Kristin's Remembrance of Matt

December 19, 2009

Before I say a few words about my wonderful brother, on behalf of Matt’s family please accept our gratitude for all of the love and support each of you have provided Matt and our entire family. We frequently marvel at the army of supporters following Matt’s progress over the past 14 months and, clearly, Matt’s Army is here today. I am blown away. Thank you.

The far reaches of the “Matt Uday Fan Club” (as I like to call it) is truly remarkable. Many have traveled great distances to be here today and this is a testament to the person Matt was and the impact that he had on those around him. I cannot tell you the number of people who have told me that they are better for having known Matt – I couldn’t agree more.

The best word I can use to describe Matt is passionate. Matt never did anything half heartedly. If he believed in something, he pursued it to the max. Matt truly loved life and he was passionate about so many things……Michigan football, skiing, sailing, music, and dentistry to name a few. But most of all, he was passionate about his family and his friends.

Nothing brought Matt more joy than spending time with the people that he loved. He was as much a protector as he was a prankster – and he was extraordinary in that no matter how busy he was, or how many friends he had, he always took a deep interest in those around him and made people feel special. This is a big reason why Matt is universally loved and respected by all who knew him: family, friends, colleagues, patients, and even acquaintances.

Matt’s wife, Megan, and precious son, Ethan, were the center of his universe. They are Matt’s gifts from God. Join me in continuing to surround them with love and make certain Ethan grows up knowing his amazing father.

Countless people consider Matt a friend. I have never met a person with more connections. Being on campus with Matt at the University of Michigan (a seemingly large university) was really quite something. Often, upon introducing myself to someone new, they would say “Oh, you’re Matt Uday’s little sister.” In fact, many people would just refer to me as “Matt Uday’s little sister” as if it were my name. And you know, I didn’t mind a bit. I am and always have been so proud to be Matt’s sister.

Matt’s energy, honesty, and integrity are qualities to emulate. Matt is an inspiration to all who knew him. When faced with tremendous adversity, he responded with remarkable courage, strength, optimism and most of all grace. I have learned so much from my big brother, but most importantly he has taught me that an unrelenting faith and a positive attitude will sustain us through any valley - “those who stay will be champions."

Matt’s heartwarming smile, fun loving character, and gentle embrace will be missed dearly.

A colleague and friend said to me earlier this week, “Our bodies can only carry us so far.” And we face that reality today. But, I take comfort in knowing that Matt’s spirit continues to surround each of us and will be with us always.

May God hold him, and keep him, and bring him peace. I love you Matt.

A note from a loving sister

This is a note that Kristin wrote to Matt with less than 48 hours to his death. I copy this from the pieces of scrap paper I found in the trash (Kristin always writes a draft first to make sure she gets the final version perfect:). Matt read it as he sat in his usual spot at the dinner table, and he was noticeably moved.

December 12, 2009

Matt,

I love you with all my heart and want you to know how proud of you I am. Not only for your strength and bravery as you fight cancer, but also for the person that you are today and always have been. I recognized early on what a loving brother and loyal friend you are and it brings me great pleasure to see what an amazing husband and father you have become. We talk about your "army" of supporters and that is no overestimation. You are universally loved and respected by your family and countless friends, colleagues, patients and even acquaintances. The far reach of the "Matt Uday Fan Club" is truly remarkable and is a testament to the person that you are and the impact you have on those around you.

Recent times have been unbelievably tough and I so wish that I could make things easier for you. Please know that your little sis is here for you - I love you, I support you, I am here for you today and always.

Love,

Sprout

Unbreakable

It shouldn't be a surprise that some of my fondest memories from college are from the gridiron. But the ones I'm thinking of right now didn't occur on fall Saturdays in Michigan Stadium. Rather, they are from a lesser known place: Mitchell Fields. This is where I played intramural flag football with Matt and my "buddies-in-law". Even though I had only modest athletic ability, near zero coordination skills, AND was the guy dating his sister, Matt was kind enough to invite me along.

These guys were serious, holding practices before games and drawing up plays on a set of note cards carried to the huddle. They quickly assessed my talents and put me back at safety. I suspect they realized I could do the least damage there since none of our opponents ever showed any proficiency at throwing deep. Even with me on the team, we (they) were actually really competitive, even making it to the semi-finals one year.

