Saturday morning in Addis ...

See, a laptop is good for something here ... Cinderella DVD watching!

It is a little past 6 a.m. Both Rick and I are awake. Can't seem to sleep past 6 lately. The sun comes up pretty early here. Morning Call to Prayer has begun outside our hotel window. It is a calming, peaceful sound. We originally thought it was the Muslim prayer, but Ryan told us it could be the Orthodox church as well, as they have a loudspeaker for doing the same thing.

Today we are on our own. It's Ryan and Abby's day off. We can't believe they have enough time to do all that they do ... hold the hands of all of us waiting parents-to-be back at home, tourist guide for those of us who have come for our children, child advocates for these children with both governments, teach English to the kids in the orphanages, AND they have 2 beautiful children to spend time with. I don't know how they do it all and stay sane! They are both incredible people with hearts of gold!

We have good news!!! We managed to fit 3 teenagers into our suitcases to bring home with us ... sort of. After discussing things with Ryan, turns out it was too late at the time of my plea for anyone to ask to host the kids for Bright Futures Camp due to the time it takes to do background checks, complete Gladney paperwork, etc. We asked Ryan if people who are already in the adoption program with completed paperwork would qualify. Well, you guessed it. Rick and I will be home to Aschalo and his two sisters for two weeks beginning July 1st! We visited the orphange yesterday where all three kids live. We met Yesalemu ... what a beautiful girl! She is the youngest of the 3 at age 14. Belay made the announcement yesterday at the orphanage telling them which kids are getting to come to America. Then he told them that we would be hosting Yesalemu and her siblings. She was one huge smile, jumped up and hugged us both multiple times, told us "I love you"!! Belay gave us a tour of the orphanage, and Yesalemu held one of each of our hands the whole time. She was so proud to show us where she slept. We are both thrilled to be doing this! After seeing these kids, how could we not do this? They are incredible! We were not able to meet Aschalo and Genet as they were taking exams for the end of the school year. We left the photo album we had made for Kali with Yesalemu so she could show her brother and sister.

Now, here is the most important part!!! We are hosting these kids in hopes of finding them forever homes. Please please PLEASE tell all of your friends and family about them, tell your church congregation, tell the check out lady and bag boy at the grocery store ... we need everyone's help in finding these kids a home.

We will be home with Kali for two weeks before these kids arrive. I plan on keeping up the blog with photos and info during their stay in hopes of letting everyone know about these kids.

To my wonderful co-workers in Granbury, bosses down in Austin, and agents all over Texas ... looks like I won't be returning to work until mid July. Hope you all can forgive me. I love the insurance business (yes, really!), but some things just have to take precedence. Rick will also take some vacation from work and we plan on doing a lot of things with these kids. Nothing too big ... don't want to overwhelm them.

It's off to the pool today and just relaxing at the Hilton. Thought about going to see Lucy, but we already gave our driver the day off. We'll see how Kali likes the pool. Her eating habits continue to be great ... last night she wolfed down fish and chips (french fries) and loved my creamy potato leek soup (it was VERY good, how could she not like it?). So far, we've had no problems with food at all. Everything has been very tasty and neither of us are having any stomach troubles. Oh sorry ... I was supposed to say how bad the food is so that everyone will bring lots of American food and snacks and then leave all the leftovers (and that would be most of it once they discover that the food is indeed edible and good) with Ryan. That's his devious plan, anyway!!