Following Jesus to Ethiopia

Introducing Our Son Zinaw!

2011-05-15T22:17:00.000-04:00

I've really been trying to find my groove lately and it hasn't included updating this blog.... unfortunately. I think I've lost the drive that I used to have to keep this thing going... but... I am planning on trying to update more frequently.....really. Yeah, I know you probably will believe it when you see it! LOL

Anyway.....

The reason for this post is to introduce our son Zinaw, who we just learned, will be turning 12 this month! At this point we are waiting for word from the U.S. embassy in Ethiopia that our case is approved so that we can travel back over to get Zinaw and bring him home! We are hoping to be able to travel sometime during the first two weeks of June. This will be our third trip to Ethiopia since last November.....boy do I love that country! We have been home with Amayah for over 3 months now, but it seems like so much longer than that. I am missing Ethiopia, Addis, Layla house and my kids SO much, I'm so glad that we will be going back very soon!

Here is the reason for our next trip and the boy we miss more than words......

Zinaw wearing the Michigan shirt we sent him

Zinaw and Amayah just before we left Addis to come home with Amayah

Our daughter Haylie and Zinaw. Haylie came with us on our last trip to Ethiopia.

Hang on Z....it won't be long now!!

Dreaming sweet dreams cuz I'm trip planning again! Motherland.....here we come! =)

Ethiopia Trip Number 2

2011-03-08T12:07:00.007-05:00

First I just want to say that we just celebrated Amayah T's one month home anniversary this weekend! She is doing so well....adjusting to our family and life in America quicker than I ever thought she would. We are so happy to have her home finally, there's never a dull moment around her.....she is continually crackin' us up.... her sense of humor is a hoot!

AND.....yesterday was Court Day for our son "Z"......we are praying that all of his papers are in order and especially that the MOWA letter will be there for him. Todd and I met with the judge last time we were there and the meeting went very well.....I feel like she gave us her approval at that time for him to join our family and that this court date was just a formality.....BUT he will only pass court if all of the needed paperwork is there. We are still awaiting news of whether we passed or not.....

We will make an announcement and introduce him as soon as we can. But for now...here is a picture of us looking at the map and talking about where we live and where other family members live.....and about the kinds of things we do here in Michigan. =)

Anyway.....

So....like I said in my last post.....we arrived safely, without our luggage, but we were very fortunate that our travel agent was able to track down our bags and get someone in DC to put them on the next flight over. I was so happy to see those bags.....I don't even want to think about what COULD have happened to them! =(

We arrive at the guest house desperately wanting to freshen up, but guess what?? ......just before we got there the water got shut off! Isn't that just the way it goes? So.....after about 48 hours of travel with no showers, we headed off to go see our kidders.....nothing was going to stop us from going to see them now that we were that close! We had planned to just visit and not bring Amayah back to the guest house with us for a couple of days. We wanted time to be able to show our daughter Haylie around Addis a bit and also to be able to get all of our shopping done before we had Amayah with us 24/7......plus we wanted to let her get used to us again before we took her away from everything she knew.

One skill you need to learn very fast after arriving in Ethiopia is the skill called "go with the flow". One thing led to another during that very short first visit and the next thing we knew, we were sitting in the director's car with our precious little girl headed back in the direction of our guest house! Ummm....what just happened here??! All I could think of was poor Z.....he waited so long for us to come back, and then we no sooner get there and we end up leaving with the munchkin and he's just standing there watching us drive away! =(

So off we went, back to the guest house to start our new life together. We were so thankful that there was another family staying there that was picking up their boys from Amayah's group....it helped her tremendously to have M&M there!

We had a very busy schedule while we were in Ethiopia this time.....so much to see and do....

We went to visit the boy we sponsor from Korah through Project61 and got to attend a church service there. That was quite the experience....did you know that an Ethiopian church service could go on for hours and hours??!! We met lots of really great kids while in Korah.....one or two in particular that we would have loved to bring home with us! While we were there we gave out some of the donations that we brought....things like clothing, toys and art/school supplies. Definitely didn't have enough time to spend there and would love to go back some day. Sumer, the lady who runs the Korah sponsorship program, is amazing.....just love her!

This is us with Tesfaye and Sumer

This is the precious little one that we wanted to bring home =)

We also went on a two day trip to visit the town where Amayah is from. It took about 4 hours to get from Addis to Asella. During the first hour or so of the trip, the road was jam packed with lots of cars and big trucks....the air was full of exhaust fumes! But once we got farther away from Addis, it was like we were driving back in time, into another world. I felt like I was in a National Geographic magazine!

This is someone's home.....that is actually hay piled in those mounds!

I have no idea how they do it...

This is a sugar cane plantation

Kids tending their donkeys....the donkeys are carrying water.

While we were in Asella we visited the orphanage that Amayah was brought to.

It's pretty small and there were only a few babies in care at the time we were there. From what we could understand, it is basically just an intake center......as soon as they can, they send the children on to bigger orphanages or adoption agency care centers.

People going about their day in Asella

The day we left Addis Todd went outside the gates of our Guest House and gave out the last of the goodies that we brought with us. We had about 3 soccer balls, some small toys and some candy left. Keep in mind that every time we left the protected gates of our Guest House we were mauled by kids begging for candy and such. I wish I would have gotten pictures of the other times Todd was giving out treats....there were times he barely made it out of the mob scene with his clothes on! They would stick their hands in his pockets and pull on his shirt to try to get at the candy or to get his attention!

Handing out candy....this is only a small group of kids...

sometimes the group was triple this size.

So happy that he got a soccer ball....he's running home with it so

that the other kids on the street don't take it away. Wish I

would have gotten the look on his face!

There was much more on our to-do list....and we managed to get it all done in the time that we had....thank goodnes! All in all, it was another wonderful trip to Addis......although it was very difficult to leave Z behind.

There are so many precious children just waiting to hear that they have a family.....a couple of whom I would have loved to sneak into my suitcase and bring home. It was hard to leave them behind also.....

Blessings on your day....

Home and Doing Wonderful!

2011-03-04T10:41:00.002-05:00

I have been feeling like a major failure at blogging lately.....guess it's because I've only posted once in the last 3 months!! Yipes! Well, much has been going on over here and the break from blogging was much needed for me. I'm glad to be back and I'm hoping that I will be able to continue to post at least semi-regularly!!

The Luggage

We left on January 26th and, wow, what a trip it was! When we got to our home airport we already had a really good idea of what we were up for. Bad weather was heading toward the East and that's exactly where we needed to end up that day. By the time we got to Chicago we knew we were in for some troubles! Ultimately, our flight got cancelled, like most of everyone else's flights heading east that night. At first we were put on standby but the more rumors we heard and after talking to a couple flight attendants......side note: When you want to know what's going on in a situation like this...grab a wandering flight attendant!! .......anyway, we realized that no matter what plane they were finally able to put us on, we would never make our flight out of DC to Addis the next day. So I went to a United customer service counter again hoping for some information but ended up getting a wonderful lady who specialized in International flights! She was great! She was able to re-route us to London that night and then on to Addis from there.....arriving in Addis one hour EARLIER than what we were originally scheduled to arrive!! This is GREAT....we thought......until.....

What we saw when we got to the Grand Rapids airport

This is O'hare airport in Chicago....we were on our way to our gate when we

found out that our flight was cancelled

Here is our confirmation that we were cleared for the flight to London!!

Here is Haylie right after landing in London...

We all felt the same way....ugh.....tired and not ready to

be stuck in London for 8 hours!

Yep, we got to London alright and then had a 8 hour or so layover there. We were tired and hungry and already wishing for a shower. We managed to survive our six hours, even though the food wasn't all that great and we didn't get a shower. We thought we were in the clear and were so glad that we were just about ready to take our seats on the plane that would deliver us to Addis. Yeah....well, nothing's ever that easy when you are already in a big mess.....and it turned out NOT to be a piece of cake for us that night either. I went up to the Ethiopian Air desk to get our boarding passes and she wanted our luggage tags......ummmm.....ok. So I gave her the tags and she looked at them and typed a bunch of stuff into the computer..... I could tell she was getting more and more frustrated......she really wasn't in that good of a mood to begin with and I quickly realized that we were heading down hill fast on a bumpy road! She told us....in not such a nice way....that there was NO WAY that she could give us our boarding passes without the proper luggage tags.....AND.....that we were going to have to go all the way back to the baggage claim area and find out WHERE our bags were. I'm like, "Say What??!!" Our bags should be on THAT plane, right now. She didn't care and so we had to get all of our things, including 3 carry-ons and 3 backpacks and RUN backwards through the airport.....go down several flights of stairs......jump on a bus....run through another terminal of the airport and make our way to the baggage claim to find our bags....it kind of felt like we were on the reality TV show "The Great Race"!! We had a limited amount of time because our plane was scheduled to leave in about an hour! We got to the baggage claim and not one person was there.....and to make matters worse, the United desk would be closed until the next morning!! Yeah.....I told you this wasn't good. Can you imagine the range of emotions we were going through at this point??! The lady in Chicago TOLD me that they would pull our bags and get them on the flight to London! WHY were we having this issue?!

In despair, we were pointed to the Ethiopian Air front desk. That lady had no idea what was coming her way that night! Very long story, in a much shorter version, I had to call Susan Parr Travel a couple of times and the E. A. agent had to try and handle things on the London end for us. The one thing that Kathy, our agent at Susan Parr stressed to us was that we HAD to be on that flight no matter what! We finally told the E.A. agent that we couldn't worry about our luggage anymore and that we just needed to get on that plane. By the time that we were finally able to get our boarding passes we had barely any time to make it back to the other airport terminal to check in for our flight!

We sat there exhausted after all of that running around and adrenaline pumping through us.....wondering if we would EVER see our luggage again.....and thinking about all of the stuff that was in our 6 large suitcases... all of our clothes and all of the supplies for our agency's care center.....AND all of the things that we were carrying for other families, "precious cargo" they were sending for their children who were waiting. UGH....my heart sank.....deeper.....and deeper.....and deeper......

As I was sitting there in extreme and total depression.....not believing what we had been through during that previous 24 hours or so.......Todd told me to call Kathy back to let her know that we were getting ready to get on the plane and to make arrangements for her to get a hold of us to let us know if she found out anything about our luggage situation. Kathy got on the phone and proceeded to tell me that she had good news...... she found our luggage!!! The bad news was...... that it was in WASHINGTON DC!!!! OY! But she assured us that she was able to arrange for our bags to be on the next E.A. flight to Addis and that HOPEFULLY they would be at the Bole Int. Airport in Addis the next morning! There was still a major fear that something else would go wrong and our bags would NEVER make it to us.... but at least they found them....that was SO encouraging!

Turns out, after another VERY long ordeal in Addis at the luggage "Bags Unclaimed" counter....we were able to get things all straightened out......we had no luggage but at least we arrived safely....and we had a very strong chance that our luggage would be in Addis the next morning! It was...and Todd was able to go back to the airport and claim it the next day.......

WOW! What a trip.....NOT for the faint of heart! =(

Next post will be about our time in Addis......

Have a wonderful day....

I'm Back....and I have news!

2011-01-24T22:51:00.000-05:00

I took a break from posting for a while.....decided to set the blog aside through the busy holiday season, but I'm back and I have good news!

Tihun passed court way back in November but then we had to wait for all of her documents to be processed and issued to AAI. After that, AAI takes about 3 weeks to do what they need to do with the file and we finally found out at the beginning of January that her file was submitted to the embassy on the 5th! After a slight delay, because of one needed document, we were informed that we would be able to travel back to Ethiopia to attend the February 2nd court date. We were originally supposed to go to the January 26th embassy date but because of that document that Tihun's Mom needed to sign, we had to wait until the next embassy appointment. We were so thankful that just around this time, we found out that due to the embassy having such a backlog of cases, they would allow agencies to have one embassy date every week instead of every other week. If this change wouldn't have occured, we would have had to wait until February 9th to go and get Tihun.

We also found out that "Z" has a court date! It is farther away than we originally thought/hoped it would be, we had really hoped that he would have passed court by the time we went back to get Tihun so that he could stay with us at the guest house. Because he hasn't passed court yet and isn't legally our child, he will have to stay at Layla. We also learned that he wasn't submitted to court until the first week of December, instead of November 17th like we thought. It's now taking around 3-4 months to get a court date AFTER being submitted to court.....so that's how we ended up with a March court date. We are probably looking at a late April or March embassy appointment for him, if everything goes well and he passes court the first time.

We have been very busy since getting the word that we can come get our little sweetie. We've been making flight arrangements and travel plans and packing everything up into the 9 suitcases that we are allowed to bring. Because our daughter Haylie is coming with us this time, we have a little more room to bring supplies for our agency's care center. We will be bringing 6 bags to check in and 3 carry ons.

We have a wonderful trip planned with a pretty full schedule! We are leaving this Wednesday and returning on February 5th. We will spend time with our kids at Layla and also go shopping the first two days, visit Korah and our sponsored child and his family on the 3rd day and also spend time with our kids at Layla. If Tihun seems comfortable enough with us by this time, we will bring her back with us to the guest house and keep her with us for the rest of the time that we are in Addis. We will take Tihun's and "Z"s groups on a couple of field trips on Monday and Tuesday and also meet with Hana's birth family.....they are from Addis and can easily make time to come to see us. On Wednesday we will go to our embassy appointment and then start our 3-4 hour journey to Tihun's Mother's home. I'm not sure if we will come back that same day or if we will be coming back on Thursday? We will all probably need a rest by this time so we will lay low on Thursday and probably go and spend some time at Layla with "Z". Friday we will spend most of the day at Layla with "Z" and attend the going away party for all of the kids that will be leaving with their new families. By 4:00 we will have to say our good-byes to "Z" and leave for the guest house to pack up and get ready to head to the airport. We will arrive home on Saturday afternoon.....exhausted and very happy to see all of our family waiting for us as we get off the plane!

Here is one of our latest pictures of Tihun, she's wearing her Ethiopian Christmas outfit.

Have a great week......I know I will =)
Ethiopia....here we come!

One Less

2010-12-05T10:33:00.013-05:00

My heart is aching. It's aching for the children who don't have a families. I believe that December is one of the worst months to have to endure when you are a child and you don't have a Mom and Dad....a FAMILY....to call your own. These children do not sit around wishing for the latest PlayStation game or a cell phone or even an MP3 player......these kids just want to be special to someone.....to have a family.....to be CHOSEN.

I think of my son who is still in Ethiopia right now. He could still be one of the many children in our agency's care center without a family this Christmas. My son now has a smile in his heart, something to think about and dream of. He now knows that very soon, he will not be alone any more....he will be surrounded by a family that loves him, a family that is very excited that HE will be joining THEM.

HE has been CHOSEN....and HE is LOVED.

There is ONE LESS child longing for a family this Christmas.

I heard that when our son "Z" was told that we had CHOSEN..... HIM....his smile went from ear to ear and I keep hearing that this smile hasn't left his face yet. This smile also traveled from his face, down into his heart. He was so excited to learn that we couldn't leave him behind....and that we wanted him to be with us FOREVER... so excited....that he didn't even wait for the welcome bag that we were sending him to start writing us letters! He also takes every opportunity to lead someone over to the map to proudly show them where HIS family lives and where HE will soon be living. It is an extra blessing that we were able to spend time with him while we were there so he knows who we are...and he also has the comfort of having Tihun over there too.

There was a boy, that USED to be alone, but now he has a FAMILY across the ocean and a SISTER that is right there with him that he can spend time with and LOVE.....

He is not alone anymore.......and his heart is exploding with JOY this Christmas!

This is an excerpt from a blog of a friend of mine and fellow AAI adoptive parent, Rachael, whose heart is right where mine is this Christmas:
I am continually frustrated with the non-existent pedestal that some choose to place us on because "we adopted." We hear over and over how someone would love to adopt, and oh how wonderful it is that we gave a child a home and saying, "You guys are incredible." But we are not. We are not super heroes, we are not extra-ordinary people. We are not extra-spiritual, and we do not experience any more love and grace in our lives than the next Christian. We are surrounded by incredibly supportive and passionate family and friends who understand the joy of adoption. We simply just said "yes." That's it. It was that simple. God did not "make" Jon and me for adoption. He simply chose us first, and in His choosing, we said yes. Adoption can't be sought merely for compassion's sake or for a massive tug on your heart strings, or because you think it will be all rainbows and unicorns, because it's not. It's more than that. My mind replays the words "chosen," and being "bought with a price" in relation to Jesus choosing me!
**Thanks Rachael, for letting me borrow this beautiful piece of your heart! Please visit Rachael's blog to read her whole post! =)

I will leave you with one more story and a song.....

One Less by Matthew West (The Story Behind The Song) from emicmg on Vimeo.

Have a peaceful Sunday....and if you think about it, say a prayer for these waiting children. God may not be calling YOU to adopt but there are still many ways to being involved and help out. Prayer is one of them....

Why Wouldn't I?

2010-12-04T09:19:00.001-05:00

Peder Eide is a Christian singer/songwriter who released a Christmas album last year called "Perfect Surprise". This CD had 7 Christmas classics and 3 original songs, one song is called "Why Wouldn't I?" and it's a song about adoption. Peder and his wife have adopted two children, a little girl from Korea in 2004 and then in 2008 they adopted a little boy from Ethiopia.

Every year I buy a new Christmas CD for our collection.....I know which one I'm gonna buy this year! =) Check out this YouTube video where Peder explains how his family came to consider adoption, which in turn, gave him the idea for this song. Peder sings the song after the explanation.

Have a great weekend.....

How Accurate Was Our Packing List Anyway??

2010-12-03T09:02:00.009-05:00

I decided to re-cap our packing list for those of you who are soon to travel and may want to know if I went overboard or not! lol Everything highlighted in blue are things we didn't use this time around. I did make notes as necessary to explain my thoughts on some of the items......So here goes:

Clothing

*Clothing for Todd and I for 6-7 days...short sleeve shirts and long sleeve shirts to wear over them, 3-4 pairs of pants/jeans....I also included extras of everything

*2-3 pairs of shoes, flip flops for shower, dress shoes and hiking shoes

*sunglasses

*belts

*larger size bag/purse--packing it in suitcase--to use while in Ethiopia to carry our "daily" things

This was a good amount of clothes for the amount of days we were there, I would pack this much again.

Basic Things

*Driver's license, flight tickets and itinerary, credit card

*passports....cash...immunization records Didn't need our immunization records but ya never know...

*adaptor to convert Ethiopia's electric to our voltage..need to charge batteries and for hair dryer etc.

*detergent and fabric softner...actually, I cheated and mixed them together!

