Nostalgic

Since I splurged on a new camera I must wait on a new computer. In an effort to keep my 512 MB desktop limping along for another year I've been spending some time going through files and programs and cleaning house! The memory is mostly used up with picture files...ironic huh?!? The problem with clearing out and storing old pictures is that I usually get sidetracked with looking at them and reminiscing. Just thought I'd show you one that sidetracked me this morning.

NINE years have passed!!!! HOW?????????? Taking this family picture on the day that Mari [who came home one month before the 2001 citizenship law went into effect] received her citizenship was soooo very important to Patrick. As a fellow immigrant, he was even more emotional than I about the event that marked the end of the adoption marathon. She loves to drag out the VCR tape of all the Chicago news coverage from that day because dressed in her red/white/and blue and waving her little flag in the front row as she recited the Pledge of Allegiance we had taught her for the event [parroted as she was still very Spanglish at that point in time] made her the darling of the media coverage!!! It was a special ceremony held at the Field Museum in Chicago for all of the LAST adopted children in the mid-west who needed to go through the Citizenship process and of all the children in the room our Mari was the ONE that ALL the news outlets focused on....including the local papers...especially after discovering that Patrick had become a citizen almost 30 years earlier to the day! We even did an interview with Univision...in Spanglish of course. Funny, but as relieved as I was that Julia was an "automatic" citizen {long tirade for another post about that} I do feel kind of sad that she does not have the same kind of 'memory' to mark the moment....