Home

We have been home since Saturday. Emenet is doing awesome. It has been amazing to sit back and watch her learn about her new life here. Today we had three inches of snow. The giggle she let out as she touched it for the first time was priceless! We had such an awesome travel group. I managed to bring home the flu with me. I have been trrying to isolate myself so no one else ends up with it. Just bummed I can not spend more time with my little girl. I will have to post at home pictures when I up and better.

Cleanning up

Emenet's first bath. She loved it. She likes to play with water and loves the feeling of the water running between her toes!!!

more pictures

More pictures....

Pictures of meetin her and geeting her

What a wonderful feeling. I can only say it was almost the same as when you are getting ready to have a baby. The anxious feelings,the nervousness...everything it was awesome. She has been great. She likes to smile alot.

Today is the day!

Today is the day. We are going to meet our little girl! We have to fill out paper owrk first, then we will go to lunch and then off to the transitional home to meet our sweetie. I will write more later! Here we go!!!!!!

Back from Sodo

We just came back from Sodo. We traveled with three other families. It was an adventure. Our driver David is a awesome driver. He had to drive fast while dodging all types of people and animals. It was truly an experience! The country side was beautiful! Talk about rural. The hill side villages were something out of a movie. The meeting with Emenet's mother went well. She was very quite and reserved. (sounds like the descriptions I get about Emenet When I gave her the pictures of Emenet she repeatedly kissed everyone. She said she loved to sit and play with her, and that she was a very happy girl. She would like it if she could grow up to be s teacher. She was very sad and had little to talk about. We took lots of pictures from the orphanage she was at. The nannies all loved the pictures of her also. We spent the night in the noisiest place ever!!! It was near a bus stop that worked all night, and a mosque that had a call to prayer at 4:00 am and then again at 5:30 am. What an experience for the boys and me. Will write more later...

Meeting Wycliffe workers

Today we met with people from Wycliffe here in Addis.  We had a wonderful time meeting everyone.  They are a great group of people, doing wonderful things.  We ate at the Garden Paradise Restaurant for lunch. The boys both had a burger, I had a fish kabob(it was great) and Bill had spicy Beg tibs( shredded lamb)    The people here are real nice.  The coffee we had was great.  It was ilk and coffee, of course Bill had the double strength.  We are back at the guest house for now.  Every one is taking a break.  We will go out later for dinner then to bed.  I am thinking we will leave early tomorrow because the people from Wycliffe say it is a far drive.  We are traveling with another family.  Till next time...

We made it!

We finally made it to Addis! We had a wonderful night in Dubai! The
boys loved the night time tour of the city. They saw all the buildings
they have seen on the travel channel! We arrived in Addis in the late
morning. The people are nice here and the staff have been nice also.
We got ourselves settled then were off with another AWAA family to the
mountains. The boys loved seeing a 1600 year old church out of a cave
and the view of the city was wonderful. If I could only bottle the
breeze it would be great. I did not want to leave the mountain. Getting
ready to leave we were found by a group of young children. We passed out
some snack bars and one little girl was thrilled when Bill gave her his
Wycliffe pen. It has been awesome so far! Saturday we head down to Sodo
to meet our daughter's birth family. Tomorrow we are meeting a couple
here who are missionaries with Wycliffe. Can wait to share more, Till
next time....

We are off

We are finally off! Here is a picture of us as we wait. After much hard work and packing we are leaving! Next time we post we will be in Etiopia! Here we go!!!!!!

Praying it all gets done

We just found out today that we will be able to meet our daughter's birth relatives. I had all but given up hope that this would happen. I just prayed that if it was something that the God had planned for us it would have to work out. To say I was surprised when I opened my e-mail to find out it finally was going to happen would be an understatement. We are all very busy trying to get things done so we can travel in peace. Bill has been working on the addition every free minute he has. I have been painting and trying to organize all the stuff for packing. Tomorrow is a totally insane day for us.... we have our school co-op, a noon conference call, a 2 o'clock conference call for Wycliffe then Bill is off to teach at a Bible school for the evening. Busy to say the least. I know that God has it all in His hands...now I just need to leave it all there. Only 5 days until we are gone... praying it all gets done!

the countdown

Nick keeps telling me the count down of days till we leave for Ethiopia. He is so excited. We all are excited. We are trying to finish the upstairs and have been working almost day and night. It would be so great if we could have the two guys upstairs and her room ready to go. This has been a wild ride. Bill has been starting to work on it at 6:00 AM every morning works till 9 then works on Wycliffe stuff then works on the house during lunch, then after work..work through dinner until around 11 every night. He is a hard worker. Today the boys are back to school. Hard to really get back into it. It has been nice not to have to worry. Well seven days and counting. I feel like a crazy person with list of things to do then list of list of things to get done. Oh well, I guess one thing at a time and I will get done. Off to school, work, gathering and packing.......