Kindergarten

Today was Brennan's first day of Kindergarten!


We all (minus Jeremiah who was still in bed) walked out to the end of the drive this morning and waited with Brennan for the bus to pick him up.


When the bus pulled up to our driveway, Brennan walked right up to the bus and hopped on. The bus driver told him to turn around so his mom could take a picture. Brennan gave a quick turn, said "cheese", and headed for a seat. And then he was gone...


When he got home in the afternoon he said that riding the bus was his favorite part of kindergarten. I think he enjoyed a few other things too, but he wasn't too impressed with nap time. Kids just don't understand how great that concept is. Who wouldn't love a designated 30 minute time period to lay down and rest in the middle of the day?

Sawyer wants to go to kindergarten too but sadly he's got 4 more years until he can join Brennan on the bus.


Here are a few Jeremiah pictures taken over the last few weeks. He continues to do really well. He's such a happy, laid back little guy. Plus he's ridiculously cute in my biased opinion.

I had to include this picture of him in his Bears onesie for his little buddy Silas B.






Monica and her three boys.


Random - the Goodyear blimp flew right over our house today. Not sure where it was going.

Trip - Days 5 & 6

OK, sorry for the long delay in posting...

Day 5 - Sunday

Sunday morning we ate breakfast with the Ralph’s and then left for church around 10:00. We went to their local MKC (Meserete Kristos Church) congregation. They don’t attend there regularly because the service is in Amharic (can't say I blame them). The service starts at 10:00 but the first 30 - 45 minutes is people filtering in and kneeling or sitting at their bench to pray. They are vocal prayers! I guess it was good to experience the service but after awhile I was ready for the service to be over. After church we went back to the Ralph’s for lunch and then packed our stuff up and Jim drove us to the Union Hotel. The Ralph's were SO great to us! Hosting us for those first couple days was a huge blessing to us.

The Union Hotel


Here are a few pictures of our room.


This bed may as well have been a sheet of plywood with a sheet on it. I'm sure there are some Room 106 alumni out there who can attest to this.


We were glad to see we had a crib in our room.




After we got checked in, we started looking at our window to try to see Hannah’s Hope ("HH"). We couldn’t see it from our balcony but when we went up to the 2nd and 3rd floors we were able to easily see HH.


I convinced Monica that we needed to walk over there. It was so close, how could we not? We agreed that we wouldn’t knock on the door because we didn’t want to mess up their schedule by showing up a day early. We could hear the older kids playing inside and at one point a ball came over the wall and I threw it back over. We took our pictures by the gate to HH and then headed back to the hotel.




When we got back to the hotel, we saw an American in the lobby. We weren’t expecting anyone from the AGCI travel group until later that evening, but I asked her if she was there with AGCI. Her and her husband were there with Holt International, an adoption agency that has an orphanage next door to the hotel. There were 4 couples at the Union adopting through Holt. They invited us to go out for pizza with them Sunday night at the Addis Ababa Golf Club. It was fun hanging out with them and getting to know them a bit. After we got back from supper, it was time to get to bed and get ready for the big day. I took some sleeping pills just to make sure I’d get plenty of rest.

Day 6 - Monday (Gotcha Day)

Monday morning we went down for breakfast and that’s when we got to meet the AGCI families in our travel group. There were 8 families in our group. It was good to meet some of the people who I had gotten to know through blogs and emails. There were a few mystery families in our group who kept themselves hidden from blog land. We had a great group!

Around 9:00 or a little after Almaz showed up and we went over a few things and worked on the I-600 and I-864 forms. We also placed our coffee order at that time. I ordered 10 kilos which is somewhere around 22 lbs and it only cost 600 birr ($55).


After we got through that stuff it was time to the real walk. Only one family in our group was getting an older child, the rest of us were getting infants. We all got to see Jason & Kala meet their son who is 4 years old. It was a very special moment. He ran right up to them and was hugging them and was so excited to see them. If you didn't tear up a bit watching that, something is wrong. Kala said later that meeting him went better than she could have ever dreamed.


After that we went inside the main building where the babies were. One of the first babies I saw when were standing inside the front door was Troy & Amber's little boy Silas. We still haven't met Troy and Amber but we've exchanged a lot of emails so it was great to see their son.


We waited while a few other families met their children. Then Almaz took us to where Bemnet was. He was sleeping in his crib so we just looked at him for a bit. He was napping in courdory pants and a long sleeve onesie. As if that wasn't enough to keep him warm, he was wrapped up in a thick blanket plus he had a comforter on top of him. Oh and they had an electric space heater running in the room. It was by no means cold outside either. No wonder they give those kids 2 baths a day.


Here's Monica getting her first peek at our little guy.


After a while one of his special moms came and woke him up and handed him to Monica. What a great moment!




Here's a picture of a few proud and happy parents.


