Adoption: More than "the" child.....

There's nothing like the bonds that have been formed through our adoptions.....Nothing.  After uploading some new pics tonight, i sat at my computer and smiled to myself.  Tears were welling in my eyes as I sat here and really just thought about the children.  But then what got me thinking, is how God has brought ALL of these people into our lives.  It's not "just" the children.  It's their families too.  Some of our closest friends are now the people we met through our children.  They may live far away, and they may not have been our friends "the longest" but that doesn't make their friendships to us any less. 

They are people who "get it".  People that if we want to get on our soapbox about "it"-we can.  If we need to relate to struggles, triumphs, milestones-we can.  So to you-our friends in our lil' "adoption bubble"-we love you so very much and we are so blessed to have you in our lives!

 Miss Zaela: She is from Ethiopia.  We stayed at the same guest house in Addis. Rylee and Zaela have something "special" she is our lil' MISS Z!  They have been buddies since August 2008 at the ripe ol' age of 8 and 10 months!

 Miss Mia is from Guatemala-We are blessed to live next to our friends.  Rylee and Mia are also in the same preschool class-Tammi and I met when we started our adoption process to help us get started and through all the paperwork madness!

Mr Luke is also from Ethiopia and live close to us as well! They are buddies and know how to ham it up when they get together!  Luke now has a baby sister that was adopted from the U.S too-and is about Ezzies age!

 This lady makes me smile.  This is Debbie Wankel.  She was our case manager for our adoption with Rylee throught CCI.  She was the one who sent us our first pictures of our lil' man at only 3 months! She has older biological children, but also has 2 adopted daughters from Guatemala and Ethiopia, Heidi and Eden!  After 3 years, we finally got to meet her in a Target parking lot on our way to Tennesee! See how God brings people together?!

Sweet Claire is from Ethiopia.  They used our same agency and live in Indiana.  Jolene and Darin are some of the sweetest people you will ever meet, but we have a blast with them! She inspires me - there is no doubt about that!

Mr.Ben was Ezzie's roomie in Ethiopia.  It's amazing to me that I first held Ben while we were there to pick up Ezzie and now we get to watch him grow up with our kiddos!  (Also Darin and Jolene's Mr Mr)

 And then there is Mr.Marley!  He was born in the U.S - Rylee LOOOOVES Marley. We met him and his mama Alison-who is now our sweet friend in a music class for the boys when they were almost 2.  He is a blast! 

This group is very very dear to us! We loooove the Motts and The McCoys! Our 2008 trip to Ethiopia to pick Rylee up!  We traveled to Texas last Spring Break ... From Michigan to Texas to California, this friendship is something special!

This is Miss Ava( her sister Liza is below)! Tracy and Darren live in Illinois.  When Ryan traveled to Ethiopia the first time by himself The Bodines took Ry under their wing and helped him out with Ezzie. We were fortunate enough to travel again with them on our pick up trip!  She held Ezzie before I did and loved on her for me!

Love my sweet Jolene and Tracy (Let's not forget Stella who is also Darrin and Jolenes lil princess)

E-man! This is Mr.Eli and he is from Ethiopia too! Mark and Amy live in Michigan too so we are able to visit them often! We randomly met them via Facebook (thank you FB) they looked like "fun people" so we started chatting and the rest is history! Love this picture!