*clothes line to hang things to dry in our room

*Amharic phrase book/printed out "most used words" translation

*Amharic learning audio on Mp3

*Camera/video camera...chargers and extra batteries...extra camera cards Only used an 8GB camera card and didn't need more...we took about 700-800 pics on that camera and 150 on our smaller camera

*Sharpie marker

*duct tape....cut a small section of paper towel roll and wrapped some DT around it I would still bring this

*ALL KINDS of info printed out....from our agency, travel agency and things we wanted to remember

*list of phone numbers and email addresses

*laptop computer Didn't use, but if we stayed somewhere different we may have used it at the internet cafe

*small notebook...to record thoughts, info, and sizes/observations about other AAI family's children as requested by them...a pen...list of children to take pics of for their soon to be new parents!

*books/magazines to read Kind of like that Disney commercial.....I was too excited to read!! =)

*Ipods

*bubble wrap, in case we buy fragile things to bring back home

*flashlight...incase the power goes out No power outages at Kings while we were there....but it could happen

*extra garbage bags..dirty clothes etc.

*"Flite Mate" ear plugs....helps to reduce air pressure and prevent air travel nausea. These actually work pretty good =)

*two 35 gal. tubs filled with stuff for our agency's care center...clothing, crafts and sports equipment. My hubby says no more tubs! This is because they can easily get caught in customs and get delayed. The only one we brought back with us got delayed in Chicago and the GR airport had to deliver it to our house in the middle of the night......thankfully, it only had our dirty laundry....hope the inspectors had fun inspecting that! lol

*various things to take to the care center when we go every day to do with the kids....nail polish, slime, tattoos, silly bands etc. All were great ideas

*things to do with our little one....special art notebook and paint pens, photo album/video of kids back home She loved to color/draw and loved the photo album...wasn't too interested in the video but she had to watch it on that little video camera screen and you can't really see or hear it very well, especially with all the toddler chaos going on around you!

Meds/Toiletries

*allergy meds/asthma meds Needed every day!

*Ginko...helps with altitude and travel Took it every day!

*Pepto Bismol Didn't need but would take again anyway.

*Immodium AD

*Melatonin...to take the first couple of nights to help us sleep Wonderful!

*Airborne...powder and tablets...to ward off sickness

*Tums Didn't need

*Elderberry Syrup...immunity booster Yep...took it every day!

*Advil

*Hydrocortisone cream Didn't need

*Benedryl cream Didn't need.

*antibacterial cream Gave to the Mother with the little boy that had a bad sore on his leg

*Bandaids Didn't need but would take again

*"Cell Power"...from the health food store....to help with altitude sickness LOVED this...took it twice every day and actually gave some to a friend that wasn't doing so well and it helped her so I'm sold! =) It was recommended to me by a mountain climber....and they should know! ;)

*Listerine....to swish with a couple times/day and swallow a bit to kill harmful bacteria Used this twice a day and especially after eating if we went back to the room afterwards!

*vitamins

*No-Jet-Lag....Homeopathic med Loved this too! We didn't get jet lag in either direction.....amazing!

*Acidophilus...healthy digestion, protects against germs Yep...twice a day and we started taking it a week before we left to go to Ethiopia.

*Dramamine.....for motion sickness Didn't need.

*T.P....many places in Ethiopia do not have it in their restrooms! Where we went, we didn't need it but I would still bring it especially if we were traveling out of the city.

*travel size kleenex

*tweezers Didn't need.

*razors

*deodorant

*hair dryer

*barrette/hair ties etc.

*dental floss

*toothpaste

*extra toothbrushes...incase we forget to brush with bottled water and we need to throw our TBr away Didn't need, we remembered to brush with only bottled water!

*travel toothbrushes...for airplane, the kind with TPaste already on them These came in very handy but it's not like using your real brush....I might would just carry my own toothbrush in my bag, not use toothpaste but brush really good and then chew a stick of gum.

*make-up

*disposable face washing cloths

*clorox wipes to wipe EVERYTHING down, airline seats, hotel rooms, hands...

*hand sanitizer

*shampoo/conditioner

*lotion

*brush

*feminine supplies

*Chapstick

*nail clippers Used these for the girls that were painting their fingernails =)

*Q-tips

We didn't get around to getting a prescription for Cipro this time around but we would definitely get one for our next trip! There were too many people getting THAT kind of sickness when we were there, it was scary to NOT have the meds for it! Better to be prepared!

Snacks

*lots of protein bars

*fruit trail mix

*fruit and nut trail mix

*life savor peppermints

*chewing gum

**We didn't pack a lot of snacks because we figured that food would pretty much be available wherever we may be

**We also didn't pack a lot of extra food like instant oatmeal, mac n cheese etc. like a lot of other families do because we are staying at a hotel and we don't feel that we will have a problem getting food to eat....we love Ethiopian food and there are also American type restaurants over there.

If we were going to stay at a guest house where you can prepare some of your own meals/snacks I might have brought the things directly above, but truthfully, Ethiopia has lots of different types of food to eat, not just Ethiopian, and it's pretty cheap to get a great meal. Plus most guest houses will cook you certain meals either for free or for a minimal charge. We had no problem finding something to eat when we were hungry.

Another thought. Two days after we got there, we noticed that others from our agency were getting sick. This was the "knock you off your feet for a day to a day and a half type, stay real close to the bathroom, if you know what I mean" sickness! =( Probably from the water or something they ate. Todd and I didn't get sick but we were very careful not to let any water even near our face in the shower! It's not just your mouth you need to worry about, it's any body opening...like your eyes etc..... Remember, bacteria are VERY small! I believe that between keeping the water away from our face and using the Listerine and other precautions, this helped us to avoid the evil "bathroom" sickness.

It's That Time of Year Again....AAI's Holiday Project Time, That is..

2010-12-02T20:39:00.005-05:00

Just wanted to share a message from Mandie, who organizes AAI's Holiday Project every year:

In the spirit of the season, and reflecting on how truly blessed we are, and all the things we have to be Thankful for, I have to say how Thankful I am that we chose AAI. AAI brought three beautiful daughters into our family, and has offered me many opportunities to travel to Ethiopia, and to Layla House.

My life changed on February 10th, 2007... when I stepped out of Bole airport and into the crisp night air of Addis, and I haven't looked back. My eyes were opened to the plight of the people of Ethiopia, especially the orphans... Since that first trip, I've been back to visit and volunteer 7 times. My heart has the imprints of tiny hands and big eyes, workers who wash tons of laundry a week to provide for their own families, sponsorship kids, whose lives are changed by the contributions that thier sponsors send every month.

I'm Thankful for the Holiday project... that allows me to play 'Santa' every year to hundreds of kids, not only in AAI's care center, but to sponsorship kids, and children in smaller government run orphanages, that AAI works with. And I'm especially Thankful for all of YOU. You are the ones who keep this project going, who make it a success, and who brighten the lives of these children and caregivers... You continue to help me show them that someone out there is thinking of them... that they are loved... and that they mean something.

Thank you to all who have donated! And Thanks in advance, to those of you who will find it in your hearts and wallets to do so now. 'm happy to say, that we have raised $5,705 since my last update, bringing our total to date to $5,755. With only 4 weeks left until Christmas, we need to really buckle down and raise the remaining $14,245.... I have no doubt that we will do it.... but I need your help!

Here are a couple of pics from last years Holiday celebration

Debritu holding our daughter Tihun....Tihun waving

Tihun receiving her Holiday Project gifts.....she's a little afraid of Santa,

but who can blame her? Santa's can be scary...have you ever gotten up close to one?

Nice sandals Santa... ;)

Back to Mandie's message:
Two years ago, my then almost 6 year old son, overheard me talking with my husband about the huge amount we still needed to raise, and how I was afraid we might not make it. An hour or so later, he came to me with his piggy bank, and a handful of change that he scrounged from around the house... he wanted to donate it all to the project. I thought it was a great idea (he has been to Ethiopia a few times, and has met and played with some of these kids!) and told him that whatever spare change he could find around the house, we would donate. Over the next day or so he managed to collect around $120 in coins from seat cushions, night stands, and the car.... Unbelievable, right?! This has become his annual tradition, the scouring of the house for loose change. I can't wait to see how much he finds this year!

I encourage you to get your kids involved... Allow them to empty your change purse, and look under the cushions... And when its all said and done in January, you can show them the photos on Snapfish from my trip, and let them see what they were able to do. I encourage you to give BIG... even if the best you can do right now is a few dollars... Every donation counts and helps us get closer to our goal! Go without the morning coffee for a week... Stay in this Friday night, and watch a DVD, instead of forking out money for dinner and a movie...
pack your lunch for a week... there are a lot of things we as American's could go without for a week (or more)in order to make a child's holiday brighter! What can you go without? How much can you donate by going without it for a week?

We have received many donations in the past in honor of a family or child that is home, grandparents, teachers, great aunts and uncles...A donation to the Holiday Project is also a great gift, for the 'folks who have everything'! For a minimum $30 donation, we will collect those names and addresses and a special "a holiday gift from _______________ in your honor will benefit children at Layla House and Humanitarian projects in Ethiopia" will be sent in mid-December to the recipient of your choice.

This year, the project will be smaller, and will encompass the following programs, with half of each total going towards Humanitarian Aid... (A $30 donation will provide for one child or caregiver)

*Children at Layla, Wanna and Opportunity Houses will receive A New Traditional Outfit, Small wrapped gift and Candy.

*Caregivers at Layla, Wanna and Opportunity Houses will receive a modest cash bonus which they can use to purchase holiday foods, and other items for their families.

*Children in the Orphaned Student Project (OSP) will receive a modest cash bonus which they can use to purchase holiday foods, and other items for their families.

*Sheep will be provided for several small orphanages in order for them to have a festive holiday meal.

For families who would like their donation to go to a certain child or program, I would be happy to receive those requests! Since I am in charge of keeping it all straight, Once you have made your donation via mail or online, please send me an email with your name, donation amount, and where you would like the money spent.Don't forget to send me the 'In Honor Of' info, if you would like a card sent to your honoree. Once we begin receiving donations, I will post weekly updates to let you all know where we are, and what we still need!

There are 3 convenient ways to donate....
1) Donations can be made by check or money order and sent (with a note
specifying "HOLIDAY GIFT PROJECT" and your preferences) directly to
AAI at the address below....

Adoption Advocates International
709 South Peabody Street
Port Angeles, Washington 98362

2) Donations can also be made conveniently at the AAI website, by
clicking the "DONATE NOW" button, click on "Holiday project" and type
what portion of the project you would like your donation to go to,in the Donation Designation Field.
www.adoptionadvocates.org

3) An option is also available at the Benefit Orphans store, where you can also find great gifts for the holidays that benefit the GRACE Fund and other AAI projects.
www.benefitorphans.org

**PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO EMAIL MANDIE WITH YOUR DONATION DETAILS! And feel free to email her with any questions! If she doesn't know the answer, she will find someone who does!
Mandie's email address:
socialbug69 @ hotmail.com (omit spaces!)

The children and staff at Layla, Wanna, Opportunity House, Orphaned Student Project and the orphanages that AAI works with, all thank you for helping to make their Christmas holiday a truly joyous one!

Where We Are in the Adoption Process

2010-12-02T11:26:00.002-05:00

Now that I have recorded all of our trip details and made our long awaited announcement I have decided to give you a run down of where we are now. One of the families that we became friends with called the AAI office just before we left for Ethiopia and found out all of this wonderful information! It's really great to be able to get a handle on what's going on pertaining to your process. So here it is in a nutshell:

1) After passing court, the clerk’s office will release the hard copy of the adoption decree. This could take anywhere from 5 -20 days.
2) Once our agency has the decree, they will translate it and get it legalized.
3) Our agency will then issue a new birth certificate listing Todd and I as the adoptive parents.
4) Next, the immigration process will be completed for Amayah's passport and a letter of support is obtained from MOWA--Ministry of Women's Affairs.
5) All of these documents must be submitted to the U.S. Embassy two weeks in advance of an embassy interview. This is what we are now waiting for as far as Amayah's case goes. We were told that our embassy appointment would be either on January 12th or January 26th. There is a chance that things could get pushed back to February but we are hoping that won't be the case. I just spoke to Gail, the director in Ethiopia, about Z's case and she said something about "when we come to get Amayah in January".... so I'm pretty sure that we are pretty safe planning for a January date.

Before we traveled over to Ethiopia we learned that each agency is given a day of the week for embassy appointments (AAI's appointments are on Wednesdays). Depending on how the days of the month fall, our agency could have 2 or 3 embassy dates....also, other things could effect this, such as holidays or other Ethiopia type disruptions...power problems etc. I also learned from a family that traveled a while back....I believe that our agency only takes up to 10 families at a time on each given embassy day.

We were hoping for a December embassy date because a family that had just gotten back from Ethiopia was told they would have either a December 1st or December 15th embassy appt. We were so hopeful that we too would be told December.....but we weren't that fortunate. We decided later that it was probably better this way because we wouldn't have to travel in December when the flights were so expensive and also we wouldn't be bringing T home to the crazy holiday season! Everything will be overwhelming to her so Christmas would most likely send her over the top.

Amayah is only used to being in the Layla compound, she doesn't even really know what's outside the gates of AAI. Riding in cars is also going to be a big ordeal and there is a possibility that she may get car sick easily. We will need to keep things pretty low key for quite a while after we get home to help her with her adjustment process. So taking her out and about, going shopping, or attending various events will have to wait until she will be able to handle it better.

When we decided to add Z to our adoption process, we were hoping that he wouldn't be very much farther behind Amayah's process but we found out yesterday that Z will be about two months behind Amayah. So we are faced with the decision to either leave her there for two months longer than she would need to be there or pay for two more trips to Ethiopia......one for Amayah and then one last trip to bring Z home....which would most likely be in March sometime. There's good and bad to this news.

Take one trip
*Amayah has to stay there longer, this will not be the best thing for her, and I'm wondering if it would be fair to her.
*It will be so much harder for us to continue to wait and to watch her get even older. She is already 3 months older than when we accepted her referral and she will be five months older at the end of January. We would have to wait at least two more months after that.
but...
*We would save money.
*We get to bring the kids home together and Z could translate to Amayah for us if we needed him to.
*Z won't feel left behind when we leave with Amayah only.

Take two Trips
*We get to have Amayah home sooner, she needs this because she has been there for about 15 months and it is better for her, especially at this young age to be in a home, not in an orphanage setting.
*We get to spend more time in Ethiopia
*We can visit with Z one more time while he is waiting for his process to be completed which will break up his waiting time and help to get the bonding started....we can most likely take him out of Layla and let him stay with us at the guest house while we are in Ethiopia. This would be a wonderful experience.
*Amayah will have time to be the "new" child here and we can give her the attention and help she needs on an individual level to get settled and adjusted to her new life with us.
*We will be able to give Z the same attention because he will also have the chance to be the "new" child. I think this will be good for both of them.
but....
*It will cost more money
*Todd will have to take more time off of work...unless he decides to stay home for the last trip.
*After spending time with Z we will have to leave him in Ethiopia and that could be harder on him than if we were to just hold of traveling until the end.

This is a hard decision to make, but my gut says to travel twice. It may cost more and Z may be sad that he has to stay there longer but I think in the long run, it will be the best thing for both of them. The money will be replaced in our 2011 tax refund.....we will just have to do without it for a while. =(

What would you do if you were in our shoes?

Introducing.....Amayah Tihun Pastoor!!!

2010-12-01T12:17:00.000-05:00

Now that I have our whole trip documented I get the incredible pleasure of making this announcement:

On Friday November 26, 2010, Todd and I became the proud parents of Amayah Tihun Pastoor! Yep...we passed court and she is legally ours, forever and always! After two long years of waiting to be able to make this announcement we welcome Amayah Tihun into our family with open arms, hearts full of love and eager anticipation for her embassy date so that we can travel back to Ethiopia to bring her home!

This is the first picture we saw of her:....

......and this is her now.

Welcome to the family sweetie girl.....we can't wait to have you home with us!!

Wow....This Is Powerful....

2010-12-01T09:13:00.003-05:00

Sometimes my heart just doesn't understand why people don't feel the needs of the orphans like I do. Sometimes I wonder why more families don't choose to add a blessing or two to their family. Sometimes I start thinking about all of the children at our agency's care center that still don't have a family and it makes me want to bring them home too. These kids are wonderful, sweet, caring, funny, helpful and the list goes on...but the thing they long to hear most is that they were "chosen". Have you ever thought about the ones that continue to get left behind and how devastating it must be for them......time ....after time.... after time....to be the one NOT chosen?? This destroys their sense of self worth, slowly over time......what's wrong with me?.....why wasn't I the one that the family "picked"? I must be not good enough to be loved by a Mom and a Dad, maybe that's why I'm here and not with my birth family.....

Mostly when I start feeling this way, it gets overwhelming to me to think about and to carry, so I just quietly tell myself that maybe, just maybe, God hasn't spoken to their heart yet.

What if that child sitting and waiting for a family of their own.......was YOUR child? Just think about that........wouldn't you want someone to take YOUR child in? Well, these are someone's children, they're God's children.....and He wants you to take care of them .....for Him......

If this touched your heart in any way and you feel like God is whispering in your ear...... just let me know and I can fill you in on some wonderful children that are just waiting for you to realize that it is THEM that God is whispering to you about.......

Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 6, Our Ethiopia Experience....Our Last Day...and a surprise!

2010-11-30T23:04:00.000-05:00

This was our last day in Ethiopia. I can honestly say that I wasn't ready to go home yet. I was loving Ethiopia....I was loving being with Tihun.....I was loving being at Layla and I was loving spending time with all of the wonderful people I finally got to meet in person! Susan, Chris and Ivy...Shelly and Melissa and their hubbies.....miss ya lots! I knew I was going to miss all of the adoptive families that we met on this trip and also the volunteers/families that were a part of Susan and Chris's group.....and I would miss our awesome driver and friend Jamal. What it comes down to is that we met a lot of really great people and it's sad that everyone eventually has to go their own way.

I was sad because I knew how hard it was going to be to leave our girl and I was also realizing how much I had become attached to Debritu...T's favorite nanny. Debritu has the biggest heart for these kids, you can just see the love she has for them in her face when she is caring for them.....I LOVE watching that. Just thinking about it makes me smile. If I could have packed her up in my suitcase, I would have! =) Funny....I think there were a few adults I said that about!

