Home since Sunday!

Leigh Anne and Blake with the Ethiopia Airport in background.

Our luggage precariously tied on with a thin green string for the bumpy ride to the guest house. It made it intact, so I guess I shouldn't question the green string.

Leigh Anne, sorting through carryons under Blake's legs on the planeOur travel party ready for adventure

We made it home around 10pm Sunday night. What a journey. At some point I will write about our trip. But for now, the boys are doing Great! They are fitting in wonderfully.

I was expecting them to stay on the Ethiopian schedule for a while. Sleeping during the day here and being awake at night, but that just hasn't happened. Each night, Seth goes to bed around 8:30pm and sleeps until around 8am. Then he goes down for a nap around noon and sleeps 3-4 hours. He sleeps a lot. But he did this in Ethiopia on our court trip and embassy trip, so maybe that is just him?

Ethan goes to bed around 9:30pm and sleeps to around 5am. Then he takes about 3 naps during the day around 1 hour each, then back to bed. He sleeps good for a 7 month old. He has been eating lots of baby food and formula.

The girls are loving having their brothers home. Madelyn made it to Ethan this morning before me and brought him to me to be changed and fed. Then she and Natalie took him into the living room to lie on a blanket on the floor and play for a while. Hannah loves them too, but I can tell she is really struggling with the attention they are getting. However, she is so sweet with them and I give her hugs all the time and try to involve her in their care.

Yesterday we were talking about how we were glad that the boys do not have to grow up in an orphanage and that they have a family now. She said that she felt bad for this boy she heard me telling Aaron about...

Here is his story...

Our plane didn't fly out of Ethiopia until 7:30 Saturday night, so we had all day Saturday to hang out. We ended up paying Daniel, our driver to come and take us shopping. Leigh Anne expressed interest in going to the orphanage that Seth had lived since it was so close. So we drove over there and met the children there. Only about 20 kids at the time. Same older kids that were there when we were there for court, so I knew that the kids all had homes except these 3 little boys. There were only 2 little girls there and one made me carry her around the whole time, the other one clung to Blake and called her Mama. Anyway, these little brothers were so cute. Probably ages 5, 7. and 9. The older one just loved all over Leigh Anne, sat in her lap, etc. At one point, the 9 year old went out to the courtyard and sat by Daniel our driver. As we got in the car to leave, Daniel told us that the 9 year old came out to ask him.. "why doesn't anyone come to take our family away? " Sooo sad. Then as we drove off, he came out and just stood in this sad position watching us leave. I wish I could post his picture, but I am not allowed. I pray that they get a family soon.

We have been walking each night after supper around our property. It has been unusually hot, so we put Seth in the backpack on Aaron's back and he loves it. Then Ethan gets to ride in the new stroller.

48 hours

In 48 hours I will be getting ready to go to the airport and fly to get our boys. I have a few more things to do today, but I am planning on getting all of my preparations done today. My Aunts Sue and Becky are driving down tonight to visit Mom. I haven't seen them in about 4 years.
We are all past ready to have the boys home.

Ready to fly already

Time seems to move so slow. Just like waiting to have surgery, even though you are nervous about it, there comes a point where you just want to ge it over with.
I am so distracted. Yesterday while cleaning the kitchen, I probably dropped or knocked over 10 things. So frustrating.
I did take all of Aaron's stuff out of the suitcases and I have some more room. Not much though. I have a few more things to get and pack, and then it is time for "see how many diapers I can fit in the suitcase" time. I was able to fit both filled diaper bags in the suitcases also, which leaves me free to fill up a backpack and use it for my carryon.
A week from today, I should be arriving in Ethiopia and picking up Seth and Ethan. I wonder how they have changed? It will be over two months since we have seen them.
The girls and I planted some more veges in the garden yesterday. We ate potatoes last week that we grew in the garden. We also have had lots of radishes. Just picked some carrots last week and they were pretty good. Our squash is starting to bloom. Onions are getting bigger. I love the garden. I planted some seeds in jiffy pots a few weeks ago that I had leftover from last year. Last year, I had planted a whole row of a hot pepper mix of seeds that I had bought. Then it rained the next day and washed all my seeds away, so I planted them indoors this year. We should have a ton of food this year. More canning and freezing. After the tornado a few weeks ago and the electricity going out for 4 days, I had to clean out the deep freezer and fridge, so they are almost empty.

