Four months and counting!

I've noticed a common theme in many adoption blogs- it seems sometimes the kids come home, and after swearing to not be one of "those bloggers," some time passes between posts. Sometimes lots of time...sometimes three months...sometimes even MORE time than between posts while you were waiting for the children in the first place! Now there's also the occasional promises of "I'm back and I'm going to update my pants off!" I, hypothetically, am guilty of allll the above. Cripes, you haven't even seen our trip pictures yet!!

You can see this, though:

This picture is from the tail end of August, and gives just a little glimpse into their fun personalities. It seems as if Alexa and Liana have been a part of our family for longer than we waited for them, which is faaaaar from the case. Everyone asks if they get along well with Mark and Tessa, and our answer is that they really are just like siblings. That means there is lots of fun and the occasional challenge :). Both girls continue to be pretty healthy and their English is EXPLODING! Alexa appears to be at least a year older than her stated age, according to our dentist (Shout out to DeLacey Dental!). Her six year molars are on their way in and she has now lost two teeth. (I thought I was going to have to crazy glue them back in her mouth until Tessa lost her first tooth, but she took it like a champ.) She also started preschool this week at the Brokaw Early Learning Center, which is part of our public school district. Liana will be screened for preschool in April when she turns 3ish. The girls are pretty adventurous and are at swim lessons with their older brother and sister as I type. Time for me to go check 'em out!

More later....I promise :).

Some long overdue photos...

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Check out the scrapbook of our first month home (which ended three weeks ago-whoops!). It tells such a small part of what this experience has meant to us and the joy (and occasional challenges :) ) of adding to our family. The music is not Ethiopian, for any of you cultural gurus out there, but it is lively...and iTunes and Smilebox don't always get along so well! Thanks for all of your encouragement and support in getting to this point!

"So, what did you do there all week?"

I need to start writing before I start forgetting...that's for sure! Here's a super brief outline of what our week+ of travel looked like:

Thursday: We had to fly to D.C. a day early to ensure we made our connecting flight on Ethiopian Airlines on Friday. Since neither Jim nor I have been to D.C. before, we opted for an early flight so we could spend the afternoon walking around a bit and relaxing before the journey ahead. Walking around a bit quickly translated to miles and miles, and we really had a nice, distraction free time.

Friday: We boarded the flight for Ethiopia in the morning and spent the.whole.day. on the plane. As in they fed us three full meals and snacks while we were on the flight.

Saturday: We arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the morning, and were picked up, along with 5 other families on our flight, by our driver, Mulat, and taken to Horizon House. After arriving, we were shown to our rooms and Jim and I headed down the block (with a few other families and a guard) to the "big kid house" to meet Alexa Aster and Liana Burtu for the first time. We saw them a couple of times that day for a couple of hours each time.

Sunday: We, along with one other couple and our driver, Solomon, left Horizon House at 6 a.m. for the Sidama region to meet our children's birth families. We had a 4ish hour drive on pavement to the city of Awassa followed by a 2+ hour drive off-road to Arbegona to meet our children's relatives. We then had another 45 minutes into the highlands to so Irena and Matt, another couple in our group, could meet their son's family. We ended up back in Awassa around 5:45 p.m., and after a wonderful dinner, got some sleep!

Monday: We departed the Lewi (our hotel) at 6 a.m. to head back to Addis. We had lunch and loaded up all of the children on a bus to the embassy. During that visit, our children received their visas for travel back to the U.S. In the evening, the Wide Horizon's staff took our whole travel group to a wonderful restaurant for traditional food and dancing.

Tuesday: This day was play day nearly all day. We spent the bulk of the children's "awake" hours with them at the big kid house! During their nap, we went to the business center at the Sheraton hotel to send a half-time e-mail to our fam.

Wednesday: Jim wasn't feeling so good, so he rested in the morning; after a quick visit with the girls, I joined some other members of our group on an outing to the markets. After nap time, we had the girls brought to the guest house so we could play with them outside of the big kid house setting for a couple of hours and really enhance the transition.

Thursday: Jim rallied, and we both joined fellow travelers on another outing to the market. After the girls' nap, we had them join us at the guest house to play AND spend the night!

Friday: We played with our girls and the children joining the other families at the guest house and took part in a coffee ceremony. At that time, we also received all of our children's official paperwork and passports for travel. After dinner, we boarded the bus to Bole and boarded that plane once again.

Saturday: We landed at Dulles on time and had some Wendy's at 9 a.m.! Our flight to Chicago was delayed a couple of times and we finally landed at O'Hare around 3 in the afternoon!

Hopefully that'll give you some context so that my stories about days or events make a little more sense as I continue to write...well, as much as can be expected, anyway! We're so glad our girls have joined our family and look forward to sharing lots more!

A week already?!?!

We're home and we're doing really well! Tomorrow will mark one week since we arrived at home. (Like the awesome banner Uncle Rick ordered for us?!) Our adjustment as a family has really gone smooth. The four Melton kids interact pretty well; I'm anticipating more challenges once they all speak the same language ;) Tessa is really enjoying the big sister role; she taught Alexa the ropes of dress up and pretty much is two inches away from Liana, the little one, at any given time. Mark is a patient, helpful big brother who enjoys running all around the house with Alexa and trying to learn new words from them both. Alexa and Liana are learning the names we've added, and like us, use Alexa/Aster and Liana/Burtu pretty interchangeably. They're sleeping relatively well and the time change didn't impact us quite as severely as we anticipated; 5 a.m. is a little on the early end for this house so we're working on that.

Don't get me wrong, there are challenges, and when they're having conversations and sharing laughs in their native language before bed, I really wish I knew what they were saying. Admittedly, I'm a little sad that they're going to lose that in a pretty short time and replace it with "Pop it, lock it, polka dot it". I'm so glad that they have each other and that we have them.

My plan is to outline our week in Ethiopia and elaborate on some parts of that amidst sharing our summer family fun. We had a good trip and met some really wonderful people; we were also glad to experience the country of Ethiopia itself. We sure look forward to sharing that with you, too!

The deets

So my last two postings were a little, um, brief, so I figured I'd post some more about how this week unfolded! I was really optimistic that we'd pass court soon, but knew that it could still easily be a month. Tuesday morning, I was standing at the copier in the school office trying to scan in an order for the copy center in the midst of 8th grade Recognition Night practice. My phone buzzed and the first things I noticed were a missed IM and missed call from Rachel, who I was currently helping; then I popped over to my e-mail, which is what made my phone buzz to begin with, and saw GOOD NEWS FROM ETHIOPIA e-mail. Needless to say, I was totally surprised! I headed into Rachel's office, told her and tried to call Jim; I managed to knock the phone off the desk a couple of times, too :) (It also happened to be Jim's birthday on Tuesday.) I made a couple of other phone calls and tried to return to productivity, which consisted of more 8th grade activities. I was thinking we'd travel the 19th or the 26th. Later that afternoon, I got a "Congratulations!" e-mail from another parent who is adopting; she had already seen the weekly update from our agency that showed groups travelling the 12th and the 19th; the way the numbers fell, it was apparent that the three families picking up sibling pairs were all slated to do so on the 12th- WOW!!! We got confirmation of that from our agency later that afternoon, and were able to confirm our correct visa status with the National Visa Center to ensure we would be able to travel. A quick call to our travel agent followed and the plans...real, actual, for sure plans...were underway!

ONE WEEK!!

Jim and I leave for Washington, D.C. one week from tomorrow! We head on to Ethiopia on Friday morning and will be home right in time for Fathers' Day!

WE. PASSED. COURT.

We may be travelling next week!!! Oh, boy! More later when we're certain...