One of my most distinct memories is not from a game we played well in, but one that we were losing pretty badly. We were down by several scores and it was the second half of the game. I remember being in the huddle on offense, and a general sense of defeat in us all. All except Matt of course - incredulous that we would give up with so much time on the board. I'll never forget his scolding, assuring us that we could still win. And the next thing you know we started to make some plays. And soon we scored a touchdown. I have a perfect memory of Matt running toward the end zone to attempt the extra point, fire in his eyes, barking at us "I TOLD you - we can STILL WIN!"

It was only a few minutes out of a silly football game, but I have thought about that exchange on many occasions - even before Oct. 2008. I've never examined until now why that memory has stuck with me, but I think it is just that I saw his true inner self, the very fabric of his spirit. And as anyone who knows him has surely experienced, when you see that spirit it hits you over the head so hard you can't forget.

This last year doctors have thrown punch after punch after punch at the Cancer, and he takes every hit along with it. The toll on his body from the drugs and complications cannot be overstated. There is no doubt without Megan and the rest of his family/supporters, he would not survive the cancer treatments. At the same time, spend only a few minutes with him and you realize his spirit is a rock. Hit it as hard as you can with whatever you've got, it's staying put. You add Megan and Ethan to the mix, and he's unbreakable.

We didn't win that football game. But I know if we all believed as Matt believed, we would have come a lot closer. And we even might have won. Today I was at M&M's and on the refrigerator was a strip of paper that read: "We cannot control the winds, but we can adjust the sails." No one can predict the future with any certainty, and no one knows how much time we get to spend on Earth. But when you live your life like that, you cannot lose.

Halloween!

We celebrated our second Halloween with Cale, and had a blast. Last year we were still in the early stages of learning how to be parents, and Cale had no motor control. This year we are a bit more experienced, and Cale was all over the place.

We've had a fun October in general, heading to the pumpkin patch, taking a European vacation, going to Boo at the Zoo, carving pumpkins, and chasing Cale around in his costume around the block. Enjoy the pictures - I've also posted a video at the end, so you can appreciate the full effect of Cale in action.

From 2009_10_31

From 2009_10_31

From 2009_10_31

From 2009_10_31

From 2009_10_31

From 2009_10_31

From 2009_10_31

From 2009_10_31

From 2009_10_31

From 2009_10_31

McNamara European Vacation - The Postlude

All, short post here. We survived our trip home. Cale was a wonderful little traveler, and we had much better luck on our seats home - managing to secure a seat in between us from Europe.

We had a great time, but are also glad to be home. I've added pictures to my descriptions below. If you click on the link below any of them, you will go to the album that contains all of the pictures from the trip on the Picasa website. In this post are a few from our trip home.

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

McNamara European Vacation - Days 3-5

Sorry I haven't updated the blog the past couple of days. Here's the run down of the past three days.

Day 3:

We had planned to drive to Ghent for the day. The day got off to an exceptionally early start - Cale woke up a couple hours early, surprising Mommy and Daddy. All three of us were kind of crabby from the early start. We showered up and decided to get some breakfast before heading out. By the time we finished, Cale was ready for an early nap. Since we were also tired, we happily obliged. All three of us cuddled up and slept for a much needed 2.5 hour nap. Cale alternated between mommy's and daddy's chest. By the time, we woke up the daylighthours were mostly done, so we decided to relax in Brugge one more day instead of heading to Ghent. We stayed up late playing in all the cobble-stoned squares, bought a box of Belgian chocolates, and took a lot of fun pictures. We finished off the night with Kristin enjoying a warming hot cocoa outside a cafe watching Cale and I chased each other around a courtyard.

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

Day 4:

Day 4 was a travel day up to Bremen, Germany for the hypersonics and space planes conference I had a presentation for on Day 5. Cale spent much of Day 3 giggling at the many horses pulling carriages around the city, so we decided to hire one for this morning. However, time got away from us and he was happy simply getting up close to them and squealing with glee. It was probably more enjoyable for him to see them anyways, rather than ride in the carriage behind them. In lieu of missing out on a carriage ride, we settled for a cheese sandwich from a local shop on the center square. It was the best cheese (Old Brugge cheese) we have ever tasted.

