We Are Doing Great

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Day 1

Donations
Guest house
Plane

We will count Saturday the 31st of October as day 1.

We left Seattle at 1:40 on Friday and flew until 9:10 on Saturday night in Ethiopia. The flights were long but thankfully we could sleep, watch movies and play games. We stopped in Amsterdam for about 3 hours. Once in Ethiopia, we waited about an hour to get our Visas- $20 each and then in the passport line to have them checked. We got in the wrong line. We waited for almost another hour. Things were very inefficient. :-) After passport check we got our bags. Thankfully they all arrived. We were stopped by customs with our bags. They wouldn't let us take our bags without duty free papers. It was because they were cartons aka boxes. Finally after another hour, we left with all our stuff. Only after some tears from me. Hard start to the trip. We arrived at the guest house just after midnight. We were so tired, yet so excited to meet the boys in the morning.

Day 2

Sunday November 1st-

We were up about 7ish. Adjusting to the time was hard. All night long we listened to some chanting and preaching going on and wild dogs barking. No disturbance laws. ;-) We met the Landfairs in the morning as well. They also were in Ethiopia to pick up their baby. They had arrived a few days before. We had eggs for breakfast. We were told how all the food is organic. Makes sense. As soon as the driver arrived, we headed over to the care center. The roads are very bumpy. There are no street signs. Ok maybe a few. Pretty much you just honk your way around. You can pass whenever. The driving is pretty slow since the roads are so bad. You also have to watch out for people,thousands of them, donkeys, goats, and cows all of which are just all over and in the streets.
Once at the care center we could see the boys on the steps right when we pulled in. They gave me Fikru first. He looked at me like who are you. We were so excited to finally have him in our arms. I could see another nanny with Dawit so I passed Fikru to Dave and grabbed my baby. Ahh he is so cute, so sweet and so small. Just like I was hoping!! We stayed at the care center for several hours just playing with the kids. So many sweet kids, just waiting for their families to come. If only they could really understand how badly their mamas and dads want them home. I sat on the lawn most of the time while the boys played ball, Dave held Dawit and I had Fikru on my lap and lots of other kids just sitting with me.
We finally left, went back to the guest house for lunch and a nap. Fikru was happy to have Beti there to feed him and help watch him. We just hung out the rest of the day taking it all in. Dave, Gavin and Jake enjoyed walking to the store for Coke and Sprite.- All drinks come in glass bottles that are 100% recycled. aka refilled. So different. The taste was also different but enjoyable. We also bought water. ALL water we used came from a bottle. We also attempted to give the boys a bath but then realized there was no more water. So they got little wash cloth baths with cold water. They didn't like it much. I used 10 q-tips to clean their ears. We got them all clean and played. We realized that Fikru talks. We were reading to him and he started repeating every word. We were in shock. Smart kid.
The night was ok. Fikru slept well but oh my, a baby's in the house. Up all night long. Dawit was having a hard time adjusting to new formula and what we think is a better schedule. In the care center, the babies are fed every 2 hours. AHHH

Day 3

Chaltu is like a mom to Fikru. She is the one who took him after his mom could not take care of him anymore. She is a nanny at the care center.
This is Dawits nanny. When we brought him by she just held him and cried.
Hilton!


Monday November 2nd-

Crepes for breakfast. YUM! This day I would consider a wild goose chase. We were now dealing with the reality that our home study was no longer valid. We were approved up to 24 months and with the new knowledge that Fikru was about 27 months this was a problem. Agitu told us to go to the Embassy and talk with them about his age at referral. To us this was weird. After all what were they going to do for us. We went and of course got no new information other than we needed to amend our home study. This is fine just not enough time and hard to do from so far away. Thankfully we got my mom to work with our social worker and get this going for us.
The best part of this outing was lunch at the Hilton. We were so excited to have good food. We were so happy Matt and Ann were along for this ride with us. The week in Ethiopia was definitely better because of the other families!! We also visited the babies at the "overflow" care center. So many sweet faces. Back to the guest house- hang out- Lasagna for dinner. Very interesting. Made with like bread and no noodles. Hard to swallow. Gavin fell asleep before 5 and slept the night away.

Day 4

Tuesday November 3rd-

Started off with some good french toast. :-) the boys are doing good. Dawit not sleeping too well but that's ok. We had plans to go shopping to the big outside market. Well- this is the day our trip changed even more. While waiting for our driver, the guy who was exchanging our money and the guy who was going with to help us translate, there was a fight outside the gate at the guest house. The drama of the day/trip began. We watched as our friend, who was to take us, was handcuffed and taken away. This is the edited version of the incident as just thinking about it make me sick to my stomach. AGAIN! So- to make a long story short, we ended up leaving the guest house in a matter of 10 minutes and looking for a new place to stay. One AMAZING part of this is... while we were all locked in our room feeling a lot of fear and not knowing what was going to happen next, my Gavin, who was sitting by me on the bed leaned up to me and muffled, "mom, let's say a prayer." It was such a tender moment. My boy who can be such a stinker knows! He has some faith that he knows that prayers are heard and answered. Dave said a prayer and I know that is what got us through the day. It was a very emotional day as our trip of a lifetime turned out to be more of a nightmare than anything. So just typing this makes me cry when I think back to the trip. It was not at all what we expected. It was not the beautiful experience we were hoping to have. It was not a perfect adventure. I can't tell you how many times I just wished we could get on a plane and "get out of there". (with the boys of course!) After leaving the Guest House we drove to the Hilton- no rooms available, we drove to the Sheraton- no rooms. I am crying of course. We ended up getting rooms at another Hotel and this was also an answer to prayer. The Hilton and Sheraton were so expensive and this Hotel was just the right price and nice for us. Nardos came into our lives this day. She is the BFAS adoption coordinator in Ethiopia. SHE is so GREAT!! Our week got better with her around!! We spent the rest of Tuesday trying to settle into our new place and just waiting for Thursday embassy day and Saturday go home day. Another family arrived and came to stay at the Hotel with us. We went to dinner. It was more like mystery food. I couldn't eat anyways- too much going on. We called it a day and made plans for a better Wednesday.

Day 5

Wednesday Day 5

Today we got up and went to breakfast a the Hotel. We missed having Beti to cook for us. We got ready and headed to play with the kids at the Care Center. This was all Gavin really wanted to do. He had some favorite boys there. They played a lot of ball. We also waited for another family to arrive. Holly - the girl who I talked to a lot to learn more about Fikru- she was picking up her daughter. It was great to meet her. Once they got their daughter, we went to the Hilton again. The food was safe and delicious. We then went shopping for gifts and souvenirs at the Government run store. I bought some jewelry, Ethiopian clothes, mask carvings and other fun stuff. It was fun to shop. After shopping it was back to the Hotel. We played outside and then worked on paperwork for the Embassy. Big Day ahead.

Day 6

Thursday Nov 5th

Today was the big day. We ate breakfast again and waited for our trip over to the US Embassy. At about 1 we headed over. We waited for like 2 or maybe it was 3 hours for our names to be called to go to the window. We were the first family. Once called we went to the window with the boys, answered some questions and then... got approval for Visas. They passed us for Fikru not because of receiving the amendment (they hadn't) but rather that he was younger than 24 months at referral. Funny since we thought he was 18 months then. :-) Yeah!! We can leave with the boys. We then waited for all the other families. Like 4 hours later we all were good to go. We would get our Visas Friday morning. So to celebrate, we went to the Hilton. :-)