We went down to breakfast and by this day we had pretty much given up on breakfast all together and just went for the macchiatos. I'm not really going to write about our trip home so I will just announce it here. We got into Chicago and IT hit me....and hit me hard! As we were walking from the gate where we landed to the gate that we were going to fly out of, I saw the Golden Arches.....whaaaa.....can you hear the sound of heaven?! I mean.....I do not frequent Micky D's but I walked up to that counter, looked up in complete awe and within an instant decided that I wanted at least one of EVERYTHING! Ummm...yeah....I refrained from that impulse order, but this feeling lasted for a good week after we got home. FOOD! Good 'ol American type food....even if it was Mexican or Italian....you know what I mean. I just wanted to eat everything. Not good. I have since recovered....thank goodness. Whew!

So we spent the morning with the toddlers as usual and took tons more pictures and video of them. We loved on Tihun as much as she would let us and then we left the same way as we always did saying our "Ciaos" and blowing kisses. We were scheduled to go shopping one last time with our trusty Jamal at the wheel. But before doing that we ran into Ivy and decided to jump into her car really quick and ride to her house with her. I had the privilege of sitting in the back with Alazar....just about the cutest kid in the world. They were actually planning on heading to the Hilton to catch some sun and fun in the pool so that's pretty much all A had on his mind. We pulled into Ivy's compound and she jumped out to go unlock the front door and Todd got out behind her. I started to open my door and Alazar pounced on me! "NO"! He screamed, and he locked me in. Ummm.....guess he didn't know that all I had to do was lift the door handle?? It took me a minute to figure out why he so desperately did not want me to get out of the car.....apparently he knew if I got out, his trip to the pool would be delayed once again! I somehow managed to get him and I out of the car and we walked into Ivy's house to get the tour. Beautiful is all I can say. Simple but elegant.....but that's Ivy, with a lotta sass thrown in for good measure! ;)

We headed back to Layla to meet up with Jamal....we hopped out of one car and right into the other. We went over to a place called Churchill street. This was my favorite place to shop by far! The first store I walked into, the store owner offered me a cup of coffee.....now THAT's what I'm talking about! =) I bought an armload of stuff from her and then we went down to the next store. OH MY WORD....I was in heaven. This store had every single thing I wanted/needed. This is now my favorite store ever in Ethiopia. I told Jamal that he'd better remember it so that I can go back there next time. You should have been there, it was quite funny. Here's me shopping like there's no tomorrow and three men just watching in amazement. Ok...so maybe two men....Todd probably wasn't as surprised as Jamal and the store owner were! I saw Jamal eyeing up one of the scarves that I was going to bring back for the boys and I asked him if he like it and he was so cute.....he looked just like a little boy at Christmas with that embarrassed smile. I said do you want one, we'll get you one? "No"....he said. I said come on...which one do you like? "Nooo.........the black one".......I thought I would die laughing....so cute. So I had the store owner get a black one down and I handed it to Jamal. He said "thank you" and put it right on....with a big smile on his face.

We had Jamal drop us off at our hotel so we could unload all of our things before heading back to Layla one last time.

It was hard to go back this time because I knew it would be the last time. We spent time with T and also spent time with some of the older kids. It really wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be to say goodbye to Tihun.....I think this is because she's not a baby. With babies, you can cling on to them for dear life and they wouldn't care if you were wiping your tears on their pj's. She's also not an older child. With an older child, they would start the attachment process and would understand that you wouldn't be back for quite a while....and they would visibly show you how much their heart is getting ripped out by your leaving....that would be hard.

She is a toddler, they are a breed of their own. Very self absorbed and preoccupied. She didn't understand how much we loved her, she just thought we were one of the many "Moms and Dads" that come and go....and for some reason she got to be the lucky kid who got to have US assigned to HER! Some day I will be able to wrap my arms around her and she will love me back.....until then, I just stare at her picture....

We also said good-bye to a few other kids and staff before we left that day. It was a harder walk back to the hotel and this time it wasn't the altitude. =(

We got to the hotel thinking that we would have time to take a shower before we had to load up our suitcases on the Kings bus that was headed back to the airport ....but our driver got there an hour early so we had no time at all to even freshen up before we had to start out on our 30 hour journey back home. Yuck! So we went approximately 50 hours without a shower because we had one at 6:30 a.m. and it was now 6:30 p.m. and we still had 35 hours to go! I shudder just typing this. Needless to say, by the time we got to Chicago I was pretty darn grumpy.....and then they announced that our plane was broken. So we had at least an hour delay, if not longer.

But as you can see, we lived to tell about our incredible 8 day journey that took us to the other side of the world and to our kids......oops! I think I just let the cat out of the bag! Yep, you heard it right....we couldn't stand to leave a certain 9 year old boy behind so we called up our agency when we got home and asked permission to be able to add him to our family along with Tihun. We are SUPER excited and can't wait to get them both home! For those of you who would like to see him....here he is:

Yep...I'm a tease.....sorry, we can't share until we pass court for him. =)

More news to come.....stay tuned!

Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 5, Our Ethiopia Experience.....Mount Entoto

2010-11-30T17:15:00.001-05:00

We got up this morning and quickly got ready to go. This was our 4th day in Ethiopia and I didn't even want to think about the breakfast downstairs. We each ate a protein bar and some trail mix and called it breakfast. We went downstairs and asked to use the internet that is stationed in the lobby. This was our only source of communication to our family back home. It was very convenient but not very fast. You ask them to use it and they will log you on and start the timer. To give you an example of how slow it was, it took anywhere from 20-40 minutes to get on there, compose a couple paragraph email, skim through the rest of my emails---do not be confused with that meaning I actually opened them!!---and occasionally sending out one other VERY short email. I ended up with over 350 emails in my inbox by the time we got home....that was real fun straightening out that mess. =( Some of the AAI people have actually gone down the street a bit to where Kaldi's is and used the internet cafe that is there. For us, it just seemed like we didn't have any time to do that, our days were full and usually after we ate dinner, we were dead tired!

We got to Layla around 9:00. We were invited to go with Susan and Chris's group to take a half day trip to the Entoto Mountains. But first we wanted to pop into the social workers office to see what we could find out about our 13 year old daughter Hana's birth family. We walked in and asked them if there was any documentation that her family had ever contacted AAI to find out about her or if they knew if any of her family was still around. She asked what Hana's last name was and when I told her she looked stunned and said "I have a note on my desk right here, someone called to find out information and they aren't very happy at all"! I was kind of in shock at what she said and I really wasn't sure WHO it was that was wanting info. I received a mini lecture on how important it is to do your post placement reports and "Do I understand how hard it's going to be now to console this family and to get them to not be angry anymore"?? Come to find out, Hana's family contacted AAI wanting to know how she was doing and when the social worker went to the files to find all of Hana's post placement reports....there were none! I explained to the social worker that Hana has only been with us for about 11 months now and that our adoption of her is almost final. We were planning on doing her 1 year post placement at that time. The problem was that Hana's first adoptive Mother never did ANY post-placement reports during the 5 years that she had her! NONE. When you adopt a child you promise to do at least 3 reports during that first year and then 1 each year after that until the child is 18. It is VERY important to follow through with this promise because it could mean the difference between Ethiopia continuing to allow foreign adoptions....or NOT! Please people....get those reports done, it's not that difficult and your children's families desperately want to know how their child is doing......is that so much to ask? Wouldn't you want to know how your child is doing if you had to endure the pain of giving him/her away to someone else to raise? I know I would.

I told the social workers that I would gladly write up a letter stating basically why she was now with us and how she is doing etc. and that we would also add some photos with it. Thank goodness we had the pictures from T's album that we could leave for Hana's family. These pictures were very nice, all laminated pictures of us, our children and Hana. They were pictures that I took while we were on vacation last summer for the purpose of hanging them on our dining room wall, so they were very nice individuals, one of Todd and I and then the kids all together. Plus we had an awesome action shot of Hana playing soccer that I had taken during the last soccer season. We really wanted to get together with Hana's family because we felt that, more than the letter and pictures, they would be able to ask questions, speak to us and hopefully feel comfortable about where Hana was now. But the social workers couldn't get a hold of Hana's family in time to arrange a meeting so we will have to wait until our next trip over there. If we would have thought to ask the first day we were there, chances are, we would have had a better chance at scheduling a meeting.

After we talked to the social workers we hopped into the van with the others and headed to the mountains! The drive through the city took longer than I thought, Addis is a huge city. But soon you could tell that we weren't in the city any more. The scenery outside the van started to change and we started going up. As we were diving up the mountain you could see women carrying huge loads of eucalyptus wood on their backs. I read somewhere that the Ethiopian government has guards stationed to protect the scarce forests and these ladies are only supposed to be gathering the fallen branches, not chopping them off the trees. These ladies make their way up the steep roads at dawn, gather wood all day and then make their way down the mountain when they have a full load or at dusk, whichever comes first.....and a lot of them do this barefoot and they could be carrying a child on their front side!
These bundles of wood have to weigh at least 40-60 lbs. I just don't know how they do it, day after day. I also read that it is those same guards that are there to protect the forests that can sometimes harass and rape these poor women that are just trying to earn a living. =( *Much of Ethiopia still relies on fuel sources like wood, charcoal and dung for cooking.

I didn't take these two pictures. It was very difficult to get a good picture of the fuelwood carrying ladies while we were driving in the van so I found them on line so I could demonstrate what I was saying about them.

**Something I haven't mentioned yet is the fact that I can't even go up a flight of stairs there without huffing and puffing! Addis is anywhere between 2200-2500 meters above sea level.....we're talking high altitude here. That was one of the first things I noticed after arriving was how much thinner the air felt and that first walk up our hotel stairs was brutal! I felt like a great big couch potato.....I don't think I wrote about our arrival at the hotel that first night..... After a 30 hour journey with almost no sleep and arriving with two large suitcases, two 35 gallon rubbermaid tubs full of donations and two carry-ons, the hotel bellman decided to change our room location 3 times!! I was SO glad to fall into bed that night! =)

Back to the mountain........ Mount Entoto is the highest peak overlooking Addis Ababa, which means Beautiful Flower. Mount Entoto is a sacred place that holds many monasteries.

A view from on top of the mountain....Addis Ababa below

A view of the road we traveled on....notice the eucalyptus trees

We got up to the top and we entered onto the site of King Menelik II's memorial museum.

This is a view of the gates from the inside looking out

We first bought tickets to enter the part of the museum that charged an admittance fee. It was a smallish building that held all of the King Menelik's and Empress Taitu's treasures......furniture, photos, Bibles, crowns, robes, and other belongings and gifts that were given to them by heads of other countries for various occasions. We waited for about 10 minutes or so for the guide to finish up with another tour but we got to look around while we were waiting. You weren't allowed to take any photographs in here but I suppose that's a good thing because we wouldn't want to publicize the millions...billions?? of dollars worth of treasure that is housed there. We took our tour and learned quite a bit about Ethiopian history.

We left this part of the museum and started toward what was the oldest church in Addis. This is the church that King Menelik and his wife Taitu built and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The church is called Maryam Church.

Ethiopians come here and kneel, kiss the ground and start praying or wailing. A woman was wailing and moaning for about 20 minutes or so while we were there. One of the ladies that we were with told us that they come here to this church to pray to be healed of diseases like AIDS or other.

This is another alter where you will see people kneeling, kissing the ground and praying.

This is King Menelik and Empress Tiatu's palace....impressive, right? ;)

Upstairs is their sleeping quarters and down below is their closet.

This is our travel group....these are some great people....miss them a lot!

We continued on up the road so that we could see the 9/11 memorial, called the Ethiopia-U.S. Friendship park. Addis Ababa's, then mayor Arkebe Oqubay, and then U.S. ambassador Aurelia Brazeal erected this park to show their commitment to fostering over 100 years of foreign relations.

Just incase you didn't know, September 11th is when Ethiopia celebrates their New Year. So this date is actually a celebration for them....I'm pretty sure that's one of the reasons that they decided to construct this park, so they could pay tribute to those that lost their lives on their day of celebration.

If you click on this picture, it will enlarge so you can read the inscription

This shot was taken as we were coming back down from the top of the mountain

We stopped at the Former Fuelwood Carrying Ladies Association on the way back down. It is an organization that has taken some of the women out of the brutal life of carrying wood up and down the mountain every day.

This is the scarf shop and boy did they have a lot of scarves! I think I bought around 11 or so of them at a whopping 5 bucks a piece! They are beautiful....just wish I would have gotten a few more. There's always trip #2 though, right? ;)

We also stopped at the mercato down the street but only for about a half hour. We were all getting pretty hungry by now and just about all we could think of was food! We stopped at the Lucy restaurant and had a great meal....although, it took about 2 hours from start to finish! TIA!

After lunch we headed back to our hotel to drop off all of our purchases and then we walked back to Layla to spend time with T and the other kids. It was fingernail polish day =) We brought tattoo's and fingernail polish, including fingernail stickers, for the older kids to have fun with. I wish I could post pics of that but we're not allowed to put pics of the kids that don't have families yet so you will just have to imagine it =) Even the boys wanted their nails painted! A good time was had by all and they managed to use up all 6 bottles of nail polish!

We left to go back to the hotel to get ready for dinner....this was the something special I talked about in my last post. We were going to go to Dr. Rick Hodes home! Every friday night for over twenty years he has been celebrating Shabbat with his children and who ever else may show up. He never knows how many guests he will have or sometimes who those guests may be until he arrives home from work. Shabbat the Dr. Hodes way is basically welcoming in the Sabbath. I'm not going to go into the details of what he does because that info belongs to Dr. Rick to share if he chooses. We had a wonderful time meeting him and all of the children that currently call his house their home. Dr. Rick currently has 3 houses....one for boys, one for girls and his own house where he and his adopted children live and also temporary guests that are there for various reasons...usually for medical treatment of some kind, but not always. All of Dr. Rick's children were so sweet and gracious. One boy that was currently staying there, "M", brought around some tapestries that their gardner made and was trying to sell them to all of us. He's quite a good salesman....and very cute, I might add...which helps in the selling process tremendously! We bought two of them.....one for the wall and one is actually a pillow. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner that Dr. Rick's cook made for us and had a wonderful time talking with him and the other guests that were there! An unbelievable experience, for sure! If you haven't read the book that Marilyn Berger wrote about him called "This is a Soul"....you should. It's a wonderful book. Although, Doc Rick hasn't even read it. He told me that he doesn't like to read things about himself, and you can tell while talking with him that he's a very humble man, even after all of the wonderful things he has done in his life to make a difference for so many people.

We will never forget the time we spent at his house....such a wonderful experience...

Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 4, Our Ethiopia Experience.....Court Day

2010-11-29T23:18:00.001-05:00

Cont. from Part 3....
As I was laying in bed after a long day....I was thinking about the little guy that had that great big sore on his leg. All of us that were staying at Kings from AAI pretty much "adopted" this young lady. Each time any of us passed by her we gave her a little something.....a few birr, a protein bar or some water. All of a sudden it came to me. We had a new tube of antibacterial cream that we brought with us. I decided that I would put it in my bag and when we saw her the next morning, I would give it to her for her little guy.

Day 3 in Ethiopia.....

This was to be a very exciting day.....it was Court Day! We didn't have to be dressed, at Layla and ready for court until 1:30 p.m. so we dressed in our "gonna be attacked by 15 toddlers" clothes. The plan was to head back to the hotel at lunch time, eat, get dressed for court and then be back at Layla by 1:15 or so.

We headed out to go to Layla for the morning and I was really looking forward to getting that tube of "protection" to that Mother, but sadly, she was nowhere to be found.

We arrived at Layla and right away I asked about Tihun's Mother. This was court day and I knew that the Families were due to arrive and then be transported to court by an AAI driver. I was told that all of the families had already left for court, we missed our opportunity to meet T's Mom....or so I thought.

We went into the toddler room and had been there about an hour. Everything was going well until I asked the head nanny if we could have Tihun's photo album that we sent to her after we accepted her referral. The nanny nodded yes, scooped Tihun up in her arms and started heading out of the toddler compound. We decided to follow along. We rounded the corner and entered into the office area and as I looked up, the first thing I saw was a row of Ethiopian women all dressed up and sitting in the chairs that lined one side of the room. Immediately I wondered what we were walking into. Most of what happened next is pretty much a blur to me but basically what was going on was that Tihun's Mother had requested to see her one more time. They were trying to get Tihun to go to her Mother, who she didn't know anymore.... and she didn't want to get anywhere near her. Then they tried to get her to come to me, which she did momentarily, until she realized that her favorite nanny was trying to sneak away and go back to the toddler area. By this time T was all out screaming and very upset and I turned around just in time to see T's Mother crying and leaving the room. Obviously this whole scene was very upsetting to her Mom. Tihun didn't know anyone that was in the room, except for Todd and I...and really, she didn't even know us very well at all. I was in complete shock watching this whole thing play out. We can speak and understand only a few words of Amharic so we didn't know what was being said. Finally I couldn't take it anymore so I took off down the hallway to find someone to explain to me why they all felt it necessary to torture this child?? Finally I got an English speaking person who explained to me that the lady was T's Mom, which I pretty much figured out on my own, and that she wanted to have a visit with T. I explained to him that this wasn't a good way of going about that, and that T was getting way too upset and so I asked if she could just go back to the toddler area? He said yes and then they allowed T's Mom to come back there with us.

We got back to the toddler area and everyone was teary, Tihun, her Mother, Debritu...(T's favorite nanny) and me. Whew! It took Debritu a good 1/2 hour or so to get her calmed down. Debritu is excellent at her job and soon she even had T going back and forth between me and her Mom. T was happy and she even let her Mom hug and kiss her, and she reciprocated the affection. We were also able to have a conversation with T's Mom through the social worker. It was a great conversation. I decided to keep things short and simple because of the emotional time we just went through, and also the fact that we were planning on making the trip to T's Mom's home when we go back to get T. T's Mom told us that she was happy that T was going to have a good family and she was happy that she was going to live in America. I asked her if it was alright if we came to visit her when we came back to Ethiopia and she said yes. She very much enjoyed looking through the two photo albums that we brought with us that had pics of our family, our home etc. and Tihun. We let her choose as many pictures as she wanted and told her that we would be putting together an album especially for her and that we would bring it with us when we come back. We took a bunch of pictures of her and T and all of us together. All in all what started out to be a disaster ended with lots of hugs and kisses and promises be back soon.

**Disclaimer--I don't blame AAI at all for what happened. It was something that -just happened- it was unforeseen and was remedied as quickly as possible. I'm pretty sure that they've taken notes on that one and have learned something. The down side to what happened is that T became very leary of us. For the rest of that day and part of the next day she mostly only wanted to watch us from a distance or would only be by us if Debritu was right there. EVERY kid in the toddler room loved us EXCEPT Tihun =(
That was hard, but we understood and backed off until she was ready.

