Ethiopia Pictures

Check out some of the pictures from our journey to Ethiopia.

Ethiopia Pictures

Success!

We are back from the embassy and we are all set!! We sat for quite a bit, but the boys were perfect! ( please be the same on the plane, please be the same on the plane....). We are counting down the hours til we leave. Sitting in a hotel room with a ( very curious and active) 4 year old and a baby is getting old. Especially when one is craving a chocolate brownie and some fresh air! :).

Btw- those who described chala as 'reserved and quiet, an observer', lied to us. Quite the opposite.

This time tomorrow we will be in the Addis Ababa airport! Less than 24 hours now!

lh

Sent from my iPhone

Wow.

Hello friends and family!!

We are feeling so blessed here today. Chala slept all night, clinging to the photo album of our family! He woke up happy and jabbering. Anna, Claire, Lauren and Emma-- he can say your names!! He LOVES to play, another child to destroy our basement!! :). He picked out a shirt with trucks on it and can count to 5 in English. So far, he is not shy at all, which we were expecting. He is crazy about B. ( of course!!)

Jonas did great as well. He is an easy, happy baby!! So cute. I woke up to his face looking at me with a big grin! What a sweet baby. He only woke for a bottle ( though he is a slow eater!). He went right back to sleep.

We are so happy to say we are heading home tomorrow!! Sone days it felt that wouldn't happen. We will cherish our time here but I never want to be away from my girls that long again!!

Our travel agent told us there are no bassinets available on any of our flights. Hello 36 hours of baby holding!! Please pray that the flights go quickly and well. We are so hoping there is no delays!! Snow, cooperate...we are coming home!!

We are leaving for the embassy in 1 hour. I am praying there are no issues. The paperwork for 2 children was rather complicated!

signing off in Africa!!

Lindsay

Sent from my iPhone

Time to change our blog name

we have 2 boys!!

after the day we had yesterday, to say we were feeling overwhelmed would be an understatement.

at 2:00 we headed over to Enat Alem.  the first things we heard were "here is chala!" he came outside with a shy smile.  he is adorable.  he quickly took to us (due to the fact that we had a bag of toys).  he saw the hotel van and headed out of the courtyard and hopped inside.  our driver,sami, told him to go and say goodbye to his friends. he casually flipped his hand and said "caio".  currently he is singing to himself and playing with anything he can find that has wheels.

baby jonas is beautiful.  he was in his crib, pushing up on his arms when we arrived.  he greeted us with a smile!  he is napping right now and did not enjoy his bath.  the nanny told us that he goes to bed at midnight and wakes for the day at 5am.  in between those, he wakes for 3 bottles. so much for a sleeper!  the orphanage was such an improvement from the last one! the kids seem happy and well loved! praise God.  the nurse director showed us jonas' record and told us that they were told he would likely pass away on the drive from the other orphanage. i wept. she told us that after 20 days she thought he may live.

things are going very well.  i am feeling tired and a bit stressed because it is all new....but things are going well.  so far chala has been very happy.

jonas is wheezing a lot. it makes me nervous to be so far from our doctor. i am wishing we had a pediatrician traveling with us.  please pray this improves and doesn't get worse before we arrive home.

tomorrow is our embassy appointment.  they told us it could be quick or it could take all day. hoping for quick.

i am desperately missing the girls.  i feel constantly on the verge of tears, and cannot wait to be back home with them.  pray for me that these remaining days in africa go quickly and well.  we are very much dreading the airplane ride home with 2 kiddos but are looking forward to where it will take us!

please keep us in your prayers. life changes so quickly.  we know God has taken us here and know he has his hand on all of this.  the big picture can seem too big to digest!

we will try to get pics asap.  it is pouring and the power is out.  the hotel is running on a generator.

love,

lindsay (and brian and boys)

the meeting

Hello! Sorry for the lack of info...our hotel struggles to keep the Internet working.

Today, while we were eating lunch, we were informed that we would be meeting the boys dad in 30 minutes. Needless, to say, it was a little stressful.

The meeting itself.....well, we are still reeling. It will take a while to process today. Also, the orphanage ( where the boys were at first) was hard to see. It was a hard afternoon. We would appreciate your prayers as we sort out the meeting and our hearts.

