Our first few days

am going to go back to recap the first few day of our trip for you….
We left home around 9am on Wednesday. We arrive at the airport at 10am. As we start to unload the van, my Dad and Cathy show up to surprise us and send us off. We visit for a bit, then unload everything and get all checked in. We head to secruirty and they tell us that our flight has been CANCELED. I thought they were kidding because we just told them we are going to Ethiopia to adopt our son. They weren’t kidding. Two minutes after we checked in and they processed all 9 suitcases, they canceled our flight. We turned around and went back to the ticket counter and of course there was a REALLY.LONG.LINE. When I saw the line I lost it. Yes, I was having a minor meltdown at the airport. They other passengers were annoyed, I was upset. Now, I knew God had this under control, but I couldn’t help myself. Getting ready for the trip was a little stressful, I thought I had gotten through the waiting and bumps. I was wrong. We get up to the counter about an hour later. They pretty much tell us there is nothing they can do that day. Maybe 2 of us (Brads parents came with us for the first 2 weeks) could fly out from St. Louis (about 4 hours away) the next day, or we could try the same flight to Minneapolis the next day. BUT then we would have to spend 24 hours in Amsterdam because no flights leave there on Friday, ugh. Seriously, taking 13 suitcases someone in Amsterdam and just find a place to stay, I don’t think so. Also that would mean we wouldn’t show up in Ethiopia until late on Saturday. Finally we got ahold of our travel agent, actually our travel agents fill-in. Our travel agent was actually in Ethiopia attending court to adopt her daughter. So the travel agent was wonderful and told us there was a flight out of Chicago if we could get there in 4 ½ hours. It usually take a little over 3 hours to get to Chicago and it was going to be close to rush hour, so it could be longer. Thankfully we were able to get all 13 suitcases back to the van and drive to Chicago and still had about 30 mins to sit at the gate. Praise the Lord!!! We were then able to catch the same flight from Amsterdam to Ethiopia and arrived at the same planned time.
Since our flights were so crazy and we rushed around all day Wednesday, we didn’t really eat anything. We planned to eat at the airport, but we didn’t have any time with the flight canceling, etc. So we started this medicine without much food in our stomachs. Brad got really sick. He threw up many times especially when landing and taking off. Thankfully he didn’t throw up anymore since we got off the plane!

So Thursday night we arrived at 10pm Ethiopia time (2pm IL time) and two AWAA employees picked us up and took us to the guest house. We got checked in and tried to get settled a little bit. It was well after 1am ET time when the others went to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I was too excited. Finally I slept from about 3am-4am. Then I was up and ready to go meet Jacob!!

Friday morning they came and got us around 9:30am to take us to meet Jacob. It is about a 25 minute bumpy ride. There were 3 other families that rode with us, they all met their children before. So they offered to take pictures for us. That was awesome!!! So thankful for them!! Read my last post about meeting Jacob. It was simply AMAZING!!! Its still a little surreal that we are here and we have held him in our arms and kissed his sweet face! We had to leave the Transition House around 12:15pm to get some lunch at Lucy’s. We all had chicken, it was good! Then he went shopping in the Post Office District. Not sure why it’s called that but its just a bunch of shops set up along the side of the road. We were able to get a few things for Jacob! We wanted him to have some things from his birth country. They sell a lot of wooden animals, wooden spoons, drums, scarfs, coffee pots, etc. After shopping we went back to our guest house. Brad and Randy took a nap. Mary and I uploaded pictures and tried to email and update facebook! We ate dinner downstairs at the guest house and then tried to go to bed early.

Its hard to sleep because its not quiet here. There is always dogs barking, people chanting, kids playing, and in the morning roosters crowing. I can’t believe how early everyone is up and going here. It was about 6am when I started to hear people everywhere. All the kids were up playing and people were walking all over.

I was a little sick Friday morning, but somehow as soon I saw Jacob I was feeling much better!! So everyone is now feeling better and we are ready for a great Saturday!!