Before we left for lunch we were told that our court time was pushed back to 2:30. Great, we thought, that will give us a little more time. We headed out and went to have lunch at ***, this is the restaurant above Kaldi's....the coffee shop that looks strikingly familiar to a very popular coffee shop here in the states.

Here are some of the views of Addis from the balcony
of the restaurant:

We ate lunch and then headed to the hotel so that we could freshen up before court. We got ready and left in plenty of time to get back to Layla early. Unexpectedly we came upon our sweet Mom and the little guy with a leg problem. I quickly reached into my bag and grabbed my antibiotic cream before anyone else on the street could see what I was doing. She was sitting down on the sidewalk so I knelt down and motioned for her to show me her son's leg. I opened the cream and was trying to explain as I was putting it on him. Thankfully, a very nice Ethiopian man stopped and asked if he could help us. I had him tell her how important it was for her to keep putting the cream on his leg and I also had him explain to her that if she didn't put it on there he could get an infection and either have to go to the hospital or he could possibly die from it. We thanked the man for helping us and we went on our way. I felt so relieved that we found her and that someone was actually there to translate for us so I knew she totally understood.

We arrived at Layla and found that hardly anyone was around. We kind of expected to see a group of families waiting. We walked into the office and Gail came rushing out to tell us that everyone had been looking for us because the court had called and they wanted everyone to come now. The power had gone out earlier and that's why they pushed back the court times but the power came back on so they wanted everyone to come again at their scheduled time. Gail said that from now on they weren't going to change plans because of what the court says, they were just going to continue to show up at their scheduled times! TIA is something you hear a lot.....which means "This Is Africa". Yep. The rest of the group had already left and we were to leave now with Abrahim. Abrahim was great, as he was driving us through town he was telling us all about everything. We learned so much during that drive.

We arrived at the court house and went up a few flights of stairs. We were ushered into a very plain room that had many couples sitting in chairs along every wall. There were no chairs left so we sat down next to two couples, that were also from AAI, on some sort of wood platform that was very low to the floor. It's a good thing that we arrived when we did because we were called in right away. We went into a small room where the judge sat at one side and Yared, one of AAI's lawyers sat at the other. We were asked to sit in two chairs that were right in the middle of the room. The judge was very beautiful, soft spoken and graceful. I knew instantly that I was going to like her. She asked us questions like.....How many children do you have?......How do your children feel about you adding another child to the family?......Have you spent time with Tihun?.......How do you intend to keep T's Ethiopian culture alive for her?......What have you done to prepare for this adoption?.......Do you realize that problems could arise, and what would you do to remedy this?.....Do you realize that this is permanent and cannot be undone once decided? We also talked about Hana and how she came to our family....how her first placement didn't work out very well and that she has been with us for almost a year now. She asked how things were going and we told her they were going really well. She looked up at us, smiled and and said "Wonderful." I could tell that this made her very happy.......

Then she hit us with a bomb that we didn't expect. She said that Tihun's file was missing a paper from the Oromo region and she would need that paper before a decision could be made. She also noted that our file was expired. Actually, we weren't expired because we got re-fingerprinted in July and turned in our updated homestudy to USCIS before our actual expiration date. Normally adoption agencies don't re-do your dossier with all of your updated stuff, they usually just keep it on file, and usually the judge doesn't even look at the expiration date. The updates are really for the U.S. embassy. So unfortunately we didn't pass court and we didn't get to hear the judge say "She is yours"......oh how I wanted to hear her say that. =(

So the judge rescheduled us for November 26th. Meaning AAI would come up with the needed papers and she would go over our file once more at that later date......we didn't have to reappear because we fulfilled our requirement, which was to prove that we were there and that we had spent time with T and still wanted her.

Most of the families didn't pass court that day....even families that were with other agencies. Most of these other family's problems were because of missing MOWA approval letters though, only one other family that I know of was also told that they were expired. (MOWA is short for "Ministry of Women's Affairs.")

Here are some scenes from around Addis Ababa:

This is Addis Ababa University

The Yekatit 12 Monument. Dedicated to the thousands of

innocent Ethiopians who were killed by the Italians in 1937.

Building with....WHAT?! .....wooden scaffolding?

Where's OSHA when ya need em??!!

The van ride back to Layla was a somber one. With not very many families passing court, things were pretty quiet. On our way back we stopped at a really cool coffee bar that is extremely popular. As we were getting out of the van we pretty much got mobbed by a whole bunch of peddlers trying to sell us anything and everything! Somehow I managed to get by them on the way into the coffee store though. I bought a whole bunch of coffee in a couple of different size bags and also a couple of really cool cloth bags that had the store logo etc. on them. I was happy. I walked out of the store and got mobbed by all of the peddlers again and I made the mistake of touching a necklace that caught my eye. After that, the guy wouldn't let me pass. I said "Ishy"... which means ok... "How much"? He told me something ridiculous like 300 birr which is about 17 U.S. dollars. I said slyly.... "For two"? He looked at me with a kind of insulted look and said firmly "No....one, one only." I said "200" he said "No, 250..250" and I said "150"....then he got really mad. By this time we were drawing a pretty large crowd, including everyone that was in our van. I was getting tired of this and I really didn't want the necklace that bad anyway so I just gave him a "talk to the hand" kind of motion and started pushing past him. He got frantic and said "Ishy....150!" I said fine and then went to get out my money and realized that I had spent almost all of the birr that I had taken out of our bigger stash. I turned around and said "Sorry....I don't have." Then he said "100"!! I said, a little firmer "I don't have" and shook my head and held out my hands. He kept saying "100, 100" and I finally said I only have 50. He got mad and I started to leave again and in his desperation he caved!! "ISHY"! He said "50". So I happily handed him the 50 birr, took my necklace, and turned to get in the van. I looked up and everyone in the van was cheering. I had forgotten how many people were watching this whole thing take place. They were all amazed at my expert bartering abilities =) Because I am so nice I will divulge my "secret"...... All you have to do is act like you are interested and then act like you don't want it anymore. It drives them crazy! They will either lower the price on the item you were looking at or they will move on to trying to sell you a different item. And walking away drives them even more crazy!

**Disclaimer #2---Something I noticed while there was that the bartering wasn't like what people had described to me. People told us that the Ethiopians really enjoy a good bartering session but I think that maybe things have change a little bit. The Ethiopian Birr has really depreciated and their economy is so bad over there that I really think that trying to get the lowest price out of them may not be so fair of us to do. I mean, was 17 dollars so bad to pay for a sweet "guys" necklace? I kept forgetting how much their Birr actually was in U.S. dollars. The only reason I "talked" him down so far was 1) I decided that I really didn't care if I bought the necklace or not....and.....2) I really didn't have the amount of money he wanted. I did end up feeling slightly guilty. It's hard though, when they say 300 birr....to me it seemed like such a huge amount of money......but it's not really.

That night we went to dinner again with the volunteer group and were so surprised when none other than Ivy Dash shows up! Ivy worked for AAI for around 3 years and did a wonderful job keeping the kids in line and being a much needed liaison between the parents and children or the parents and staff at Layla. She doesn't currently work there right now and is greatly missed by children and staff. We had a wonderful time with Ivy over dinner and then made plans with Ivy and Susan's group to do something special the next night. =) THAT will be for tomorrow's post.

Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 3, Our Ethiopia Experience...cont.

2010-11-28T23:22:00.002-05:00

Second day in Ethiopia....We got up early again.....actually, I got up early again and Todd implemented "His System." I get up, he stays in bed and sleeps until he hears the hair dryer running, he then gets up and takes his shower. Most of the time he still ends up waiting for me though =)

Day #2 breakfast at the hotel. Hmmm. Found that there was less food than the day before that I was actually interested in eating due to... 1) the type of food they were offering today and.... 2) the fact that some things that I tried the day before like the rubbery sausage bites were definitely added to my "do not eat" list. Thank goodness I ate a protein bar in our room! I had a smaller plate of food this morning but thoroughly enjoyed my macchiato! =)

As we were walking to Layla we were getting closer and closer to a young woman with a little boy who was probably 1-2 years old. She was trying to get our attention by holding her hand out to us and saying "Baby cry, baby cry."

"Ethiopia lesson" time. When you are walking down the street, you will want to maintain a delicate balance of eye contact, greetings and nods..... with...... looking like you have business to take care of and are "on a mission." Something that was very hard for me to remember was to not stop or even pause very long when a beggar was trying to get your attention. If you even look at them, they go full steam ahead and pull out all the tricks. THEN as soon as other beggars see you stop and talk or give money to one beggar they ALL pounce! This is a very dangerous thing to let happen!

Back to the young woman with the little boy.... She was trying to get us to stop but we were in the "pretending to be on a mission" mode. Just as we were going to get too far from her she grabbed my arm and motioned for me to look. She reached around and pulled out her little boys leg and showed it to us. He had a very thin little leg and about half way between his ankle and his knee he had a sore about the size of a silver dollar. I'm not sure what it was from but it looked like it could have been a burn. It was oozing and open and the little guy started to cry from the pain he was in from it. There was really nothing that we could do so we slipped her a small amount of money and a protein bar and went on our way. We were in semi-shock. It was so sad to see this horrible open wound on such a little boy....and you know he just had to be wrenching in pain.

We made it to Layla and spent the morning there with Tihun. When it was lunch time for the toddlers we knew it was time for us to go, but Tihun didn't want to go in with the other kids. She stayed outside with us and then finally she tried to get us to go in with her and have lunch. "Nay, Mommie Daddie, nay nay" she said to us. Nay means come. But we told her "ciao" --goodbye-- and had the nanny tell her that we would be back after lunch. So all the way out of the compound we got "ciaos" and kisses blown to us from the whole toddler crew! That was sweet! =)

We had a driver booked for the next 3 hours so we could go get something to eat and do a little shopping. Our driver on this day was Jamal. Here is a picture of him and I standing in the lobby of the Kings Hotel:

Jamal is a really great guy and we had a wonderful time with him the two times we hired him to drive us around town. We told him that we were hungry so he took us to a traditional Ethiopian type restaurant. I had the Doro Wat and Todd got a hamburger, which he thought tasted not so much like a hamburger. We found out later while talking with another American family that the hamburger could have possibly been mixed with goat. Oh yeah....THAT's why it tasted so....goat like??

We also ordered coffee from the traditional coffee ceremony that was going on.

I'm just going to say, I LOVE the coffee in Ethiopia. They serve it to you in a very small cup....smaller than a tea cup.... along with a side of popcorn. At first this tiny cup was hard to take since about 20 of those could fit into the coffee mug I use at home...but I soon realized that their coffee is a bit stronger than ours so it helped to ward off my coffee DT's. I kept telling Ethiopians how big my mug was at home and they couldn't believe that I drank THAT much coffee! So funny! Anyway, Ethiopian coffee is served in those tiny cups. They put two spoonfuls of sugar in the cup, pour the coffee in, and then ask you if you would like sugar in your coffee. The two scoops is standard, the extra is your choice.

Love it.

The Doro Wat I had was pretty good but not as good as the Sega Wat that I had the night before. This was a slightly scary experience that I didn't share in yesterday's post. We were invited out to eat with Susan PD's group. It was a restaurant that was a few blocks over but we decided to walk and take in some of the city sights. We got to where the restaurant was supposed to be just to find out that it had closed and relocated to another part of the city. Susan used a cell phone and called the restaurant but it was too hard to hear and understand the person on the other end of the line so we decided it was time for plan B. In Ethiopia you must always be prepared for having to go to plan B.....or C, or D, or E......well, you get the picture. So we headed over across the street to another restaurant. It was pretty crowded inside so we opted to eat out on the terrace. That sounded great because it was such a nice night. Once we sat down though, we realized that we could hardly read our menus it was so dark. There were lights mounted on the building that was near our table but they must have had 2 watt bulbs in them! I did manage to see Sega Wat and knew that was a beef stew-ish and injera dish so I went with that. The scary thing was that by the time I actually got my dinner, it was really dark outside...and at one point we lost power all together! Eating an ethnic dish, in a foreign country, in the dark....is SCARY!! But you will be glad to know that I was very brave....and thankfully very hungry.....so I ate the whole thing...WITHOUT EVEN SEEING IT! Crazy...I know. But I will say that it was extremely delicious!

Sorry...I got sidetracked.....back to the actual day I am writing about....

We ate lunch, which took a good hour and a half. There is no such thing as fast food in Ethiopia. There are no McDonalds, Burger Kings, Taco Bells etc. and when you sit down at a restaurant, be prepared to wait for quite a while. Eating and coffee drinking are to be done in a very slow, relaxed pace. Kind of hard to do when all you can think about is getting out there and shopping!!

We got on the road and first went to the leprosy colony. They supposedly have a very nice gift shop with many products that the residents of the colony make but unfortunately it was closed when we got there and we were told that "the lady just didn't show up today." So we decided to go in to the room where the weavers were working. We watched a couple men weaving on the big looms.

Then we went into the back room where about 5 ladies were spinning. They seemed cautious at first but quickly warmed up to us after Jamal explained who we were and what we were doing there. The ladies encouraged me to try my hand at the different stages of spinning. I pretty much failed at them all and I know that those ladies had a really good time watching me try and fail....they just kept laughing and laughing and then they would tell me to try again! It was fantastic to see how their process worked and to see how fast they could spin! Todd was video taping them working and also of me making a mess of their work, until one little lady in the corner told Jamal that she didn't want her picture taken. Jamal asked her why and she told him it was because she was so ugly that no one would want to look at a picture of her. She said "I am unlovable." When Jamal told us what she said, it I just about lost it. I was squatting near the other women talking with them and I could barely stand back up. I just wanted to cry. You see, the older lady sitting in the corner that didn't want her picture taken was a victim of leprosy. Most of her body showed signs of where the leprosy had taken over. Her face was slightly deformed and pushed over to one side and her hands and feet had no visible fingers or toes, just a slit where her thumb met her hand. But she was very skilled at what she was doing. She could thread a bobbin of wool 10 times faster than I could WITH fingers!!

This is a picture of a woman that looks pretty similar to what this dear sweet woman at the leprosy colony looked like.

The women invited us to stay for tea but unfortunately Jamal had to be somewhere by a certain time so we had to keep going. I would have loved to sit and have tea with those sweet ladies! On our way out the door I knelt down and put my hand on the lady in the corner's ankle. She slowly looked up at me and I gave her a nod and she gave me one back. I really just wanted to wrap my arms around her to show her that she is not unlovable but she had so many spools and supplies sitting around her that I couldn't get to her......but she knew by my touch and my nod what I was saying to her. I will never forget her.

We then got back in the car and headed to Sabahar, the silk factory. This was like an oasis in the desert. The grounds were beautiful! I had a great time choosing a stack of scarves and I also got a tablecloth for our Ethiopian Christmas celebrations. You could buy pure silk scarves or a silk/cotton blend.

Here is their process:

These are the silkworms. They are pretty tired of eating and are getting ready to cocoon.

Here are the empty cocoons. They are waiting to be cleaned.

Here is the washed silk from the cocoons.

These are the bundles of dyed silk drying on the ledge.

Here are some of their finished products clean and drying.

The last place we went with Jamal was a basket shop which was recommended to us by Susan PD and Chris Little, two AAI veterans. As we were pulling up to it Jamal yelled something out the window to the men that were sitting around at the side of the building. We walked into the shop and saw that it was jam packed with stuff.

Soon after we got in the shop Jamal started trying to get me to reconsider shopping there. I don't know what was said between him and the other men but Jamal decided that we should probably shop somewhere else. The only thing he told us was that these shop owners don't like it when he brings Americans there because he will tell them if the shop keeper is charging too much! So essentially they want to be able to freely rip us off without Jamal stepping in and ruining all their fun! =(

So we bought only a couple of wooden crosses and left, deciding to shop another day.

We went back to the hotel and unloaded our booty, freshened up and then walked back to Layla to spend some time with our little T and the other kids. When we got there we didn't see Tihun anywhere but we soon found out that she had been taken, along with some other kiddos, to go and get her visa picture taken! That was so exciting to hear! Just another step in making everything seem so real. She wasn't doing so well when they got back and I'm pretty sure that she got car sick. She was burning up because it was a hot day and the windows were probably up in the van. She was pretty wiped out but recovered quickly after eating a banana.

We brought her some paint markers and an artist pad and she loved it! Of course all of the kids wanted to get their hands on it too so I tried to distract them by offering to draw a heart or star on their hand instead. As soon as I did the first child's hand I had almost every toddler pushing and shoving to get one on their hand! Then it was "the other hand" and then "on my cheek" and "on my forehead." This went on for about 5-10 minutes and they all had writing on their faces and hands. The nanny came out of the building and took one look at the kids and then at me and she gave me the dirtiest look ever! I explained to her as best as I could that they were washable makers and it would come right off.....she didn't seem impressed. So I asked her for a rag so I could clean them up. She went in and got a rag and then she wouldn't let me have it. SHE washed every single one of my pieces of art work off!

I'm thinking... "chillax" Let em be kids for pete's sake! I'm looking around and they are using leggos to dip into the mudpuddles and drinking it. They all have runny noses and are wiping it on each other and they are getting into just about anything they can get into. Why are we so concerned about something that is making them so happy?? ugh. Whatever. If she only saw my kids sometimes.....she'd probably have a cow! =(

As we left for the day we got our usual "Ciaos" and "Kisses" but I was starting to feel my heartstrings being pulled by the love I felt for my little girl.....oh how I didn't want to leave her anymore! Walking out was probably the hardest thing I had to do everyday.

More to come.....

Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 2, Our Ethiopia Experience

2010-11-27T21:13:00.003-05:00

We woke up the first morning at about 6 a.m. because we didn't know when Gail, AAI's director at their care center in Ethiopia, would be coming to get us. We wanted to be ready to go when she came because this would be the day that we would finally get to meet our daughter and we...(ok, I) wanted everything to be perfect. But I mean, really, would YOU be able to sleep if you just traveled half way around the world to meet the little one you had been waiting for two years to meet??!! I didn't think so!

I got up and showered...very carefully... and walked out onto our balcony to take in my first view of the city. People were already going about their daily business, the hustle and bustle had begun and it was barely daylight.

