Thursday

Silas and mommy stayed at the guest house this morning. We played and napped while Daddy Tom went to one of the orphanages. Silas is becoming more and more playful and it is wonderful for us to see his fun personality coming out. Tom enjoyed seeing the Kids Care orphanage and was able to take our donations for the children there. He was surprised and relieved to find the conditions not nearly as bad as we had thought they might be. In his opinion, it really was about the same as the TH. It is comforting to know the children are so well taken care of while they wait for their forever family. We then journeyed out with two others and took a taxi to the market again to buy a few more things. It was our first time “alone” in the city w/out the AWAA staff accompanying us. It is a wild ride anytime you venture out. Seriously the traffic here is insane. There are no traffic laws persay and there is a lot of swerving and beeping going on. The air quality is unbelievable bad – exhaust fills the air everywhere. We are on the 4th floor of the guest house and are winded by the time we reach the 2nd floor. It is amazing how much the altitude affects your body. I can’t wait to breathe some fresh, clean air!!Tonight is our last night here in Ethiopia. It has been such a wonderful and emotional week. We are so ready to be home safe and sound with the rest of our family. It is still hard to believe we are in Ethiopia and now have our son in our arms. We leave Ethiopia tomorrow around 7pm and will arrive home Sunday afternoon. We have a long trip ahead of us but can’t wait to see our sweet girls and Nanna and Doc at the airport!

Love,
Sara & Tom

Silas’ 1st Birthday!!

We are having a wonderful time celebrating Silas’

1st birthday – yes – his birth certificate shows July 8th!

What a blessing he is and we are overwhelmed with the

love that we have for him! He is sleeping well, eating well,

playing a lot, and bonding better than we could have ever

expected. God is good all the time, that is for sure!

He has been faithful and we are blessed.

Today we head to the US Embassy to complete the final

steps for our return on Friday. Tomorrow we will head

to an orphanage to drop off donations and after that we

will purchase some goodies to bring home. The extreme

poverty in this country is evident at all times. There are

really no “good sections” that are immune to the conditions.

That said, the people are very welcoming, loving, and happy despite their situations. We see street kids (homeless) playing marbles (with rocks) and carrying on as if all is fine and dandy. Unfortunately, they were barefoot, had tattered clothing, no belongings, and were caught in the pouring rain with nowhere to go. They clearly were making the best of their situation. We have learned a lot…..Thank you for your prayers and look forward to introducing you to Silas. Olivia and Sydney will be very taken with him – words can’t describe what a perfect little boy he is. See you soon.

Gotcha Day!!

We are back at the guest house with silas....he has really opened up and is having so much fun walking (with us!), playing patty cake & he ate a whole jar of oatmeal for dinner. Lots of giggles and squeals. Will write more soon....xoxo, sara & tom

Meeting Silas

What a day! Emotional, beautiful, wonderful…truly one of the most amazing days of our lives. We started out with breakfast at our guest home and then we all gathered around a table to do the necessary paperwork for the US Embassy. After totally botching the first form, Daddy T had to take over. My nerves were in full swing. Then we headed to lunch at Lucy’s (I think that is the right name…near a museum)…tom and I shared a cheese pizza. We are playing it safe in the food area for sure. Then we headed to the transition home….
We were number 5 on the list to meet our baby…cameras were passed out to other families to capture each meetcha moment. The tears were flowing as soon as the first sweet baby was brought out. It is hard to describe the beauty and joy of watching each family meet and hold their children for the first time.
Silas came out very sleepy. Apparently we arrived during nap time, so they had to wake the babies up to meet us. We held him and loved on him but it was very clear he wanted to sleep. His little arms didn’t seem to know where to go at first but after walking and singing to him he fell asleep with his arms around me. Oh how I love snuggling with my babes. He pretty much slept the whole time we were there. I did get to feed him a bottle and then he promptly went right back to sleep. Tom held him while he slept and when it was time to give him back to his nanny he looked back at Tom and his eyes seemed to get super big....what a big day for our little guy too!

