We made it!!

Greetings from Ethiopia!!! After a mechanical delay in Charlotte that put us an hour off schedule, we arrived in DC at the Ethiopian Air gate with about 20 min to spare. We met another couple, the Jurrens from Minnasota at the airport, so it was cool to see a somewhat familiar face on the plane. We boarded the very nice Boeing 777 and settled in for a long winters nap...NOT!
We had a uneventfull flight but there wasn't a lot of sleep involved. Abby did great and even though I think she was about to go stir crazy she didn't complain. We landed at 7:45am ET time, made it quickly through immigrations and customs. We then met our travel buddies and the driver from AWAA. I am going to try to post about our day, but I am not sure I am making sense ( 33 hours with no sleep will do that to ya!)

Addis Ababa is beautiful! The temps feel a lot like Florida in the winter..comfortable with just a long sleeve shirt. There are lots of people everywhere right now because of a Holiday celebrating the baptism of Jesus. We went to the guest house after the airport, went over our itinerary for the week, unloaded our bags and left again for lunch.
We went to a place called Metro pizza. It was a really nice pizza place and we laughed that our first Ethiopian meal was going to be pizza! :) It was a little bit of Ethiopia mixed throughout because they placed some bread sticks on the table with a little dish of what looked like guacamole. We cautiously dipped our bread in it and WOW! It was soo hot. Totally burnt my mouth! We were all laughing because the Ethiopian kids that were there with us, who were getting ready to go home, were spooning it up like jello! They were loving that hot mess!

The pizza was very good and really cheap, like $4 a person. After we finished up, we loaded in the van and began our trip to the Transition Home. I was going on about 26 hours with no sleep and the overwhelmingness of it all, I felt like I couldn't breathe. It took us forever ( really about 15 min) to finally pull up to that famous America World gate. The other couple was told that there baby would be brought out first. We videoed them seeing their little boy for the first time..he was so sweet.
After a quick switch of camera, it was our turn. They were suppose to be bringing Micah and Sarah Faith out together. There was a long hall they were bringing them down and we were at the porch/front door. As soon as Micah saw us he took off running and threw himself in my arms! That was the sweetest bear hug and I will never forget that feeling. He hugged Greg next and just jumped up onto him to be held. He was so sweet and not shy at all. He was wearing his Florida Gator shirt we had sent him in his care package. He gave Abby a hug and while he was getting acquainted with his big sister, I turned my attention to the sweetest bundle of pink in the nanny's arms. She looked at me with those big brown eyes and didnt cry at all! She just snuggled in like, "Well, I have been waiting for you to get here".

Greg and Micah went over to the playground to play while Abby and I took Sarah Faith up to a couch on the porch to snuggle. And snuggle we did..all afternoon! She would track our eyes really well and smile and coo and she has a bit of thrush and kept sticking her tongue out so I would be able to see it.

We had an amazing amazing day! Tomorrow is more of the same. More good food and more time with the kids. We are so blessed!