I am going to back up here and just say that we stayed at the King's Hotel and it was definitely not at the Hilton or Sheraton's level of niceness......think low budget hotel, like an older Super 8 etc. The hotel lobby was beautiful and the hotel itself has character. The rooms were nice enough but I wouldn't set anything nice on the carpet....scary! The bed was pretty comfortable but a bit too soft for me, a few days into our stay I started having back aches. I don't think they washed the comforter very often so that creeped me out too. I'm pretty sure that they didn't have an exhaust system for their plumbing because our bathroom pretty much always smelled like ....you know what. This is the same odor that you smell every so often while you are walking down the streets. Just so you know that I'm not bashing King's, I will state that would stay there again... because of the location and because it really wasn't that bad. I've stayed at worse places here in the U.S......plus they had a breakfast buffet and two macchiatos included with your nightly stay. The breakfast wasn't stupendous but they always had plenty of things to choose from... including eggs, sausage, potatoes, breads and fruit. An extra bonus was that our macchiato maker was a complete sweetie and we just loved her....we were hoping to fit her into our suitcase so we could bring her home with us! lol...

Me and Manahilosh, our macchiato maker extraordinaire =)

Now.... about taking a shower....taking a shower was a process. First I put my flip flops on and went into our sewer, I mean bathroom....oops! =( Anyway, I first washed my face with a disposable wash cloth and bottled water. Then when I got into the shower...with flips flops...I didn't let the water anywhere near my face! I have to tell you that while we were still home I practiced over and over how to take a shower without getting water in my mouth....every time I failed. I couldn't do it. So I figured that if the water didn't get on my face at all I was good to go. If a drop of water did get on my face I quickly dried it off with the towel and then as soon as I got out I would either sanitize my face or at least rinse it off with the jumbo bottle of water that we had stationed at the sink. You can call me insane, but getting sick was the LAST thing I wanted....I was there to spend time with our girl and to enjoy Ethiopia....there was no time for getting sick!

Ok...so back to our first morning. We showered and loaded up my purse/bag with things we would need for the day and then we just sat and looked at each other. Hmmm....where's Gail? She didn't call. What should we do? If we leave the room, how would Gail get a hold of us?? We were getting hungry so we went downstairs to partake in breakfast. We finished breakfast and decided to call Gail. She told us that an AAI volunteer group was also staying at King's too and that we should get a hold of the group coordinator and plan to walk to Layla, our agency's care center, with them. So we did. I was very much looking forward to meeting Susan PD and I have to say that she's great....we just love her! We had a really great time with her and her group while we were there.

As we walked out of the front door of King's it was like entering another world....you have to remember that we arrived to Addis VERY tired, and it was dark out, because it was after 10:00 p.m. so we didn't really see much while we were driving through the city to the hotel. The doormen greeted us with a "Selam"...which means hello, and a nod. As we turned out of the gates at King's this is what we saw:

We walked this road many times, back and forth to Layla. There is much going on up and down this street and each day you are bound to see something different. There will be many beggars, including crippled or no legged men, young boys and women with babies....we even saw guys taking a leak wherever they so pleased. One time, there was a totally naked man squatting by the side of the road...thank goodness he was facing the other way! We were told, that often, the people suffering with mental illness will do this kind of thing.

There are also many people trying to earn money by selling various products like candy, books, tissues, fruit and other produce. There are also many people just going about their day.

People will just lay a blanket on the ground and then arrange the items that they want to sell on it.

This is a good view of the street filled with cars and exhaust. There are very few street names or street lights in Addis and you really have to be there to totally understand their driving system. The drivers just pull out in front of other drivers and change lanes at whim....but the kicker is, no one gets mad. All of the drivers honk...a lot....to signal to other drivers they are coming through. We had an ongoing joke about the honks, whether or not they were American honks or Ethiopian honks. Only a couple times while we were there did I feel like a honk was an American type honk. They are all pretty patient drivers and they stay very calm....even in traffic jams, and believe me, there are a lot of traffic jams! Their driving system would never work here in the states, that's for sure!

The stretch of road from our hotel to Layla didn't have any animals wandering it, besides the dogs, but on streets very near to this you might see big horned cows/bulls....

like this:

Or herds of goats...like this:

There were "wild" dogs everywhere. I asked one of our drivers and he said that people just toss out female dogs because they don't want a dog that would "create" more dogs. I asked him if they had places in Addis to take dogs to get fixed so that wouldn't happen and he just kind of looked at me sideways and said "No, not really." It was very said to see so many dogs wandering around. But that wouldn't be the saddest thing we would see during our 5 days there.

This is a picture of Kaldi's, the local coffee shop. Look familiar? Hmmm....

There was also a great restaurant above Kaldi's that we ate at a couple of times.

These are taxi type busses. The guy you see standing there will stick his head out the window of the sliding door while the bus is zooming down the road and he will yell out at people on the street, announcing where the bus is going. People just give a wave and the bus will stop to let people get on. The fare is pretty cheap. Sometimes the bus looked so jam packed full of people and someone told me that if you were to get on one of the buses you could either end up having someone sitting on your lap or you would have to sit on a lap! Yes, that's how full the bus could get! If they can fit a body, they will pick you up! Yipes! Guess that's why the fare is so cheap.

So we walked with Susan and her group and turned down a side road where Layla was located. My stomach was pretty much in knots by now, knowing that in a few short minutes we would be face to face with our little girl, although taking in all of the sights and smells really helped to take my mind off of where I was actually walking to!

This is the street that Layla is on, unfortunately we didn't get a shot of the famous blue door.

We walked into Layla and we were greeted by this:

We were then escorted into Gail's office, she greeted us and we talked with her for a few minutes and then she finally said the words we had been waiting to hear...."Let's go meet your little one." We walked into the toddler area which looks like this:

....but the toddlers were no where to be found. We turned around to go and look for them in another area of the compound and they started filing in one by one. Tihun was about the fourth child that came in and as she was walking toward us I knelt down to greet her.....but she totally ignored me! She walked right past us and into the building. Tihun turned around, yelled something in Amharic and took the belt that she was holding and smacked it down....hard. Yipes! We are in for trouble, I thought! The head nanny, Debritu came walking up and Gail introduced her to us and Debritu picked up Tihun and told her who we were. I held out my hands and she came right to me. I couldn't believe it. We were prepared for her to be standoffish and scared. She is very attached to her nannies, especially Debritu, and she is wary of strangers. But she did fine and I got to give her a few kisses before she decided that she had had enough. She wouldn't go to Todd right away but that is probably normal since there are not a lot of men around the Layla compound that interact with the littles.

She warmed up to us quickly, especially after we pulled out the fun stuff, like the photo album we brought her. ALL the kids wanted to get their hands on it and I'm pretty sure that we created mass chaos over that one! Thank goodness we just bought one of those small $2.00 albums because the album cover ended up being ripped completely off eventually, from all the grabbing that was going on. Every so often one of the kids would take the album away from Tihun and she would turn around and either sock em one or she would pull out a "grab and pinch" maneuver! There is much more violence going on there than I even imagined. We chalked it up to survival mode. It's only natural in an orphanage type setting.....sad, but that's the reality of it.

Soon after we got there, it was time for the kids to go sit on their potty seats, which they call po-po's ....not to be confused with poo-poo's! lol I had seen pics of the kids all lined up sitting there but nothing had prepared me for what I was about to witness that day. The nannies sat them all down on the po-po's around the room, but as soon as they had been sat down....they all started moving around! Yep...they are "mobile" po-po's.....just like little bumper cars!! It was hilarious...they were scooting all over the room! We have a short video of it, but wish we would have been able to get more because it was so funny!

Our first day at in Ethiopia, at Layla and with our little T couldn't have been more perfect. We got to spend a lot of time with her and also with a lot of the other kids there. They are all so sweet and I miss them all so much!

Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 1, The Journey

2010-11-27T11:18:00.000-05:00

We've been home for two weeks now and I realize that it's taken me a while to get around to posting about our trip, but I had a few obstacles in my way. Number 1, we didn't have internet at our house, so getting to a source of internet in a place where I could think was pretty much impossible. Number 2, it's really taken me this long to process everything we experienced during those 8 days. Number 3, truthfully, getting it all written down and properly documented seemed like a daunting task to me!

So here goes......we will start at the very beginning......

When I was working with the adoption travel agent, we used Susan Parr who were wonderful by the way, I was trying to decide many things, one of the things was what airline to use. One one hand you have Ethiopian Air, they fly from Washington Dulles to Rome for just a refueling and then on to Addis Ababa Ethiopia.....you get on the plane in Washington and don't get off until you land on Ethiopian soil. This is a long 15+ hour flight. On the other hand you have Lufthansa Airline who flies from many places in the U.S. to Frankfurt Germany, with various layover times, then on to Addis Ababa Ethiopia.

My thought on flights was this: A long 15 hour flight would be brutal. We flew to California once and I thought the 5+ hour flight for that was heading on torture. I don't like to even get up out of my seat to go use the restroom, but I do, of course....so I knew that I would be stuck sitting down for a VERY long time! I also thought about Todd.....he 6' 7" and leg room in economy class is non-existent for someone over 6 feet tall. As I was milling all of this over, Kathy, our agent at Susan Parr let us know that Lufthansa was actually offering cheaper flights than Ethiopian Air if we left from our local airport! I was stunned! We hardly ever fly out of our local airport because it's always more expensive. We usually drive to Detroit or Chicago and fly from there. This sold me. We wanted the convenience of flying out of and returning to our home town but never even gave it a thought because of the price we thought we would have to pay! We knew that we would be paying more to do this on our second trip because we wanted friends and family be able to meet us at the airport if they would like to. We just figured, why pay the higher cost twice, we would go the cheaper route when it was just Todd and I.

Grand Rapids MI

Our "Fun Passes" ;)

In Chicago waiting for our flight to Frankfurt.

A Lufthansa plane.

A view of the inside of our plane, fully equipped with personal video screens.

So we flew Lufthansa which was a nice airline although I have a couple of complaints. One complaint was how spacious the business and first class was....I mean ridiculously spacious. I'm thinking that they could have taken a bit of room away from the "upper class", because obviously they couldn't possibly use ALL of that space they had, and given a bit more room to the economy class. I'm sure this is how it is with all airlines though, but Todd's knees hit the back of the seats of the people in front of us! He had to place pillows in front of his knees so it didn't hurt so bad. The person in front of him couldn't even put his seat in the reclining position due to Todd's knees being in the way! Ugh.

A peek into our wonderful time in Germany....

Looks comfy, doesn't it?! Todd had a whopper of a neck ache after that little cat nap! =(

Couldn't sleep.....AT ALL. I was runnin' on adrenaline!

Our gate and doorway to our final destination.

The bus we took to our plane.

We had to board the plane like this. The Frankfurt airport was under construction in quite a few areas.

The other complaint I have with them is that they weren't very friendly. I mean, we are talking Germans here. They gave you a smile when they were talking to you but only because they were doing their job. There was no "small talk" or friendly chit chat going on at all. It was very stiff and stoic feeling. One funny thing though was that on one of our flights with them, one of the stewardesses kept talking to Todd in Dutch. He somehow was able to skillfully answer any question she asked him....ok, he thinks it was skill, but I'm not going to tell him that it was only luck. We couldn't figure out why she was speaking to him in Dutch until we were getting off the plane and Todd said something to her on the way out. She said "You're not Dutch?" "I thought you were Dutch....you look Dutch!" He laughed and said no....and they talked a bit about why we were flying and where we were going. The funny thing is Todd is actually 100% Dutch.....THAT's why she thought he looked Dutch and why she kept speaking Dutch to him! And even funnier is that Todd didn't even think to tell her this! Todd's parents and Grandparents are all 100% Dutch but have lived in the U.S. for at least a couple of generations so I don't think they really remember this on a daily basis.....none of them speak Dutch either. That stewardess probably would have liked to known that she was right after all! =)

A view of Frankfurt from the air.

We watched our progress throughout our flight. Here we are flying over Egypt.

This is the shot I got as we were over the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt.

Our trip over consisted of arriving at the GR airport 4 hours early since it was an international flight check in, flying to Chicago--1 hour flight-- and having a 4 hour layover there, flying to Frankfort Germany--7 hour flight-- and having a 6 hour layover there and then flying to Addis Ababa Ethiopia--8 hour flight. Trip one equaled approximately 30 hours! We left GR at 1:00 pm on Sunday Nov. 7 and by the time we got to Germany it was 11:30pm to us but only 6:30 Monday morning their time! We were dead tired and wanted to sleep but we had a 6 hour layover to deal with instead. =( We were so glad to finally get to Ethiopia at about 9:00 Monday night.....we were sooo ready to sleep! No melatonin needed! All I can say is that I would never do that again. I think that getting on a plane and getting over there with no wasted time is the best way to go. At least by flying straight over there you can just go to sleep if you want to. While we were sitting in Germany that's all I could think of! Sleep, precious sleep!

The sun going down over Africa...

This covers two days of our trip.....more to come about our experiences while there and some surprising news =)

Leavin On a Jet Plane.....

2010-11-06T13:48:00.002-04:00

We are now moved into our new house and almost every area is unpacked and organized. I finally hit a point where I had to stop concentrating on the "move in" and start thinking about our trip to Ethiopia! I have spent the whole week making list after list and trying to get my to-do list whittled down to the things that can wait until we get back home. At the beginning of the week, I wasn't so sure I was going to get it all done and had panic attacks over the "what ifs"! We shopped and ran errands and packed and packed and unpacked and shopped and organized and....did I mention packed and shopped??! ;)

Here are a few pics of the "finished product"......as you can see, I didn't do too bad....

Haylie's dog lillie kept trying to hide her little stuffed animal in our suitcases! For all I know, she could be hiding it in there as I'm typing this =)

For those of you who are interested...

Here is my packing list:

Clothing

*Clothing for Todd and I for 6-7 days...short sleeve shirts and long sleeve shirts to wear over them, 3-4 pairs of pants/jeans....I also included extras of everything

*2-3 pairs of shoes, flip flops for shower, dress shoes and hiking shoes

*sunglasses

*belts

*larger size bag/purse--packing it in suitcase--to use while in Ethiopia to carry our "daily" things

Basic Things

*Driver's license, flight tickets and itinerary, credit card

*passports....cash...immunization records

*adaptor to convert Ethiopia's electric to our voltage..need to charge batteries and for hair dryer etc.

*detergent and fabric softner...actually, I cheated and mixed them together!

*clothes line to hang things to dry in our room

*Amharic phrase book/printed out "most used words" translation

*Amharic learning audio on Mp3

*Camera/video camera...chargers and extra batteries...extra camera cards

*Sharpie marker

*duct tape....cut a small section of paper towel roll and wrapped some DT around it

*ALL KINDS of info printed out....from our agency, travel agency and things we wanted to remember

*list of phone numbers and email addresses

*laptop computer

*small notebook...to record thoughts, info, and sizes/observations about other AAI family's children as requested by them...a pen...list of children to take pics of for their soon to be new parents!

*books/magazines to read

*Ipods

*bubble wrap, in case we buy fragile things to bring back home

*flashlight...incase the power goes out

*extra garbage bags..dirty clothes etc.

*"Flite Mate" ear plugs....helps to reduce air pressure and prevent air travel nausea

*two 35 gal. tubs filled with stuff for our agency's care center...clothing, crafts and sports equipment

*various things to take to the care center when we go every day to do with the kids....nail polish, slime, tattoos, silly bands etc.

*things to do with our little one....special art notebook and paint pens, photo album/video of kids back home

Meds/Toiletries

*allergy meds/asthma meds

*Ginko...helps with altitude and travel

*Pepto Bismol

*Immodium AD

*Melatonin...to take the first couple of nights to help us sleep

*Airborne...powder and tablets...to ward off sickness

*Tums

*Elderberry Syrup...immunity booster

*Advil

*Hydrocortisone cream

*Benedryl cream

*antibacterial cream

*Bandaids

*"Cell Power"...from the health food store....to help with altitude sickness

*Listerine....to swish with a couple times/day and swallow a bit to kill harmful bacteria

*vitamins

*No-Jet-Lag....Homeopathic med

*Acidophilus...healthy digestion, protects against germs

*Dramamine.....for motion sickness

*T.P....many places in Ethiopia do not have it in their restrooms!

*travel size kleenex

*tweezers

*razors

*deodorant

*hair dryer

*barrette/hair ties etc.

*dental floss

*toothpaste

*extra toothbrushes...incase we forget to brush with bottled water and we need to throw our TBr away

*travel toothbrushes...for airplane, the kind with TPaste already on them

*make-up

*disposable face washing cloths

*clorox wipes to wipe EVERYTHING down, airline seats, hotel rooms, hands...

*hand sanitizer

*shampoo/conditioner

*lotion

*brush

*feminine supplies

*Chapstick

*nail clippers

*Q-tips

Snacks

*lots of protein bars

*fruit trail mix

*fruit and nut trail mix

*life savor peppermints

*chewing gum

**We didn't pack a lot of snacks because we figured that food would pretty much be available wherever we may be

We are heading to the airport tomorrow morning, planning to arrive around 9 a.m. for our 1:00 p.m. flight. Need to get there early to request bulkhead seats! Need extra leg room for Todd, and really, just want to sit on the side of the plane next to the windows instead of in the row with 4 seats.

It's still unbelievable to me that after two years of waiting, we are finally getting on that plane and meeting our new daughter for the first time! So very excited about this and also very excited to be going to Ethiopia! Can't wait to immerse myself in the culture and learn/experience as much as I can while we are there.

Leaving our little one won't be easy but we have been told that our agency has 3 embassy dates for next month.....the 1st, 15th and 29th. It's pretty unlikely that we will make the first one because after passing court, a lot of paperwork has to be finished and submitted two weeks before your embassy appointment. We may be able to make the 15th or the 29th, so we could be traveling back to get our little sweetie on one of those two dates. Preferably, I would like to have a Dec. 29th embassy date. If this would happen, we could be there to celebrate the Ethiopian Christmas holidays! THAT would be amazing! =)

Signing off for now.......next time I post, I will be posting about our trip.....and maybe sharing pics of our new little one!!!

Have a great week.....

From Old House to New House and COURT DATES...Oh My!

2010-10-27T13:28:00.001-04:00

On the 12th of October we finally got to the end of our 5 1/2 month house selling ordeal....we walked into the title company and closed on both our old house AND our new house! We started way back in April/May working feverishly to prepare our home to be put on the market. We then we moved into the "house showing" portion of the process, and to tell you the truth, I really don't know which was worse....living in a construction zone or constantly cleaning, sometimes at the last minute, to accommodate prospective buyers.

We continued to pack our boxes and prepare for our "BIG move" for the rest of that week and then on that Sunday we walked into our new house for the first time as the owners! We spent that day and all day Monday and Tuesday working in the new house cleaning and getting it ready for us to move in. After enduring three full days of dusting, washing walls, cleaning out cupboards, vacuuming, mopping...and....well, you get the picture....we were dead tired!

