A Special Week!

It's hard to believe I am writing this post but one year ago we received the call from America World that they had a little girl for us! It was October 1, 2007 when they posted that a new batch of Special Needs referrals had come in. This is what I wrote on October 2nd:
Received an email yesterday that AWAA did receive 33 referrals!! Ususally they received about 25 so 33 is awesome! They are processing the referrals before they release any more details regarding the number of boys vs. girls and age range but we should be hearing that soon. Then they are off to translation before any calls are made. Maybe we could hear by next week sometime??? Here we go again.....
Then again on October 4th, this is what I wrote:
Some exciting news..... Received an email yesterday from AWAA saying that the referrals (19 girls and 14 boys) were processed much sooner than they expected and they are going to begin making the phone calls on Friday. THIS FRIDAY!! They received 4 girls ages 3-4 and 1 age 5-6 so one of those could be our Kennedi! CRAZY!! Please keep the prayers coming and keep checking in these next few days for hopefully some exciting news!!
The very next day, OCTOBER 5TH, this is what I wrote:
It is with great joy that we announce the referral of our daugher Kennedi Mei Salvador (Bao Xin Mei)!! We decided to take Faith out and use Mei as her middle name to keep some of her heritage. She is 5 1/2 from the Bao'An SWI in Shenzhen City. She is perfect for our family and we can't be more happy!


I was home on this Friday that the call was made. Lauren, our family coordinator, called and said "Tina, this is Lauren and we have a little girl who we'd like to tell you about, do you want to hear more?" "YES" I said! (is she crazy?!) She proceeded to tell me that she was 5 1/2 with a repaired cleft lip and said "Tina, she is so beautiful". She told me she was going to email the pictures and information to me and then I was to call her back with our decision. I was beside myself, couldn't think straight. I was gluded to my computer waiting for the information to come. Called Mark, my mom, and the girls at work. My heart was racing! Of course as soon as we saw her picture and read her information we knew she was our daughter. We immedately called Lauren back and said YES!! Then began the horrible wait until we could have her in our arms....

I still am in disbelief that it has been a year since then. (Actually between you and me I thought it was a year ago today but as you see it was a year ago on the 5th. I probably thought the 8th because today 12 years ago was my due date when I was pregnant with Katelyn. Also my dear AWAA friend from Maine, Tonya, received her call on the 8th) Our lives changed for the better this week last year. We love you Kennedi, more than you'll ever know.

On another note, Saturday is Katelyn's 12th birthday and we're going to Monterey. Will definitely post some pictures for you all this weekend!

**Blessings**