Now we have three ...

Pictures

The first meeting - I was a wreck!

He smiled when he saw us on the second day - we almost got it on camera!

Stefan and Z on the first day

Tummy time!

Traditional dancers

Cows in the road - there were sooo many herds of animals that wandered into the road when we drove through rural areas.

Coffee ceremony

Papyrus canoe on the Nile

Wild coffee!

We're back!

We're back and exhausted but so happy! It was wonderful to see our kids again - we had missed them so much and they were thrilled to meet their new baby brother. We haven't uploaded our pictures yet, so for now I'm posting one of our update pictures of Zinabu so those who haven't seen a pic will know what he looks like! More photos and stuff about our trip soon!

Zinabu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We met Zinabu!!!!!!!!!!! He is so precious - every bit as cute as his pictures and so chunky! I honestly don't know if the clothes I brought will fit! The care center is so wonderful and the nannies are amazing - we feel wonderful about the care he has been getting. One of the nannies cried as she showed us where he was because it's so hard for her to let him go. When we walked up to his bed he looked right at me and smiled! I totally lost it of course but I pulled it together after a few minutes and we had a wonderful hour or so with him before he fell asleep in my arms (yes, I did let Stefan hold him too!) He is a very happy little boy but he cried whenever we put him down so we know he needs lots of cuddling. Good thing he has two older siblings who are going to give him more than enough! We have had a wonderful trip so far, and we have a great travel group but we're anxious to bring him home on Friday and see our beautiful children that we've been missing so much! The internet connection is terrible and the power is off most days so upates will be limited, but when we get home we'll have plenty of pictures and lots of stories from our adventure!

We're here!

We got in around 9:30 pm on Saturday (11:30 am Oregon time) and were picked up at the airport by Fikre, who runs the guest house we're staying at, and his wife. They took us through the city to the house, which was an interesting experience! It was fairly late so it wasn't as busy as it is during the day but there was plenty of crazy driving and a random flock of goats in the grassy space between lanes, in one of the busier areas. The poverty is heartbreaking - we drove through block after block of areas that would be the poorest of the poor in the US. We know that this is much better than many of the places we will see when we go to the more rural areas, so we are preparing ourselves for that.

 

The power is out right now in this part of the city because this is the "dry season" and they don't have enough water to supply electricity for the city so they rotate power outages. Fikre, however, doesn't let that keep him down and has rigged up his car battery to the computer via a "stablizer" so we have internet!

 

We're thankful to be here and to have a clean room and bed to sleep in, hot water for showers, and breakfast cooked for us. We're taking the day to relax and recover from the trip, as well as see the area a little bit. The Holt Care Center is about a 15 minute walk away and we walked by there today. It hit both of us hard that our little boy is right behind those walls! It's very difficult to be so close and walk away, but we understand the need to respect the schedule that the care center runs on and we'll wait until Friday to see him when the other families in our travel group get here. It's a good thing we're going to travel though, so we don't have to think about it too much!

 

It's a really interesting walk between the guest house and the care center. Lots of people, crazy traffic and smog, stands and shops everywhere you look selling anything you could think of. We went to Kaldi's Coffee, which is pretty much Starbucks (and definitely a western style) and to a local grocery store before heading back to the guest house for lunch.

 

Tomorrow we will go to Bahir Dar, on Lake Tana, and spend the night. We'll spend the next morning there and then drive back that evening. We will try to email when we get back and give an update. It looks like internet won't be too much of a problem here at the guest house, so whenever we're here we'll try to get online. We're off to Durame on Wednesday and Thursday, and then on Thursday night we'll move to the Union hotel and meet the other families in our group.

 

Thank you all for your prayers! We have felt very blessed and protected so far and are really excited to be here!

Test post

Testing to see if I can post from an email. Hopefully we can do this
from Ethiopia!

Oh my gosh . . .

We found out today that we have to leave for Ethiopia this Friday - that's in 4 days!!!!!

We don't technically have to leave until the next Wednesday but we want to go early to do some traveling around Ethiopia so we have 4 days to get everything packed, the kids schedules figured out and our Immigration documents filled out, photocopied, etc. Panic!!!! I know it will all come together and we'll be fine but for the moment I'm stressing just a little!