping by to meet "the princess" and the answer to their prayers.

We are all close to having our "clocks" reset to EST and Kirby is sleeping almost through the night with the exception of about 30mins to an hour when she needs to get in the in our bed to settle back down before returning to her bed a couple of feet away. This week was a sweet time of getting Laura Sims ready for college and planning our trip this Saturday. We are excited because she is ready for this next step in her journey but obviously will greatly miss my "first princess" sweet daily presence in our home. We love you Laura Sims :) !!!!


Here a a few of our favorite pictures from the week:

Grandma Ann playing "paddy-cake"

Grandma Kay loving on
 her new Grand baby 

Kirby checking out
 Granddaddy's  glasses.

My Queen and two Princesses -
I truly a blessed man !

Kirby's first morning at home -
I think she likes it !

Our first family photo