Happy Birthday Kate! And We Travel Tomorrow!

Holy Moly!  I woke up today, realized we are leaving in 24 hours, and got butterflies.  Mostly because I'm really excited, but also because we still have all the odds and ends to get done.  Like laundry.  And packing.  :)

Tomorrow is also Kate's 3rd birthday!  We realized that yesterday was the 4th Thanksgiving we've been together as a family of 3, because we picked Kate up from the hospital on Thanksgiving Day.  We have been so blessed!  Since we're traveling tomorrow, we decided to just make Thanksgiving  Kate's birthday party, so as far as she's concerned all the amazing food yesterday was solely for her birthday happiness.  We put candles into pieces of pumpkin and chocolate pudding pies, opened presents, and had a blast with the balloons my mom had hung from the ceiling as birthday decorations for her.  It was great to see Kate have so much fun with the whole birthday thing.  Last year she enjoyed it all, but this year she knew exactly what was going on, and looked forward to it all month.  She sang along to Happy Birthday, and pointed to herself during the song.  And randomly throughout the day she would tell herself "Happy Birthday Kate!!".  This is definitely a fun age!  The picture is her posing in her new dress up skirt made by Grandma and a new headband she got for  her birthday.

Even though I have a LOT to do today, I'm starting to see the end of the getting ready process, so I'm strangely less stressed than I have been all week.  Poor Kerry!  He had to tread carefully this week in commenting about how close we were to traveling so it wouldn't come across wrong to his half-crazed wife.  In his defense, because of his work and church responsibilities, I've been the one in charge of most of the getting-readiness, so he was feeling excited a little more frequently than I earlier this week because he didn't have to be in charge of "THE LIST".  But I think the worst is over, and last night we gathered a bunch of things on our packing list, so it's just clothing left to pack, really.

I realized that many of you might not know that we won't be bringing the boys home this trip (sorry to disappoint anyone!).  The government of Ethiopia requires 2 trips for adoption.  During this trip we get to meet the boys, visit them each day during the orphanage visiting hours and have a court date where we become their legal guardians.  Once that legal piece is done, we come home, and the adoption case gets forwarded to the US embassy in Ethiopia.  We'll then be assigned a visa appointment where we'll get the boys visas and then can bring them home.  The visa interviews will be in 4-8 weeks, depending on how quickly things are processed.  As expensive and annoying as it is to have to travel twice and leave the boys there until we go back the second time, we are grateful that we'll  be able to soak in as much of Ethiopia as possible.

And since we're not taking Kate with us or bringing the boys back, our packing is uncharacteristically light.  Which is ironic because apparently if you're flying to or from central Africa you get 2 checked bags free per person, plus the carryon.  We're totally taking an empty suitcase to bring things back in.  Beyond visiting the boys during visiting hours, we just get to be tourists, and we don't want to count on having any time next trip to shop or sightsee, so we're going to go all out this time around.  I have ideas of a few things that I definitely want to find at the markets, including some traditional baskets, traditional Ethiopian clothing, and hopefully a nativity set.  Other than that, we'll just see if anything strikes our fancy.  Kerry was set on bringing home a spear until the sad realization that it wouldn't fit in a regular suitcase.  I can't say that I'm heartbroken.  :)

Here's a picture of the things we're taking to give the boys.  The agency said to keep it really simple, and to not plan on seeing any of it again, so we won't leave the photo albums with them.  When we get back from this trip I'll print out more pics of them and add to the album, and officially give them to the boys when we pick them up the second trip.  The pictures in the album currently are of Kerry, me, Kate, the boys, and our house.