generosity

lots of things begin for us with food.  we're what you call - foodies - so it's only natural that one of my goals this past year was to become YELP elite.  YELP was a way that i could justify my fascination with taking photos of food, and we figured it would be a great way to get out and meet people with common interests.  when i received the honorary YELP elite status i had to call those family members who'd even know what YELP was, so they could help me celebrate my new status. 


we went to multiple elite events, husband even received the elite status himself - yet we never found anyone at those events that seemed to mesh with us.  being a nosy nelly i find myself interested in other's profiles.  you can learn about people, see what their favorite food groups are, what they like to do outside of their food obsessions, and see what you have in common.  i'd friended a gal  a while back who seemed to share common interests in her profile, and we'd briefly chatted on the website, but nothing had gone beyond this. 


that all changed a few months ago. 


i'd stumbled across her profile again - i really do not even know what lead me back to the page - but i'd noticed that she'd changed her settings talking about her "new son".  i'd followed links before to her blog and found myself wrapped back up in her family's story.  come to find out - they'd just adopted.  i reached out to her, not knowing what type of response i'd get, but knowing that we had nothing to loose by trying to touch base and make a connection to another local couple who'd been through the adoption process.


cathy and steve surprised us with their welcoming open arms approach.  we shared emails back and forth for weeks - just getting to know each other.  we met them for lunch, they introduced us to their sweet baby, brought us gifts, shared their profile book with us, and really connected with us and where we were in our journey.  will and i were in awe of how tremendously giving they were - even after the first time we met them.


we've continued to email back and forth and they've been a constant source of inspiration for the use of cloth diapers, guiding us to answers for questions we did not even know we had, sharing their struggles and triumphs with us, and encouraging us every step of the way. 


last night we met them again for a meal at their home.  knowing that our friendship all started with YELPING, we knew we had to come up with a tasty little dessert.  will and i baked up a nice little batch of cupcakes and resisted the urge to sample them on the way over to their house. 

they welcomed us in, let us play with their son, gave us instructions and more advice on cloth diapering (my new favorite topic), cooked a delicious meal for us, and sat and chatted with us for hours.  we could have gone on chatting the entire night, but we knew we had to let them to go bed sometime - after all, they have a newborn!  they blew us out of the water with their genuine caring for our situation and their generosity.  we left their home with a custom made adoption ornament, a gift bag with a plethora of burt's bees products, and some g diapers.  the abundance of amazing gifts was unbelievable, but we were even more touched by their openness and willing to connect with us on a personal level and provide support to us when we've needed it most.  they know what we've been through, what we're going through, and what to most likely expect next.  they reminded us in their Christmas card to never forget their support is here for us.

steve does amazing work for burt's bees and gifted us some amazing products!  the abundance of products will keep us out of aveda and the drug store and saving even more money for our adoption!

cathy told me about cloth diapering when we first started chatting.  i initially thought it was not something we could "handle", but cathy brought me diapers and showed me how simple they were, and really encouraged me to investigate it more.  last night she showed me about 6 different types of diapers and gave us some that she'd used up to this point.

cathy handed us a wrapped gift along with their gorgeous Christmas card.  we could not believe it when we opened the box to find a custom made adoption ornament. ( just thinking about it, makes me start to cry again.)

we just hope that what they are doing for us we can thank them enough for, and can someday do something similar for someone else who is in the "adoption pre-game" situation.  it's people like this that make you stop and realize just how life altering a simple decision can be.  it was my desire to share my foodie photos with people and our hope to find new friendships that led us to YELP which led us to the friendship with cathy and steve.  we've gained so much more than what we sought after, we just cannot be thankful enough.