Thursday and Friday, July 7-8, Days 8-9 in Et

The day was here!  This day at court was the entire point of the trip, it is why we made this journey.  Our chance to go before the judge and pray that she says, 'the boys are yours'.  We woke early and got all dressed up!  We had a chance to eat breakfast and then go and play with the boys for a few minutes.  We eventually loaded up, a few minutes later than we were supposed to, and took off.  We headed toward court, but unknown to us, it was an Orthodox Holy day.  The streets were crazy!  There were people everywhere!  Some of the streets were entirely closed off due to the masses of people.  Our poor driver, Ashenafi, was driving like a mad man to get us to court in time!  Thankfully, he was the driver we had the entire week, so we trusted him to get us there safely! (which he did)  We court to the court house, unloaded, went through security, headed up four flights of stairs, and took a seat in a waiting room.  The room was a plain room with chairs lining the walls.  There were both adoptive families and birth mothers in the same room.  It was a humbling place to be, especially after meeting our boys birth mothers.  There was sadness in the birth mothers and a complete joy in the adoptive parents.  We sat for a while, not too long, and were all called into the judges office together.  We sat in the tiny room, the judge verified who we were and who we were adopting, asked us a few questions, and then told us the children would be ours pending the MOWA letter appearing.  As good of an answer as any of us could have expected.  So, we were all pretty excited by this point and thankful that it was done.  We loaded up and headed back to the guest house to take it easy for a while that afternoon.  Around 4 or so, we headed out and went to the shopping area for about an hour or so, which was enough for us to finish getting most of what we wanted.  We finished shopping and went to dinner.  We went to the same traditional ET restaurant.  It was really good once again!  They did some different dances this time, so that was good to see!  After dinner, we went back to the guest house.  There was no where we had to be on Friday, so we had basically a free day ahead of us!

Dan and I at the restaurant

 A little group participation dancing!

Friday was the first day I was finally able to sleep in!  Praise God!  We had breakfast and spent time playing with the boys.  This was after all, our last day in Ethiopia.  A sad, but necessary day.  After a while, both boys got sleepy, so we took them back to the nannies and headed up to our room to get our things packed.  It took a fair share of time, but finally, packing was done!  We hauled everything downstairs and just hung out in the living room.  We took it easy, napped a bit, read a bit, and had a yummy lunch.  After lunch, we spent time visiting with Woudenah and then went to get the boys for a bit longer.  It was going to be time to head to the airport shortly, and we weren't ready to say goodbye.  We held and snuggled then until about 4:30, and then it was time to take them back to the nannies and say goodbye for now.  It was awful!  They both started crying and fussing when we gave them back to the nannies!  I was crying!  It was terrible.  All I could do was pray the day we could go back and bring them home would come soon!  Thankfully, I know they are being loved and taken care of, it doesn't make leaving them easier though!   We then loaded up with one other family and headed off to the airport.  As hard as it was to say goodbye, I was also excited to be seeing our Mason soon!

This is the main guard at the guest house

 Loading our luggage to head to the airport

 Us with Woudenah

 This is kind of cool with all the layers of the Ethiopian airlines planes. 

Our flight didn't leave until 10:45 that night or something like that, so we had plenty of time to wander around and grab a bite to eat.  We eventually got loaded and were on our way home!  The trip home was uneventful!  Thankfully! 

Now we anxiously await hearing from the embassy that our hearing is scheduled!  Please pray with us that there are no paperwork issues with the embassy and that we have a miraculous turnaround from the time we are submitted to when we travel to bring the boys home!  Thanks!