My Summer in Summary

My trip to Ethiopia was definitely the highlight of my summer. If you want to catch up on our trip you can start here.

I started my summer home not sleeping in my own room but a tent. A wonderfully fashioned sheet served as a wall and a futon for a bed. It's fort-like essence and tent like qualities gave it the endearing nickname of the Tert. Needless to say it was hard to part with when I was able to move back into my room a month later.

Eric happily modeled the tert for me :-)

I was able to catch up with some friends from high school as well. I've been spending a lot of time at the office making DVD's for CCI to send out to families which I've really enjoyed :-). But when the fun ended I felt as if I'd had a textbook titled "Abnormal Psychology" constantly lingering over my head over the summer. I've had an online class that I was trying to finish that kept me pretty busy. It's been very interesting and I would pour my new knowledge about the crazy disorder i learned about on my family in the evenings. I'm pretty sure they tuned me out after awhile. I've mostly been struggling with the battle every morning of either staying home that day to do homework or go to work and make money for the upcoming year. Lately I've been going to work in the morning and coming home to work on my class that afternoon. Excellent solution I found.

One of the highlights of my summer was our trip up north for the CCI Reunion at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. My trip started a little earlier then the rest of my families because I took a quick trip to Indiana first. I spend a few days visiting friends from school which was great! I picked up my roommate Christy who would spend the weekend in Chicago with us. I was really exciting to see a lot of the kids we had known in

Ethiopia home with their new families in America. It was surreal to remember where the kids came from and to see all they have now. It was indescribably great to see.

But our weekend didn't stop after the reunion. We have lots of family in the Chicago area so we experienced our long time craved

Chicago Nancy's pizza with our family. On our last day in Chicago, almost on a whim we decided to take a quick trip downtown to see the city again. We were startled when we heard loud explosions coming from downtown only to realize that they were fimling a movie. Transformers 3 of course! And I'll forever tell people that I saw them making 3 seconds of the movie. Why do we enjoy our small claims to fame so much?

(I'm slowly realizing that my summer seems far more exciting when I leave out the boring parts, hah)

Another pick me up that still hasn't worn off yet was going to a Something Corporate concert!! Eric and I went last week and I still can't get over that I get to hear some of my favorite songs live! Was a lot of fun.

And finally to top off my summer, mom and I went to Kentucky for an adoption conference luncheon. We made it through the long but surprisingly bearable 14 hour drive and the reward on the other end was worth it. Chick-fil-e!! The conference was hosted by one of our favorite chicken chains and we got to see many of our adoptive families at the same time. And yes, all the kids below belonged to the same family!

(A shot I took on the flight home from Kentucky)

My wonderful summer ended with a beautiful reminder of everything that God's been doing in my life. I'm constantly reminded of his love and faithfulness and hope to not forget it as I go back to school in a few days. There will be good times as well as hard times but God didn't promise us that our life would be easy. But we can always count on Him to be there when we need Him. And even though we can't see it all the time He finds little ways of reminding us He's still there :-)

Peacing out

Today Tim left us to journey around Asia for the next 6 months! He and 2 of his friends are going to be starting in Southern China and spending a few months with friends all over the country. And then eventually they're make their way through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand... aand that's the extent of what I've been able to gather from him :-). But I don't think even he knows his complete plans for the trip. It's going to be really exciting and props to him for finding the means to do it! As a fresh college grad without any specific plans for the future, I think he's taking advantage of a great opportunity. Towards the end of the trip he knows he will be working with Burmese refugees on the Thailand border so he's in for a great experience there as well.

So I'll definitely be missing him... but as the great sister I am, I was also looking forward to getting his car after he left. Unfortunately, I wont be able to even have his white beat up Camery to remember him by. My family has the unfortunate habit of crashing our cars just before we're supposed to pass it on... so on his drive down from school he ran it into a rail for me to keep me from inheriting it :-). I haven't gotten a chance to thank him for that yet.