After the TH, the ladies headed to a really neat spa. I had a 1 hr massage that was awesome! Then we picked up the guys and went to a traditional Ethiopian restraunt. I only had two bites of food before my nose, ears & mouth were on fire, but the beer was good and the entertainment was great. Several of us danced with the dancers and Kyle played drums…super fun!

Tomorrow we shop in the am, then lunch, and then back to the TH to take pics/care packages and then get our babes for good!

This is my second time typing as we lost power…so please ignore typos…more later. We are tired, happy and healthy …miss you all! And for soon to travel families, it is winter here…pretty chilly at night.

enjoy the pics...
Xoxo,
Sara & tom

Start of day 2 in Ethiopia

Good morning,

Today is the day! It is around 7am here and we are anxiously awaiting our paperwork party here at the guest house at 10, then lunch and then off to see our boy at the transitional home. We've been up since 4 am...reading, eating skittles & trying to pass the time. Our sleeping schedule is way off and we seem to sleep well during the day and not much at night. Hopefully this will change soon as once we have Silas with us I'm sure the day time napping will promptly end!

Dinner at the guest home last night was excellent...traditional ethiopian meal of beef, peppers and rice. I just need to get my hands on a diet coke this morning :) Tom is going to have his first taste of Ethiopian coffee here in a bit. So far so good...we are both feeling well.

We have gotten to visit with many of the 8 other AWAA families staying here at the guest house . We have a great group! It is so nice to be experiencing this trip with others who are experiencing many of the same emotions and joy.

Hopefully we will be able to post later today with pictures of our meetcha day!!! Can't believe it is here.

Liv & Syd - we love you and miss you....xoxoxo!!
mom & dad

Hello! We made it to Ethiopia!! It feels sooo good to be here.

Our flight from Dubai was excellent - we were upgraded to business class which was insane....seats totally recline, chair massages you all over, you name it and we got it! Of course I was way into watching all the movies we never get to see anymore, so no sleep for me and I think about 1 hour for Tom.

We arrived to the airport and went through visa control, passport control & retrieved our all of our luggage w/ no problems. David a driver w/ AWAA picked us up at the airport. We had to ward off several men trying to help us with our bags. The begging is definitely going to be a challenge here.

Driving to the guest house we were able to witness the extreme poverty from our windows, although I know we haven't seen the worst of it yet.

The guest house is clean and very friendly staff. I am using the receptionist computer right now b/c the internet connection is not working in our room...sorry for any typos the keys are a little bit different on the keyboard. We just took another 3 our nap and plan to eat dinner here at the guest house.

We miss and love you all. It feels great to be here and one day away from seeing our boy.

Thanks for your continued prayers.

Love,
Sara & Tom

Day in Dubai

So much for sleeping in today. Tom got up at 5am and attempted to go to starbucks (which was closed) but enjoyed a peaceful morning in the hotel lobby drinking coffee and reading the paper. I of course could not go back to sleep so we ate an early breakfast in our hotel and then headed to the beach. We have not left the Beaufort heat behind. It is crazy hot here. The beach here is nice there are chairs lining the beach, tiki bar and a foggy sea view. After trying to cool off in the Arabian sea (which felt very similar to a hot tub) we had a frozen concoction and a dip in the pool. We went to chilis for lunch which was just a short walk from the hotel. We then proceded to take a 4 1/2 hour nap! Now we are at Starbucks and off to find another American chain for dinner.

Thoughts on Dubai: not sure what all the fuss is about - nice but really just a lot of shopping and hotels on the beach. not much character that we've seen. although we did stay cooped up in teh hotel for most of the afternoon. we've never done the tourist sightseeing thing very well.

Highly recommend for future travelers: come a few days early to rest and sleep. We've enjoyed not being on any kind of schedule. We feel like we should sleep when our bodies will let us.

We meet our driver at 5:30 in the am for our flight to Addis. We should arrive in Addis around 11:30.

Happy 4th of July!!
Sara & Tom