Ethiopia Trip-Day 1 & 2

Well our trip over to Ethiopia went about as smooth as you could ask for. The three of us (my mom went as well) left out of Denver about an hour late as one of the emergency doors on our plane was broken....they decided we could still fly with a broken door (!!!) and we were on our way. We had no problems checking all our bags and containers full of supplies. We flew through Frankfurt, Germany. We originally had about 90 minutes there...With our delay leaving Denver we knew we'd be pushing it. We landed in Frankfurt, and rushed through from one terminal to the next, going back through security and passport control. Adam's Diet Coke he bought in Denver that he was "saving" was forced to be thrown away...this ended up being a bigger disappointment than we thought since he hardly could find any diet sodas the entire trip in Ethiopia :-) It's the little things, ya know?

We arrived at our gate as they were boarding the flight from Frankfurt to Addis. Phew! We made it! Then as we were getting ready to take off for Addis there was some oil leak on that flight...That delayed us about 2 hours into Addis. We finally landed into Addis Ababa around 10:30pm. We got off the plane, went and stood in line for our visa and exchanged some money right there. The line to get our visas issued was loooong. But we got them, then stood in another long line for passport control. Got through all that and went to collect our bags/containers. A guy who is a friend of my mom's friend in Ethiopia happens to work at the airport. Long story short, he was there to greet us outside customs and had actually collected and organized all our bags for us while we were still in passport control...so it made finding our bags effortless! Then we met our adoption agency country director outside of that area and we were one our way (about 90 minutes after landing!)

We loaded everything up into a van and started driving to the guest house. Along the drive we were asking some questions about our boy. I should have known he'd have something up his sleeve! We get to the guest house which is on the same property as the transition home where the kiddos are kept until they go home...But based on other conversations I'd had with our agency and other people, we we didn't think our boy was there yet...We arrive about 12:30AM and get situated in the lobby area and sit down and go over the rough schedule for the next few days with the country director...About 20 minutes later he says "The nannies are bringing your boy to you right now!!!" WHHHHHAAAAATTT?!?!?!

It was about 1am and the nannies woke him up, gave him a quick bath and brought him in to see us. We quickly jumped to our feet, grabbed our video and digital cameras and got ready to meet him. I couldn't believe it....They bring him in and the nanny immediately hands him over to me all wrapped up in a blanket. He was wide awake and just smiled at us. No words can describe that feeling of getting him in our arms. I couldn't believe I was holding our son. We were a little emotional at our first meeting, but more delirious since it was 1am. :-)

I just kept telling him "Hey boy...We're your mommy and daddy..We love you so much!" We spent about 20 minutes with him taking turns holding him, kissing him and just in awe of him. He has so much sweet curly hair!! (in our referral photos he had a baby hat on, so we didn't know how much hair he'd have) And our biggest surprise was how big he was! He is TOTAL CHUNK! I mean rolls and rolls on his arms and legs....He is perfect. And he literally never stopped smiling at us.

We went to bed that night with big smiles on our tired faces....couldn't wait to see him again the next day.....

**We can't post any photos of him yet pending one last document we need from MOWA to complete our court case....hopefully in a couple of weeks you'll see his sweet face!