Aero's Sealing

I know that you were all thinking, "Why, why? Why are they driving up to Utah again?" We were going up for this little guy.

Isn't he the sweetest thing? The adoption was finalized at six months and then Robert and Carey could go ahead with the sealing. We love living close enough to drive up and be a part of these special moments.

The sealing was on Saturday morning and Carey's dad got to perform it, which was so special. They asked Ryan and Dan to be the witnesses. Aero did amazing, especially since it was right during nap time. The cutest thing was Slate, he just turned three and is the cutest, sweetest boy you have ever met. He came into the sealing room dressed in white with his blue glasses and the biggest smile on his face. He kept that grin on the entire time and it was so adorable. After the sealing we all went out to lunch and then had dinner together at the rental house (Ryan's parents rented a house for all the visiting Daniels to stay at together).

They blessed Aero in church on Sunday and then we all went back to Carey and Robert's for the afternoon and evening. We were talking and I started talking about my favorite book which is called "The Uses of Adversity" by Carlfred Broderick. It is the best book. One of my favorite passages is when he is counseling a woman who grew up terribly abused by her family and even though she has grown up and married and had a happy life, she still felt very bitter sometimes and wondered why Heavenly Father didn't love her enough to stop it. He felt inspired to tell her that she had suffered like the Savior, meaning innocently taking on pain and suffering to help others. She was able to absorb all this wickedness and hurt without passing it on. She had suffered innocently to purify a bloodline so that her children and posterity could continue without it all. The basic idea of the book is that bad things happen, we don't know why, but we can use the adversity to strengthen our testimony of the Savior and the Gospel plan.

I think my point was that Aero couldn't have been sealed into a better family. Carey replied with the parable of the olive tree and having Aero grafted into their tree. Call me an idiot, but I had never thought about adoption like that before. It's such a beautiful image to me. I just love the thought of Aero coming from this wild branch and being grafted in, breathing new life into the tree, but also becoming able to produce good fruit himself. We were so happy to be part of a wonderful weekend with family and I'm so grateful for the gospel and the sealing power and the knowledge and comfort it brings us.

Here are a couple other images from the weekend. Aero with grandpa and grandma.

Playing with cousins Isabelle and Slate.

The girls LOVED Isabelle and talked about her for several days after. June wanted to go sit by her after bath time. She is so good with little kids. I want to fly her down next summer for some Vegas fun.

Slate and Junie playing Ring Around the Rosie. Slate is seriously the best little boy. He played so well with both girls one on one and all three together.