The number three

October 3rd: three as in good things always happen in threes.

October 3rd is the six month anniversary of our "Gotcha Day." On April 3, 2008, Garrett left the orphanage forever. It was a bittersweet day, to say the least. Watching his little buddies say their goodbyes to a boy who was so fired up to leave seemed somewhat surreal. I know I’ve said this many times before, but he has truly never looked back. He has never talked about Kazakhstan. He looks at pictures and doesn’t remember names. The minute we called him Garrett, he never called himself Nurlan again. (Can’t figure that one out, could it be denial or something else?)

That day when our driver Yerlan dropped us off at the apartment, Garrett had a mini melt down. Naturally, we thought he was scared and missing home. Turns out, he was just exhausted and didn’t know where to sleep. (While I showed him where the potty was, it never occurred to me to show him his bedroom—duh.) He did a lot of self rocking that night, banging his head against the couch and sucking his thumb. It was painful to watch. (Happily, this has all gone away except the thumb sucking, which usually happens when he’s in a deep slumber.) He’s come along way these past six months and so have we.

Mommy, Papa, Cody, Little Guy and Biddie (AKA Jellie and Jammers) love you Garrett.

October 3rd is “Gotcha Day” for the Serra family from Tampa. Susan Serra has been literally “living it up” in Kazakhstan for nine (count ‘em) weeks and today she finally got to spring her little cutie, Leeza Grace from the babyhouse. Woo-hoo, a big congratulations go out to Joe, Susan and Sean. Everyone in the Kazakh adoption community is celebrating along with you!!!!!

October 3rd is also the day Eileen and Patrick, PAPs from Virginia, embarked on an adventure of a lifetime. They’ve been waiting on pins and needles (along with the rest o the Kazakh adoptive blogging community) for their LOIs, but they have it along with their trusty Visas and are now somewhere over the Atlantic bound for Amsterdam. There they’ll have an 11-hour layover to rest up before reaching their final destination, Almaty. Then it’s off on a four-hour drive to Astana. The town they’re adopting from is either Burabay or Shchuchinsk (hoping it’s Burabay because Shchuchinsk is just too hard to spell). Sometime on Saturday, or maybe even Monday, they’ll get to meet their Kazakhcutie—and that’s when the fun really begins, a dream of a lifetime for these two.

Both Susan and Eileen have been real champions of our adoption process. They’ve checked on our blog almost every day and have left encouraging comments along the way. We wish both the Serra’s and the Hochstein’s lots of love and happiness with their babies—both families are truly amazing and my life has been enriched tenfold just by knowing them. God bless.

Now let's hear some "three cheers" for October 3rd. Hip, hip, hooray.

Okay, good things also happen in fours. Today is Angela and Scott's "Gotcha Day." They were granted immediate custody of their dear baby girl Alia. Congratulations--October 3rd is a very special day indeed.