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Today, we got back home from a wonderful week in Turks and Caicos where we experienced white sand, the crystal clear blue ocean, family bonding, relaxation and a plain ol' great time. I feel blessed to have had such a summer of making wonderful family memories. Our family of four was captured by a photographer on the beach. We figured we'd be happy to purchase JUST ONE shot of the four of us -- a rarity, and most often gotten by strangers who remain too far away. This time, I walked away with 58 photos. Gulp! But worth it! Not all of them are technically correct and most are posed, but, to us, they do seem to capture the ease we seemed to feel on that island. We hope to return!

A few interesting things in our journey to our son took place there:
1. I was taking a photo of Emma and Eden in cute sunglasses we had just purchased at the gift shop. A man who worked at the resort was passing by and said "Promise me next year you'll come back with a brother between the two of them. Promise?" I laughed and said "We're working on it!" and he replied "I pray for you."

2. We met up with a lovely family from England for dinner last night. They have three kids and asked us if there are any more in store for us, and we very openly, for the first time really in this format, said "Why yes, actually. We are adopting a baby boy and hopefully he'll be with us by next year." Then, thinking that Emma was talking to their 8 year old daughter, I added "I'm talking low because we really didn't announce yet to them." Emma lifted up her smiling face and said "But mom, I am listening!"

3. Today, once at home with my parents, Eden, who now obviously knows too, came up to me and whispered, "Can I tell Grandma about our Madison Tyler?" This by the way, is not the name of our future child, but instead, the name of two babies she happens to love. She has combined this name into one and thinks that any adorable baby is a Madison Tyler.

Here are some of the photos of us enjoying our time in the British West Indies. It was the Beaches all-inclusive spa and resort with a Sesame Street program and we all HIGHLY recommend this trip to families with children of any age. Emma and Eden got a chance to bake cookies with Cookie Monster -- how cool is that?