Thursday, June 30th - Day 1 in ET

We have arrived!  We got to ET and this time (unlike when we got Mason) our plane was parked a bit from the terminal.  We went down the stairs and were standing there waiting for a bus to pick us up and take us to the terminal.  Kind of weird with planes driving by, but that's ok.  It was a neat experience.  We went in and headed to get our visas.  I do have to say, it was nice to know where we were going and what we were doing! I waited in the visa line and Dan went to go exchange money.  The airport was crazy, but we got though immigration and there was no problem finding our luggage.  We gathered our things and got it in the long line to have our luggage checked before leaving the airport.   We went out to the main part of the terminal and looking through the sea of faces for the in country director, Woudenah.  He was there in the back.  We had earlier sent our pictures to our agency and they forwarded them on to Woudenah so he would know who he was looking for.  Unfortunately, his phone wouldn't open the pictures, but we found each other anyhow. We were the only family there for a couple days, so we went out to his car and got things loaded up.  We were headed to the transition house / guest house.

These are pictures from the car on the way to the guest house.

 This is the church that is very nearby the transition house.  Wasn't too loud except for on Sunday.  Then it was extremely loud with the chanting and speaking over the loudspeaker for most of the morning.

We had finally arrived!

 We got to talking on the way there and Woudenah was asking us about our children.  Sadly, we didn't know how to pronounce their names, so he helped with that and told us that the kids were actually at the transition house!  WHAT!  We were so excited.  We were told that the kids would be at an orphanage there in Addis and probably wouldn't be moved until after court.  So, this was exciting news.  We got to the guest house and Woudenah talked to us about how things worked and the rough plans for the next couple of days, and then he said that the nannies were bringing the boys in!  We were so unprepared.  Woudenah took a bunch of pictures for us though.  It was great!  Both boys are perfect and so small.  We checked the size of clothes on both every time we had them so we had an idea of what size clothing to bring when we came to bring them home.  They are 4 months apart, but roughly the same size.  S is sitting and crawling.  T is pretty floppy.  They are both completely adorable!

We sat and ate some breakfast and then go the donations sorted for the transition house and our bags up to our room.  We gathered some things and got a little freshened up.  We then loaded up with Woudenah and headed to a town a little outside of Addis to this resort place where we had lunch in this beautiful open restaurant overlooking the lake.  It was so yummy and relaxing.  Woudenah was determined we had to stay awake until 10 that night so we could beat jet lag.  I understand, but it was so hard.  He did a great job of keeping us awake!   Here of pictures of our trip there. 

 This is a view of the lake from a different area of the resort.  The restaurant was down lower closer to the lake.

 Another building there at the resort.  It was beautiful there!

 While there we talked about going kayaking, but we were so tired, I don't think we could have even paddled.  We instead tried to get a massage because we were sore from so many different beds and travel already.  Unfortunately they were full, but Woudenah had another plan, so we headed back to Addis.

We got back and stopped by the guest house so Woudenah could grab something and then we headed back out.  He took Dan and I to this other hotel where we were able to get a 45 min massage for about 7 US Dollars.  It was amazing and completely relaxing.  Woudenah had a meeting to go to, so he took us there around 5 and was thinking he would be done around 7 with his meeting.  About 8:30 he showed up.  We didn't mind.  The hotel was nice and the people were friendly.  We were so relaxed, we didn't care about much of anything.  He showed up and felt so badly.  He took us to this great little Indian restaurant he loves.  It was so good as well.  We finally left and got back to the guest house about 10:30 and Dan and I had to get things unpacked and organized and try to get some sleep.  At about 11:30, we headed to bad, which was good because we had to be up and ready for breakfast at 6 so we could be on the road at 6:30.  We slept great, but it was a short night!  Days 2 &3 to come...