We made it home!

I was beginning to wonder if this day would ever come! We got in last night at midnight because our flight was an hour late from the NY airport. The kids did great on both flights! One flight was 7 hours and the other was 5. I had nightmares before leaving of what it might be like, but they did exceptionally well! Luckily they fell asleep while we waited to taxi out of NY for 2 HOURS! And slept most of the way home.

After meeting all of the new family members and getting luggage we headed home. We hadn't gotten very far when Jordan gagged and threw up all over himself. Luckily we had all of our luggage there and quickly pulled over, cleaned him up, and got him dressed again. So, by the time we actually got home, got all the kids in there beds, and ourselves into bed, it was 2:30 am. Just in time for Cohen to wake up to play! We had honestly laid there for like 15 minutes. We fed him a bottle and changed him and he seemed wide awake and we were both anything but that! So we decided to lay him between us and let him play while we hopefully got a little rest. Luckily he fell back asleep and we were able to sleep for a few hours.

Now it's 6:30 am and Jordans up, so I'm "introducing" him to the toy room while I'll post the blog.

I just wanted to tell all of my new Morocco friends thank you for everything they did to help me get this done! We had no idea going over there, what would happen or what it would be like. There were tons of people who helped us, but some who were truly God sent were- Mary, Holly, Rachel, Touria, Ouafae, and Marcy! You guys were amazing!


Mary helped us out with the living arrangements, and introduced us to almost everyone of these people and everyone else. She is the one who has helped me for a year to make this work! We sat up most of the night s that We were there and staying with her, talking and laughing about all kinds of things! I really enjoyed her company and friendship!

Holli is one of Mary's best friends and we just met Holly shortly after getting there. Holly jumped in and drove us almost every time I had to go (the 2 hour drive each way) to Meknes to the orphanage and the courts, and then all over the city of Rabat, and then to Cassablanca twice to catch my flights! She is amazing! Four weeks ago, she had no clue who I was, and then spent countless hours helping me out. Without her, I would have been stranded and trying to take taxi's and make my way around to places with no way to communicate with drivers or knowledge of the city. I owe a huge thank you to her!!!

Then there is Rachel and Josh. They are the ones who are adopting the adorable little identical twins. They are one of the few LDS couples who live in Rabat and hold church every Sunday at someone's house. They took care of us and made sure we knew where church was and that we had a ride, and helped us out with various things that made our life in a foreign country and 2 new kids a little easier. Having them doing the process at the same time was nice because we could bounce feed back and tips off of each other to help the process along, or just to have someone who simply knows basically how you feel and what frustrations you are going through when things happen and they were someone who could pick you up and remind you that it was all going to be okay.




Touria is one who has been helping me out for the entire year with details of a foreign country that doesn't really have direct rules of "adopting" yet. There are no cut out straight answers. You have to figure it out as you go. Before going, I had no concept of this and couldn't figure out why I couldn't seem to get straight answers from anyone in Morooco. Now my eyes have been opened. They call it "En Sha Alla" (spelling?). Everyone in Morocco says this and it means if God wants it to be it will happen. Basically- If God wants them to help you they will, and if they don't end up helping you, then God must not have wanted them to. But Touria was an awesome help! She arranged Taxi rides with her personal friend that she uses all of the time, so we knew we could trust him and he actually became like a friend too. It is Hamid in the picture playing with Jordan. She toured us around the city on our "time off" and made sure we had a cultural experience while we were there at the same time. She also threw us a "baby shower" of sorts for all of us that were adopting babies to take to the states. We knew we could call Touria for anything and she would pull strings and make basically anything happen. The other guy in this picture is Reda. He came with us a few different times to help us with translation. he was very nice and soon became a friend also. He comes to the US and to Utah, so some of you may be able to meet him someday.




Ouafae works for the orphanage to push the adoption -"kafala" through. She was amazing! She did our kafala in 6 days! That is unheard of!!! The only Judge on duty at the time of our kafala wasn't sure he wanted these Muslim babies going to the US and made her have to fight for us! She pulled through with flying colors. Then for the next 2 1/2 weeks, the judge made her do all kinds of extra little unnecessary steps and forms, just to make it harder, But Ouafae stuck to it and one in the end. Over the 3 week process, she became more of a friend than a paid worker!


And last, but not least is Marcy. She works at the Consulate in Cassablanca. She heard about me and my situation and ended up bending over backwards to help us out! She did a lot of paperwork ahead of time and behind the scenes to make sure that when we were ready, we could get it done. She met with me on a Friday when they don't even do visa's on Fridays, and then had the whole office working on my case to pull it together and actually finished it & hand delivered it to the ice cream parlor where we were waiting, in one day instead of the usual 2-3. We shouldn't have been able to get our visa's until at least Monday if not Tuesday or Wednesday - and we had them the same day! So a great big thank you to her to.

Anyway, I have lot's of pictures and stories. I will probably have to pick and choose which ones I share so that I don't bore all of you. But we had an amazing, miraculous, emotional, cultural, once in a life time experience to only name of few. None of which could have been possible with out the help of any of these people and without the help of all of you here at home that stepped in and took my kids, sometimes without much notice! We owe everyone so much and just know that if you ever need anything- Do not even think to hesitate to ask!!!!!!!!!!