Our time in Ethiopia

We are home from picking up Faith in Ethiopia, visiting family in the States, and getting her passport. Now life is starting to settle down again. We're finding a new normal. (Once we get through jet lag, that is.)

I finally have a little bit of time to start blogging about our trip. I guess I'll start from the beginning when we went to Ethiopia.

This is the Ethiopian Flag that greeted us as we left the airport.

Our airplane arrived in Ethiopia at 9:00 am. We were picked up and taken to our guest house. We frantically unpacked and prepared ourselves for bringing this new child into our lives. A few hours later at 12:30 we were picked up and taken to the Thomas Center where our little girl was waiting for us. On the way we were told that she had just gotten out of the hospital earlier that morning. She had been there for 5 days for pneumonia...again. :( :( We were shocked and scared. Is she going to be okay???

Needless to say we didn't sleep well that night because we were constantly getting up to make sure she was okay. Her cough sounded awful. Thankfully a nurse was came to our guest house the first night and twice the next day to check up on her and to give her an injection of antibiotics. After a couple days she was clearly getting better.

Here's a picture of Faith when she woke up that first morning. When they handed her to us the day before they had done her hair in a bunch of little pig tails...so cute! We didn't take any pictures that first day...we were really just focused on making sure she was okay.

Here I am feeding the happy girl. She has enjoyed having enough to eat and plenty of bottles of formula.

She's been this happy since the day we got her!!! We're just as happy to have her in our family!! What a blessing she is!

It was obvious from the beginning that Joseph and Faith like being brother and sister. Joseph loves his little sister and she loves him! She watches him and laughs at him...it's fun to watch. He often needs to be reminded to be gentle. He loves to give her kisses.

The next few pictures were taken the morning of the US Embassy appointment. It was a big day as we got her visa to go to the States.

Such a happy girl!! Gotta love her!

The next few pictures were taken outside of our guest house inside the compound. It was SO beautiful! There was plenty of grass for Joseph to run around in and the weather was great...about 70 degrees or so.

This sign was inside the Thomas Center in the family gathering room. It's written in Amharic and I believe it says something like, "Welcome to adopting families!!!"

We liked the pictures they posted too! It's so fun how they photoshopped Faith into our family picture!! :) :)

Two happy kids hanging out together!! :)

It was bitter sweet to be in Ethiopia. Of course we were delighted to be there picking up our little girl, but our hearts were heavy as we saw so much poverty.