Adoption Update

Well, we still don't know a ton. We are now 2 1/2 weeks into the wait to travel. But, our biggest concern at this point is getting through the court system in Ethiopia before they close for about 2 months (they close during the rainy season in Addis Ababa the capital city). The courts close on August 6th, so the clock is ticking.

As far as we know we DO NOT have a court date yet, by that I mean our agency says we do not have one, but they are working on it in Ethiopia. Our contact at our agency said they don't know if we will make it through for sure, as the courts are swamped right now, and obviously there are alot of other adoption agencies all trying to get their families pushed through court as well. Her fear is that it just may not be able to be accomplished, and we are glad that she has given us this info so that we can try to prepare for that scenario. And, we won't know whether we made it through or not until after everything is said and done. So, another week or so of waiting and we will know more.

IF we make it through court, we will hopefully be getting to travel in early September. Abeynesh will be almost 5 months old by then, and will have grown so much I'm sure. We are sad to be missing her first months, and can't wait to hold her. But, we are sending over a care package with a blanket, photo album, and maybe a small voice recorder and some batteries. And, we are going to ask our good friends Bob and Shonna to check up on her when they go pick up their two girls. They found out today that they are for sure travelling on August 17th! WOO HOO! We are so happy for them, and can't wait to meet their girls! :)

She Shouldn't Have to Say "Hello"

Ok, so this post has been along time coming but I finally have to get this off my chest. We normally gather a fair amount of attention as a family, and although we would prefer not to, we understand why it happens. And, most of the time, people are very gracious in trying to figure out our family, although, we would much prefer that they would just ask sometimes. But, some people find the need to be obtrussive and downright weird about how they approach our family, and particulary our daughter.

Example: We went to dinner this past weekend at a local place that we go to pretty often. The owner and the host know us, and are always very kind to us, bring Makenna colors, treats, etc. That is fine, because it comes from a genuine place. They have gotten to know our family and we comfortable with them. So, we make sure Makenna is polite and thanks them, etc. However, there are a lot of tourist that also frequent this place (it's a really nice restaurant, near a lot of lakes) and there in lies the problem. The other night a lady walked past our table and said "Oh she's so cute!". Well, we hear that a lot, so we just mumbled thanks and tried to keep eating and just hoped she would keep on her way. But, she stood there and just kept staring and saying "she's so cute" "hi sweetie, can you say hi?" to the point of making us uncomfortable pretty quickly. We said "thanks again, and said we were just trying to eat our dinner, and that she isn't really comfortable with strangers." The lady looked at me shocked, like it was horrible that we weren't going to make her say hi to this lady. She eventually left, but still kept gushing about "how cute" Makenna was.

Why should she have to say hi to every person who finds our family a novelty? Why should I have to encourage her to talk to strangers, when this world is full of dangerous people? Why should we not be able to eat our dinner the same as everyone else? She certainly does talk to people that she knows, or that she knows are safe by the way we react, people we work with, family, friends, etc.

The reason this situation particularly got me was because it felt like an overcompensation from this person. Almost like she wasn't comfortable with our situation, and was compensating for that by going the other way. I have heard this before, and have only begun to realize that there are occasion that this happens to us--subtle racism. Overt racism is hard and it stings as a parent, and I can't imagine how it feels when it happens to you. But there are subtle forms of racism that can still make you as uncomfortable as well, that don't seem like it at first glance. It seems like such a hard thing to figure out, and I am sure we will continue to learn as we go. I just want to make sure my sweet girl is armed with all she will need to face this world, and sometimes that seems like an impossible task.

A Few More Camping Pics

A beautiful sunset

The whole Gang-my awesome family!

My brave girl in Lake Superior!

CAMPING FUN!

So, I have been kind of absent for the last week, since our life was turned upside down in the best possible way. :)

But, I did want to share some pictures from camping. Well, it wasn't really camping, it was cabining. We ended up in small cabins in Brule, WI and had so much fun hanging out and going to the beach. It was SO hot though, that I am glad that we had Lake Superior pretty close, and air conditioned cabins! My whole family goes including my parents, my brothers and sisters and their spouses and kids--15 people total. We have been going camping together for at least the 4 years. It's nice to spend time together as a great big family. Here are some pics of our time at the beach at Lake Superior in Ashland and Port Wing, WI.

This is my 8 month old nephew-aren't those eyes beautiful??

Makenna & her awesome big cousin Madeline at the beach.

My sweet nieces Brennan & Alexa

The girls!

WE HAVE A GIRL!!!!!

Okay, so the stress that we have been feeling has probably been pretty obvious-sorry about that. We had heard last Friday that there was still hope of a referral, they just didn't know when. We waited to post until we knew something more. Anyhow, we went camping for the weekend and had a blast! We had a chance to chill out and just really enjoy all our family.
When our SW called this morning (at work) I was totally shocked and just freaked out. I didn't know what to say or do, and didn't ask all the questions that I thought I would. I just started crying and saying "Are you kidding me?". But she wasn't!

We have a 2 1/2 month old little girl named Abayenesh Yohannes. She weighs 9.5 lbs and looks to be pretty healthy. We are SO happy! We can't post a picture of her until we get through courts in Ethiopia, so no picture for now. But, she has big brown eyes, and right now, she has a lot of hair!

We are SO thankful, and know that we are incredibly blessed to now have 2 beautiful girls!

Whatchu Talkin' 'Bout Willis?

Doesn't she look just like that? Here are a few pics that we took this week in my garden.



Makenna is pulling on one of her curls here-look how long it is when it's stretched out!



She looks SO grown up to me in this one!

No News is Not Good News

Who ever said that no news is good news was wrong, or at the very least not waiting for an adoption referral. As I am sure that all of you have guessed, we have not heard anything. So, as of right now we are waiting out the summer, with only a sliver of hope for this week(the little inkling we did get for hope was from a good source though). We are extremely bummed, but have no say. So, we are trying to focus. That is easier said than done. We have been preparing all along to travel at the end of summer, and have kind of planned around that loosely. So, now to think we may not even know who our child is until early September is hard to deal with. But, we will. And, we will do it together!

We are going camping this weekend, so look for more pics next week.