Friends...from Ethiopia to Illinois

We are so thankful for the relationships we have made on this journey. While in Ethiopia we met the Murray’s. They adopted a little boy about 2 months older than Jacob. We are so glad they only live about 3 hours away and we are able to continue our friendship! We spent the last couple of days with them. We love the Murray Family and had a blast with them. I only took 87 pictures in the 2 days we spent together. Here’s some pictures from our visit:

Here are the boys in April in Ethiopia at the Transition Home

Here are the boys in July 2011

All the Murray Kids with Jacob, these kids are so sweet and well behaved, even Spicy Mac is a joy to be around!
Katie and Tara with their ET boys!

The crazy mamas taking lots of pictures

Amelia is so sweet, such a tender caring heart. She is a great big sister and will be a great mom someday. She told me that she wants to adopt a baby from Ethiopia and she wants it to be her first baby like us-so sweet!

The boys playing with the new water toy

The dads with their ET boys

Buddies for life

They love eachother!

We spent a couple of hours at IKEA in the afternoon, but we took so many pictures I will make the next post about our fun there!

Then the Murray and Mowen families headed to the airport to meet the Snyder’s at the airport as they were coming home from Ethiopia with their 5 year-old daughter. But on the way to the airport we got a message that they delayed the flight due to bad weather in NY. So we went to eat dinner then started to the airport again, only to get another message that the flight had been canceled and they had to stay the night in NY. We were so bummed. We were all ready with our poster, Ethiopian and American flags and some very excited kids. Thankfully the Snyders flew in the next night, but we were unable to welcome them home at the airport. Lucky for us-they live close, so we will see them soon!

We met the Snyders a couple weeks before we went to Ethiopia and we have seen them a couple times since we have been home from Ethiopia. They only live 45 mins away from us. We are so thankful for their friendship too! Their 5 year-old daughter became very special to us. When we spent 2 months in Ethiopia we spent 5 weeks visiting the Transition Home every day then 3 more weeks of visiting several times a week. Aliya would run up to us every day and greet us with a hug and killer smile!! We can’t wait to see her grow up!