Family Anniversary AKA Gotcha' Day!

Three years ago Mark and I crammed ourselves, the Boyachek 5, and David (our in-country rep) into a pseudo-wagon and headed off to the ICBF Bogota office.  The drive there was surreal....no kids one way...1 daughter coming back the other way.  Our nerves were calmed by the interesting drive up there and the beautiful 3 ninos that were just finishing up their first week being a forever family.

We got to ICBF and waited for what felt like an eternity.  In reality it was probably only 15 minutes.  We kept thinking if this was THE room we would meet our daughter.  We tried to drink in every detail so as not to forget even the smallest detail.  We were then moved into THE blue presentation room, complete with a Garfield picture on the wall.  It was filled with toys, love, and all of the memories of the forever families that had been there before us.

We were nervous (of course) and waited for the social worker to come.  But then they switched it up on us and said that Alejandra was a happy girl and would do great if they would just bring her in first.  So in came the sweetest little girl with a smile that lit up the room.  She had on blue and green plaid pants that were way too tight, a navy blue shirt, slippers, a sweater tied around her neck, a blue light blue headband with a butterfly, earrings, and a fresh shaved little head that she LOVED to be rubbed!

She instantly came to us without hesitation.  She smelled so good and we could tell how well loved she had been by her foster family.  I held her in my lap and she was amazed by her Daddy.  Mark would rub her little head and she would shake her head "no."  There were no tears, just smiles, all the way around!  Here was our daughter...FINALLY!

Every second since that day our love for Alejandra has grown.  She is passionate about everything she does....a true Colombiana.  She wakes up with a smile almost every day and goes to bed with that same little smile.  She has added so much JOY to our lives.  We feel so fortunate to have been chosen to be her parents.  We are proud of her background, who she is today, and who she will become in the future.  We can't wait to see her become the big sister she has been dreaming about for over 1 year!

We celebrated our big day by letting Alejandra choose a restaurant for dinner.  She is definitely her Papa's granddaughter because she chose the Old Spaghetti Factory!  She didn't entirely get the "Family Day" celebration, she kept calling it our family birthday.  I guess that is kind of right.  Her version of her adoption story is "Hace 3 años, mama y daddy fueron a Colombia a traer a Alejandra Sofia."  We look forward to her understanding more about her story as she gets older.

Happy Family Birthday to us!