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

After the quick stop, we checked out, loaded the car and headed out of wonderful Brugge. Luckily, Ghent was on the way to Bremen, so we were able to make a side stop for lunch on our way to Germany. Another memorable, picturesque few moments watching Cale and Kristin chasing the pigeons in another historic center square.

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

The day became more challenging upon leaving Ghent. Things started off by us being trapped behind a rear-end accident right in front of us. It was a low speed accident, with seemingly no damage. Nonetheeless the hit driver insisted on calling the police, and refused to move his car so those of us blocked could move on - at one point even chalking around his tires as evidence of his cars location. Things became significantly more comical when the at-fault driver decided to simply jump the curb with his car and leave the scene.

Unfortunately, we had many more unexpected delays in our travels to Bremen due to rush hour traffic around cities and TONS of construction. When the road opened up, I'd go with the flow of traffic at up to 180 km/hr, and even then a few cars would fly by me! However, it was always short-lived, and with all the delays our 5 hour car ride turned into 7+. Not an ideal situation for a 1 year old constrained to a car seat. Fortunately our hotel room was very nice at the conference and plenty big for Cale to run around and get his pent up energy out. We also took advantage of the hotel lobby, filled with models of hypersonic aircraft, rockets, and space planes. As our routine has become, Kristin and I took turns eating dinner (in the hotel restaurant) while the other let Cale explore his new surroundings.

The day became a long one for me as I stayed up until 2:30 am local time finalizing my presentation. I managed to squeeze in 3.5 hours before I had to get up at 6 am to get ready and head down to the morning speakers briefing and my presentation at 8:30am.

Day 5:

Wow has this been a tough day. The presentation went very well, where I had better than expected attendance for my early morning talk. I even had some nice dialogue with the Chief Scientist of Hypersonics at Boeing, as well as some engineers from the Air Force Research Laboratory and NASA. However, the day would go down hill quickly from there.

First of all, while the conference hotel was nice, it was in a terrible location. We needed to get lunch before heading back to Brussels, but all we could manage was buying some bread and cheese from the local super market - not up to our new standards from Brugge. Then, a short while after getting on the road, we ran into construction. Only this time as I slowed down for the motionless cars in front of me, the car immediately in front of me and to my right did not. The car went head on into the back of a semi at nearly 80 km/hr! The car was completely totaled, as if a scene out of those head-on crash test simulations. As we drove up, the roof was gone and the front end demolished. I fully expected to see a corpse, but luckly just saw a man dazed staring out of where his wind shield used to be. Being the first one there, I quickly parked the car and made sure he was okay getting to the curb. Besides being visibly shaken, he only had a few minor scratches. Truly amazing. Since my cell phone doesn't get service here, I was trying to get one of the cars around us to call the Police - which for some reason was harder than it should have been. The man managed to come to his own rescue as he located his cell phone, 10 feet away from his car on the side of the road, picked it up and made the call. Being witnesses to the accident, and "in charge" of the man's well being since we were the first on the scene, we waited around until the police arrived. After a while, they took my statement, my passport information and my contact information. I checked on the man one more time, and then we headed out on our way, in disbelief of what had happened. I think the only thing that saved his life was his ability to swerve at the last minute - if there had been a passenger they would have been killed (I took a picture with my cell phone of the car and will post when I can).

From 2009 Belgium Trip

Fortunately there was less construction heading away from Bremen than towards. Unfortunately, once we got near the Belgium border, about 1.5 hours to Brussels, some "genius" dutchman decided to completely close down the highway for construction. We spent nearly 2 hours driving all over the Netherlands trying to get back to Brussels since our GPS was completely in capable of understanding the highway was closed, and the Dutch have no clue how to string together detour signs. Finally I found a gas station to ask directions. But, to top things off, when I went to get out of the car, my dumb, over-sized nose slammed into the door. I then proceeded to get harassed by the gas station attendant for being incompetent. After begrudgingly being given somewhat understandable directions (I do not have a soft spot for the dutch and their ideas of directions after my 2 hour jaunt ), I got back into the car only to find out from Kristin that I had a line of blood running down my nose from hitting it on the door. Yikes! To finish things off, we finally made our way to Brussels, only to find out I had put the wrong Raddisson hotel in the GPS, and the one I had booked was too new to come up on the GPS. Ugh - all we wanted to do was get out of that stupid car. End of the story, we were supposed to arrive a little after 6pm (4 hr, 20 minute drive) in Brussels, and with all our set-back arrived after 9pm.

