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...

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!

Best News EVER!

This morning we received the call we had been waiting for.  We are now the proud parents of two more little boys!  We are so excited!  We are not sure of the details, if MOWA wrote the recommendation or if the judge superceded MOWA, but right now, I don't really care!  They are ours and we are anxiously awaiting our opportunity to go get them and bring them home!  PRAISE GOD!

News

Well, last week the other four families received the call that we have all been waiting on - the ever infamous MOWA letter had arrived!  Their children were legally theirs!  We are so excited for them all!  We, sadly, on the other hand, had not such great news!  Ours is being held up.  We are confident our in country Director (whom we adore) is there taking care of what needs done.  We would ask you to pray though.  It is hard to sit here and wait.  We are anxious, just waiting with no timeline even as an estimate.  Please pray specifically that MOWA gets our letter written ASAP and that we get the call we have been waiting on at this point, that our letter has arrived and that the boys are legally ours so we can move on with the next step in the process!  We thank you in advance for your prayers!  T

Struggling

I have been wanting to post all about our trip over the past few weeks, but have been struggling to do so.  It was a completely life changing trip for Dan and I.  We saw and experienced so much!  I can write over the day to day of the trip, but would really like to put into words how what we saw and did affected us as people, but especially as followers of a perfect God.  Our in country director was amazing!  He wanted to show us as much of the country as possible and teach us all about the history.  It was wonderful.  We were able to travel a lot and experience the country and culture.  We don't know what the future holds for us as a family, but we do know that the Lord has done a work in our lives.   We passed court pending the MOWA letter, which we are still waiting for.  So the boys our not yet legally ours.   I am also struggling with that.  I am trusting that God has perfect timing to bring our boys home, but it is hard to not anxiously be excited every time the phone rings! So, for the few of you who actually still read our blog, please pray for us as a family of believers, pray for us that our MOWA letter comes ASAP and that we are submitted to embassy and have an amazingly fast turn around time for our embassy hearing!  Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!  Tara and Dan

So hard!

We are loading up to head home today.  It is so hard to pack up and leave the boys here. We are so excited to see Mason again, but are also ready to bring them home and be a family of 5.  They are adorable, and we have thousands of pictures of Ethiopia and the boys.  We have had a completely life changing trip.  God is at work in our hearts!  He has opened our eyes.  We look forward to being in our own home.  Please pray for safe travels!  We fly out tonight at 10ish.  Will get home Saturday night.  We are looking forward to going to church on Sunday! 
T

BUSY!!

It has been so great here!   We have been so completely busy, but it has been so wonderful and life changing.  We have spent a lot of time with the boys and are so amazed by them. They are wonderful and tiny.  Our ten month old is in 6 month clothes and our 6 month is in 3 month and some 6 month clothes.  They are so sweet and adorable.  The 10 month old looks like Mason so much!  It's crazy!  We have had the opportunity to see pelicans, fisherman, monkeys, gazelles, ostriches, wart/wild hogs, birds, hippos.  We rode horses to a crater lake.  It has been a completely amazing trip.  We are not able to post pictures from here, and I will post more day by day info with pictures when we get home.  We want everyone to konow we are ok and are loving it here.  Great adoptive family group and great times!  It's been absolutely wonderful!