After spending some time holding Bemnet and seeing the other families and their children, we had to get ready for our appointment at the US Embassy. We went to the hotel, got our stuff, came back to HH, got Bemnet, and got on the bus for the Embassy. I think we left around noon for the Embassy and our appointments were at 1:00. The actual appointment at the Embassy was very simple. After all our families were done, we loaded back up on the bus and headed back to the hotel.

On the bus ride to and from the embassy and while we were there, Bemnet was such a trooper. He just took it all in and was happy and content the whole time. Back at the hotel Monica was showing him pictures of his brother and he would get excited and laugh when she said "brothers" or "Brennan and Sawyer".


That evening I took a few of the guys over to the golf club to get a few pizzas. The plan was for us to get extra so that we could leave some in the fridge in our room for later. Unfortunately the power was out most of the next day. It got pretty warm in the fridge. Had I been at home, I may have eaten it but I didn’t want to risk getting sick on this trip.

If you didn't see it before, here's a link to the blog entry I posted from Ethiopia after that first day with Jeremiah Bemnet.

Misc. Picture Update

Our friends, Gavin & Amy loaned us their exersaucer for Jeremiah to use. He always wants to stand up and after awhile our arms get tired so this thing is great. He's really enjoyed hanging out in it.


Sawyer likes hanging out around the exersaucer and trying to play with whatever Jeremiah is playing with. Brothers...


Jeremiah keeps finding this really cute kid to look at on the exersaucer.


This is what happens when you watch too much baseball instead of putting your son to bed.


At the beginning of June, Brennan learned to ride bike without training wheels. He's been pedaling like crazy ever since. He loves it! He's been on several "long" bike rides since he learned (2+ miles). He has to take some breaks on the longer rides to look back and see how far he's gone.






Sawyer enjoys the bouncy seat more than Jeremiah does. He's always crawling in the thing. He thinks he's pretty funny. Hopefully it can last at least a few more months.


Sawyer has been a full fledged mama's boy since we've come back from Ethiopia. This picture shows one of the happy moments but there are plenty of annoying "mommy hold you" comments that Sawyer makes along with other whining and screaming when mommy is holding Jeremiah or needing to do something else. This too shall pass...I hope.


We live in the woods and we've got a pretty good crop of wild raspberries right now at various spots in the woods. We've been out picking a few evenings over the last week. Tonight we were all out picking. Sawyer eats them as fast as he can pick them. It's pretty funny. There are a couple good shots of him, post raspberry eating.

Trip - Days 3 & 4

Day 3 - Friday

I finally woke up around the time they were serving breakfast on our flight. We landed right about on schedule. Thanks to all the travelers who have gone before us we knew right where to go for our Visas. We were only the 2nd or 3rd people in the visa line and we got through that very quickly. Then through customs, and then we got our luggage. There were plenty of luggage carts available. We didn’t witness all the baggage helpers who we’ve heard would be trying to help us get our luggage for a price. I think the fact that we were arriving in the morning and weren’t on a flight originating in the US meant less guys hanging around trying to get tips. We were able to easily get our bags off the carousel and onto the luggage carts. From there we got in the line to have our luggage scanned. A kind gentleman pulled us over into the empty line, scanned one of our storage tubs and then let us through.

We walked out and right away spotted the Ralphs waiting there for us. They were amazed at how quickly we had made it through everything (visa, customs, security, etc.). Everything just went really well for us. We traveled back to the Ralphs in their Camry and a taxi. We visited with the them until lunch time and Jim made me my first cup of Ethiopian coffee. It was great! After lunch we laid down for a short nap that turned into a 2-½ hour nap because Monica turned the alarm clock off.


The Ralphs

Friday evening is their pizza/movie night so Jim, Zack, and I went to get pizza. We ate pizza and watched two episodes of Perfect Strangers on DVD. It was pretty funny to flashback to a show from that long ago. After that we sat around talking until our eyes couldn’t stay open much longer. We went to bed around 10:30 and slept until 7:30 in the morning.

Day 4 - Saturday

We ate breakfast at the Ralph’s and then ventured out to see the city. First we drove over to find the Union Hotel so we’d know where to go Sunday. We found that pretty easily. It was a little weird knowing that our son was only a few blocks away. We even saw the famous path that families walk on to go to Hannah’s Hope. After we had spotted the Union, we went to find the bridge where Jeremiah was found. All we had was the name of the sub-city and the name of the bridge. We were able to find it remarkably easily and I got some video clips from the area. Unfortunately I had forgotten to put the battery back in our camera. I felt like an idiot! Thankfully we can capture still images from our video camera.



After spending a little time at the bridge, we went to a restaurant for lunch. They served mostly American and Mexican food. At this point of the trip I was gung ho about eating Ethiopian food so I was a little disappointed that there wasn't any on the menu but by the end of the week when we went out to eat with the Ralphs again, I was very happy to go back to this restaurant. After lunch we went shopping. It was a little overwhelming trying to figure out what to purchase. After walking in and out of many shops we started buying some stuff. We got clothing for each of the boys and for ourselves as well as some coffee mugs and a coffee set and some various other items. We knew we’d get another chance to shop with our travel group later so we didn't have quite as much pressure. It turned out that we came back to the same spot.

