Our Ethiopian Child

I'm very excited to announce that we are ADOPTING FROM ETHIOPIA!! We have dreamed of adopting internationally since before we were married and in May of 2007 began researching adoption agencies and countries to adopt from as well as doing lots of reading and praying about all adoption may entail for our family. In October or 2007 the adoption agency we had chosen opened a new program in Ethiopia, we jumped onboard. October through February we worked on our homestudy ( visits, interviews and education with our social worker) and then as we waited for our government approval to adopt we worked on our Dossier (a compilation of bank statements, reference letters, birth certificates etc.) all of the papers for the Dossier needed to be notarized and then State Sealed. And then, because both MA and WA put the wrong seal on all our documents we had to regather and re-state seal our documents ( ahhh!). Finally on June 16th we turned our finished Dossier into our Social Worker and on July 11th our paperwork was sent to Ethiopia. Now we eagerly await ( an estimated 10-18 months) to be matched with our future child. We did not specify a gender and to keep birth order are requesting a child up to age 2.

Future Big Sister Ella playing in Staples as Greg and I made a million photo copies of all our dossier paperwork.

I've been a total blog slacker lately, mainly because our computer was so full (over 10,500 pictures) that I couldn't download any more photos off the camera. Greg's solution- buy a new computer (yes, we do have an external hard drive also.) So now equipped with our new Mac I'll try to catch up on the past 2 months before we head out on our next great adventure- our cross country move- which begins next week.
We spent Memorial Day weekend with our good friends, Ron, Christina and Trino at a nearby campground. Here the guys are bringing Ella and Trino canoeing (Christina and I also brought the girls canoeing) We had a great time, except for all the deer ticks with make me paranoid about outdoor activities in MA.
I think Greg and Ella look alike in this picture.
Ella enjoyed our town's Memorial Day parade with Nana and Papa
and with her friend Marissa
A zoo trip with Ella's friends Audry and Marissa

The first of many summer visits to the ducks in Boston's Public Gardens

A lot has been going on around here. We received an offer on our house when it had only been on the market 12 days (thank God!) but, before inspection, the buyer backed out of the offer for "personal reasons." Less than 24 hours later we had a second offer on the house almost identical to the first. And although we aren't moving to WA until mid Aug the buyers wanted to close June 19th, so we've been busy packing up the house and preparing to move into a camper at my parents for the last two months of our time in MA.
Greg's piano being moved out was the first big step to breaking down our home. Above, Greg and Ella before the piano movers arrived. Bellow: Greg and Ella June 2006, our first weekend in the house.

Ella's been doing lots of gardening with Nana, and I benefit from some beautiful bouquets. One morning Ella noticed a little spider and a spiders web in the bouquet of flowers she had picked me the day before. She asked me to put the spider outside but in my attempt the spider ran up my sleeve and I accidentally squished it. Later that day Ella was recapping the story for Greg. "I wanted to be nice to the spider but Mommy squished it!" In defense I said "It was very small, it may not have even been a spider, it may have been a tick." Ella looked at me in disbelief and asked "Do ticks spin webs?"-no- "then I expect it was a spider" she concluded. ouch I was outwitted by a 3 year old.
Ella and I helped Alaster celebrate at his first birthday party. Alaster and his mom lived with us for the first 6 months of his life. He's doing great and growining so big!

Spring 2008
too much love for Lolli
Spending time with Papa
Ella and Ayden
Bubbles and play dough with Audrey
Gymnastics class, Ella is to the far left

We spent a day exploring Plimoth Plantation with Nana and Papa
Ella in the Native American Village
Our Family
Ella checks out some goats- her favorite part of the day was chasing the chickens around the plantation.
Ella decided that Greg should have a Bruins cake for his birthday, then before the party she surprised us all by changing into her Bruins shirt.

Greg brough Ella to the zoo one day as I hosted an open house (and got an offer!) for our house. A few days later Ella wanted to go back to the zoo. It was the first time she was taking me somewhere she was familiar with, but where I'd never been. She told me everything I was going to see and planned to ride the zebra on the carousel two days before our trip to the zoo.

At the park with her friends Audrey and Marissa
Ella is really tall, her friends are less than 4 months younger than her.

Ella loves spending time with Summit. I'm not sure Summit loves it quite as much but he's a good sport and allows her to cuddle and rest on him. She loves to read books while resting on our big pupghjjcmcxzfghjlqwerrt (and this is the point where Ella got onto the computer and managed to change my blogger settings to Serbian. If anyone knows how to fix this feel free to fill me in.)