6 REMPELS!

We were beyond excited to start our first day in Addis. We went down to have our first breakfast at the guest house. I have to admit, I was a little unsure. We loved it. (I think we had the omelet) Mesfin came to the guest house to pick us up and take us to the foster home. All these months we had dreamed of this day meeting our daughter and here it was. Wow! I thought I would be so nervous but I was just Extremely excited. When we arrived at the foster home and Haregewain welcomed us in and joked around with us asking us jokingly what it was we wanted there? We really did like her a lot.



The moment came when Emmy walked into the room and all I can say is that she was FAR more beautiful than I had ever imagined. WHAT A DOLL!! That memory of my first glimpse of her is etched in my mind. I won't go into detail about our first visit but it did go much better than I had anticipated. We spent about an hour with her and then went on with our day. Many people have asked if we found it really hard to leave her that first day and I can say honestly that because we could see that she needed time to process this all, it was fine.



We went for lunch to a really nice place. I do have to admit that the food was a little different for me. It took some getting used to. Mostly the meat. We spent some time in the afternoon just going to little shops at church hill road. That was quite overwhelming. SO MANY PEOPLE! There is just people everywhere! I loved it!! I love being in big cities with lots of people so this was for me. The people are so kind. I know everyone has been telling us that so it was cool to see for our self.



We went to bed fairly early the first night since we were mixed up with the time change and Bill and I had been awake for a long time. We fell asleep instantly.

Here is a slide show of our complete adoption journey- Enjoy!!

We are home!! YEHHH! What a wonderful experience that was. It was worth all the months and months of waiting!

Our flight out to Ethiopia was long especially since we have three children(now four) and are not used to sitting for such a long period of time. We took gravol and slept quite a bit. To be honest, I had a bit of a fear of flying and it seemed to get worse instead of better as we got closer to Ethiopia and further away from our children at home. Our children stayed with friends of ours in my home town. I had such a hard time leaving the children and flying so far away.... but it was for the best possible reason. They had a wonderful time but a few tears missing us.

When we arrived in Addis late in the evening on the 28th of Janurary, I could not beleive I was so close to my baby. It was so hard to wait until the next day to see Emmy.

I will never forget the air and the beautiful smells when we stepped out of the airport in Addis. We are home one week and oh, I will miss that beautiful breeze. It was just so overwhelming to finally be there. We met Mesfin and Ketima who were so helpful in taking our luggage and helping us out. What awsome guys. They took us to our guesthouse and we were taken back by how beautiful it was. We had a nice room with an attatched bathroom and a small kitchen. The only problem we had with the room was that the bed bugs loved me way to much. I lost count at 25 bites. But wow! The service and staff were fantastic.

Bill and I both woke at 3:00am the first night and could'nt fall back asleep. The time change really affected us. We read and talked until about 7:00 and eagerly waited for the sun to come up so that we could see Addis. WOW!!! I will never forget the beautiful view as the sun came up from our guest house window. I will try to continue posting more soon....