You know those people that you follow online that aren’t like, famous or anything, but they are to you because you’re so familiar with and inspired by their story? So when you meet them after YEARS of online stalking, it’s like meeting an actual celebrity? That’s me with Marissa Ruper.

Marissa and her husband Abe have been adopting older kids from Ethiopia since long before our journey started. She wrote about it on her blog which I found randomly and followed religiously. She didn’t write on it often, so when she did, you knew she had a major update on the roller-coaster of international adoption.