Then on Tuesday night I opened my computer to check my email. As I was scanning through the MANY emails, I noticed one from our agency.....my heart stopped. Could it be?! I opened it and this is what it said:

"Two court dates have been scheduled for your family: November 11^th and December 13^th. Previously, we were told that prospective adoptive parents were to appear at the second court date to consent to the adoption. Now, however, our legal representative has informed us that you can elect to appear at the first court date or the second court date.

Please let me know if your family plans to travel for the first or second court date. You are requested to arrive in Ethiopia two days before the court date and your family can depart as soon as the evening following your morning court appearance. For the first court date, that would mean arriving in Ethiopia by November 9^th and departing Ethiopia as soon as the evening of November 11^th. For the December 13^th court date, that would mean arriving in Ethiopia by December 11^th and departing as soon as the evening of December 13^th.

Once your itinerary and plans for accommodations are finalized, please send me a copy so I can notify my co-workers in Ethiopia. Attached is a travel packet that is sent to families before homecoming travel, although some of this information may also be helpful in planning your first trip to Ethiopia."

I was in shock....I just sat and read and re-read it over and over. After two years of waiting.... It seemed pretty real when we received our referral, but then you go back to waiting mode and your brain does crazy things. You have a pictures to look at... but..... "is it real"?? I don't think it fully hit me until I received this email......WE are GOING to ETHIOPIA!! We are going to meet our new daughter...face to face. We are going to be able to hug and kiss her and hold her and talk to her.....really. In 19 days!! Actually it's now 11 days....but who's counting??! Ummmm....are you kidding me....I AM!!! =)

So in the midst of packing more boxes and loading up the moving van and unloading the moving van, we made our travel arrangements, scheduled flights and booked our hotel. On October 7th we will be stepping on board a plane in Grand Rapids that will take us to Chicago and then we will be boarding a Lufthansa fight that will take us to Amsterdam and on to Addis. We will be arriving in Addis at 9:15 Monday night.....and we will get to see our baby on Tuesday morning!

It will be a long and tiring journey. 16+ hours actually on planes, and 11+ hours in airports = over 27 hours of traveling. We will pretty much be switching our "day for night" as we fly over there, so we'll be a bit messed up! We will most likely be fighting jet lag, not enough sleep, and the altitude of Addis Ababa......but it's going to be soooo worth every minute. Thank goodness it will be evening when we arrive and we will be able to go straight to our hotel room and TRY to catch up on sleep. I say try because, really, who could sleep knowing that in just a few short hours you would be with your child....the one you've waited for....for two years!

I spoke with our agency yesterday to ask about the next steps. I wondered when we might be receiving our embassy appointment.....that will be our second trip over. Normally it usually comes about 6-8 weeks after court but with the new rule where parents can attend the birth family's court date, I wondered how that would affect our embassy date. There is a good chance that we could receive an embassy appointment in December! I had given up all hope to have "T" home by Christmas.....but this will now be a possibility! The bad side to travel in December is that the month, in itself, is a very busy month and also the travel costs for flights in December can double or triple! =( So we will just have to wait and see what happens......our agency did say that we can elect to wait until January to travel over.....THAT would be a tough decision!

So here is a "Photo Story" of our last few days.....

We left this house.....

and moved to this house....

View from the deck off the back of our house, if you look closely you can see the pond through the trees...

Views of the pond....

AND.....soon we will be able to see these sights IN PERSON!

Yes.....this is our precious little girl.....well, at least part of her anyway! =)

I'm off to unpack more boxes......

Have a great week!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-10-13T23:06:00.000-04:00

There's nothing like "Puppy Love".......

Flashback Friday

2010-10-08T10:05:00.002-04:00

These are our three oldest girls who are now 18, 22 and 15! One has graduated from college and has been married for over a year now, one is graduating from high school, and one, I get to hang on to for just a little while longer. Oh, to go back to the days when they were just little kidders and I had years before they would leave home! =(

Time sure flies....

When life gets to be "so daily" you never think that these times will soon end. But, speaking as a Mom who has already "lost" one daughter from the nest and within a few short years will most likely be losing at least 2 more.....

Gotta hold on easy as I let you go.
Gonna tell you how much I love you,
Though you think you already know.
I remember I thought you looked like an angel wrapped in pink so soft and warm.
You've had me wrapped around your finger since the day you were born.

You beautiful baby from the outside in..
Chase your dreams but always know the road that'll lead you home again.
Go on, take on this whole world,
But to me, you know you'll always be.....

my little girl

~Tim McGraw

Cherish these times, even when things can be hectic, hum drum or out of control, because this time in your life will only last for a season and then it will be gone.....
Have a great day today...

Thankful Thursday!

2010-10-07T09:29:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've done a "Thankful Thursday" post and I feel like today is the perfect day to sit and meditate a bit on this.

Today I am thankful for:

1. My Hubby. The silent guy behind the scenes that not only loves me but puts up with me and my crazy ideas. I don't know if there's any moment of the day when he is not thinking about his family and scheming about the next big surprise he can give us ....or me. Nuf said about that.

2. Being able to sell our home within 2 1/2 months in a market where the average is 9 months....and for three great realtors on all sides of our buy/sell that have been so calm and willing to "do what it takes" to make these deals happen. And....for "finding" a home that is perfect for us and not only that but the price was unbelievably perfect too. There is a story behind this and it can only be explained as a "God thing".

3. Finally receiving our referral. Since the day that we accepted this referral, I have felt nothing but peace. No more waiting, wondering, scheming and trying to figure timelines etc. out.....just peace. Knowing that a little girl was waiting for us to come and get her and bring her home....knowing that we were now hers and she was ours....was the best thing to wake up to every morning through these last weeks of our house selling "adventure"! It's great to be on the other side of the adoption mountain.

4. ME having such a great support system within our online adoption community.....this has been such a blessing and so invaluable to me. I'm pretty sure I would have either gone crazy or drove Todd crazy if I would have had to travel this long wait all "alone". I have made some wonderful friends through this....friends that I'm sure I will have for years to come! Thanks guys.....you know who you are ;)

5. For my kids. They are the greatest. The last 6 months have been rough...starting back in April with the "getting the house ready to put on the market" projects and then shortly after that, the constant cleaning for showings, that....at times, we thought we would keel over from! =( They pulled together as a team and we "got er done". This is why we always got "A+ smiley faces" from any realtor that brought someone into our house!! Without your help I couldn't have done it.....you guys are the best! =) I love you so much and you make me so proud!!

There are so many more things that I am thankful for and I could go on and on. But I will stop here as these are my top 5. Instead of Thankful Thursdays...maybe we should have a "What are you thankful for today" mentality???

What are YOU thankful for today?

Wordless Wednesday

2010-10-06T14:02:00.000-04:00

A sandwich built for a man......

......But he's only 9......Help!! My grocery bill is under attack! =(

Frankenmuth MI--WillKommen

2010-10-03T12:07:00.000-04:00

WillKommen... "Welcome" in German. Meaning...Welcome to Michigan's "Little Bavaria". A place where you can enjoy horse drawn carriage rides, riverboat cruises and world famous chicken dinners! A place where it's Christmas...ALL YEAR LONG!

My wonderful hubby surprised us with a 3 day/2 night trip to Frankenmuth where we stayed at Zender's Splash Village....hotel and waterpark. It was a nice getaway that rewarded us for all the hard work that was put into getting our house ready to put on the market and also the work it took to get the house ready for many showings (and trying to keep it that way on a daily basis---not an easy task for a family of 8!)... but we were especially celebrating the fact that we sold our house!

We had a great time walking around downtown Frankenmuth, checking out all the different shops. They were having a Craft Fair that weekend so we spent some time browsing through the booths and sampling some of the different foods people had to offer.

Even though the weekend was a bit rainy, somehow we managed to avoid getting wet........outside, that is. =)

Everyone waiting for the BIG bucket of water to drop

Hana and Nathaniel riding on a double tube down the waterslide

Me diligently reading "Toddler Adoption: The Weaver's Craft" to prepare myself for our adoption. Yes, I did partake in the water park activities...but at this point, I was "water park-ed" out!

This was a good time to go do something OTHER than spend time in the water. Luckily our hotel was right next to, none other than, Bonner's CHRISTmas Wonderland! Since it was within walking distance we....well....walked...over there and on our way we stopped to enjoy the many Christmas decorations they have displayed all throughout their property.

Once inside this is what it looks like:

And this is just the beginning.....this place goes on and on and on....I could have dropped a bundle in here but I'm proud to say that I showed a lot of restraint! Still trying to pay for an adoption, ya know?

On our last day, we gave the kids some tokens and let them play in the arcade for a while. Somehow I think that they would have been just as happy to spend ALL their time in there! They were all on a "ticket getting" high and the top of the cake was that they all got to stand at the counter and pick out their prizes! Some took longer than others to choose....needless to say, the lady at the counter was VERY amused!

Right before we left for home Chloe got to meet the Zender's Chicken! Oh happy day! As you can see, she needed her big sister's help to be brave enough to even get near him! =)

A good time was had by all.....if you are in the Saginaw MI area, stop by Frankenmuth....and....just down the road from that is the Birch Run Outlet Stores. Can I hear a "Woot"!! for shopping?!!

Adoption and Life in General Update

2010-09-23T10:02:00.000-04:00

It has been exactly one month since we received our referral. Since the time when we accepted our referral, our dossier was combined with all of Amayah's legal paperwork, and our now bigger and better file started it's journey to Ethiopia's court system! We haven't heard anything from our agency since we accepted our referral but we are hoping for news on our court dates soon.

I did realize recently that if we had decided to continue to wait for a baby --(remember that the director of our agency told me that around 10 babes or so had just been taken in and it should only be another 2-4 weeks for one of them if we wanted to keep waiting??)-- we would still be waiting! They gave out one baby girl referral since our referral but that was to a family that was in front of us.... and they gave out, as of today, I believe 2 baby boy referrals. So we would have been 18 months on the waiting list!

As I think back on the decisions we had to make that day.....should we wait for that baby we had been waiting for all along or should we take this little 2 year old sweetie?? I have no regrets. We have all fallen in love with her and we just can't wait to bring her home so we can love on her! We are so thankful that we were able to find so many pictures of her in the albums in our agency's snapfish account and we are also grateful to those few families, so far, that have sent us pictures that they had of her!

We know of at least 2 families that will be traveling to Ethiopia for either their court date or their embassy appointment on the 8th of October and they have graciously offered to check on Tihun (Amayah) for us. My friend Julee has even said she would try to get some video of her!! That would be incredible! At the very least we will have new pictures and hopefully we will get her sizes so I can start planning what clothes to bring for her and what to have here at home. The very best info we will be getting though, is the information about her.....her personality and how she's doing and things like that.

As far as an update on what's going on around here.....

We have officially sold our home after only 2+ months on the market---yay!--- and we have purchased a new home that will fit our large family a bit better. This new house is quite a bit bigger and also has 7 acres and a large pond so there will be plenty of room for the kids to roam! Closing is scheduled on both houses for October 11. We will be able to start getting the new house ready to move into by the 16th and we will have to be out of this house by the 25th. So we will be moved in to our new house and hopefully pretty settled by the end of next month! I can't wait to start setting up Chloe and Amayah's bedroom and getting things all ready for her to come home! I'm so thankful that we will have the selling/buying/moving/settling process long over before we have to travel to Ethiopia! This takes a big weight and worry off my shoulders!

The director of our agency flew to Ethiopia on the 13th for a 10 day trip and she had our "Welcome Bag" for Amayah with her. She should be back in the U.S. now so I am going to be calling in to talk with her and to see if they gave it to her yet. They usually take pictures of the children receiving their welcome bags so that will be fun to see those =) Here are the contents of Amayah's bag:

Most of the things we included were things for her to share with the other children. We also put a picture that Chloe drew for her and a note to the nannies in the bag as well.

While I have our agency on the phone I am going to try to find out when our court date will be. We were told when we accepted our referral that we should know something by the middle of this month. Nothing. The only thing we do know is that some families that accepted referrals in July just recently got court dates at the end of November so that tells me that our court date won't be until December some time and then our embassy appointment and bringing her home probably won't be until late January or early February! =( I have a feeling that she will be close to 3 years old by the time we get her home!

Further updates to come soon......gotta go get packing!! =)

Have a great day!

Sunday Song--Meant To Be

2010-09-19T21:18:00.002-04:00

Big Idea is partnering with Show Hope, an orphan care and adoption aid organization founded by Steven Curtis Chapman and wife Mary Beth, in order to raise awareness about opportunities to care for orphans and to help provide more orphan children with forever families through Show Hope’s Adoption Aid program. The Chapman’s adopted daughter, Stevey Joy, voices the character of “Emma the Rhubarb,” the adopted daughter of Stewart, played by “Larry the Cucumber,” in It’s a Meaningful Life.

I'm so excited about this new Veggie Tales movie.....it becomes available on Oct. 5th, I can't wait to buy it! This is such a great way to spread the joy of adoption to families who may never even consider it. I also love how it directly speaks to children....helping them to learn about adoption and the feelings associated with it. Thank you Steven C Chapman and Big Idea....this is a wonderful thing! =)

Our Life Since Referral

2010-09-10T11:40:00.001-04:00

It's been 2 weeks since we officially accepted our referral of "Tihun"---pronounced Tee Hoo Na. Her nickname at our agency's the care center is Toonies. We are planning to give her the name Amayah and we will keep her Ethiopian name as a middle name to honor her birth Mother. We want her to have as much of her history and heritage as possible.

It has been a whirlwind of activity and emotions since the day that we finally got to see our daughter's precious face. We have gone over her paperwork and medical files and officially accepted her referral. We have filled out her acceptance paperwork and sent in the first half of our last payment to our agency. We have also had the joy of finally being able to shop for her, now that we know her age and size....this has been great therapy! We carefully picked out items to include in her "welcome" bag. We found a printer who could quickly print up a special t-shirt for her that had 3 pictures on the front...one of her new sisters, one of her new brothers and one right in between with Todd and I. On the front of the shirt it says Tihun's Family and on the back it says "I Am Loved".

We are anxiously awaiting to hear when our court/travel dates will be! We are hoping that we can get dates early in November so that there will still be a chance to have her home by Christmas, but more realistically, we will probably get a late November/early December court date and then not be able to bring her home until January some time. But to me, that's ok....I'm just glad to be on the other side of the mountain.....the waiting, the constant changes and the ever present "things unknown" are things I definitely don't mind leaving behind! But who am I kidding?? We will still have to face all of these things on this side of the mountain so I guess what I mean is that I am just glad to finally be able to know who it is that we are waiting for.....this is making things so much easier for me.

Along with all of the referral excitement we have still been having people schedule appointments to see our home.....we have had at least two showings since getting our referral. I am happy to say that, barring any unforeseen events, we have sold our home! We just accepted an offer last night and we will be singing the official paperwork on it today! Tomorrow we will go out and see more homes and hopefully within the next week--or two--we will have made the decision as to where we will soon be living.

So right now we are:
*Trying to patiently wait to hear about court dates
*Getting school work going for this year
*Looking for a new home
*Buying more boxes and starting to pack the rest of our stuff for our BIG move
*Shopping and more shopping for our new little blessing
*Organizing our trip details and what we will need to bring for us and Amayah

And.....

*Starting the sewing projects for Chloe and Amayah which are matching quilts and a couple matching dresses for them.

Whew!

Quoting from Bob the Builder ........"Can we do it?! YES we can!!" .......and The Little Engine that Could......"I think I can, I think I can"......

Maybe I should just stick with "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"!! =) Yeah...that's better.

Oh boy.....

Blessings on your day....

Can you hear them?

2010-09-01T17:05:00.000-04:00

There are so many children all around the world, praying for a family to call their own. They are waiting and hoping for someone to "hear" their small voice and to realize that they are missing "a little someone" in their lives. Can you hear them? I know I can........and it breaks my heart.

No More Numbers....In Other Words, The Stork Has Landed =)

2010-08-27T20:41:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that we received "The Call" on Tuesday afternoon and of course it was just as I was on my way out the door to go to an appointment! It's so true that you only hear the first few words of the phone conversation and then you lose your ability to think! So much was running through my mind as I was hearing only bits and pieces of what the director of our agency had to say. She started the conversation off by saying "I have a little girl that I'd like to talk to you about, but first I need to tell you two things." "One, is that I realize that she is out of your age range just a little bit, and two, if you really think that you would like to continue to wait for a baby, I wouldn't open her file because she is precious!"

We were very much surprised that we were offered this little one because we had just recently updated our homestudy and also updated what our official request would be. We are actually approved for 2 children up to age 4 but we specified that at least one child was to be a girl under 2, preferably under 12 months. It could have only been God guiding the director of our agency to call us about a 2 1/2 year old girl! She knew that we may not want to accept a referral for an "older" child so she let us know that they recently had babies come in to care and it wouldn't be long at all before they would be ready to refer. The warning not to look at T's file if I was sure that we wanted to continue to wait for a baby was totally accurate....the "precious factor" is definitely running through her veins! =)

I promised Todd that when we got "The Call" I would wait until he got home from work so we could open the file together. Can I just say it was a long 4 hours?!!! So many things went through my mind as I tried to prepare myself. I really felt like we were supposed to be adding a baby to our family and a 2 1/2 year old was a bit far off from what we had all been expecting! I had a speech all prepared for Todd about how I really believed that we should stick with a baby because that is what we had decided on when we were in our "sane minds" at the beginning of our process. ;) He listened and then calmly told me not to open the file, if that's the way I felt.

"WHAT!!" I said. "Are you kidding me?" "I can't NOT open it!!!" =(

So we all stood there looking at each other. Me looking at him, him looking at me, me looking at the kids, them all looking at us just waiting for the decision to be made. Finally I couldn't take it anymore so I dove for the computer and clicked on the email from our agency. Everyone else jumped after me and we all crowded around the computer. We took one look and agreed.....precious for sure. We read over her file and then we all just looked at each other like...."whadda we do now?"

I'm pretty sure that everyone else was convinced but they were all waiting for me to make the decision. I went into "deliberation mode" with myself, and for what seemed like forever, struggled over the pros and cons......bottles and diapers vs feeding herself and potty trained......waking through the night vs sleeping all night.....and so on. I'm not quite sure why I was holding so tightly to "the baby plan" that my mind had fabricated but I finally was able to look at things logically and let go of what I felt I wanted, so that I could let God speak to my heart. As soon as I let go, the love for T started flowing in! She won me over and I can't even imagine adding a baby to our family now. She is like the missing puzzle piece.....and she fits perfectly!

We are overjoyed to be in the "nesting stage" where we will begin to prepare a place for "T" here in our home and also begin to make plans for our travel to Ethiopia to meet her!

