Tis the Season!

We've been thoroughly enjoying ourselves the past while with getting ready for Christmas.  Since we weren't sure when we would be traveling to Ethiopia, the majority of the Christmas shopping got done before Thanksgiving, which means we've had more time to actually enjoy the season.  I think I'll try to get shopping done ahead of time next year, too!

We've been baking regularly over here, partly because we wanted to give homemade bread as gifts, and partly because it's such a fun activity when we're cooped up in the house anyway.  Kate and her friend Joel have loved helping to put ingredients in, and with bread I'll give them each a piece of dough to knead.  As you can tell by the flour explosion, it was a hit. :)

We had our ward Christmas party this past weekend, and Santa visited at the end.  After last year where Kate was bordering on phobic of Santa, I didn't have any intention on purposely taking her to see him.  She still wasn't excited to see him, she actually hid on her chair when he walked in, and she told me a couple times that she didn't want to go talk to him, but once she realized that he was handing out GIFT BAGS she decided the tradeoff was worth it.  Fortunately, the kids weren't sitting on his lap, so there wasn't any pressure to get very close to him.  He asked her what she wanted for Christmas, and she pointed to the sack filled with bags and said "I want a bag".  Overall, I think it was a good experience for her.  She got semi close, she actually spoke to him, and there were no tears.  We'll count that as a win.

Also on Saturday, it snowed like crazy, and this winter Kate has been fascinated by playing outside in the snow.  I took her out the first time it snowed this fall, which she loved, but I'm pretty much a wimp, so if she's wanting to play in the snow and Kerry is home, I try really hard to get her to ask him.  And as the great dad that he is, Kerry is usually really excited to go out with her.

They got all dressed up...

And then threw snowballs at the school...

And then made a snowman...

And then made snow angels.

There was also plenty of jumping over and in the full icy gutters, which meant that her boots were soaking, but she didn't seem to mind.  We finally had to carry her inside because she was so upset about not being able to stay out there all day.

Final Day in Addis Plus Kosher Pics

View onto our balcony

Well, I figured I better write about our final day in Ethiopia while it's still fresh in my mind.  I definitely want to journal about all this partly for me and Kerry, and partly for all you friends and family who want to know, but most importantly for the boys as they get older and want to hear firsthand about it.  When Kate was adopted, a caseworker said something to the effect that a child deserves to have as much information about their story as is available.  That has really stuck with me, and I truly believe it.  

When a family is adopting multiple children through our adoption agency, and when the children are in separate orphanages like Tam and Yeb are, the agency will sometimes arrange to have one of the children come visit the other orphanage for a day so that the family can spend time with both kids simultaneously.  That's what we got to do on Friday of our visit.  Well, part of the day, anyway.  We had planned to go on our final shopping trip Thursday night, but between court taking so much longer than anticipated and then being able to meet Yeb's birthmother and spend time with her, shopping fell to the bottom of the priority list.  After talking to the agency staff, we decided to go shopping first thing on Friday morning before Tam was brought over for the visit.

Amazing saddle in the national museum.  This one's for you, Grandad!

As a side note, when we first got to Addis and through the first couple days, we were a little miffed at our agency because it felt like communication was almost nonexistent.  Our frustration was only increased by the fact that we met a great adoptive couple on the trip over who are adopting through Holt International, and their trip was completely planned out for them.  They were in a group with other adoptive couples.  They were told exactly where to stay while they were there.  They had an agency van and driver to shuttle them around.  They had an orientation meeting.  You get the picture.  Which to us during the first couple days there seemed like a dream come true because we were faced with staying  in a hotel we had had to randomly choose, try to hire a driver at a daily rate (that's an entire post by itself), choose when and where to go, figure out how to get around by foot, hail taxis, try to communicate despite a language barrier, etc.  It was a pretty steep learning curve, and at the beginning we were definitely feeling some agency envy.

Ethiopian Orthodox Church on Entoto Mountain

However, by the end of the week we were feeling pretty confident in our ability to get around without any help, and really glad for the time flexibility we had had throughout the week.  Since the boys were in different places we had the ability to make it a priority to visit each of them every day, and at the times that worked best for us and them.  A huge advantage was that we could stay with the boys as long as we wanted. We were able to pick and choose from the sightseeing list, pick exactly what kind of restaurants we wanted to eat at and when, and in general just feel like we could do what we wanted when we wanted.  Since our hotel was close to Yeb's orphanage, we did a fair amount of walking to and from, and also explored the area on foot in search of restaurants and shops we had heard of.  We walked every day to the little mercado next door to buy water, went to the bank next to that to exchange money, and a little farther down a side street to an internet cafe.  And throughout the week the agency really did give us the support we needed, just not the kind we had been wishing for on Monday.