And as for my mom, her famous quote lately has been "Dont make me laugh"! Since her surgery its been hurting her a lot to do anything but laughing is especially the worst. So lately we haven't been allowed to have as much fun around her but it is becoming increasingly difficult to do that. Our TV choices are guided more toward boring news stations, our conversations are dryer, but if we're still having too much fun we just send Eric out of the room and that usually takes care of it :-)

Together again... but not in the way we thought

It's very rare that you ever find my whole family together in one place. Even when we are all in the same country our schedules are so crazy that they rarely correlate with each other. So a few days ago my family had planned on taking a family vacation to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon and "force" us to be together. I was very excited and looking forward to see this great wonder that everyone talks about. And I figured it was about time that we take "the classic American vacation" that I'm sure every family must venture at least once in their life. But unfortunately this trip that we were so looking forward to had to be postponed.

It started the day we got back from our trip to Ethiopia. My mom had been feeling a little bit sick, but after a few days, her flu-like symptoms only got worse. As we were packing up to leave for the airport we realized that my mom could barely walk anymore. At that point we knew something had to be wrong, but my determined mother still wanted to go on the trip! And instead of going to the hospital she wanted to figure out what was wrong when we got to Arizona. But after a little bit of debating, we decided that it would be wiser to go to the hospital here instead of Arizona. And good thing we did! Because by the time she arrived to the hospital her appendix had already ruptured and she needed surgery right away. She had made it just in time. The surgery went very well and she's healing up nicely. We all feel so blessed with the timing, despite what happened. My mom travels so often that we feel so fortunate that she was actually in America when it did happen. She visits such remote villages when she's overseas, without a doctor that could have performed the surgery. The thought of this scares me to think how much worse it could have been if it had happened only days before. So the fact that she was home when this happened was definitely a blessing.

But we were still able to have some family time today! My brothers, my dad, and I all visited my mom and we got to spend some time with her at the hospital. And even though the view would have been much more enjoyable at our original destination, this is forcing her to take a break which is exactly what she's been needing. And my dad and I have been taking turns switching out babysitting duty. Each day she's been getting more mobile and the pain has been subduing so much that we're hoping that she will be released tomorrow.

Thank you very much everyone for you prayers and support,

Julie

Last Day here :-(

Today was Sunday and we went to International Evangelical Church in Addis. It was a good service and I would definitely go back if I were to ever return to Ethiopia. Then we made our rounds to say goodbye to all of our friends :-(. At the transition house we said goodbye to all of the precious kids that made our trip so worthwhile. We picked up our 2 baby girls (A 2 year old and an 8 month old) that we would be escorting all the way to their new homes in America and then we packed up to go home!

I've loved spending time with all of the kids here and getting to know the families that were adopting them. Many of them I know I'll be seeing again and am really looking forward to seeing them as they grow up. I love to see how well the kids adjust and how much their lives have changed after finding a family.

Being here definitely gives me an appreciation for what we have and will stay with me for a long time. All I'm going to want to do is talk about my trip to everyone. I'm going to be slipping in my amharic to an obnoxious amount and every time I do the Ethiopian nod or the "yes gasp" I will laugh to myself and remember the kids that taught it to me, and the memories that I had here.

Thank you so much for letting me share my trip with all of you and I really appreciate all of your prayers and support throughout this experience. It made my time here more enjoyable knowing that I had people that were excited for me that I knew I could share my time with.

Thank you all,

Julie

A Saturday on Churchill Street

We got to sleep in today which was a blessing. Then we headed down to Churchill street for one last shopping trip with the families. And once again I was done shopping before arrived, but somehow I left with bags of stuff... But the prices are so cheap that it'd almost be a sin not to take advantage of it!

And lunch was great. We ate at a restaurant that I had never been to before called "Top View". We had to drive up a mountain to get there and from the windows we could see the entire city of Addis Ababa below. It was a very worthwhile outing and anyone planning on going to Addis should consider eating there and getting one of their frappuccino milkshakes. Very yummy.

We killed some time at the Hilton doing some internet and window shopping. I got Christy the same Lonely Planet Amharic Phrase book that I got for myself last year. I loved it because you could figure out anything you could possibly want to say! I got excited to try it out so we decided that we would try to figure out how to ask the house keepers at the Grace guest house for hot water so we could make our own dinner. After I prepared what I wanted to say I realized that I would be asking for "hot dog" instead of "hot water"!! In fear of accidentally ordering one of our noisy neighbors for dinner I decided to instead practice my Amharic before trying to use it again :-X

And did you know that it's 2002 here right now? I know! Crazy right? It's supposedly more accurate to history and when Christ was actually born. I can't say if that's true but I do know that it's been fun being 12 again.