All I have to say is......"Let the shopping commence!!" =) Oh, I have longed for this day!

We can't post a picture of her until she is legally ours but if you ever run into me anywhere, you better believe that I will have a picture with me....and before you can even ask to see it I will already have it out showing you! =)

Have a great weekend....I know we will!

End of the Summer Trip

2010-08-24T12:10:00.002-04:00

We headed north last week for a camping trip with family that had been planned since sometime early this spring. This is just the start of the pile of stuff we loaded into "Snow White"-- our 15 passenger van. If you look carefully, you can see Chloe. She was ready to go WAY before the rest of us were! She was just making sure that we weren't going to forget her!

The plan was to drive the 5 hours to my Mom's house first, to get all of our camping gear and campers ready to rock and roll. From there we would drive the 45 minutes or so to Tahquamenon Falls, near Paradise MI.......... But on the way up, we stopped at Sea Shell City.

Ok, so funny story.... When I was in 4th grade we moved from lower Michigan to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. At least once or twice a year we would travel down state to visit relatives etc.... and we would pass Sea Shell City. It's a crazy place...a tourist trap right off the highway and they sell sea shells and various other stuff from the ocean, t-shirts, jewelry, fudge--of course and JUNK. I still have no clue why they sell ocean type stuff when they are no where near the ocean!!?? As a matter of fact, they aren't very close to the Great Lakes either?? Um, yeah. Anyway...
So, I would always beg my Dad to stop there so we could see the "Giant Man Eating Clam" but my Dad never caved, so sadly, I grew up never having the privilege of partaking in their "Sea Shell Wonders." So after Todd and I got married, he took me there! It's nothing special, just like I said, sea shells in the middle of nowhere but each time we are heading home from my Mom's we stop there...it's a tradition now. The kids love it, of course....and I don't mind eating the fudge! ;) The funny thing is, my Mom has still never been there! After all these years and all the times she has passed by there. One of these days I'm gonna have to take her there.....

The boys were able to take an early morning fishing trip with their Dad and Uncle PJ while the girls were helping around Grandma's house taking care of the last details for our camping trip. As you can see, they found a "sweet spot" and were able to haul in quite a catch and we all got to have a little snack of fresh fried fish before we left for camp! Yum!

We went to the Blueberry Festival in Paradise MI and then headed up to Whitefish Point to see the lighthouse and to take some pics on the beach. It was raining when we got there but cleared up just in time for us to take the pics and let the kids have some fun.

We camped at Tahquamenon Falls State Park, the lower falls campground. We drove to the Upper Falls and also hiked the mile from our campground to the Lower Falls. We rented a boat and rowed it over to the island at the Lower Falls. Nine of us in one boat....we thought we were either going to tip over or sink....thankfully, as you can see, we survived without any accidents! We walked around the island, played in the falls a bit and took lots of pictures.

S'more making was great fun. We make gourmet s'mores in our family and some of us take this process very seriously! We usually have --regular, strawberry and coconut marshmallows---peanut butter cups and Hershey's chocolate bars----fudge striped cookies, graham crackers and various other cookies---all on hand to satisfy even the pickiest s'more maker!

Want one?

Wishing you a SA WEET day!

A Surprise For Nathaniel

2010-08-17T19:21:00.000-04:00

Our son Nathaniel discovered his love of the piano a couple of years ago. Well, it wasn't actually a piano, it was a keyboard and it didn't have 88 keys, but he loved it anyway. He is obsessed with learning to play it. He has actually taught himself many songs on this little keyboard by going on YouTube to the piano teaching videos. He will sit downstairs for hours teaching himself to play and practicing what he has learned. He has been dreaming of and begging for a real piano almost constantly for that last year or so. He haunts Amazon and Ebay and any other sight that sells them. I get emails from him about pianos and 88 key keyboards and he is constantly informing me all about the latest one he's found and how different this one is and how if we were to buy one, it would need this certain feature.

We used to have an old upright piano, an antique actually. This piano was in my Great Grandma's house when my family moved up there when I was in 4th grade. I took lessons and played on it and so did my sister....I will admit that she did way better than I ever did though. Anyway, when our oldest daughter was somewhere around 10 she really wanted to learn to play the piano, so my Grandpa paid to have that great big old antique piano sent to our house...over 300 miles away!

Our two oldest girls took lessons for years and practiced on that piano. We had to get it tuned all the time and finally we were told by the piano tuner that all of the hammers needed to be replaced...basically all the inside parts...and it was going to cost close to $2,000 to have the work done! When we moved back to the other side of the state we brought it with us since we were still struggling with what we should do about the repairs it needed. How do you justify spending that much money when you could get a brand new one or a used one for that much or less? But it's an antique, I would tell myself. How can you just throw out a piece of history...a piece of our family's history? Well, after talking with my Mom and in much despair, we did finally have to do away with it.....my only consolation was that we would eventually get another piano.

Well, things come up and money has to be used for other things and a piano is something that can wait so we just never bought another one....until now. Today a big surprise came rolling up our driveway. Someone that works with my husband put in an ad in their company newsletter, trying to sell their piano. My hubby, knowing how much his son was dying to have a piano of his own, made arrangements for our family to be the new owners of this little beauty:

We blindfolded Nathaniel's eyes and then at the right moment revealed the "big surprise!" His reaction wasn't quite what I thought it would be....on the outside, that is.....on the inside I knew he was totally in shock and awe! He tends to have the stoic type personality that his oldest sister has, emotion, what's that? lol.... They must have inherited it from their father, because anyone that knows me will tell you I tend to be a bit excitable. =) Queen of the rollercoaster, yep, that's me.

Anyway.....here's his reaction:

This...

And this......

And also this......

Um....ok, not really......

It was a very heavy little piano but we put it in an ice fishing shed, pulled it around to the back of our house, down the hill and then carried it into our family room. I would like to say that no arguments broke out as to who would try it out first and that there were no meltdowns from certain children, who shall remain nameless......in a perfect world maybe. But I can say that these type of things only lasted a mere minutes and then all was well and everything was back to a state of normal that is normal for our house!! ;) Know what I'm sayin'?

Have a wonderful, music filled night.....

Families Needed Urgently

2010-08-16T09:35:00.003-04:00

Adoption Advocates International is seeking experienced families who have up to date homestudies that would be willing to consider adding one or two girls to their family. For the first time since Layla House Ethiopia opened its doors, children who were promised families may not get them. AAI has 4 girls that are about to "age out" of the orphanage because of changes in Ethiopian law.

*Real names not used in descriptions

Mescrem A is 15. She is active and outgoing and loves playing soccer and ping pong. She wants to remember always her original family as well as the country she came from and hope to one day find a husband who is a "good man." While Mescrem admits she sometimes has a short temper, she also says that, "when there is love, there is everything."

Konjit A is 14. She would like to become a dentist some day. She is very neat and organized and describes herself as reserved. She hopes to return to Layla House and adopt a child from there. Her best memory is of getting to see her Mother after three months to say good bye to her before she died. Konjit means "Promise" in the language of Ethiopia.

Freyewat and Konjit T are sisters ages 14 and 15. While Konjit loves to sing and wants to record her own album of love songs some day, Freyewat is more interested in playing soccer and other sports. Freyewat remembers many funny stories of their original family like hiding porridge under the bed and her father trying to test to see if they had eaten sugar. Konjit's fondest memory, however, is a year she spent at her brother's house being cared for after an illness. Both of these girls are popular in the compound at Layla and both are interested in returning some day to build homes for the homeless in Ethiopia.

For more information call Adoption Advocates International at (360) 452-4777 and ask to speak to Gay or Linda. Please pass this information on to anyone who might have an open heart and room in their home.

Blessings....

Meet Tesfaye

2010-08-15T18:55:00.006-04:00

A few posts ago I added a video from Ordinary Hero about an organization called Project 61. Project 61 helps children who live near, and spend their days at, the Korah landfill near Addis Ababa Ethiopia. They, with the help of sponsors like you and I, take a child that is living on the streets and foraging for food in the landfill and give them fresh clothing and send them to a boarding school in a nearby town. These children are then able to gain an education and also live somewhere where they are safe and will be fed 3 meals a day.

$700 a year is all it takes to pay for the school tuition, pay for your child to live in the dorm and also for his bedding, buy his books, school uniform, 3 meals a day, hygiene items and transportation to and from the school and the village of Korah. All money goes directly for your child's expenses.

After watching the video and learning about Korah and the people who live there, ours hearts were broken for these children. We decided to contact Project 61 and tell them that we would like to be a sponsor for one of Korah's children.

This is our child. His name is Tesfaye, he is 15 years old and in the 5th grade. That's about all we know about him right now but we will be receiving more information within the next few months. Now that we are sponsoring him, he will be eligible to board the bus on September 12 and go off to school with about 249 other children from the Korah dump.

We are so excited to be a part of this program! We are hoping to be able to meet Tesfaye on our first trip to Ethiopia this coming fall. We will go to Korah and also spend time with the people that are running Project 61. We will also be visiting Bright Hope school, which is a school run by Great Hope Church, a partner church of Thompson Station Church in Tennessee. This is the church where Project 61 is based. We will be spending time with the kids and bringing them some of the supplies that we have been collecting since the beginning of our adoption process. This is a school for about 65 of the children that live in Korah.

This is a short video that shows a bit more about Korah and the people who live there:

More sponsors are still needed. Right now things are down to the wire because it's almost time for the children to leave to go back to school. We are praying that all of the 250 slots that are available at the school will be filled for this coming school year.

Project 61---blog
Project 61 --website

Here is Erin's blog. She is the coordinator of the sponsorship program. She has a post on her blog about her experiences with the child she sponsors, to give you a glimpse of how these children react to the love that they feel when someone cares enough about them to say "I will sponsor you, you are important, I believe in you".
http://thebestofallenworld.blogspot.com/2010/06/habtame.html

Would you consider helping one of Korah's children by giving them a chance at a future other than digging through the garbage every day?

Where did you get your dinner from tonight?

Adoption Update

2010-08-13T09:57:00.000-04:00

Recently, while talking with the social worker at our agency, I got confirmation that we were indeed #2 on the list. We have never gotten a definite confirmation as to what number we were, up until now. Many times we thought we were a certain number just to have a mystery family appear or a family get added back in line because their process that was on hold, came off hold. But we are #2 and quite possibly #1. I don't know if we will even know when the family ahead of us gets a referral, after all, we didn't even know they existed until recently. They may be a family that doesn't participate in the agency's online forum group, if that's the case, there will be no announcement of referral given and accepted.

Last week, a baby boy referral was given.....this folks, is after over 7 months without a baby boy referral going out. Now, I'm talking about referrals that help the baby boy list keep moving. There possibly were a certain number of baby boys referred that had to go to families that needed a new referral because their first referred child couldn't become paper ready. But you can bet that the "boy list" families were celebrating to see the list moving a bit!

So far this week, only a family that is adopting a waiting sibling set of 4 has made a referral acceptance announcement. But we did recently learn that the baby boy that was just referred is from an orphanage that is new to our agency. This little one was only the 4th child placed from there through our agency. Also, we have heard that there is a possibility that our agency has another new orphanage that they will begin working with! This means that things should start picking up in the referral department and also means that some children who need homes will be making their way to their new families!

We also recently spoke with our social worker here and discussed our options for changing what our child request is currently set at. We are having to update our homestudy right now so it's a perfect time to make any changes that we feel are necessary. So after talking with her, Todd and I had a discussion as to what direction we should head in with this and what may be best for our family. So we have officially changed our request for what age/gender child we would feel comfortable adding to our family.

Our new request goes something like this:

1-2 children with at least one child being a girl up to 2 years old. Will accept a sibling up to 4 years old, either gender.

So we really didn't change our original request, we just added to it. I feel really good about this. So it will be a surprise as to whether we will be blessed with one, or two, children! After we made this decision to continue to wait for a baby but to add the possibility of a sibling, I almost felt like we were starting from the beginning again. Not in a bad way, in a good way. I felt like all of those months and months of waiting had just faded away and as I looked to the possible wait we had left, it seemed so easy. I mean, what's another month, or two......even a bit longer seemed like nothing compared to knowing that when we finally get to see that precious little face....or faces....we will know in an instant that this is our child/children and the waiting will have been so worth it!

So will it be......One.......or.......Two? That is the question!

Long story short, I am in a good place right now. The bottomless pit that I was in a couple of weeks ago is but a mere memory. I have been refreshed and renewed.....life is good!

I am now looking toward the coming weekend. We have an Open House scheduled for our home on Sunday and we have only two more days to prepare! It would be an answer to prayer if we were to find a buyer for our house through this! If we were able to sell now, we would still have time to get moved into a new home and settled before having to travel to Ethiopia for the first time.....this would be wonderful!

Have a great weekend.......

Summer Picnic

2010-08-10T10:50:00.001-04:00

This past Friday was my husband's company picnic. The kids all really look forward to it....they literally count down the days to it as soon as summer starts. This year was Hana's first year experiencing the "kid wonderland" that it is. It was held again this year at John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids and from the time you get there you can enjoy all the zoo has to offer and also partake in carmel, cheese and regular pop-corn, cotton candy, pop, ice cream -- all free....and of course there is dinner. They serve a wonderful summertime meal of hot dogs/brats, chicken, rolls, salads, baked beans and there is also a table filled with all kinds of fruits.

Padnos always hold some type of fundraiser leading up to the picnic and this year they choose the "Barry County Child Abuse Fund" to be the benefactors, raising over $1,000 for them! There were several company employees that were picked to be in the running for the chosen "picnic torture" of the year. One of these employees was my hubby. The scoop is, people were to donate money under the name of the person they would most like to see have to endure this "torture". The race was a close one but my hubby had a few tricks up his sleeve---including prayer--to try to make sure that HE was NOT the one in the spotlight! In the end, a generous benefactor stepped up at the last minute (no, it wasn't my husband) and pushed the totals over the top for one certain employee---thankfully, not my husband. Although, our children would have loved to watch him endure the humiliation. =)

My hubby still had to "do time" and was put in jail for a while, but at least he didn't have to endure the ultimate pain of having to sing "Jailhouse Rock" in front of all of the company employees and their families!

So here are a few pics from our time at the Padnos Company picnic of 2010.......

Cotton candy...Yum!

Hannah, Haylie, Nathaniel, Hana, Jake in front

Nathaniel, Hana and Jake braving the "High Ropes" course.

Todd sharing a jail cell with the one and only Elvis! You thought he was dead, didn't you?! ;)

Jail break!

Todd and Hana.

We tried to get Chloe to give her Dad a hug but she started freaking out and wouldn't go anywhere near him! Guess she doesn't like to see her Dad in jail??!

This is the lucky employee that was chosen to share his vocal talents with the whole company. I have to say that he did pretty well and even seemed to enjoy himself at least a little bit.

Have a great day.....

Ordinary Hero....A Day at the Dump

2010-08-08T22:12:00.001-04:00

I was going to post about our weekend and give a bit of an adoption update until this came across my Facebook. I watched, and it brought me to tears. So many times I have wished that we could sell everything and moved to Ethiopia, and once again the feeling swept over me. They have so little and are still so happy.....we have much, and....well, are unhappy and still want more....what can I say? I cannot wait until I am fully immersed in Ethiopian culture and society, I just want to soak it all in.

I'll post about our weekend and tell you all what's going on in "Adoption Land" very soon. Watch the video....hopefully it will stir something deep within you.........

Double click on it to view full screen mode.

Peace....

Still Here.....

2010-08-02T11:17:00.002-04:00

Yep....still here. I have been trying really hard to figure out how to go about this post. Times have been tough, for sure. #1 is not all it's cracked up to be.....actually, numbers don't really mean much....and the number system....well, there is no system...really. So many times we've thought that we were a certain number and then something happens to knock us right off the spot we thought we were on. Things like, families that were on hold for one reason or another, coming off hold and popping in line ahead of us. Then there is that elusive "mystery" family that no one knows about that seems to just appear out of no where....and guess what?? Yep, you guessed it, they end up in front of you too. We have seen families that already had their referral, sometimes for months, be asked to give up that referral (due to paperwork issues not being able to be resolved) and receive a new one. These families, of course, get placed in front of you too. (This is so heartbreaking for the families that have to go through this and I am not begrudging them for needing a new referral)

For the most part we have taken the ups and downs of this "roller coaster like" process in stride. Yes, there have been times where we have felt frustrated or impatient but for the most part it's been easy enough to move forward, keep busy and look to the future. But last week I think I hit rock bottom. I'm better now, but this time things threw me for a loop! Just in the last two weeks so much has happened, so many changes within our process that it got a bit overwhelming for me. Remember that certain something that I couldn't say anything about? Well, it was about the possibility of us being blessed with twins, but we found out that this was no longer a possibility. When you take that news and add it to all of the things from the paragraph above and THEN the reality hit as to how close we actually are to the top of the list! We are so close to the top, that as of last week, there have been two families that have gotten referrals with DTE's that were after us....one was a month after us. Yes, they had requested ages and situations different than ours but it was still hard to know that we were skipped over. My brain knew and accepted the facts, but it took a little more time to get my heart back to where it should be. I was happy for the two families but I was so frustrated with the whole process. When we started this journey it was taking 6 months to receive a referral.....it's now been over 16 months on the list. We were hoping that we would have our little one home by last Christmas and now it looks like there is a chance that she might not even be home by this coming Christmas! Don't get me wrong, I am not wishing for a child to become an orphan just so we can have a child, I have always had the attitude that "I am willing to take a child, when a child needs a Mom".....it's just that this process has been so long and the wait so uncertain. It would be so much easier if we could be told a time frame, see ourselves move up on a list and have the process be over just as it was stated it would be. But it's just not that way.....only in a perfect world.... So we continue to wait, sometimes with a little more grace and patience than other times. We have faith that God is in control and He knows our child and He will bring us to her within His timing.

I have such a great husband, he realized how distraught I was becoming with this process so he orchestrated a weekend of fun to help keep my mind off things for a while. On Saturday we went bowling and got a tasty ice cream treat and then on Sunday afternoon we headed north, rented canoes and spent the day on the river! Fun stuff.....great weekend.....I am now refreshed and ready to endure yet another week of waiting.

Saturday at the bowling alley....

Nathaniel, Todd and Hannah watching Jake and Hana take their turns. Chloe studying the balls, choosing her new favorite one...pausing to watch Jake and Hana too.

Jake and Hana

Hannah bowling backwards

Chloe choosing her ball

Nathaniel and Chloe

Chloe trying out different bowling techniques

Yummy ice cream

Sunday

Hana....just got splashed by Hannah.....she actually looks happy about it, doesn't she?