Dubai- here I come

Last Friday, I spent ALL day in the kitchen by the computer waiting for emails and calls from our travel agent making plans for our trip to Ethiopia.
Leigh Anne, my SIL couldn't leave until May 27th afternoon. All the flights to ET were booked on ET air and we would have to be on a waiting list for 24 hours to see if there were any openings, or we could leave the 25th or 26th, putting us there a week ahead of time AND Leigh Anne couldn't go because of work. Since it was familiar and we took it last time and they have a straight shot from DC to ET, I wanted ET air. However, I wanted my SIL to go more so that Aaron could stay home with the girls, so we looked at Emirates air.
Which you have to stay the night in Dubai. You know, Dubai, where people build their own islands and the only 7 star hotel exists? I knew the airline would be nice because I had heard great things about them, but didn't know how Leigh Anne would react about having to stay the night there.
Well, she was excited instead of leary and offered to pay for the hotel room if we could leave a day early so we could sight see. I mean, how often are you in Dubai?
So, that is what we are going to do. Leave on Sunday from Huntsville. Arrive in Dubai Monday night. Spend Monday and Tuesday night in Dubai. Leave Wed. morning and arrive in ET at lunchtime. Can't wait.
Oh, and this is funny, we couldn't believe how cheap the hotels were in Dubai. We got a 5 star hotel for about 120 a night. I had looked up the weather there and noticed it was supposed to be around 100. Anyway, Leigh Anne looked it up last night and it said that we were going during the down tourist season because of the oppressive heat. 100 degrees and 90 % humidity. That sounds like a sauna. Oh well, we had a good laugh about that. Hopefully we can stay in the air conditioning most of the day.

I'm so sore

Since we got postponed a week going to Ethiopia, Aaron and I decided that we couldn't put off going on our yearly trek to SC to trim the Christmas trees we planted before we moved to AL. So, Friday night, we decided to leave the girls with Mom, drive the 6 hours Sat. morn, trim trees Sat, spend the night, then drive back Sun. morn.
Atlanta was doing "Weekend Paving" so that put us about 1-2 hours behind getting there when we sat in traffic forever as it went down to 1 lane.
It took much longer to trim trees than last time. Last year, Aaron trimmed them by himself in about 3 hours. We had a generator and electric trimmers which I used. Both of us trimming took about 5 hours. Aaron doing the majority. I guess the trees had gotten that much bigger. Didn't help that the high on Saturday was 93.
We ate supper with Jim and Linda then went to our hotel to shower and crash. Aaron had enough stays built up for a free room. We got up early the next morning and went back so Aaron could weedeat around each tree, which I could not help with. So I sat in the car with the windows open in the shade reading books, and still was sweating. Poor Aaron was out in it and the high Sunday 97.
We finally got back on the road and headed home. This time we tried to bypass the one lane in Atlanta, but I think it ended up taking longer going the back roads than if we just sat in traffic. We were both so ready to be home. We got to Mom's around 8pm. Picked up the girls and got home around 9pm.
I have a lot of plans this week, before I leave. I spent a lot of time in the car yesterday with cooking magazines, making a menu for this week and next week while I am gone. I am hoping to make a bunch of food that can be frozen so Aaron and the girls don't have to eat hot dogs and frozen pizza all week while I am gone. This will be Aaron's first time alone with the girls for more than a day or two. He will do fine.
As soon as I am done on here I need to shower, make a quick trip to the vet, and then go by our chiropractor and see if they will take me as a walk in. ( I am so sore from trimming trees).
Then I need to go and make a big grocery trip. Then cooking off and on all week. Plus we still have a few days left of school. And I need to unpack Aaron's things, since he is not going to Ethiopia and then pack my stuff again.