Tomorrow we get the kids! It doesn't seem real! We have been here less than a week, but it seems we've been here for a long time. We won't be heading to Enat Alem until 2:30.

Anna, Claire, Lauren and Emma....we miss you SO much!! I cannot tell how much I want to be back at home with you!

We will update after we meet the boys ( if we are able)!!

Love,

Lindsay

Sent from my iPhone

Pictures from Ethiopia

Hippos in Lake Awassa

Beautiful Country

Lake Awassa

awassa.

hello from awassa!

we are 275 kilometers south of addis ababa in a town called awassa.  we arrived yesterday after 7 hours in a tightly packed car.  last night and today we went to the evado orphanage, which is where the other families children are from.  we couldn't find a hotel last night, lets just say it was a struggle for me last night once we finally arrived at our "accomodations".  we have a different hotel for tonight, thank goodness!!  today we took a small boat out on lake awassa and saw a family of hippos! the weather here is gorgeous....today was a great day!  we found out that the boys dad will be arriving in addis on tuesday and we will meet with him on wednesday.  we are excited that he is coming, but also feeling nervous about the meeting.  we are thankful to get to speak with him, though.  tonight we are heading to a coffee farm and tomorrow morning we will head back to addis.  it was great to get out of the busy city and see some of Ethiopia's countryside.  it seems like we have been here much longer than just a few days.  i am missing the girls terribly (especially after endless nights of not sleeping).  when we see all of the children here, it makes me sad for chala.  we are taking him from all he knows, life here is so different......keep the prayers coming.  we have moments of panic and moments of excitement...sometimes not far apart from each other. 

that's all for now. we hope all of you are well and we will update again as soon as we can!!

can't wait to see you all soon!!

l.(and b)

africa.

we have arrived.  we are sitting in our hotel lobby and trying to get this email out before they turn the generator off and we lose power. :)  brian already made an outlet smoke in our room!!  the other families arrived last night and are out at the lion zoo.  we are kind of bummed we missed it.  we leave tomorrow to head south and won't be back to addis til monday night.  wednesday we will go and meet the boys, but not until 2:30.  ok, i am having a hard time forming a coherent thought.....time to rest.  hope all of you are doing well! we will update as soon as we can.

l

Last leg!

We are sitting in the Dubai airport, waiting for our last flight! When we land, we will be in the same city as our boys!! It will be hard to have to wait 5 more days to see them, but we are so glad to be almost there!

It looks like a full flight and we are once again in the back! So much for quickly getting off the plane to avoid waiting in line for our visa!

Well, we neglected to pack any bathrooms supplies....we are lookin pretty great today! ;). And I am sportin one of the most unfortunate pair a (dirty) black socks ( with khaki's) that you have ever seen! Africa, here we come!

L

Sent from my iPhone

long flight done.

We have arrived in Dubai. The flight went great! It was a beautiful airline and we had an empty seat between us, so we could stretch out a bit! We are waiting for a shuttle to take us to our hotel. Tomorrow at 8:30am our plane takes us to Ethiopia! I cannot believe we are so close!

Thanks for all the comments of support and all of your prayers! 4 more hours on a plane and we will be in our boys country!

lindsay

Sent from my iPhone

sweet chala and baby jonas......

it's time.

well, we are sitting in the airport. i truly cannot believe this day has come.  we feel overwhelmed by the hugeness of this all, yet remarkably peaceful.  we have no doubt that the peace is a result of all of your prayers, so keep it up!!  we will update when we get to addis (or from JFK if i am really bored. :) )  on saturday, we will be heading to the southern part of ethiopia and i am guessing we won't have any internet availability.  we will be back in the city on sunday or monday and we will try to update then.  brian changed our format, so you no longer need to have a gmail account to post a comment on this blog! so, feel free to comment away!!

i tried to email photos of the boys to this blog, but no luck.  guess you will have to wait a bit longer to see their beautiful faces!

thanks again to all of our friends and family.  we have truly felt your love and support.  say a little prayer for our girlies.  lauren's tears almost did me in this morning!

love,

brian and lindsay

p.s. we got updated to a bulkhead row on the flight to jfk!! woo-hoo!