Some changes come so gradually we barely notice. One day fades into another, and time slips away before we realize that a moment, a season, a chapter of our lives is closed forever.

Other changes are abrupt and foreseen. We stand on the edge of a new horizon and realize, “One more step and everything is different.” I’m reminded of the night before I left home for college, the day we got married, the night before Caleb was born, the day we traveled to Ethiopia to bring home Josiah. All of these were moments when I was gripped equally with fear and excitement, anxiety and anticipation.

I don’t like change; it goes against my nature. So for me to choose something new, to purposefully step out into something different, even when it is what I want, always rattles me.

I know that what lies before us is good. I know that this is what God has called us to and that our lives will be better because we followed Him here.

But still, the knowledge that something is ending, makes me want to stay very still. I want to gulp up these last breaths in this place, in this season; I want to swallow these memories whole and soak up every moment of being just like this. I want to stand right here and tell God, “Thank you.” Thank you for these moments, for this day, for this season that I am now leaving forever.

We will never again be just a “boy family.” And that is good, and exactly as it should be. But these moments, with only our two boys, have been very sweet. I will always remember watching two small boys become brothers. I will always remember that this was the year that they learned to love each other and that these were the days when God knit their hearts together in brotherly love. And now I can’t wait to watch them fall in love with their sister.

Two more days.

Two more days and we close this chapter and step out into something new.

Today and tomorrow there will be lots of hugs, lots of kisses, lots of cuddles and laughs. And then Wednesday, we’ll take a deep breath and step out into what He’s called us to, knowing that He’s the one who has planned the beginning and the end of every moment and every season that lies ahead.

I looked into his beautiful eyes for the first time. You can read more about our first meeting here.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year, and it’s hard to believe it’s been only a year. It feels like forever and an instant all wrapped into one.

But he’s completely ours now. Head to toe, a Picker Boy, and we’re absolutely in love with him.

It’s hard to imagine what we would be like today if God hadn’t hand-picked him for our family. But here’s what I know: our house would be too clean, I would be getting too much sleep, I wouldn’t be laughing enough, I wouldn’t be getting enough slimy kisses or “love hits,” Caleb would be lonely, Casey and I would be bored, and we would still be completely ignorant about the beautiful miracle that is adoption. We would understand less about God, His love for us, His calling on our lives, and what we owe Him.

And we would still be completely blind to the continent of Africa that God has placed in our hearts. When I look at the world that I lived in before we began the process to adopt Josiah, it is small, pitiful, and ridiculously self-centered. We still have a long way to go, but because of Josiah, and God’s placing him so lovingly in our family, we understand better who we are supposed to be.

Baby boy, we are so in love with you. You are the salve to a wound we didn’t know we had. Your smile could melt an iceberg, and your joy is contagious. We are honored that God has entrusted your life to us. We know He has a great work planned for you, and we can’t wait to see what that is.

If you only know us through this blog, then you probably haven’t heard our disappointing news.  Last week we were informed that the US Embassy in Ethiopia had canceled half of our agency’s standing appointments with them for the month of July.  Because of this, we were bumped from our spots.

I do not understand exactly why this happened, or why our agency was uninformed of this change until so late in the game.  Holt was not the only agency to be surprised by this announcement, so there was obviously some kind of terrible miscommunication between the embassy and adoption agencies.

We, of course, had already bought our plane tickets as we were planning on being in Ethiopia for our July 27th appointment with the embassy.  When we talked with our travel agent, she told us it would be close to $4,000 to change our tickets to early August.  Obviously, this was not part of our adoption budget.

We then began, with the support of our agency, to petition the embassy to give us an individual appointment so that we could travel during our original travel dates.  We have a friend that was successful in getting an individual appointment.  The embassy basically ignored us for three days, and then sent us an uninformative form e-mail 10 minutes before closing time on Friday.  They are not my favorite people now, to say the least.

After it became clear that we would be fighting with them into the next week, we decided to call our airline directly and see what they could do for us.  Imagine our shock when Casey asked them how much it would cost to change our tickets to our new travel dates and they said, “$200 each.”  Our response was, “Book it!”

We are definitely disappointed that we are delayed in traveling to bring Evelyn home.  We will now be leaving for Ethiopia on August 4.  But we know that God is in control of this.  There must be some reason that this is His plan.  We know that He was answering our prayers by allowing us to get our tickets changed for such a low price.

This week has been hard, as we are looking at 3 more weeks of waiting before we can leave, but we are trying to put our trust in Him.

In other, better news, we found out last Friday that we have been granted an adoption grant through Show Hope!  This is an incredible blessing that we were not expecting.  The grant is large enough to cover all of our post-placement and re-adoption expenses when we get Evelyn home.  Praise God!

Thank you for your continued prayers for our little girl and for our big trip coming up.

Thanks to all that have blogged, facebooked, tweeted, and retweeted about our t-shirt fundraiser.  At this point, we’ve sold roughly 150 shirts, which means about $1800 for our travel fund.  THANK YOU!

If you would like to order one, please do so NOW, as we are placing our last order with the printer on Wednesday.

The winners of our giveaway are Cimbrey and Sheri!  We’ll be contacting you soon.