Luckily we have our best room yet of our hotel stays, and Cale had a blast getting all the energy out before bedtime. Tomorrow we head home, my pride (and my nose) a little bruised - I feel a lot like Clark Griswold right now - but a lot of great new experiences and memories for a lifetime. I hope we have no more major events ahead of us, and manage a smooth trip home.

From 2009 Belgium Trip

McNamara European Vacation - Day 2

Ah, the (mis) adventures of the McNamara's continue in Europe another day.

To start off, I have a correction to yesterday's post. We have NOT adjusted to the 6 hour time change. A couple hours after I submitted my last post and went to sleep, Mr. Cale awoke bright-eyed and bushy tailed, ready to go. Apparently he simply thought it was his mid-day nap, rather than bedtime. Upon notifying Kristin that he was awake, she smiled drowsily and said cheerily - "Gooood Morning Cale, how are you today!" I then informed her he had only been asleep for about 3 hours, to which she responded (after a few moments of letting the implications of that sink in) with - "oh". It was then 3:45 pm EST, and 9:45 pm Belgium time. After many attempts to get him to sleep, it was apparent it wasn't happening. So we found a wing of the hotel off the lobby reserved for business meetings and let him run up and down it for a couple of hours. Then, when he tired out a little, we held him and sang to him walking up and down it for an hour longer. Then it was more walking and singing to him in the dark in our room. Finally, at 1:30 am Belgium time (7:30 pm EST) he fell asleep for the night. Coincidentally, exactly at his normal bedtime...So new plan, we will not be trying to adjust him to the time change.

Day 2 started officially for us at 11:00 am Belgium time (5:00 am EST). Cale woke up a little earlier than usual, I think mainly because his last meal was at 12:30 pm EST the day before. It was just as well since we had to check-out at 12:00 pm. Kristin got him up and we played/cried for breakfast/packed. Then she headed out to order breakfast (more Beligan waffles) while I finished packing and loaded the car. At breakfast we met a nice father/son duo from Marquette Michgan that were traveling Europe for two weeks. Really neat. After breakfast we headed to the car to get out of town. I paid the parking at the meter and was ready to go when Kristin decided we should get some water for Cale. We had about a 50 - 60 mile drive to Brugge, so it sounded like a good idea. She headed back into the hotel to find some and returned a few minutes later with a 7 Euro .5 liter bottle of Evian from the hotel restaurant. She asked how much that was, and I informed her it was a $10 bottle of water. These Belgians can see us coming a mile away. After lamenting on our ignorance we went to leave the garage, only to find out we had to pay 5 more Euros to leave since I had waited a few minutes after initially paying. - how about kicking a man when he is down? For those of you keeping track at home, that .5 L of water ended up costing us over $17.

Driving to Brugge was nice, but hairy at times as we left Brussels. There seems to be intersections that have no signage at all - at least that I could figure out. After only a couple white knuckle experiences, we made it to the highway, and even manged to find a super market to buy a 9 L pack of water for less than 3 Euro. Take that Belgium!

We arrived in Brugge a little after 2pm local time. After checking into the hotel, we headed out for some lunch. Brugge is a quaint, absolutely gorgeous little European town, with a large network of canals and beautiful architecture. We found a small cafe right at the intersection of two canals and ordered some soup. While it was being prepared, Cale ran around the sidewalks laughing and squealing while Kristin chased him. It was really a wonderful moment watching them. After lunch we wandered some more, ordered some amazing Belgian cheese for Cale's lunch and found a cafe to get him some warm milk. We also decided to take a boat ride through the canals. The ride was breathtaking, although a little tight quartered. Cale seemed to enjoy it, but I'm not sure the Chinese tourists in designer suits enjoyed Cale touching them with his cheesy fingers (or his many shrieks from not being able to run around).

