The courts are opening!!!!

We heard this evening from our agency that the courts are opening on September 30th! I guess now we will really be on pins and needles until we hear when our court date will be. We pray that it will be soon so we can travel yet this fall. We also want to get there as soon as possible since the children have already seen pictures of us. We do not want them to start to think we are not coming to get them.

Earlier this month, it was an incredible blessing for us to see the pictures that Beth P. brought back from Ethiopia for us. It was wonderful to see a genuine smile on our daughter's face! We can't wait until they are ours and we can post the pictures. We also got the chance to talk to Beth and Rico on the phone for two hours about the time that they spent with our children and their experiences in Ethiopia while they were picking up their son. It was wonderful to hear that our children are being well cared for and that our daughter was nonstop giggles and our son loves to eat. We were torn to hear that our daughter has a best friend in the orphanage. We are happy that she has a friend to get her through the transitions that she is experiencing, but our hearts ache for the loss that she will experience when she has to part with her friend.

For now, we spend a lot of time staring at pictures of our children, preparing our home, reading blogs and learning some Amahric from the Simple Amharic for Adoptive Families book. The community that surrounds adoption continues to amaze us with their support and friendship. We continuously hear wonderful stories and receive an amazing amount of support every time we mention our adoption. Colleen's sister and her husband even ended up sitting near a family on an airplane who were bringing two children home from Ethiopia during their return trip from Europe. We just can't wait until that is us bringing our children home!