Ethiopia part 2

Hi Everyone, 

What a week we've had!  Monday we were able to visit the Addis Ababa Fistula hospital as featured on the documentary A Walk To Beautiful.  It was a wonderful and peaceful place. We ate at an Ethiopian restaurant and did some shopping.  Tuesday we flew to Lalibella, Greg and I agree it is the most beautiful place we have ever been.  Although the flight and drive getting there was a bit harrowing.  There are 11 rock hewn churches dug down into volcanic rock and an amazing monastery.  Thursday we flew to Aksum where the Ark of the Covenant is held in a small well guarded church.  And this morning, Friday, we arrived back in Addis Ababa, were picked up at the airport by our adoption agency and brought to our guest house- the Morning Coffee guest house- and met our amazing hosts.  After lunch we were able to go to the transitional house and MEET OUR SON!!!!  I may be biased but he just may be the cutest baby boy in the entire world.  He just stared at with his big brown eyes, gave us a few smiles and pulled Greg's glasses off for the first of I'm sure many times.  He is precious and we are blessed! It was hard leaving him this evening but tomorrow we leave on a 5 hr drive down to Awassa where he is from to take pictures and explore.  On Sunday evening we'll be able to pick him up for good! 

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Gretting from Addis Ababa

We are having a wonderful time in Addis Ababa.  Our flights, although very long, could not have gone more smoothly.  We're staying at the Hilton, which is very comfortable.  We are on the 11th floor and this morning had a great view of the city shrouded in mist, chanting (which is going on for 24 hrs I think d/t St. Gabriel celebration) and throngs of people moving to and from the church, all the women with white shawls covering their heads made an amazing sight.   We set out this morning and walked for over 2 hrs among the people, absorbing the culture, not knowing where we were or where we should go, it was marvelous.  The children were fascinated by us, staring, giving thumbs up and high fives saying "Hello." . We saw no other caucasians the entire time until we entered the Sheraton, a huge, opulent hotel which contradicts its surroundings.  We got a drink in the courtyard and then it started to pour so we decided to have lunch at an amazing Indian restaurant.   After returning to our hotel we hired a taxi to take us up to the Entoto hills, the sight of the first city and a church.  It was a 40 min drive and we loved seeing more of the city.  The views from the hill were beautiful,  a very kind man gave us a private tour of the museum and old palace, we met children and gave out gum.  After that our taxi driver took us to St Georges Church and museum, the tour guide was very kind and funny and we toured with a group of Italians and Ethiopians (it was a long tour because of being given in Amheric and English) There was a small boy who could not stop staring at Greg and reached out to touch me a few times, it was too cute. 
We are totally enjoying our time here, the warmth of the Ethiopia people and their culture.
 
We are loving it here, eve

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Yeah we're packed up and heading out in the morning to go to Ethiopia!!!!

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Introducing...

Biniyam !!!!!


Born February 7, 2009 in Awassa Ethiopia in our arms forever Aug. 2, 2009

Broken Greg

On Saturday, Greg, inspired by the Tour de France, decided to go on a long, beautiful bike ride.
This is what he saw, an amazing view of Bellingham & Mt Baker.

This is how he ended up- Broken.




He was going down hill, hit some gravel, his back tire slid out from under him and wham. He broke his helmet, his collarbone and probably some ribs which poked a whole in his right lung. So here he is in the ER at the start of his 3 day hospital stint waiting for his lung to heal so his chest tube could be removed. (the hole in his lung leaked air to the sac around the lung causing it to compress and collapse part of the lung. A chest tube is inserted to suck the air out of the sac allowing the lung to reinflate and heal) There is not much they can do for collarbones, surgery would make it heal faster but with no better outcome. So for now Greg's arms in a sling and he's having some forced down time, 6-8 weeks This shouldn't effect our travel for B, although it may give us the perk of more travel time and time for Greg to bond with B once we're home.

Big Sister Party

In anticipation of our travel call to go pick up B we threw Ella a Big Sister party. She is so very excited about her new role!


We planned food and games, but the tea party was impromptu.

My favorite quote of the day was when I overheard Ella say "this tea is delicious with 5 scoops of sugar in it!"  Can you tell how tiny those tea cups are? The most popular game was the diaper toss, runing through an obstacle course to toss a dirty diaper into a pail- I'm trying to convince Ella that this is an important big sister job- she's not buying it.  
Emma wrote the kids advise about babies into a book for Ella, too cute. 
and Ella's favorite game was the bottle drinking contest which she won.  After the games the kids went up to Ella's room and played detectives (I eased dropped) and the mothers got to talk, it really was a lovely party! We were hoping to travel July 12th, but B still needs to get a passport and TB test so now we're praying that everything will be ready for us to pick him up the 1st week of Aug.  This is by far the hardest wait for us! (only made easier this weekend by Greg breaking his collarbone and needing the time to recover before traveling) 
We have a friend who picked up her daughter in Ethiopia a few weeks ago, she held B and took pictures of him for us.  She said he's so so sweet and looks good and healthy as well as having glowing reports on our agencies transitional house where he is now living. It makes it easier know he is well, but oh how we want to hold and cuddle him ourselves!

Fabulous Fourth

For the 4th of July we joined our good friends at their home on Lake Samish.  We started out with a boat parade (and their boat won most patriotic) 


then we stopped by a few parties on the lake.  Ella loved practicing her new swimming skills (ie putting her face in the water) and we loved watching her and her friends run around and enjoy this quintessential summer experience.
Our friends neighbors put on a huge fireworks show from their dock as we all laid on their lawn and watched them go off right over our heads, amazing!