View to Addis Ababa from Entoto Mountain.  Notice all the smog.

Ok, with that in mind, by Friday we were feeling fairly confident, and decided to just take a taxi to and from a shopping district.  For some reason I was freaked out by the idea of hailing a taxi, but Kerry was adamant that it really was NO BIG DEAL.  We headed out of the hotel after breakfast, Kerry hailed a taxi, negotiated a price, and we hopped in.  Partway through the drive the driver pulled the car over and left.  We figured he had gone to get gas, but since he didn't speak hardly any English, he hadn't tried to explain before he left.  After waiting a few minutes, finally getting out and hailing another taxi, we were  just about to climb in the 2nd taxi when we hear the 1st driver shouting, and turned around to see him running down the street toward his car with a gas can.  It had apparently run out of gas, and he had to run to get some.  We climbed back in, he put the gas in, and after starting the car from under the hood, we were off again.  Poor man.  He was so flustered and apologetic, and reassured us that it would be no charge (don't worry, we did pay him).  After a minute he just started laughing, and just kept laughing, until all 3 of us were laughing about the whole thing.

Other side of Entoto Mountain.  Ahhh.  Clean air.  And how beautiful is that view?!

He dropped us off at a clothing shop that wasn't in the big shopping district we were wanting to go, but we knew we were close, so figured we could just walk the rest of the way.  This is the adventure part of getting around a city where you don't speak the language.  After walking around for a bit and asking multiple business owners which direction we needed to go, we finally just hailed another taxi.  That guy made a killing on us, but we didn't care at that point.  We made it to the shopping district, found what we were hoping for, and hailed another cab back to the hotel.  Then we packed our purchases into our bags, checked out of the hotel, and took yet another taxi to Yeb's orphanage/agency office.  We stowed our bags in the office, and then could relax a bit knowing that we were going to be there for most of the day.  We played with Yeb for a bit, and then Kerry went with the agency driver to go and pick up Tam and bring him over for the visit.  Before Kerry left he was holding Yeb, who totally fell asleep in him arms clutching a soccer ball, and so then I got to hold the sleeping little boy until lunchtime.  This was the first time that I had been with either boy during a mealtime, and it was fun to see all the little kids take off their shoes, sit down on the mat on the floor, and hold their plates in their laps.  Yeb was a little cranky from just waking up, and wouldn't sit down, and later wouldn't eat.  One of the older boys came over and worked his older boy magic to convince Yeb to sit down, but refused to eat until I fed him by hand.  Mentally I was cringing, because I know that feeding a child is a powerful attachment tool, and we really didn't want to start the bonding process in earnest when we were going to have to leave them, but emotionally I couldn't NOT do it.  Can you blame me?

Gorgeous countryside

There were a ton of donkeys carrying straw down the mountain road,
and also women who were carrying HUGE bundles of
eucalyptus branches down to sell as firewood.

After lunch Kerry and Tam showed up, and for the first couple hours we were wishing that we hadn't agreed to the get together.  Poor Tam was just freaked out being in a new place with new kids, and we felt awful that he was so on edge.  I started repenting for any prayers I had said pleading for Tam to be moved to Yeb's orphanage for the next couple months.  But after a couple hours, he started to settle down and relax, and by the late afternoon he was showing more personality than we had ever seen from him.  Kerry and I realized partway through that for the first time ever we had more than one of our children with us at the same time.  Weird!  Also partway through the afternoon Yeb disappeared to play in the water faucets and have some downtime.  I was so happy to see that he can entertain himself for a bit, because after meeting the boys and realizing that they are both really energetic, I am eyeing afternoon naptime/quiet time as my sanity saver.

Tam meanwhile was happy to explore and wanted us to watch him do all sorts of tricks, jumps, and ball  kicks.  He started doing this hilarious victory dance when he felt especially proud of himself.  That little boy can move!