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

After the boat ride, we headed back for nap time. It is great being on an infant's nap schedule. We all just cuddled up for a couple of hours and took in some well needed rest. Cale woke up around 7:30 pm local time (1:30 pm EST) and we headed out for dinner. We found a nice little restaurant amongst the many that surround the city center of historic buildings. It was a beautiful setting with all the lights illuminating the buildings. We ordered the Flemish beef stew and a shrimp scampi dish - both were delicious. Unfortunately Cale wasn't that hungry since he only has a light snack after his nap, so Kristin and I alternated playing with him on the sidewalks and finishing eating. Again it was really fun to watch Kristin playing with him with the backdrop of cobble stoned streets and centuries old buildings all around. I laughed as he shrieked at the top of his lungs, listening to his own echoes off buildings. Paying for dinner was another comical episode, where using a credit card the waiter asked me to type in the amount (so I could include a tip - why is everything in Europe so weird?!) Not being familiar with the device, my initial attempt was denied by my card. After panicking that my card was turned off due to a fraud protection protocol (e.g., from a bunch of sudden charges in a foreign country), instead it turns out I had tried to pay 6200 Euros for dinner (for those of you keeping track at home, that's close to $10,000 US), rather than 62. How we will ever make it back to the US in one piece is beyond me at this point - but at least we have a bunch of funny stories; no blood, no foul...right?

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

After letting Cale run around a bit more, we stopped for some Belgian chocolates (which are sold everywhere!). Then back to the room at about 10:00 pm local time (4:00 pm EST). All we had to do was figure out how to entertain a 1 year old, in a 10 foot by 10 foot room, for the next 3 hours, without getting kicked out for too much noise (or going freaking insane). After many cycles of peek-a-bo, wrestling, flipping the light switches, messing up the TV, eating his dinner, and taking a 45 minute bath, it was finally bed time. He went down without much trouble and fell asleep again at around 7:30 pm EST. On a side note, I am going to have to try some of the warm milk we bought twice today for Cale at restaurants. Both times he flew through 4 ounces of it barely stopping to breathe (and never letting the cup leave his mouth). That, combined with the diaper change subsequent to the first cup, makes me think there is something "special" about it. Will investigate further and report back on this tomorrow.

Tomorrow we plan to take a carriage ride in the "morning" and then head to another local city named Ghent. I'm trying to get pictures posted, but my darn computer can't find the camera for some reason (despite my informing it that it is right next to me). Hopefully I will figure this out soon.

McNamara European Vacation - Day 1

All,

We have successfully arrived in Brussels after a long day of traveling. For those of you that don't know, we are in Belgium/Germany for a week taking a mini family vacation before a conference I have at the end of the week.

Even though it is 1:30 pm EST, we have successfully adapted to the time change - Kristin and Cale are asleep for the night (7:30 pm local time). The secret is to stay awake from 1:30 am EST until 1:30 pm EST. That combined with the hassles of traveling takes care of adjusting to time zones.

Traveling has gone well considering that we have a 1 year old in tow, but lady luck could have definitely been on our side more. Things started on Friday with scrambling to leave work/pick-up Cale from daycare to get to the airport, only to find out our first flight was delayed beyond our flight to Brussels, due to bad weather on the east coast. Turns out the same itinerary was available starting on Saturday, so we had our first day of vacation at home. This worked out OK since we didn't have anything urgent to take care of and we could then watch the UM/Delaware St. football scrimmage.

Saturday was surprisingly hectic, but not too bad to get to the airport. Our flight was slightly delayed due to remaining bad weather on the east coast, but we still arrived in Philly on-time. We had to rush a bit to make our connection to Brussels, which was not easy with Cale and our carry-ons. It was worse since we decided to bring Cale's car seat in-case there was an extra seat on the plane - but alas, no luck. To make matters worse, US Airways put us in the last seats before a divider, which meant our seats couldn't recline at all (even though those in front of us could). This lead to the aforementioned in-ability to get much sleep on the plane. It was a miserable experience, but I kept telling myself once we arrived in Brussels it would be Cale's "naptime" (approx 11 am in Belgium). Cale woke up at 1:30am EST when I went to change his diaper (he has an annoying habit of completely filling his diaper at night with pee to the point of it leaking out). I figured him being awake was a better risk than a pee soaked kid squirming in our laps. Lucky for us he is so good natured. He only had a few fussy moments for our entire 8 hours of traveling, and even the remainder of the day despite being way behind on his normal number of hours of sleep. I hope this continues!

