Ethiopia day 2

Macey crashed out
In the car on the way back to the guest house
Coffee ceremony
Excuse the funny look on my face, I don't drink coffee and was trying not to spill it on Macey
Coffee ceremony
Girls, and babies foster home
Eric and Macey
Macey bed in the foster home
First time holding Macey


Thurs. morning we got up had breakfast and not very patiently waited for the CWA driver to pick us up to head to the foster home to get Macey. It seemed like it took forever for him to get there. First we stopped at the CWA office to pick up Helen (she works for CWA) we all got really excited when we pulled up and the gate said CWA, but then we were told that it was just the office the kids were not there, bummer. Helen jumped in the car and we were off the the foster home. We were not allowed to take pictures of the other kids so they brought Macey out side to us. Carrie and Fernando (the other couple that were with us) took pictures and viedo taped while we met her for the first time. She had just woke up from a nap and was a little tired. She really would not look at us and just put her head on my shoulder, that Ok I will cuddle even if she was doing it so that she did not have to look at me. Then they brought out Violet, Carrie and Fernandos little girl,after a few minutes Helen gave us a tour of the foster home and we got to meet the girls and they sang a bunch of songs for us. We met with the nurses and they told us about Macey what she eats and when she had been sick.Then they told me she had been sick and the Dr. was coming that afternoon to check her out and I could come back at 3 and pick her up... I guess they saw the look on my face because then they said or we will send a driver to pick you up and you can bring her back at 3. I was not going to leave here there! Then the nanny, held Macey and Violet and prayed for them in Amharic and Helen translated for us, we asked her to do it outside so that we could video tape it. We then drove back to the CWA office to do more paper work for the Embassy and had our 1st coffee ceremony. And yes I even drank coffee, I didn't want to be rude. Then they drove us back to the guest house we took her up to our room and just looked at her. (OK I tried to add more pictures but it is not working, I will try again later)

Ethiopia part 1

The view from our room at the guest house
Another view from our room
Look familiar? Ethiopian version of Starbucks
Eric pointing to Awassa where Macey was born
Men at the leprosy hospital, getting ready to weave fabric
Goats in the road, there were also times that we had to stop and wait for cows to get out of the street!
Traditional Ethiopian food for lunch on our 1st full day in Ethiopia
Little shops along the side of the road in Addis, there is 75% unemployment in Ethiopia
Eucalyptus scaffolding
Hand digging ditches for fiber optic lines

Ok some day I will figure out how to put the pictures at the bottom but any way...

Since the last post we have been to Ethiopia and back, I am just a little behind like usual.

We got a phone call form our case manager on Monday March 22 telling us that we finally had an embassy date of April9th, so I spent the rest of the day booking plane tickets for my parents to fly in to watch my kids and tickets for Eric and I to fly to Ethiopia and guest house reservations, I think I spent the whole day on the computer.

We flew out the next Monday the 29th, Greenville to Atlanta to Amsterdam (with a refueling stop in Sudan) then on to Addis Ababa Ethiopia. The flight to Atlanta is only about 25 min with a small layover in Atlanta, then on to Amsterdam, a horrible flight it was 8-9 hours with a lady sitting next to me and her elbow in my side for the entire flight. I spent a lot of time standing in the back of the plane because my back hurt so bad. We had a 2 hours layover in Amsterdam just long enough to find a bath room and walk around a little. A note to anyone stopping in Amsterdam, when using the bathroom the automatic flushing toilets don't flush until you open the door, so no amount of waving your had in front of the sensor will make the toilet flush and there is no button to push! Anyway.. then on to Sudan, we were sitting in the middle of the plane so we didn't have a good view but what we could see was brown, desert, no trees. They refueled and picked up more passengers, we were there for 90 very long minutes. It was 104 out side! And there was no air conditioning on the plane! We were so happy to finally take off and get some air, the flight from Amsterdam to ET was another 9 hours. We were so ready to get off the plane. Went through the line to get our Visa and then to customs got our luggage and met our driver and another couple that were also with our adoption agency and were staying at the same guest house with us, and headed to the guest house. By about midnight we were unpacking and so happy to have a shower.

The next morning we had breakfast and had a driver pick us up to do some shopping and sight seeing. The driver picked us up in a toyota corolla there were 5 adults squeezed in that little car, cozy. He drove us all over town the "nice" parts and the worst parts then took us to a bunch of little shops so that we could get stuff to give Macey for her birthdays. We went to the Ethiopian National Museum and had a traditional lunch at the Lucy restaurant. The food was really good, we had never had Ethiopian food before so we let our driver help us decide what we should eat.

We went back to the guest house for dinner and to pack our diaper bags and get ready to go get our kids the next morning.

And the wait continues!

We found out this week that there is a very small chance of us traveling to Ethiopia for a March 23rd embassy date. there has been some bad publicity in the news lately about Ethiopian adoptions so the US embassy has decided that your paper work must be turned in 8 weeks before you can get an embassy appointment to get a visa. Our paper work should be turned in this weeks so we are now looking at May before we a can go get Macey! Ryan graduates on May 28th and our family will be here and then we booked a condo at the beach for after graduation for all our family that will be here for graduation. We really thought we would be home for a few months before all the graduation craziness started, it's not really the best as far as attachment goes for a child that has lived almost her entire live in an orphanage to come home to more people and craziness! Oh well we will do what ever we have to do. But here are some really cute pictures!

Here is our newest picture of Macey, it was taken in Jan so she is 7 months old in this picture. We are waiting on her birth certificate to arrive so that we can confirm our travel dates, but we are hoping to have an embassy date of March 23rd so we should leave on March17-18 and be home around the 27 or 28. This is what we are hoping for since the boys are on spring break the next week we would like to be back while they are out of school.

We got a few inches of snow so we had to go play while it lasted since it was almost gone by that afternoon. You can see in the last picture that Brayden lost a tooth, and yes he is only 4 so he will have a hole there for a few years, it was not it's time to come out!

Introducing...

Macey Kidist Best. We passed court today and officially have 4 kids! Now we have to wait to get her birth certificate and pass port and an embassy date then we can get on a plane and go get her! It is taking about 6-8 weeks to get an embassy date so hopefully we will have her home by the end of March!

Didn't pass again!

Well we did not pass court again today, the birth mother has to appear in court and she was not able to make it today sooooo we wait some more. They rescheduled for Feb.3rd, here we go again!

Didn't Pass

Well we didn't pass court today.... so we have to wait more. The good news is that they will hear our case again on Monday! So I only have to wait 3 more days and not 3 more weeks. So here we go again!