4:30 rolled around, and we wanted Tam to be back at his orphanage by dinnertime, so we put all our luggage in the agency van, said goodbye to Yeb, and piled in with Tam.  The driver took us across the city, where we got out and said goodbye to Tam.  Fortunately the kids at Tam's orphanage started chanting his name when they saw him, so his goodbye wasn't dramatic at all.  Poor Yeb, though, was screaming bloody murder when we left him.  We both decided that WE're not going to be able to handle getting a babysitter for a while after the boys get home, not because the kids won't be able to be okay, but because we won't be able to handle their sadness as we leave.

The not so glamorous part of staying in a 3rd world country.
Doing laundry in the sink

Merry Christmas!  We put up the tree last night, and Kate was super excited about it.  YOu can tell which section of the tree she took responsibility for decorating. :)

The driver took us to the airport, where we were super early for our flight, but we really didn't want to drag out the goodbyes to the boys.  We bought some food there (fairly nasty), and waited.  During our trip we ordered cheeseburgers twice, once in the airport, and decided never again.  Same with the ice cream.  It's just not Ethiopia's forte.  What we did fall in love with food-wise was the for-real Ethiopian food.  My goal in the next couple months is to get a lot better at making it here at home, and now with a much better frame of reference, I'm excited to renew my efforts. 

Jetlag at 4am, Birthmother miracles

This past week we've gotten somewhat used to the jetlag-induced 3am wakeup, where we toss and turn, and if we're lucky, fall back asleep.  If not, we finally get up and do something productive like play plants vs. zombies on the ipad (thanks Ian!).  Seriously, we both became strangely addicted to that game.  I don't know why I assumed that because we were completely exhausted last night from all the flying that we might actually be able to get a decent night's rest.  Wishful thinking, apparently.  Here I am at almost 5am, and I've been awake for over an hour, but I'm strangely more rested than I've felt in days.  I'll probably conk out in sacrament meeting this afternoon as a result. :)

So now that we're home, of course you are all wondering "Where are the pictures of those amazingly cute boys!?!"  :)  The sad part is that even though we had our court date, it will still be a little while before our case "passes" court, so we aren't legally the boys parents yet, so we can't post pics on blogs or FB.  Don't you worry, though.  The minute we are legally their parents you can bet I will be posting pics here.  

Speaking of court, I'll share what all happened that day.  Our court date was Thursday afternoon, so we decided to visit the boys in the morning, and then the agency set up a shopping trip in the evening for anyone who wanted to go as a group.  We visited Yeb, and then tagged along with the agency driver when he went to run a few people around to catch a ride to Tam's orphanage.  We had the longest and best visit with Tam of the trip, and then took a taxi back to our hotel so we could quickly change before we got picked up for court.  W didn't have time to grab lunch, so we ran to the mercado next door and bought some cookies, juice, and more water.  The agency driver picked us up, and we piled into the van with 3 other couples and the agency staff and headed to the courthouse.  We hadn't been as good that morning at keeping hydrated, and the result was that Kerry drank almost the whole carton of juice by himself plus a bunch of water.  End result: by the time we sat down in the courtroom Kerry already needed to use the restroom.  

We figured that the time we were told to be there was an individual appointment, but it was actually the time assigned to everyone who was coming that afternoon.  The place was packed, and there were a ton of people left standing in the hall, too.  Agency groups were all called up at the same time, and answered as a group.  During this time, Kerry was seriously praying that our group could get called quickly.  Our agency was called up about halfway through, and Kerry breathed a (controlled) sigh of relief.  We all stood up to make our way to the front, and the agency caseworker motioned for Kerry and I to sit down.  The rest of the group went up and answered all the questions, and then left the room.  We weren't sure what was going on, but the caseworker kept giving us reassuring looks from across the room.  So we waited.  Finally, the only people left in the room were the judge, the translator, the security guard, us, and one other couple.  Meanwhile, the caseworker had spoken to the judge, and had left the room with a scrap of paper, supposedly to find something that was needed?  By now Kerry was praying like he had never prayed before, but didn't dare leave.  The other couple in the room also apparently had some issue with their case, but their caseworker finally came back and they went through the process.  At this point we were starting to assume that worst, that for some reason we wouldn't be able to finish the court proceedings that day and would be assigned another date in a week or 2 and have to travel again for it.  The other couples in our group didn't know what was going on, either.  A couple that we became good friends with kept looking in from the hall to gesture-ask us what was going on.  

