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.

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!