"Don't worry, start living!".

Another family arrived today to meet their 2 new girls (the 3 and 5 year old that we drove back with from Woleita). But before we took them to the transition house we first took them on to a tour of the Fistula Hospital with us. It was very sad to see the pain and suffering that the women have had to experience. Most of them have spent hours and hours walking in pain to the hospital just to get treatment. But they are all getting very good care and most of them get 100% cured and it's completely free to them since all of their surgeries have been covered by Oprah and other donors.

When we got to the transition house, while the family was getting to know their 2 girls, Christy and I played with babies. The older kids were all taking naps, so with a semi-quieter house we got to know some of the little ones that we hadn't really seen yet. And for dinner we went out with the 3 new happy families that we've met this trip and had pizza with them. Pizza seems to be the consistent meal that everyone can enjoy... because it's not injera :-)

And to everyone's surprise my mom officially got her Ethiopian drivers licence! It took a couple days to make it official but she did it!

Ethiopian driving is much crazier then how Americans drive... but she will do just fine. Soon she'll be dodging donkeys and goats as good as the rest of them!

Injera's not so bad... :-)

Today we got to experience another family meeting their kids for the first time. They met their 2 boys and it already felt like a perfect match :-). Then we went straight to their embassy appointment to finalize their adoption along with the family from 2 days ago. We took the 2 new happy families along with the 2 babies we will be escorting home. Tsnot is the 8 month old and Migdis is about 2. All of the embassy appointments went well and everyone passed without any problems! All of the kids were officially theirs! So we did a little more shopping to celebrate. I thought I had finished getting everything that I needed to get the other day, but when I saw more pretty scarves I changed my mind... I think I have a problem.

As for dinner, we were going to go to a typical Ethiopian restaurant with a dancing show with their typical dances. But I was getting a little apprehensive. I knew I would have to face injera again and I wanted to make it right with it again. I used to like it so why couldn't we go back to the way things were before? It was the same restaurant in which I fell in love with it last time so I thought that if my feelings for it would be rekindled it would happen here. So when dinner came it went surprisingly well! I had my share and I found a few toppings that were not too hot to handle. But although I am not ready to say that I'm in love with it again in

the near future, I now know that there is hope for next time :-). Obsi, a 12 year old boy came with us to the restaurant too. He was such a great boy, and it was a lot of fun to take him along. Especially since it was his first time ever driving around Addis or even going to a restaurant at all!

That evening we moved to the Grace guest house because we were getting kicked out of the New Flower. Grace was a georgeous place and felt very much like were staying at a hotel. But we didn't sleep very well :-/. The dogs barked half the night, and the neighbors decided to blast music all night... and American music at that! But what did we expect... its the same everywhere here in Addis Ababa.

... Free day?

This morning my mom told us that it was our free day since she had to spend the whole day getting her Ethiopian drivers liscence (she's got to be absolutely insane :-P) so we could do whatever we wanted. So what did we do? We visited another orphanage. We didn't get to spend much time at Miscaye when we came a few days ago, so we wanted to spend more time with them and get to know them better. And we LOVED it there. We were so impressed with the kids. They were all very sweet and really enjoyed having us there, almost as much as we enjoyed being there. As we came in the door we were greeted with a welcome song and each one of them greeted us with a handshake and a kiss on the cheek. They wanted so badly to make us feel welcome and they did so without even trying. They each had an A+ personality and had me laughing almost the whole day. I took to the older kids as Christy spent more time with the babies. I could ramble on about each of them but that would probably take the rest of the evening :-) I really hope we get to spend a little more time there... the problem is we finished all the work we had to do there and dont have a reason to go back... Why didn't I think to stash my camera behind the couch so we'd have to go back till now?? :-)

