Surprise #2

Our second Surprise..., well, it has 2 parts.

Not only were we very fortunate to have developed a wonderful friendship with the person we sent gifts to for nearly 2 years, but we also count ourselves fortunate to have developed a wonderful friendship with the family sending us gifts.

But the last surprise?

We knew who they were from the first month of gift sending. Yeah, I'm one of those people who is driven by curiosity, curiosity about what drives people, curiosity about surprises, just curiosity. So when the first package came I looked at the zip code and the profiles of all the people who were in the swap and bada bing bada bam, I knew who it was.

Our Secret Pal for the last 2 years was over at "Desperately Seeking Sunshine", now known as "Inside the Crayon Box". We've met in person, both families intertwining, chatted up a storm on the phone and in email. They will always be part of our lives. My Secret Pal has even gotten to know my mom and a childhood friend who lives near her. We continue to be amazed at how well all of our friends, from work, from adoption, from wherever, all integrate so well. Even the overlapping in humor is scary!

One of my favorite times was to have them come visit us overnight shortly after their son came home from Vietnam. Oh, what a wonderful weekend. Having a child in the house, friends for a weekend (day trips suck, weekend trips... relaxing!). We caught up with other local families, all just home a few weeks, at a park in town and really had a wonderful time with everyone. It was sooooo hard not mentioning that 'hey, we know you're our Secret Pal'! But I didn't say a word, I done did good.

They are coming again at the start of the summer with another family we know and it should be a good time! We can't wait to see them again.

The pictures? Well, long overdue, they are from the last few months of presents and we were thrilled with all the gifts that have come our way, both for us as individuals and for us as a family waiting to be united with Magpie. I've been a bit 'behind', ok, really behind, in saying thanks. But check out some of the wonderful pictures of gifts from the latter part of 2007!

So this is our feeble attempt to say Thank You to the person who's been cheering from the sidelines, offering support during the tough month, a shoulder to cry on in the really tough months that occur every year around Sophia's birth date.

The last picture is of the "reveal" where she was supposed to 'tell us' who she/they were. She contacted my mom and got a baby picture of mine (in the photo to the right) and created all these personal notes attached to each of the gifts, along with a card made that include both of our baby photos. The inscription on the book was awesome. In fact, in the book was one I'd been dying to collect. We love the alphabet series, each state/country/continent has a "letter" that describes the area it's from. We have several of them but had yet to get NY.

They are such great people and so generous that when we sent them a "surprise we know who YOU are" gift box (arriving the same day as our last gift box), they called and then sent Thank You flowers to my office to thank us for thanking them! Silly People. It was so much fun to shop throughout the last year or so and put little and big things to the side and send them just a small token of our appreciation for all the support, friendship and fun along the way.

We are so lucky, not for where we live, for the income we have, the jobs we really enjoy, for the gifts we get, for the life we live, no, all of that pales in comparison to the power of friendship and for the fact that Magpie is the one who brought us all together. This is what having children in your lives is all about.

We are truly the lucky ones.