June 2nd

Finished packing everyone last night just in case we had to be in Ethiopia on Monday or Tuesday. However, we woke up this morning and had an email stating that our embassy date is June 2nd.
Oh, that was hard to take at first. 13 more days instead of less than a week! ugh.
However, it was so weird because Aaron had woken up before me and came into the room and woke me up to tell me the date. While I was still lying in bed, trying to process it all, the song "Count Your Blessings" would not leave my head. So I know that this is God's timing.
On a good note, because of the fact we probably won't be leaving until May 30th, my sister in law Leigh Anne, is willing to go with us and Aaron will be staying home with the kids. That takes a HUGE worry off of my shoulders, hoping and praying that in the process of getting orphans, we won't make our kids orphans. I worry way too much about the airplane ride, I know.
So right now, I am waiting info from our travel agent. Once I get our flights booked, I can email our guest house in Ethiopia and book a room. Then we wait.
Tomorrow we plan on going to SC to trim Christmas trees. Aaron has accumulated enough points rewards on his travels with work that we have a free hotel room coming to us. It is almost too late in the year to trim Christmas trees, so it is now or wait til next year.
We only have 11 days of school left, so I might be able to finish before we go out of country.

Embassy Next Week...but when?

Well I have wonderful news! Yesterday morning when I woke up I had an email from the Embassy in Addis saying that our case was cleared for us to come and told of appointments from Monday through Thursday. So I emailed Sue and told her, of course she had gotten the same email. She had already emailed back and told them of our preferences. She is trying to get all of the families from our ageny appointments on the same day.
At 8 am our time, it is already 4pm Ethiopia time, so I figure the embassy closes sometime around then. So we knew it would be a wait until today to find out.
I went ahead and made a list of stuff to do today, like get airling tickets, schedule our friend to takes us and pick us up at the airport, finish packing, etc.
Long story short, Sue still hasn't heard from the embassy telling us the exact date of our embassy appointment. AARRGHH! And of course, at this point it is night time in Ethiopia by now, so we won't know until morning. So, if we have to be there for the Monday appt. that means leaving tomorrow night (Friday) and we won't find out until Friday. The suspense is killing me.
My sleep is awful. I dream constantly, can't go to sleep for hours once I go to bed, wake up a lot, stress a lot, then during the day I am tired only to lie down to take a nap and have to hop right back up because I am thinking of all the things I need to do.

For the last few weeks, my ears have been hurting off and on. Not so much sharp pain, but aching and feeling full. Since I already get motion sick easily anyway, and they were hurting bad enough last night I took some tylenol, I decided to go the the walk in clinic today in hopes they would feel sorry for me. Normally, I would not go to the doctor since I am not THAT sick. However, before spending a total of 32 hours or so in an airplane over the next week, I was scared that painful, full ears would lead to a miserably motion sick week.
Strangly enough, my ears looked fine, however, she said my throat looked bad, so she gave me some antibiotics. Which leads me to believe I have the same thing Madelyn had and is just finishing her antibiotics for. She had swollen lymph nodes in her neck and felt tired, but her throat didn't really hurt even though the doctor said it looked bad. No matter, I have started the antibiotics and hope that they will be working by the time we take off.

I have finished packing all of my stuff except for my contact stuff and a few small things I use every day and medicines.
I went ahead and packed a lot of Aaron's clothes yesterday and left his suitcase open so he can see if it is what he wants. He would normally pack himself, but I am antsy and want to feel like I am doing something. This afternoon I took a nap and actually slept. Miracle of miracles.
Now that I am starting to wake up, I am planning to go ahead and get the kids packed.
Andy, our good friend from church, who happens to be the youth minister and has access to the church van is planning on taking us to the airport in the church van and picking us up again like last time. There isn't enough room in our van for all the luggage and our entire family, and it keeps us from having to park at the airport all week.
My neice Blake is going with us. Her Mom or Dad will be bringing her to the airport (depending on what day it is) and will take our girls back to TN with them to stay with one of my brothers, or possibly both. My brother Michael has the appeal of Katie, 15 years old and adored by all the girls with bundles of energy. My brother Eric has the appeal of Doug 14, Daniel 11, Hunter 6, and Heath 2. Kids of every age to play with and a semi- baby. So they are excited to stay at either place.
I was really wanting the girls at the airport when we flew in, and it will work out because Michael or Leigh Anne will be picking Blake up at the airport, so they will be there with the girls when we get home.!
Got to get moving. I was severely disappointed this morning when I found out that I was not going to find out our exact date next week.