Throughout all of my trips to Ethiopia, the older kids are the ones that end up stealing my heart. I love seeing their personalities and playfulness despite some of their really hard, short lives some of them have had. They're mature and experienced beyond they're years, not to have been able to enjoy their childhoods. They're the ones that really left a huge impact on me. Siblings that have had only each other for so long take care of each other so intently. It's so sweet to see a 7 year old brother grab 2 pieces of bread at dinner and hand one to his 4 year old sister before taking a bite of his, but heartbreaking to know that that's what he's had to do for the past 4 years in order for them to survive. Right now they don't even have a concept of "eat until your full" or even leftovers for that matter. They have no idea what their new life will be like where they will always have enough to eat. But my hopes and prayers that they'll be able to adjust to life in America and enjoy the many pleasures that we have, without feeling guilty, or sadness for the people that they've left behind in Ethiopia that have not been given the same opportunity that they've been given. I've gotten to see many kid's lives completely turned around once they've found a family, and the new joy in their lives have tuned the saddest kids into the most joyful I have ever seen. It's then that we're really able to see what a beautiful thing adoption is and the new life they now have through the gift of a family.

I do NOT like injera!

Today started with another early morning. By 8:15 we were out the door and on our way to El Olam. We needed to take 3 babies to the doctors to get a check ups and bloodwork done. None of the babies had prospective families yet and we needed to make sure they were healthy before we could assign them to a family. Christy's baby for the day was Tamarat. I felt bad for her as he turned out to be the messiest baby of all... I'll spare you details and just say she had to change her clothes as soon as we got back... :-P The other 2 were girl baby twins and I took one and my mom took the other. One of the girl babies was a goofy looking baby and made me laugh. But my baby turned out to be perfect if I may say so myself. She was soo cute and behaved so perfectly for me. I hated having to hold her down as they drew blood but at least we were able to stay friends in the end and she slept on my shoulder the whole way home :-).

Then we went back to the New Flower guest house and met a family that was about to go meet their 2 boys for the fist time! They were very excited and their energy rubbed off on us as we took the 30 minute drive to the transition house to meet their new kids! We told them a couple stories that we remembered from our interaction with their kids and their excitement only grew. Then came my favorite part of our trip.

So we videoed and took pictures of the emotional meeting. The kids were so overjoyed to finally meet their family that they've been waiting for for so long, and the parents were in tears as this moment felt so surreal to them.

We were invited to some Ethiopian friends of ours for dinner and I'm sad to say that I did NOT like the injera at all. Not even a little bit... It's a shame since that is their staple meal that they eat twice a day. I used to enjoy it myself but after a very bad experience with it last year I was hoping that it hadn't ruined it for me forever.

And I tried SO hard to eat it today but after a couple close calls of almost not being able to keep it down I realized that it was no use. Maybe one day again I will enjoy the sour bread and spicy meat combo once again!

Americans = Ipods

The transition house is in desperate need of new furniture so after a quick trip to a couple different stores we found a set we liked, affordable, and comfy enough to be mine and Christy's future beds.

Since my mom had a day planned of boring meetings, Christy and I decided to go shopping on Churchill street. And this experience was incredibly more enjoyable than our shopping encounter in Egypt. We were pleasantly surprised to find that no one grabbed us or attempted to chase us down after leaving their stand. We seemed to find everything we wanted to buy fairly quickly and made our way to a restaurant for lunch (which I'm pretty sure is the first time we've had a real lunch since we've been here).

Then we went back to the office (after our taxi broke down about 10 times on the way there). And there we got to give out the second ipod since we've been here. I'm pretty sure that they're starting to assume that Americans just give out ipods like candy! The secretary, Betty, had never used one before but was excited to see that we brought her one as an appreciation gift for all the hard work she's done. And it once again was such a big hit!

Dinner at the New Flower consisted of leftover pizza from the Hilton yesterday, and ramen. By then it was only 6 PM and we were done for the day and we weren't used to being done so soon! Not wanting to waste the rest of the evening, Christy, my mom, and I walked to Kaldi's coffee for some mocha coffee and fruit drinks. Yum! The night was still young (yet pitch black!!) so we walked around the mall and took pictures from the balcony like the "forenge" we are. A coffee outing still did not kill enough time, so Christy and I sat on the porch with a nice cup of tea and enjoyed the peaceful, perfect weather we had.

We're enjoying our time in Ethiopia very much and absolutely love spending time getting to know the kids better. They've all been a joy and I wish I could tell you all how special each child is. They are the reason that we've been enjoying our time here so much. We are still unsure of our plans from day to day, but as of now we will not be able to visit our orphange in Kamashi (a 14 hour drive west of Addis and close to the Sudan border). But we hope to still find a way as Kamashi is one of my favorite parts of our trip. It's a beautiful yet grueling drive, but the boys at the orphanage are so great that it makes the whole trip worth while.

