Travel plans

So since finding out about our court date it has been plan, plan, plan. We have tentatively made our travel plans!! In two months, Matt and I will be on a plane to Ethiopia or hopefully in Ethiopia. Ahh I can't believe it. I am ready to hold and love on our baby boy. We will do the scheduled Gladney events and when Gladney is finished hosting us we plan to travel to Awassa where Solomon is from and visit his birthplace. We get to travel with another Gladney family...who I can't wait to meet in person!  

Once we get back from Awassa we plan to take placement of Solomon immediately and begin being parents. Matt will stay for another couple of days to be with Solomon and then he will go back to the USA. I will stay in Ethiopia with Solomon until we get our US Embassy appointment in Ethiopia. This appointment will be 3-6 weeks after our court date (once we go to this appointment we may leave Ethiopia with Solomon).  But I will not be alone the same family who is going to Awassa with us will also be staying (the mom and her new baby that is)!!! We plan to stay at the same guesthouse as we remain in Ethiopia awaiting our embassy appointments. My mom and mother in law will come over the last week I am in Ethiopia to help me on the plane ride home with Solomon.

I know this will be an emotional and life changing trip on so many levels but I can't wait. The hardest part is that although these are my plans..it doesn't really matter. It all depends on if things go smoothly on our first court date on October 7th. (the one we don't go to) If things go well then we get to travel as planned, if things don't go well then our travel plans could be pushed back to another date. All of this unknown is stressful, but I feel as though I have planned for what I can. I have to keep telling myself that God is in control of all of this.

To get ready for this trip I have been re-reading lots of families blogs who have previously traveled making notes of places to visit and eat at while we have free time. I am still trying to figure out which guesthouse to stay at. I want to stay in the city where we can walk to things and really see what Addis Ababa is all about. I am also trying to figure out airlines and what will be best on the way back home with a one year old...doing several layovers or one really really long flight.  I am hoping to get tickets soon. There are so many little questions to figure out such as how many diapers do I bring since I really don't know my return date, what will Solomon be eating, what will I be eating, will he be on a bottle or do I bring sippy cups, etc. I know all of these questions will be figured out and slowly things are coming together as we have gotten more tentative plans. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Update

Today we received an updated picture and a description of how Solomon is doing:

S. put on quite a show today for all in his room to see!  The caregivers were getting him to laugh and squeal with delight over and over.  It was really delightful to watch.  Other than entertaining, S. enjoyed “talking” to me today.  He’s quite the conversationalist—for a toddler, that is.  What a joy he is!

I can't wait to meet this baby boy!!

Court Date!!

Matt and I were at home about to eat dinner. Matt was blessing the food and asking God to give us a court date quickly. No sooner had Matt said Amen then my phone starting ringing. I saw the famous 817 area code and was so excited to hear Kristin on the other line. She was calling to tell us of our court dates!!!

Our MOWA (Ministry of women's affairs) court date is October 7th.(we do not travel for this one) If all goes well then our official court date is October 19th. We will be in country from the 17th-24th. We get to meet Solomon on the 18th...crazy!! I am so excited and so glad that we got our court date before the courts close in August. Now we really need to get on the ball with getting Solomon's room ready. Sooo So Happy we got a court date!!!

Pictures

So in our referral pictures that we got there was only one picture of Solomon slightly smiling. This week we have received several pictures of Solomon from families who have recently traveled to pick up their children. I am glad to report that Solomon looks so happy and is very smiley in almost all of the pictures. He has the best smile ever! I can't wait to get him and show him to you all! He is now sitting up in most of his pictures. We even got some videos of him laughing! So great to see videos..I just can't explain it.  And apparently he loves to bounce while standing.I was also told he was heavy so I really need to start lifting some weights to prepare for him.

We are still waiting for a court date...I hope we hear something soon, this wait is HARD!!

How we are doing..

We are without words to describe how happy we are right now to be matched with our little Solomon. Well maybe I shouldn't say little...Solomon is a good eater apparently. I went out shopping this weekend to get Solomon some stuff to send for a care package. Our 7 month old guy is in 12 month clothing according to his height and weight measurements from when he was 6 months old. Crazy! I am so glad that he is a healthy growing boy.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for being so happy for us. Can I also just say how wonderful this Gladney adoption community is. Everyone has been so encouraging. Right now there are families in Ethiopia and getting ready to travel who are going to love on our boy. This family is going to give Solomon a gift from us. It was so hard to narrow down what we wanted to give him. We ended up giving him an outfit and pjs (I hope they fit him) along with a photo album of us.

Referral - the call story!!!!

Ahhh!! We got our call today!! It still feels like a dream and hasn't really set in yet. Here is how it happened:

So I was at work and it was after 2pm. I was thinking that since Gladney hadn't called yet that we were not going to get our call today because they were having an Ethiopian conference call for families this afternoon. So I figured our caseworker would be busy preparing for that conference call. So I went on with my day.  I was across the hall from my office and I heard my phone ring, but I didn't make it in time. Before I could see who it was it started ringing again and I saw the famous 817 area code.  I immediately started shaking and my heart was about to beat out of my chest. I answered and Kristin, our caseworker, told me she had our referral ready for us. All I could say was Oh my gosh like a million times. I told her that Matt and I wanted to be together for the call and could call her back in 30 minutes once we met up.

So I called Matt and he did not believe me that Kristin had actually called me. After several seconds of telling him I was not joking and that this really was the call, we agreed to meet at his work to hear about our referral after he went home to pick up the video camera. I left work and went straight to his office. Once we got the camera and computer all set up we called Kristin back. She sent us our email and we saw the cutest, I mean cutest baby boy ever! God has truly blessed us.

He is 7 months old and has the biggest brown eyes and chubby cheeks. He is just amazing! He is described to be very social, smiles easily and loves attention. I can't wait to get my hands on him. We have decided to call him Solomon.

So for all of you who are not in the adoption community, you may be asking what is next. Well now we wait some more. They are busy getting Solomon's papers ready and in order and will then submit them to the Ethiopian court system. In Ethiopia the court system closes down for the rainy season sometime in August and opens back up in October. Once we receive a court date we will travel over to Ethiopia for the court date and then come back to the US. Upon passing court we will then travel back to Ethiopia and bring Solomon home. We hope to have him home around November. Please continue to pray for us as now that we have seen his face it will be hard to be patient and wait for a court date.By the way we are not allowed to post any pictures of him until he is officially ours.

Number 1

We are number 1!!! I just read all about Shannon's call and then saw that Joanna got her referral yesterday too! So that makes us number one for a boy and a girl. I can hardly contain myself. AHHHH!!!!