Stop over...P.S. you are a US Citizen

After arriving in Washington DC early in the morning, we decided to spend the night and fly out to Oregon the next day. This would allow us time to rest a bit and to break up this 23 hour journey home (not including any layovers that we would have had if we went straight through..that would have made it a 35 hr journey)! So what a better way to celebrate Mawerdi becoming a US citizen and Mother's day than to take her to the Washington National Mall.

It was a beautiful day and the air was so fresh, it was a nice relief to our lungs. It felt good to be back in the United States. We enjoyed a walk around the grounds while Mawerdi enjoyed an early morning nap.

Remember how she love water fountains, well she was mesmerized by this one! Unfortunately we didn't get a picture that truly captured her excitement, where she was clapping and talking up a storm...we were too busy laughing with her and enjoying the moment.

“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end”

 ~ Abraham Lincoln

“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.”

 ~ Abraham Lincoln 

So this was Viv's first Mother's day, how did it feel? It has felt amazing to be her mother since the day we checked her out of the orphanage. She is the light of our lives, we feel so blessed to be her parents! And to be able to return to our country with our daughter on mother's day, well this was a perfect way to end this leg of the journey. With that being said, we know that there is another mother out there who is wondering where Mawerdi is today. We just hope that she feels in her heart that Mawerdi is taken care of and loved as much as humanly possible. We wish that we could tell her thank you, thank you for bringing this amazing child into the world and thank you for sacrificing so that she could be given the life that lies ahead of her.

Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.” ~Meryl Streep

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

~ Steve Jobs