Friday, July 30, 2010

Day 3- Gotcha Day

We awoke on day 3 after a wonderful night of sleep, which I hear is quite unusual. But you have to remember that I work nights and Troy can sleep any time, any where. So changing time zones was nothing for us. We got ready had a wonderful breakfast provided at the Bejoe house. Then we decided to take the opportunity to go see the town. Our driver took us to a restaurant called Island Breeze. It is American run and makes you feel right at home. The restaurant played a lot of Beach Boys music and had a beach theme. We ate Italian food and took time to enjoy our 7th wedding anniversary!

After lunch we went straight back to the Bejoe house because Travis had messaged us that he was on the was with Elliott. When we got back, another family had arrived and she would be receiving her son as well. We waited for about 30 mins in the garden area making conversation as best as you can when you are anxious. It started to rain so we then moved up to the porch so that we wouldn't be soaked. Then we heard a car honk and the gait open and it was our moment to meet our son. Joanna carried Elliott up to us and I took him right away. You can tell that he is just taking everything in and trying to figure out what is going on. We sat and held our precious boy and learned about his schedule. For the first hour Elliott didn't make a sound. But as soon as he was comfortable his personality came out all at once. He started talking non stop saying Mama, Dada, and any other baby babble that he could come up with. The rest of the day we spent enjoying our new addition and getting to know him better. It was a great day to meet our son.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Ethiopia: Days 1&2

Sorry this has taken me so long to write. Life is crazy with 3 kids. But we are getting into the swing of things.

We left on Saturday morning to head to Ethiopia. I thought that I would be a basket case leaving the other two kids,but I did well. If you have kids you are leaving behind, I would recommend saying your good byes at the house and not the airport. My kids were comfortable saying bye at home and it really made things go a lot smoother.
We flew into Washington DC for a 5 hour lay over. AS soon as we got to Dulles we went to find our next gate. I'm glad we did this because there was a huge line for boarding passes. We stood in line got our boarding passes then went to find ways to pass the time. We then boarded Ethiopian airlines for our 16 hour flight to Ethiopia. The flight went way better then expected. The food and service was great. I don't sleep well on planes so I think I only got about 2 hours of sleep, but I had a feeling that would happen.
We finally set foot on Ethiopian soil on Sunday night. We got off the plane, down an escalator and saw a big yellow sign that said "Visas". We stood in line for a little less then 30 minutes, Paid our $20 each and moved to the immigration line. Passed immigration, found our bags, exchanged money, put bags through yet another scanner, and out the door. It was very easy to find Travis in the crowd, thank goodness. He introduced us to our wonderful driver, Solomon, and off we went to the guest house.
Once at the guest house we met up with Genet, she showed us our rooms and gave us a tour of the house. We also received a cell phone to make calls. The cell phone is how you can call your driver and the main way Travis communicates info to you. Before he left he let us know that we would not be getting Elliott until Monday afternoon. I was a little bummed, but then Troy and I decided that it would give us an opportunity to get out and see the city. So, we settled into our room and got a great night of sleep. We, after all, were meeting our son the next day.