We made a short stop at a grocery store where Jim and I ordered macchiatos (#2 for me on the day) while Monica and Anna got a few groceries. After that we went back their house to drop things off before heading to supper. We decided to go to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant for supper. I loved it! I really enjoyed the food, especially the dora wat. After we finished eating we had a cup of coffee. I even made Monica take a sip. On the way back we drove past the Sheraton hotel. It is huge! We were going to go in and see it but security wasn’t letting anyone in. So, we headed back to the Ralph’s to call it an evening.






Rare sight of Monica drinking coffee

Trip - Days 1 & 2

Day 1 Wednesday

We left home on Wednesday around noon. A friend from church, Merlin Miller, drove us to the airport. We got to O'Hare airport in Chicago with plenty of time to spare. We were able to bypass the regular check-in line because of the "unusual" size of the two storage tubs we were checking in. Note for future travelers, we used the 25 gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck tubs. Technically I think they're a few inches over the L + W + H limit but I'm pretty sure the weight is the only thing they check unless the size is obviously too big. We were able to watch the TSA guys send the tubs through the scanner and then they fastened the zip ties. We then made our way to the gate and had a few hours to kill. After a some anxious waiting, we finally boarded and took off for London on time at 6:00 PM.

We flew on United Airlines from Chicago to London. This flight had the TV's in the seatback right in front of you. Those are great because you can pick what movie you want to watch or you can flip to the flight tracker and see where you are at on the flight path. Another note for travelers, take your own headphones along. The ones the airlines provide you aren't good, as Monica can attest to. The first movie I watched was Taken. Good stuff! After watching a movie and eating supper I started realizing that I better get some sleep or I'd be in trouble the next day.

Day 2 Thursday



Neither of us got a lot of sleep on the flight over, maybe 4 hours +/-. We got into London at 8:00 AM London time which was 2:00 AM at home. After we got through customs, we took the Heathrow Express train into central London. For the rest of the day we took a combination of the Original Red Tour Bus and the Tube (subway) around London. It was sort of like one big final date before we added Jeremiah to our family.

We saw most of the big highlights in London; Big Ben, House of Parliament, Buckingham Palace (we caught a bit of the changing of the guard), and a whole bunch of other things. We also ate two of the staple meals in London. I had fish and chips at a pub. I guess what Monica had would be chicken sandwich and chips. We also had afternoon tea with a scones.


Big Ben


Changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace


Fish & Chips


Chicken & Chips

By early afternoon I was starting to hit the wall. We ended up walking around in Hyde Park for awhile. We found this really cool tree that (see picture below). After walking around awhile, we then decided it was time to head back to Heathrow. When we got back to the airport we went over to Terminal 4 and made a reservation at the Yotel for the layover on our way back home. Then we went to Terminal 3 to check-in for our Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis Ababa.


Funny Tree


Standing under Funny Tree



We had a mini-scare when we checked in at the Ethiopian Airlines counter. They only allow one carry-on plus a personal bag and the carry-on can't be more than 15 lbs. We each had a duffel bag and a backpack. Somehow my backpack was ok because I had a laptop in it, thus it was deemed a laptop bag. Monica's backpack, while smaller and weighing less than mine, wasn't ok because it didn't have a laptop. Make sense? The woman at the ticket counter thought we would have better luck if Monica's stuff was in a purse rather than a backpack. So we had to do a little rearranging because they weigh your carry-ons when you enter the boarding area. We managed to spread the contents of Monica's backpack between our two carry-on duffel bags, Monica's purse, and my pants. It's a good thing I wore Cargo pants! I don't think my pants would have fit under the 15 lb weight limit if they had weighed them separately. The pockets were stuffed with snacks, a digital camera, and a video camera. I felt fairly stupid (and like my pants were going to fall down)!

Fortunately when we went through the boarding area they didn't say anything about Monica's purse or my backpack. They only weighed our two duffel bags and those both were ok. PTL! The same woman who had given us our tickets when we checked in was the one who let us through the boarding area. Fortunately she was very nice to us. While we were waiting to board the flight, I spotted another couple around our age that was on our flight and I told Monica I thought they were going to Ethiopia to adopt too. More on that couple later...

When we boarded the plane, we hit the jackpot and discovered we were assigned to the exit row. Sweet! We're talking serious leg room people. I fell asleep and never even found out when we took off. Monica woke me later when they were coming around for supper. After supper I went back to sleep and slept right through the stop we made in Rome. Evidently the stewardesses came around when we had landed in Rome and was very insistent that everyone unbuckle their seat belts while they were refueling. Monica managed to unbuckle mine without waking me and then buckled me back in at take-off. Thank you dear!