Thanks for watching the blog!

P.S. We found a spider in our room! It was scary and I didn't like it. Christy and I have found spiders in our room at school but this was bigger and worse. But... I guess I can't complain to much. It's better then the huge rat we found in our room last time I came...

Dancing Babies!

Today was Sunday and we attended Bedside Baptist here in Addis Ababa and celebrated the Sabath the way God origianlly intended. We rested.

Later on we all went to the transition house to video kids and get pictures of them to send to their adoptive families. After a couple hours of videoing one baby after another and taking note of their developmental progress, the older kids finally woke up from their naps and were ready to play! The most fun we had was when we broke out the ipod we bought for the house. We taught the nannies how to use it and were very impressed with themselves and their ability to use it. Christy and I had fun getting the kids to dance to the music we brought. It took them awhile to get warmed up, but after starting out with a few zumba moves they were having just as much fun as we were.

And as a reward for a day of hard work we went to the Hilton for pizza and to use the internet :-)

Woleita and back again

We finished the rest of the long drive to Woleita and spent a few hours taking pictures and video of the kids and played with the toys we brought with us. A beach volleyball that we brought turned out to be a bigger hit with the nannies than the kids! Christy started playing with a group of the kids, but they quickly lost interest until only nannies were left and loving every minute of it!
Most of the kids came from really horrible conditions but they were definitely the happiest of all the kids we've seen so far. Most of the kids looked malnourished as they were obviously not getting enough food to eat and their protruding bellies were a sign that the children were starving. Many of them had skin infections, but aside from that you would have no way of knowing how bad off they were because the kids looked so joyful and the nannies showed them so much love. When we had to leave Addis Alam, the caretakers were so happy to see him and were overjoyed to have him back. Although it was very hard to leave him there, we knew that it was a place where he was loved and was happy. Although we were sad to say goodbye to little Addis, we would NOT be lonely for the ride back. We took 4 kids back with us for the 7 hour ride back to Addis Ababa. The baby, Net, just slept the whole time and didn't make a peep the entire ride how which was AWESOME. I couldnt ask for anything more from her :-). Bersufican, however, made up for her absence of noise. He was adorable and he knew it. And it has probably helped him get by with a lot in his little life. And not being able to speak his language also allowed him to pretend like he didnt know that he was being bad. He would continue to mess with the 2 sisters we were bringing back and disturb them as they tried to sleep. None of our commands we were trying were working. "Don't do that", "sit down", "PLEASE go to SLEEP!". He didn't understand any of it until I remembered the word for "Stop it". "Bakka!" I said. And that boy's eyes got sooo wide!! Shocked he was. He was disapointed that he could no longer play us like he had been, and we were pleased to finally be able to control the smartest little 3 year old we have ever met.

On the road to Woleita

Yesterday, we packed up and prepared to embark on a 2 day trip to one of our orphanages in Woleita which was about 7 hours south of Addis Ababa. But first, since it was on the way, we got to stop at Project Mercy! Our friend from school, Bedru, was back in Ethiopia for the summer and had invited us to stop by the school that he grew up going to.Being the Taylor Students that we are, we had heard so much about it that it made for an offer almost too good to pass up.

Our new little buddy Addis Alam (meaning New World) also got to spend these 2 days with us. He had only come to Addis Ababa for a doctor's visit and we needed to take him back to Wolita since he didn't have an adoptive family yet. But by the end of the trip we had fallen in love with him and we didn't want to give him back! Addis spent the night with us in Hosana (with his adorable footie pajamas!!) and he was such a good baby for us! For dinner we tried to feed him injera but he snubbed it. He would only accept bread and milk, but we gladly gave him what he wanted :-)

Day 1 in Addis Ababa!