Our caseworker finally reappeared, and we walked up to the front of the room, where it was explained to us that Yeb's file had been lost by the court, and that we would talk to the judge up in her chambers.  At this point mild panic began to set in, and we just hoped that the missing file wouldn't mean that the adoption process would have to start over completely.  And also at this point Kerry was experiencing mild panic for more than just the case file.  We and the other couples from our agency followed the caseworker up a floor, and we went to a waiting room outside the judge's chamber.  Kerry was desperate enough to ask the caseworker if he could go use the restroom, and she told him no and motioned for him to sit down.  About 30 seconds later we were called in to talk to the judge.  Fortunately, Yeb's file had been found (his and Tam's courtdates had originally been scheduled separately, and the court hadn't moved his file to the right day), so we answered the judge's questions, and were finished.  We were so glad that it had all turned out ok.  

We headed with our group toward the stairs (and restroom), and Kerry ducked in there.  A girl came up the stairs, and an agency staff member introduced her at Yeb's birthmom.  HOLY MOLY!  I was so excited!  The agency didn't know that she had planned on coming, but she had been notified about the court date.  We had asked the agency before the trip whether they could help us arrange for us to meet her, and they had said that they would be happy to help us, but that they usually did that during the 2nd trip.  So we were caught off guard and surprised and excited all at once.  Kerry, meanwhile, found the stall doors locked in the bathroom, heard me meeting Yeb's birthmom, and hurried back out so he wouldn't miss anything.  Yeb's birthmom wanted to go take pictures of Yeb at the orphanage, so she, a friend that came with her, and the whole group piled into the agency van.  I got to sit next to her during the ride, and I pulled out our camera and scrolled through the pictures of Yeb and played the videos we had taken of him.  She was so happy to see  all of them, and she and her friend looked through them all and commented and laughed.  It was a strange thing, because here I was sitting next to Yeb's birthmom, and I had so much love and thanks that I wanted to communicate to her, but without a translator we weren't able to say much to each other during the ride.  The ride continued with me trying to not be completely obvious about staring at Yeb's birthmom (she is so beautiful, and Yeb looks a ton like her), and Kerry hoping that he wouldn't have permanent bladder damage.  

We got the agency offices and Yeb's orphanage, and all piled out.  Kerry had now been holding it for a solid 3 hours (I'm sure that he feels like he earned a medal of some sort), and so he disappeared as quickly as his body would let him walk, and the rest of us looked for Yeb.  As the social butterfly that he is, he noticed that there was something going on and found us.  I don't think that he had seen his birthmom in quite a while, because even though it seemed like he recognized her, he didn't want to be held by her or interact much.  We got a bunch of pictures of the two of them, and of Kerry and I with her and Yeb.  Our adoptive couple friends I mentioned earlier took video of the whole thing, which I'm really excited to see.  After some of the hubbub died down, we were able to have one of the agency staff come translate for us so we could talk to her.  It was a lot different than I had expected, partly because we were using a translator, partly because of cultural differences, and partly, I think, because I was expecting her to be going through a lot of grieving.  As Kerry and I talked about it later, we realized that she has had quite a while since placing Yeb in an orphanage to grieve.  The emotions she showed during our conversation were love for Yeb and concern for his future, but mostly happiness that this was happening for her son.  She is simply an amazing young woman.  And I am so grateful that we were able to meet her!  Her story is amazing and faith-filled, and I am so glad that Yeb will grow up knowing about her and hopefully have a relationship with her.  As we finished talking to her, we made plans to get together again when we come for our embassy visit in a couple months, and we found out that we can send pictures and letters to her through the agency, and vice versa.  The idea of an open international adoption is not one that I had ever really thought about because it is very unusual, but now that it might be a reality, we are excited to explore it.  

Later that evening as Kerry and I marveled at the miracle of being able to meet Yeb's birthmom, we realized that if Yeb's file hadn't been lost at court, and if we hadn't had to wait way longer than normal, we wouldn't have had the chance to meet her this trip.  Kerry's comment about it was that during the court process he really had been praying for things to finish up quickly so he wouldn't explode, but that it was way more important to Heavenly Father to show tender mercies to a birthmother. 

 All in all, we are continually amazed at the miracles that happen in adoption, and with birthfamilies, and know that Heavenly Father is very involved.