Upon arriving in Brussels we obtained the rental car. After a few comical attempts to get the car in reverse (it is a manual BMW, so making sure you are in R and not 1 is not as straight forward as I would hope, leading to going forward when you think you will be going backwards), followed by a few more comical minutes of getting the navigation system up and running, we were off. We decided to rent a car, vs. say train travel, for the trip in order to have complete control in our schedule. The navigation system worked great, but driving in Brussels is not as straight forward as I would have hoped. Driving in Australia on the wrong side of the road was less confusing. Lots of lanes just randomly end, and there are a lot of streets with more than 2 roads intersecting (so several "hard" vs. "soft" rights / lefts to take). To add to the challenge, the different directions of traffic are not separated by yellow lines - which I almost learned the hard way as my lane simply ended into on-coming traffic!

With only one wrong turn, we arrived at our hotel, which is right at the center of Brussels a minute or so walk from the historic city center. Cale was knocked out about a minute into our drive and was snoring away in the back; so everything was working out perfectly for our plan for Cale to take an "11 am nap" and then get up for a few hours for dinner, seamlessly transitioning to the 6 hour time change.

From 2009 Belgium Trip

The only problem was that our room wasn't ready at 11 am (check-in is at 2pm). So we decided to park the car in the garage, and put our seats down to rest while Cale napped. At one point he even woke up, so I put him to my chest and he went right back out. If we hadn't been in a BMW, I think we would have looked like a famly of gypsies (keep in mind we were not looking our best after traveling for many hours, and had to look weird sleeping in the car in the garage). Finally Kristin got up at about 1pm local time and checked on the room, which was ready. Cale would have slept longer, but neither Kristin nor I could handle the car any longer.

After a quick shower, we headed out to explore the center of Brussels. Our first stop was lunch, for some Belgian waffles - which somewhat surprisingly are still called Belgian waffles in Belgium, and can be purchased at 3pm in the afternoon. After that we spent several hour exploring different markets. Brussels is a beautiful city. The only item of note is that we kept trying to get to an area known as St. Hubert, which was recommended by Kathy and Tom (world traveling aunt and uncle from Kristin's side of the family). The only problem is that for the life of us we cannot correlate names on maps with the signs at street intersections. Eventually we found what we were looking for, and it turns out we had walked through the St. Hubert area without knowing it.

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

We finished up the day at the center market square, which is a wide open cobblestoned area surrounded by beautiful historic buildings. Cale enjoyed pushing his stroller around chasing me. After some play time there, we went to a restuarant for a beautiful outdoor meal. I had a pot of steamed mussels with fries and a local Beer (another recommendation of Kathy and Tom), Kristin was not as adventurous. Cale had some chicken with apple sauce and fries.

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

From 2009 Belgium Trip

All in all an exhausting day, but well worth the trip. We're bummed that we lost one day in Brussels due to flight issues, but we are excited to be heading to Brugge tomorrow, another city in Belgium.

Hope all is well. I'll try to upload pictures from the day (Edit:Done!), but I'm exhausted tonight and need to get to bed in case Cale decides to get up at 6 am EST rather than 6 am local time.

One Year!

Well, we survived our first year of parenthood. As I sit here, I am pondering on the changes over the past year in the dynamics of parenting. I've traded the non-stop rotation of changing/feeding/trying to get Cale to sleep, with the non-stop rotation of changing/feeding/keep Cale from falling down the stairs, crushing his fingers in doors, out of the trash, away from the toilet brush, away from the remote control...you get the idea.

I remember yearning for the day that I wouldn't have to wash bottles each night by hand, only to discover they are replaced with sippy cups and zillions of plastic food containers.

Despite all its challenges, I love being a dad. For every tough moment there are a hundred that bring immeasurable joy to my heart and soul. There is no greater high than witnessing a milestone; seeing that twinkle in his eye and hearing his squeals and giggles; receiving a random hug in-between his busy play schedule or the feeling of him contently laying his head on my shoulder just before bedtime.

Kristin and I often talk about how, despite the feeling of love we experienced the instant we met him, we didn't really know him. Finding out who he is - as he discovers for himself - and experiencing our growing love, has been the best aspect of this past year. And the exciting part is that the journey is still young...

From ONE YEAR!

From ONE YEAR!

From ONE YEAR!

From ONE YEAR!

From ONE YEAR!

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From ONE YEAR!

From ONE YEAR!

From ONE YEAR!

From ONE YEAR!

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From ONE YEAR!