6 REMPELS!

Well, just as I had thought.... It would take me sooo long to finish my trip that I would forget the details. I do want to say that we had an amazing experience and would not trade it for anything in the world. What an incredable journey to our precious daughter. Emmy, We love you so much more than I can ever tell you.

I do want to share about the moment we went to the airport to come home. We were filled with emotions. I will never, ever forget the feelings all jumbled inside of me. Were we doing the right thing for this beautiful little girl? We prayed that we were. We were taking her away from everything she knew... was this really best?? As we walked into the airport, I took one last deep breath of the smell that to me will always be "The smell of Ethiopia." When we arrived.... it was the first thing I remember and when we got onto the plane to go home... it was the last thing I will remember.

The people in Ethiopia will always be in my heart. There is not a day that goes by where I don't look at my precious little girl and think of how incredibly awesome God is!!!! The hearts of most of these people are soo big. So many of them had nothing but would help us in any way they could. Thank you to all the wonderful people we met and loved in Addis. You won't be forgotten.

I know it's terrible how long it has taken me to finish about our trip. Four children and renovations is all I can handle these days. We are finishing our basement and I can't wait. All that extra space.



So going on about our trip..... I think it was day 6 that we were able to arrange a visit with our sponsor child. His name is Kirubel and he is the same age as my girls who are six. I still well up with tears when I remember that long awaited meeting with him. He is SOO precious. He lives with his mother, older brother, and baby sister right in Addis Ababa. He had stayed home from school the day we came so he could meet us. He greeted us with a handshake and a big smile. He understood who we were. We sat in there home the size of our bathroom and talked with him about school and sunday school and things he liked to do. I will never forget this experience. Oh, how I wish it was easier for us to visit him. Compassion Canada found Kerubel and I am so glad we are able to bring a little light into his life. I soo wish we could do more. We only spent about 20 minutes with him but it is on my list of most amazing experiences. We had brought him some gifts of school supplies and a soccer ball and needless to say, he absolutely loved his soccer ball. The smile on his face when he saw the ball was priceless. It was hard for me to leave him knowing that I would probably never see him again but just love him soo much.

I'm soo sorry about my extreme lack of posts. I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to remember the days after a while. I just thought I would share bits and peices about the rest of the trip.

Day three was a huge day for us. Alot happened! We went to Entoto.(The top of the mountain that overlooks Addis Ababa. What an amazing sight. I've done very little traveling so all these new sights were so exciting to me. On the way down from the mountain, I noticed that Emmy had what looked like a fainting spell. We now believe that it was a possible silent seizure. (We have her EEG soon to check it out) Anyway, with me being already emotionally drained, I took it really hard. I was worried and really wanted to take her to a doctor. We did later see a doctor who also thought it could be seizures(mild ones)

Anyway, we went to the most awsome restaurant for lunch that day. I had fries and wow were they good.

After lunch we spent a little time shopping on Church Hill Road. I loved shopping. I found so many great things for our children. Dressess and jewelry. A drum for Jonah.

Later in the day was more emotional again. We met with Emmy's bio father. He was wonderful and clearly loved Emmy. I am so glad I can share that with her one day. What a huge blessing for us to be able to visit with him.


DAY FOUR!!!!
Day four was spent going to the pottery. This was sooo exciting for me. I just loved seeing the talents of these woman. I spent $100.00 american. LOTS!! It's all over my house now and I love it. We also went to the Laga school. WOW! The wonderful man who runs the school does a great job. The children seemed so happy to be at school. The children just soo longed for touch. They were so excited to shake our hands and especially getting their pictures taken. They then wanted to see the pictures on our digital. They were such wonderful children. Emmy had a toy cd player and the children tried their hardest to press the buttons for her. One girl especially caught my attention. She looked so very shy and kinda stayed to the side more. When I held her hand, she grasped it as hard as she could and cried when we left. I felt soo bad for her. I had stuck a little pony in my pocket and gave it to her hoping to make her feel better. She put it in her pocket and smiled. When I retell stories like this, I still cry.... Is this normal? Am I losing it????

Our second day was filled with an eager antisipation to go pick up our daughter. It was the BIG GOTTCHA day!! We once again woke up at 4am and waited for the sun to rise and the beautiful smells to fill the air.

We went down to have our breakfest and relaxed until Mesfin came to pick us up.

To our surprise, Emmy came right up to me and hugged me and seemed ready for a new day. We had brought her a balloon again and she loved it. Oh how it melted my heart to have her willingly give me a hug and sit with us. Many thoughts filled my head and I would have to admit I was a little nervous.

The only thing that got Emmy nervous for a few minutes was the car ride. Clearly this was not something she had done alot.

We spent our first day with Emmy doing different things like going to a few shops and getting some food at the market. We decided to go back to the guest house earlier since it had been an emotionally draining day.

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....