Backtracking

So, for those few who actually still read this blog, I am going to be working on sharing our first trip to ET.  I have mentioned little tidbits of what has been going on since then, but I definitely want to go over our trip!  It was so amazing! 

Here Goes:
   We had made plans to go to the region the boys were from the weekend before we went to court.  We started looking into tickets and what not.  There is a preliminary hearing that takes place approx. 1 week before court that you have to pass before traveling.  Once you pass that, you officially have clearance to travel for court.  Our preliminary hearing was on June 27th.  Unfortunately, we had to be headed out of town to get to Denver on the 27th.  So, we took a risk and bought the tickets before official clearance.  We were loaded and on our way to drop Mason at my mom's for the time we would be gone when we got the call from Sheila, the wonderful woman at our agency, letting us know that our preliminary hearing was delayed!  WHAT!  I was shocked.  Not to worry though, it was going to be on the 28th.  So, everything still looked OK.  We dropped Mason at mom's and showed him his new gift that we picked up at a garage sale.   He loved it!

He has since driven it all over our house!  It was a great investment ($5, I think, gotta love garage sales).    A little while after dropping Mason off at mom's, we loaded up and headed on the way to Denver.  It takes us about 5 1/2 hours to get there from here.  So, we got to Denver and went to Dan's sister Trista's place.  We stayed the night there and got up early in the morning.  Trista and her kids all loaded up and took us to the airport.  Chad (brother in law) had to head out for work earlier that morning.  It was fun to have them all at the airport with us.  We got checked in and ate a nice breakfast.   It was around this time when I got the message from Sheila that we had passed our preliminary hearing!  We were officially cleared to travel!   Then it was times for goodbyes and security for us! 

We got to our gate, got loaded, and were finally on our way!  We just couldn't believe it!  We were going to get to meet our next two children in just a few days!  So excited! The flight from Denver to DC was uneventful... which is always good!  We got to DC around 4:30 and had a layover until our flight the next day at noon.  This gave us the opportunity to spend an evening with Dan's aunt, uncle, and grandmother who live outside of the DC area.  It was nice to get a good meal, a good night sleep, and some great company!  We got up and headed to the airport for our flight to ET.  We arrived at the airport early and had a wonderful breakfast!  My favorite especially, just not usually for breakfast! 

We got off the little bus thing to our terminal and walked in to this!  Heavenly!  What a perfect way to start the last leg of our journey!  The flight to ET was packed full!  People everywhere.  It was fun.  There were little kids playing together in the aisle.  There was a young college girl who sat next to us and her siblings and their families were all in the vicinity.  We got to talking and low and behold, they were from Kansas.  They were attending K-State and hadn't been home to Addis in 3 years.  It was fun to meet them and visit for a bit.  We finally land in Addis after a long flight and are so completely exhausted and excited.  At this point it is roughly 8:30 in the morning in Addis on Thursday, June 30th.  The day for us was just getting started.

This is a picture of the most beautiful sunrise over the Sahara Desert

I am going to leave you with this for now!  The best is yet to come, but I can't get started on the time there without rambling for hours and there is not time to do that now!  So, for now, have a great night!  I hope I have started to build your anticipation for the rest of the story... Stay Tuned!