we're home!!

Well, we're home! It's hard to believe it, but our trip is over and we're starting to get settled in. 

Joseph didn't do as well on the two long plane rides between Houston, Germany, and home. We were all pretty much done with traveling by the time we got home! 

Now we're struggling through jet lag. The first two nights we were home none of us were in bed until 4:00 AM! But tonight Joseph was sleeping by 9:00 and 3 hours later he's still sleeping. We're hoping to get our days and nights turned around real soon. 

Thanks for all of your prayers and encouraging words!! We were blessed to be able to see so many of you and we'll look forward to our next visit. We'll continue updating this blog , so come back and visit soon!! Leave a comment when you get a chance! :) Tim and Jeni

 

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Houston Zoo

While we were in Houston we took a trip to the zoo. It was a nice time! Joseph did a lot of sleeping since nap time was right when we arrived! He was comfortable in the new back pack carrier! 

Once he woke up we took him to the petting zoo. He wasn't scared of the animals, he just didn't really want to pet them! I helped him touch them, but he didn't care for it so much. 

After we washed our hands real good, we sat down for some ice-cream. It was a warm day in Houston!!! This picture proves that Joseph approves of ice-cream! 

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Joseph meets family in Albuquerque

Joseph met 2 more great-grandmas in Albuquerque. Here he is with Great-Grandma Nita.

Here he is with Great-Grandma Saltzman. We didn't even know she was moving to Albuquerque. We were surprised to get to see her! 

Here's Tim's parents with their newest grandchild! He is the 7th grandchild for them!! 

Three generations of Saltzman men! 

Both of Joseph's grandpas like to ride motorcycles. Here's Joseph on Papa's newest bike. It's for sale if you'd like to buy it! 

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Here's Joseph and his 2 aunts! Karla is on the left and Tonya is on the right. They were totally in love with him. Both of them already have kids and so it was good to hear their advice! 

Joseph's cousins Tori & Jackie flew in from phoenix with their mom, Tonya!! They played so well with him! They helped with feeding him and reading to him. We had lots of fun with them. I can't believe they're getting so big. We sure have missed these girls. 

Emma, who is 4, also enjoyed Joseph. She helped us try to teach him how to say, "mama!" He's still learning. 

Joseph's cousin John is only 2. He was always so busy playing in the back yard!! One night he came in with black hands because he was playing in the dirt so much. :) 

We had a couple of very special times with our close friends, Mark & Renee! We love them and miss them so much. Samuel, their oldest child, is 2 years old.

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reading with cousins

Joseph has four cousins here with us in Albuquerque while we're visiting. Tori likes reading to Joseph. Here's a picture of Tori & Jackie reading to their newest cousin, Joseph. :) It's the kind of book that is tactile...babies can touch things. Joseph doesn't quite know how to "read" these books. So, Tori would read the book and Jackie would take Joseph's hand and help him touch the pages. It was cute! 

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meeting family

Joseph has been able to meet lots of family. Last week when we were in Colorado Joseph got to meet lots of family. He's a pretty lucky boy to have so many people who love him! 

Grandma & Grandpa

He got to sit on Grandpa's motorcycle! 

Grandma & Great Grandma. Great Grandma flew up from Phoenix to be with us! We were blessed to be able to celebrate her birthday as well as Mother's Day together! 

Uncle Andrew and his fiance, Brooke, were around a lot while we were there! It was fun to be with them. 

Uncle Ross warmed up to Joseph too! He was even taking care of him while he was fussy with teething! Ross is no longer the baby of our family anymore. Joseph just took over that position! 

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We're in Colorado

We're enjoying ourselves in Colorado with Jeni's family! When we got here there was this cute sign! :) 

Grandma gave Joseph this cute visor that says Colorado! It fits him great and keeps the sun off his face! :) 

Tim, Joseph, and I went for a walk and saw this horse. Joseph liked the horse. I don't think the horse liked getting his hair pulled, though. 

Grandma likes giving Joseph a bath in her big sink! She also likes it when I bring Joseph into her bedroom at 5:00 AM so Tim and I can sleep some more. She and Grandpa feed him, change him, and play with him! 

Here's a picture of my parents enjoying their first grandchild!! 

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We're in Germany!

Hi! We made it to Germany...we have internet to upload some photos and video!! 

Here's a few pictures from our week in Ethiopia. You'll notice that some of our pictures are feeding Joseph. We're figuring out the feeing thing and so is he!! He sure is eating a lot. We will be trying out lots of new solid foods over the next few weeks! We already know he likes bananas!! 

Here I am with Joseph in the bus going around Addis Ababa picking up other families and going to all of the places we had to go while we were there! 

Tim holding Joseph. He loves his plastic chain!!

Shopping. Joseph loves the Baby Bjorn and we've used it a lot this week. 

Feeding Joseph again. Can you see how long he is? Turns out he's in the 90th percentile for length and the 50th percentile for weight. He's going to be tall!!!  

Here he is in his carseat/stroller at the Frankfurt airport. 

This is a video of Joseph in the airplane. He was playing, making lots of noise. We tried to keep him quiet, but it didn't work all the time. Thankfully, he did end up sleeping and slept 6 hours on the plane from Sudan to Frankfurt. Now we're about to board the plane to Denver. We hope he'll be good!! 

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First Jojo Day/Week in Ethiopia!

This is like a dream! We are really in Ethiopia!! Our son is sleeping in the pack 'n play as I write this. I can tell he's sleeping because he's snoring! (just like both of his grandpas!)

I don't know where to start. We've been SO busy these past few days. Monday morning we went to the Thomas Center with the other 8 families picking up their children. It was fun how they placed the children in the arms of the parents!! They were clapping their hands and calling out names. We had our eye on the cutest one ;) watching everything with his big brown eyes!

Monday night was our first night with him. He went to sleep just fine after eating a bottle. We hurried to get everything ready for the next day before getting to bed ourselves. He woke up at about 3:30, we gave him a bottle and he went back to sleep. That's basically been the same for Tuesday and Wednesday nights too.

Tuesday and Wednesday were our embassy days. The US embassy took the longest, mostly because of the large group of families we are with. We have his Ethiopian passport with the US visa and we'll pick up the German visa on Friday. Can you believe that you need to have a special transit visa even for a layover? It will be such a relief to have Joseph's US passport. You can go almost anywhere without many problems on a US passport.

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