We arrived in Addis at 3 am this morning and I was immediately reminded why I had missed it so much. Alazar, our taxi driver friend (the dedicated fellow he is) picked us up at the airport and greeted us with a warm welcome. He took us to the New Flower Guest House where we stayed for a couple nights. The showers weren't working (Surprise!!) but I wasn't too upset because the only thing on my mind at that point was sleep. So instead, Christy and I just crashed to rest up for another crazy day of business that my mom had planned for us.
We woke up to a freshly cooked plate of scramble eggs and delicious Ethiopian Coffee... or buna. The day started out relaxing but the rest of the day was everything but. We visited 3 orphanages across the city and were so involved that by dinnertime we realized that we had completely forgotten about lunch! We spent the whole day playing with the kids, taking video of them to send to the families that would be adopting them, and giving them gifts and donations that we had brought with us. I was most excited to visit the transition house again and see the nannies that it had been a year since I last saw. I loved spending time with them last year as they laughed at my attempts to speak Amharic and taught me new words. They are all a lot of fun and most of them are about my age.I was also pleased when Nanny Chef (who's real name is Sanite, but that's not as much fun) was still happy to see me even after our monkey incident last year ;-). I really enjoy spending time with them, and I hope Christy and I can move to the transition house soon to spend more time with our nanny friends and the kids they take care of.

Our 10 hours in Egypt

Before going to Ethiopia we got to stop for a 10 hour trip in Cario, Egypt! We took the 10 hour flight on Egypt Air and it made for a long, incredible day. It was a long flight but we made our own fun. Along with practicing our Amharic and sign language, we also got to watch some TV. But since we couldn't understand any of the words to the Egyptian soap opera we made up our own, rediculous, story lines to what was going on. It quickly turned into a far-fetched story of magicians and costume party's that was mostly based off of our own imagination. But we're pretty sure the actual story line was about as weird as the one we made up.

Finally we arrived in Cairo around 2 and spent about 10 hours sigtseeng with our tour guide Hany Hassan. I can't believe everything we squeezed in today! We got to visit the pyramids (the last standing of the 7 wonders of the Ancient World), sphinx (which is a lot smaller in person than what they lead you to believe on tv), and got to ride camels.

Afterwards, we went to a museum with actual Egyptian relics from King Tutankhemen's tomb... who apparently had a thing for ducks. Then we

had dinner on a floating resturant along the Nile, experienced a papyrus making exhibit, and got to go shopping at this crazy bazaar. We've never had that many people in our faces in our entire lives! Some vendors were very nice and honest ("What can I do to take your money today") and others were outright mean. One guy took us into his shop and shut the door behind us! He was very upset when we asked

how much his scarves cost so we just left. He followed us down the alley shouting, but we kept moving. Very creepy! We ended up going back to the first vendor we had met who was very helpful.
It was an exciting day to say the least, and late tonight we arrive in the long awaited Addis Ababa!

-Julie and Christy

And here's a short clip of the call of worship from one of the mosques that I took right after we went shopping.

Getting ready to go

I can't believe I'm coming back! I got really excited when my mom told me that she was able to take me back to Ethiopia with her this summer and that I could take my roommate, Christy, with me. We're expecting to spend a lot of time with the kids at the different orphanages we will be visiting, and we are both looking forward to the trip. As for the flight home, we will have 2 babies with us who we will be escorting to their new families in America

My First Post on my First Blog

In my mind, my summer started today. Yesterday didn't count, because packing up like crazy to make sure we didn't miss check out time and almost missing our flight (We literally had to run to our gate) isn't exactly my idea of a relaxing summer. But it's good to finally be home in Florida! At least for a few days anyway :-) My college roommate, Christy, come home with me because in just 2 days we will be getting on another plane, this time to Ethiopia (with a 10 hour stop in Cairo)!!

I'm very excited to be able to have this opportunity to go back to Ethiopia again. I have really enjoyed getting to know the kids and following their stories from the time they were orphaned through their search for a home, and oftentimes get to see them again once they've gotten adjusted to their new life in America. It's beautiful to see the world they've come from, and watch how adoption has changed them and their family's so much. It's very emotional to see how God's been able to change these kids lives and give them a family that they've been praying and hoping for, for so long.

I have high hopes for this trip as we visit many orphanages, one of which is in the western region of Ethiopia, Kamashi, which is about a 14 hour drive from the capital, Addis Ababa. I anticipate posting about our trip throughout the next 2 weeks but that may pose difficulties as internet is scarce (especially as we travel to Kamashi), but I hope to update along the way!

Thank's for watching my blog!

Julie Hedberg