Gotcha Day!

Gotcha Day is a tradition we started to celebrate the day we got Jordan. It’s kind of like a birthday because it marks the day Jordan became a part of our family. When I flew to Ohio to pick him up I didn’t know what to expect. I had only seen him a handful of times and I didn’t expect that he would remember me. I bent down and looked into his eyes and introduced myself to him. He looked up at me with a great big smile like he had known me his whole life. From that moment, I knew everything was going to be okay. We had a couple hours to kill before our return flight home to Alabama so my friend, Mike Perkins graciously let us spend the afternoon at his home with his sweet family. On the way to Mike's house Jordan exclaimed that he needed to go to the bathroom. On instinct, Mike pulled in to the nearest McDonalds so Jordan could go to the bathroom, and to our surprise, Ronald McDonald was there. They snapped a polaroid picture of Jordan and Ronald McDonald together and it was our very first picture of little Jordan.

As I look at it again today, I am taken back by how happy he was despite all that he had been through and how unsure he must have been about his future with us. What a remarkable child he is. We are so proud to have Jordan as part of our family. This Gotcha Day is especially important to us because after years of emotional struggles, we finally have legal custody of Jordan. We are so thankful that we are able to give him the security of a stable family. The years of instability and drama that he experienced prior to joining our family are over. Now he has the comfort of knowing where he is going to lay his head each night and the security of knowing that we will be here when he wakes up in the morning.

I would like to personally thank everyone who helped us when we first learned that Jordan was going to join our family. We had only a week to prepare ourselves financially, emotionally and spirituality before we had to go pick him up. We could not have done it without the overwhelming generosity of family, friends and even complete strangers. When we first decided to do this, we did it to make the life of one little boy a little easier, but we had no idea of how he would change our lives. He has opened our eyes and our hearts to a love we had not known before we met him. What a blessing it is to have Jordan in our family.