tanzania

We had a great time visiting our friends, Carson and Holly, in Tanzania!  This is a finger of Lake Victoria that we crossed to go their town of Geita.

Our first lunch in Tanzania.  We hadn't seen Jude since he was a tiny baby!

 

Our first morning at Carson and Holly's house, Holly let me join her on her morning walk through their neighborhood.  I met some lovely ladies!

 

This is a church building close to their house.  The mountains were absolutely beautiful!

This was a tradition Tanzanian lunch that Elizabeth made us!  It was SOOO good!

We were at Carson and Holly's house when we got word that we had passed court!!!  

Who knew that Chinese food in Africa would be so good?

Getting ready to leave :(.  We'll see Carson and Holly again next fall.  We're so proud of what they are doing in Geita.  I wish that everyone could go visit them and see it for themselves. 

A squatty potty.  These are very popular in Tanzania. This one was at the airport.  You should've seen the airport......

Mt. Kilamanjaro from the plane window.

Headed back to Ethiopia, but we won't get to see our girl.  Gotta hop back on a plane to DC.

We're saying "Rome".  Our plane stopped in Rome for fuel, but we didn't even get to get off the plane.  

What an adventure we had!  Now..... time to prepare to bring a baby home!

May 30th - not my favorite day

Monday was an emotional day to say the least.  We started the day by going to court.  The court room is on the 5th floor of the courthouse.  There are no stairs and Addis is already at a very high altitude.  This combined with the fact that it was 100 degrees in there and there was no air flowing and I was too anxious to eat much breakfast equaled a very faint me.  If you know me, you know that I faint.  I just do.  And that morning, I could feel all the symptoms coming on.  Thankfully, Yonas went to get me some water and Liz saved my life with her granola bar :).  When we finally got to enter the courtroom (it was more like a really messy office), we were sad to hear that our MOWA letter was not there and we did not pass court.  None of the 3 families we were with passed that day.  

This is us on our way to court:

This is us at lunch after we didn't pass:

Thankfully, our agency told us that our letter should be there on Wednesday and it was.  2 days isn't too long to wait.  After lunch we headed to the transition home for what would be our last visit with Selah since we were boarding a plane for Tanzania that night.  

Selah's bottle... this is her name in Amharic.

Already loving her daddy's shoulder :).

 Our last nap together :(.

Me, Liz, and our girls :).

Our travel group

Me forcing a smile.  It's almost time to go. 

One of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

So thankful for God's gift of friends. 

We had one last hoorah at the Zebra grill with the Pfeifers and the Browns.  This is Duane savoring the last bite of the best ice cream in the world!

Taking off in the plane was even harder than leaving the transition home.  We are praying we will be back to get her in a month or less!  This is it for our Ethiopia adventure.  Now on to Tanzania!!