Jake. King of the rock.

Me, Haylie and Chloe. Haylie looks a bit grossed out with what Chloe is doing.

I was laying down in the canoe, resting my head on the back of it and pretending to be Anne of Green Gables, and my sunglasses fell off my head and into the water! Hannah jumped out of the canoe and went back up stream and found them for me. =) Thank goodness that the water was only about 1-4 feet deep, for most of the trip!

A baby snapper Haylie found.

Someone's property. They carved "Rest, Dream, Pray" on a bench near the river's edge. So peaceful...

Thanks Honey, you're the best! <3

Have a great day!
Wendy

Sunday Song--God Is Not a White Man

2010-07-25T09:39:00.002-04:00

“If leading worship is just about bringing a group of people into a room so we can get goosebumps and sing songs together, there’s not much value in that. But if leading worship is a means to an end, that we leave this place as a different kind of people, as part of a new humanity that God wants to create – the people that are caring for the widows and orphans, that aren’t bound by the systems of this world but becoming free, becoming fully engaged in our world – then that matters.” ~~Michael Gungor

My Sunday Song today is by "The Michael Gungor Band"....now known only as "Gungor". Gungor, who is perhaps best known for co-writing distinguished songs like “Friend of God” and the Dove Award-winning “Say So.

”Michael Gungor began leading worship when he was 12 years old....for 2 and 3 year olds. From there he graduated to children’s church, then youth group, then adults. Gungor studied jazz in college, then connected with teen ministry Acquire the Fire and a position at Resurrection Life Church in Michigan.

Res life church is a mega church here where we live. We don't attend there but we have many friends that do. I used to turn on the TV on Sunday mornings and watch and listen to Michael lead the worship team before the service. A friend of ours was in the choir and it was fun to see her on TV. But I LOVED watching Michael! There was something about him....I just love his music!

Here is the song "White Man" from his album "Ancient Skies". If you like this, there are many other songs where this came from. He also has a new album called "Beautiful Things".

"Most of the music is not directly about caring for the poor and ministering to widows and orphans. Instead, much of the album addresses the spiritual journey and the understanding of God that happens when we do these acts. Like many before him, Gungor has had to fight off feelings of disillusionment when he’s tried to love the unlovable and gotten no love in return".

“Sometimes it feels like the love just turns to dust,” Gungor admits. This album is an expression of hope that God will make beautiful things out of the dust in our lives, that God will somehow use us, use our obedience and love, our feeble human effort, and build Himself a kingdom.” ~~M. Gungor

--Parts of this post borrowed from Gungor .........

ENJOY! and.....
Have a great Sunday!

Wendy

Adoption Update....again....

2010-07-20T21:11:00.003-04:00

It was two weeks ago today that I spoke with the director of our agency about our place in line and what might possibly be in store for our family. She told me that she had some paperwork ready for several children and that she would be making referrals soon.

Well, she did. She actually contacted 9 families that we know of and 2 or 3 have officially announced their acceptance of a referral.

We have since discovered that most of the referrals were for children that were a bit older, so these referrals didn't help to shorten the wait very much for those that are on the list for infants up to 3 years old....for those on the boy list especially. We do know that 2 girl referrals were given out so, thankfully, that moved us up the list. We have also heard that things are moving pretty good now and that they are continually receiving the final paperwork on children so they can be offered for referral to families.

It has been pretty hard to keep our minds off the possibility of getting a phone call at any minute over here! To tell you the truth, two weeks ago I really thought we would know something by now....remember that thing I couldn't tell you about? Well, I was hoping to hear something about that but all has been silent on that front too. =( So, we sit and wait.....and wait and wait and wait. I know it will all be worth it in the end and that the memory of this waiting will just fade into oblivion at the sight of our new little one.....but can I just say that this waiting part is getting really, really old?

So what are we doing over here to pass the time and to help us forget about all of this waiting?

Well........

How does a burping contest sound? Tonight we had a burping contest with our macaw. Yes, our bird can burp. I'm not sure which he enjoyed more, everyone standing around burping with him or all of the kisses he was getting from Jake and I. Um....yeah....the bird wanted the kisses....and how can you refuse a really cute bird with a really loud burp? ;) Just look at that face.....

There's still three days left in this week....that means three days that we still could get "The Call". You won't find us sitting around the telephone though...... What's next on our agenda? Anyone up for a rousing game of "Hide and Seek" with our dogs?? .....Or how about a fierce "Birdy Ball" competition? It's kind of like badminton but it's without a net and it's pretty much a dangerous free for all! We could liven things up a bit and turn on the sprinkler.....now that would be fun....

Yeah...it's all about excitement over here ;)

We are hoping and praying that we will have something to share very soon. So here's to three more days left in the week.....maybe one of them will be "our day".......
Wendy

Sunday Song--Better Than A Hallelujah

2010-07-18T09:50:00.000-04:00

What Time Is It Mr. Fox?!

2010-07-15T22:38:00.000-04:00

It's Blueberry time, of course! =)

The opening day at the blueberry farm that we always go to was this past Tuesday. We decided to venture out there today to pick our first berries of the season. We were missing 3 of our pickers from last year's picking expedition so we didn't know how well we would end up doing. Our oldest daughter Liz moved to Indiana and both of our boys have been at her house for the past two weeks.

Let me just say that when we left home it didn't feel too hot to go picking, after all, it was still only about 10:30 am. We got out there and when we stepped out of the car we felt the heat swoop down on us like a giant bird....ugh...it was pretty hot there at the berry farm. We walked over to get our buckets and one of the workers told us to follow her and she would take us to the spot where we would be picking. We walked around the corner and a giant breeze caught us off guard....it was wonderful! Yay, we thought, this won't be so bad after all!

Ummm....I think we thought too soon....

It was sooo hot out there and no breeze. The breeze decided to only be along one side of the blueberry field....the side that was not our side. =( Let me say this again....sunny, hot and humid...no breeze. Chloe picked about 2 berries before the whining started. Usually we can at least get her to just stand there and eat them and not worry about trying to fill up her bucket, but we couldn't even get her to do that. It was pretty brutal out there....it was about 87 degrees but it felt more like 98----so says the National Weather Service. Can I just say...."what were we thinking anyway"??? I sweated like I've never sweated before..... we were all soaking wet by the time we were done...ugh.

Here are some pics of our "Hotter Than Hades" adventure of the day:

Just starting out....not doing too bad yet but she looks a little worried about how hot is actually is out there!

Hannah picking diligently.

Hannah picking, Chloe supervising.....she's starting to slip down hill.....

Uh oh....here we go....

Fight through the heat girls....you can do it.....just think of the cold air conditioning in the car on the way back home! =)

This picture skillfully hides all of the sweat that's dripping down every inch of me.

Hana....starting to look a bit dead.....we are almost done....

Chloe starting to look a bit "green under the gills". =(

Just incase you were wondering.....we did survive. ;) We lasted about 45 minutes and the 4 of us picked almost 30 pounds of berries! We are planning on heading back out there on Monday or Tuesday....hoping with all hope that we get a cold front Sunday night!

May your bowls be full of great big blueberries and your oven be full of blueberry pie! Yum...yum =)
Wendy

Chicken Update

2010-07-15T09:43:00.000-04:00

This is for anyone that read my post from last night and was a little bit concerned about our poor chicken who was a victim of circumstance......dogs just wanna have fun, right? Oy!

No, I do not encourage my dogs to attack our chickens. As a matter of fact the scene in this house when someone hears a chicken squawking is very much akin to mass chaos. Everyone in the house drops what they are doing and immediately flies out the nearest door to go help the latest victim. This doesn't happen frequently, thank goodness, and usually we can get out there in time and the chicken only ends up losing a few feathers and maybe her dignity. Last night was an exception and due to the air conditioning running--we couldn't hear what was going on outside very well, we didn't get out there in time to save the chicken from acquiring a bit more trauma than usual.

BUT I am happy to say that MacGyver truly did come through for us! The duct tape has seemed to work so far and our near death chicken is now walking around and eating her breakfast.....although, a bit embarrassed by the lovely gray horn type thing that is protruding from the back of her neck! Poor wittle chicky.....

Wishing you a very uneventful day filled with no traumas....but if you do end up having a bit of trauma....remember, Duct Tape saves lives! =)

Wendy

Duct tape...It's a Marvelous Thing.....

2010-07-14T21:12:00.001-04:00

This story is not for the faint of heart.....it contains some gross stuff ...

Today one of our chickens had an....er....um....accident. Ok so to be honest, it was actually one of our dogs that caused her "accident". See, we have a mini Aussie that seems to be having some mental stability issues. Like for instance, she likes rocks. Yep, kinda crazy. You can't even bend down to pick up something off the ground without her freaking out and trying to attack your hand. She thinks you are picking up a rock to throw it for her. Try pulling weeds around here....doesn't go so well when she's around. Snow shoveling is pretty much in that same category. She also tends to go off the deep end if she sees those little spots of reflected light dancing around the room.....you know, like something that one of those laser pointers, or even a flashlight, would make.

Here's a couple of pics to illustrate my point:

Does she actually think she's gonna be able to fit this one in her mouth?

Will she have any teeth left one day?

Here she is standing at our front door waiting for someone to open it so she can sneek in with her rock.

Guess the common denominator here is the fact that she lives for the chase! So, add that to the fact that we have a flock of chickens in our backyard.....this tends to cause problems every so often. We have a very large fenced in area for the chickens but sometimes we have an AWOL chicken or two.

Back to the story....yes, I'm getting to the duct tape part......

So I get home from the store and as we are carrying the groceries in, the dogs get out. I don't think too much of it because I knew that they probably had to go out and do "their business". BUT I forgot that they were out there since I went right to the task of putting the groceries away. Well....

I heard a very faint squawking coming from the backyard and I immediately knew what was going on! I ran out there, and all the way on the other side of the chicken pen I see Mocha joyfully ripping the feathers off the neck of a chicken that she had cornered and pinned down. I ran all the way across the yard, scaled the heights of an old futon mattress that we had stood along side of the chicken coop (we are disposing of it and didn't want it in the house for our last house showing), hurdled one of our old garbage cans, braved the blackberry bushes at the back of the coop, and did an "almost" army crawl for 10 feet. I arrived at the scene of the crime and Mocha just backed up a bit and stared at me, with a look that seemed to say "this was great fun". The poor chicken lay there looking half dead. I carefully picked her up and accessed the damage. She had some missing feathers--obviously--since I saw them flying up in the air not just a minute ago. AND as I looked closer I found that she had a cut in her skin from the top her head all the way down to the bottom of her neck! It kinda reminded me of the chicken you buy at the store....you could see all of her muscles and her skin seemed to be sliding right off her neck! UGH....can I just say "NOT pretty?!"

So. I think to myself. What to do about a chicken who's whole entire neck bone and scull could just... pop out ....at .....any ......second! YES! You think like MacGyver! DUCT TAPE to the rescue! Soooo, here's how you can save a chicken's life with duct tape....just in case you ever need to know:

See? All better. No stitches necessary! =)

I just gathered up all of her feathers on the sides of the cut and made a pony tail out of them, then I just duct taped them together! Thanks MacGyver!

Here's to animals for filling our lives full of a perfect balance between entertainment and disaster!
Wendy

Just Found Out......

2010-07-11T22:12:00.001-04:00

That we're.....

We just found out that the family that's ahead of us got "The Call" on Friday! When I talked to the agency last week I found out that they were going to be giving out referrals this week but I guess they started early! The director of our agency told me that she had 5-6 completed files and she was getting ready to make the referrals. Sittin' on pins and needles wondering if we will get a call soon!

Sleep? What's that??! Oh man.....

Quick Adoption Update

2010-07-10T09:06:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that I talked to our agency a few days ago and it looks like some referrals should be going out next week! We don't know if we will be included in that group but we are pretty confident that there are only two families ahead of us.

Things have been going slower lately due to new requirements pertaining to procedures and paperwork and our agency has been hard at work trying to obtain what is needed for each of their kids in care. Things are starting to move again and they are hoping that things will keep moving so all of the waiting children will be able go home to their forever families.

I found out some other info too but I can't say anything about it just yet. I am really hoping that I will have something to announce next week.....but if not, I will at least know that it won't be much longer now!

Praying for next week and for our sweet little girl....
Have a good weekend,
Wendy

Family Update....

2010-07-07T13:00:00.001-04:00

This is the only picture I have of our 4th of July. Hannah made a few deserts for us, this one is a cheesecake. Aside from the festive deserts, a few red, white and blue placemats on our table and Todd having an extra day off, you wouldn't have known it was a holiday weekend around here.

Independence Day pretty much silently came and went at our house, we hardly even noticed it was there at all. It was a very different 4th of July for us this year and it felt kinda strange not really celebrating. We usually go up to the Upper Peninsula over the 4th to spend time with my family and we get to do lots of celebrating while we are there. The small town that my family is from has a parade and games for kids (and adults too), a big fireworks display and of course we hold our own fireworks show because we can get the "good stuff" from the Indian Reservation that is near there. The whole weekend has events of some sort.....fun for young and old-er. ;)

But this year was a bit different. We left after Todd was done working on Friday and headed down to Bloomington IN to bring our two boys to their sister's house. They are staying with Liz, Dave and Brenda for two weeks and are going to be so tired when they get home, we might not see them for another week or so cuz they'll be sleeping! Liz and Brenda work for the YMCA down there and so the boys get to go to day camp while they are working. They will be going swimming every day at the apartment complex and they also get to go camping this weekend at Dave's Grandma's house! I have to laugh because it's only been 3 days and both the boys are dead tired! They're not used to so much FUN! Does that make me a boring Mom??! Hmmmm......

Anyway....we got to Bloomington around midnight on Friday and then spent the day on Saturday there. We transported some furniture for L&D---they got a really good deal on a bedroom set from a professor at I.U. We got back from moving the furniture and the guys put the van seats back in the van (we left them sitting on the lawn in front of L&D's apartment). No sooner did we have them back into the car and Todd felt a bite on his arm! He looks down and his arm is welting up and red and there sitting on his arm is a teeny tiny ant. They look into the van and the whole back of our van is crawling with them! Apparently a couple of ants had stumbled upon our van seats just sitting there on the lawn and decided to take a look. They liked them so much, they invited their friends to join them. And before we knew it the entire population of ants from that area were moving in and settling down in OUR van seats! So armed with some windex---yeah, the tough stuff--- and a couple of rags, we went at it trying to kill all of the ants. But it seemed like the more we killed, the more that came to take their place. So we had to resort to spraying the van with ant spray and closing it up in the 90 degree heat! It was either that or have to endure getting bit all the way home on a 6 hour drive!

We went to see L&D's garden that they are tending at the Bloomington Community Gardens. I was so mad at myself for leaving my camera back at the apartments....sadly I have no pics of their garden. I have never been to a community garden before and I thought it was pretty cool. The plots that people rent were actually smaller than I was imagining but all in all it was very nice.

The kids got to go swimming a couple of times at the apartment and then we had to say good-bye to L&D, Brenda and the boys and get back in --the now pesticide filled-- car and drive the 6 hours back home. It was a quick trip with 2 very long car rides but we survived.

Here are a few of the only pics I took while in bloomington....yeah, bad me.

Liz and Chloe

Mystery feet

Liz and Jake

Nathaniel and Jake

Nathaniel, Hana and Jake

The rest of our weekend was filled with WORK. Yep, we are still working on things around here trying to get ready for house showings when that time comes. Our home was officially listed a week ago Monday and our realtor said that we had about 2100 hits on our internet listing in the first few days!

***Update***
Before I could even get all of this posted, I got a call from our realtor! We have a showing in a couple of hours!! Yipes! So we only got about a 4 hour warning on this and as you can imagine, we have been running around all morning trying to get everything ready! We're taking a break to eat and then finishing up and then we're outa here......do you think it's possible that we could sell it to the first people that come to see it??! I don't think I want to go through this too many more times =(

Well, it's back to work....
Have a great day filled with summer sunshine and blue skies!

Wendy

Cherry Picking

2010-07-02T13:27:00.000-04:00

We took a break from working on our house and we went to our local cherry orchard to pick some cherries to put in the freezer and of course to make some yummy desserts! We ended up picking 38 pounds in about a half hour!

At our house we have an ongoing contest to see who can put the most cherries in their mouth and then actually be able to remove the seeds from them and chew them up---all with only the talent of their mouth! So Hana decided to try her hand...er um....mouth....at tackling this family challenge. =)

The current record for stuffing cherries in your mouth is held by Liz's husband Dave and his "magic number" is 16 cherries. Liz is in second with 14 cherries. Hana was only able to put 11 cherries in her mouth, but she was able to get all of the seeds out---except one...oops! Even though she only managed to get 11 in, I think that she should get extra points because Liz and Dave achieved their record with sweet cherries. And although sweet cherries ARE bigger.....stuffing your mouth with sour cherries has got to be much more difficult!

Our cherries before the washing and pitting......thank goodness the orchard has a special machine that does the work for us....for free!! =) And while we were waiting for our cherries to be washed, we went to get an ice cream cone to reward ourselves for all of our hard work.....YUM!

Now if I could only get Nathaniel to lick his ice cream instead of his sister! ;)

Wishing you an ice cream kinda day....with a cherry on top of course!

Wendy

Sunday Song--Keep Changing the World

2010-06-20T21:56:00.001-04:00

I love Mikeschair and here's one of their lesser known songs from their self titled album MIKESCHAIR.

To make it even better we get the pleasure of Lecrae helping them out on this one!
Enjoy!

Something here is wrong

There are children without homes

But we just move along to take care of our own

There's so much suffering just outside our door

A cry so deafening

We just can't ignore

To all the people who are fighting for the broken

All the people who keep holding on to love

All the people who reaching for the lonely

Keep changing the world

Take a look around

Before the sun goes out

What's lost can still be found

It's not too late now

It only takes one spark to make the fire burn

So reach inside your heart and let this be the start

You can see the suffering

How they gonna recover when

People just look over like they don't even notice that

Everyone is focusing

On ending all this hopelessness

You can change the world by changing who the world is hoping in

I see the sun coming up

It's a brighter day

Let's show the world that love is a better way

So lend a hand join the fight

'Cause time is ticking away

Hope you had a wonderful Sunday and Father's Day!

Wendy

Narnia Wolves and White Witch

2010-06-18T22:55:00.001-04:00

This is a picture taken after tonight's show of the White Witch and her Wolves. There is one more show and that is tomorrow at 5:00. See post below to get the address of where the performance is being held.

Hope to see you there!

Sophia, Amanda, Sara, Haylie and Kristen