Monday

Hi all and Holiday Greetings from Addis Ababa!

In true Ethiopian form, neither of my means to communicate with the world worked....phone or Internet at guest house. So I am pre typing this in hopes of stealing some broadband from the Hilton tomorrow after embassy.

Friday/Saturday: I was truly surrounded by angels on the trip here. In Amsterdam I met a couple from Wisconsin also traveling to Ethiopia. We had coffee, connected about our stories of adoption, and then they made sure I got through customs and the visa process okay (mind you since wednesday I had about 5 hours of sleep total). In Ethiopia our first driver from the agency recognized Minalachew right away and gave me more information about his interesting journey thus far. I also was able to meet another great couple and their young child staying at the guest house...this made Sunday way more entertaining.

Sunday: after a late check in and little sleep Saturday night Sunday was a trip shopping and to the entoto mountains...beautiful and I have a ton of pictures to share from it. It was nice seeing Solomon again...he was our driver on trip one and about the only man rob felt safe leaving me with in another country.

Monday: a little more sleep, but not much. Was up at 3 arranging the room for Minalachews visit. By 9 it was time to go. I got quite nervous as we pulled in, would he remember me at all? How was this going to be? Well it was wonderful, rob being with us would have been the only better thing. We played soccer and a musical xylophone for most of our visit. After lunch I was able to meet our Angel in Africa and thank him for the hours and time he spent getting our son out of the southern region. then it was back to the orphanage, this time Minalachew was going on the 'beep beep' which was a trip just watching his expressions. Back at the guest house we quickly figured out it didn't take a lot of words for us to be able to communicate. He loved arranging his new toys and turning the lights on and off and on and off and....well you get the picture. I tried to size him up for clothes...I brought mainly 5T and up, however I quickly saw he was wearing 2-3T clothes. We will layer quite a bit on the way home anyway, but will be doing some clothes shopping upon return. Lastly I found out he loves.....brushing his teeth. Yep we did that 4 times in the period of about 5 minutes....I may need to buy more toothpaste at the market.

Well that is the trip thus far....tomorrow is the farewell ceremony and then embassy. With or without internet you wont hear much from me until our return home friday.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season

Jess