The Injera Monster

For those of you who are not familiar with Ethiopian food, injera is considered a staple of the Ethiopian diet. It is a large, thin and spongy bread that tastes kind of like a sourdough pancake (this is Matt's description, at least). Injera is layed out on a platter, basket or place and then a combination of sauces or "wots" are spooned onto the bread. The bread is torn off and used to eat the wot with. Injera is incredibly delicious and very nutritious- especially when it is made with teff- a grain native to the highlands of Ethiopia.

We have a great injera bakery in Denver and try to keep our house stocked with enough injera to fulfill our daughter's endless appetite for the bread. She'll eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Our friends from Ethiopia were generous enough to show me how to make a variety of wots. Asha's favorite is Aleecha, which is made with yellow split peas, onions, garlic and ginger. It's mild and nutty and very yummy with injera. She also likes Mesir Wot which is red lentils with the same basic ingredients plus some berbere spice. The food is delicious and so fun to cook!

Anyway, we went to the market today and bought two packages of injera, yellow split peas and some coffee- guess I better get cooking.

Kate

Okay, Okay... Time to start writing again!

I haven't written since we left for Ethiopia but figure that posting here will be a good exercise for me and will help me to process and record the amazing journey of parenthood! I will definitely be posting some more recent photos, but for the time being (if anyone is actually reading this) I will simply say the blog will continue and I will take the time to update it more often than every 4 or so months..

In a nutshell, we got home from Ethiopia on May 21 and have been incredibly busy ever since! It's been challenging, exhausting and completely rewarding.

I'll write more in the days to come, just wanted to log on and make a quick note.

Kate

Adoption

Yes we are back from Ethiopia...we're just having too much fun hanging out with Asha.

Matt

Blogged with Flock

Getting ready to board.

Kate and i are about to head off into the world of parenthood. We cant wait.

We are on our way!

Well, travel day is finally here.

Packing and Evening Jitters

Our day is finally here...almost. Kate and I head out to Ethiopia in the morning and right now we totally have the jitters. As usual Kate and I try to do things in more insane ways than most. Thus, Kate had to get an emergency root canal this morning. Oh what fun! Anyway, we are very excited and we'll be posting pics along the way. Until the next post.

Anticipation and Joy

Well it's been some time since I put in the last post. I have been busier than I can imagine but that seems to be life.

Right now I am at the Drake Relays in Des Moines Iowa. On Thursday I had an exhibition competition and I wasn't very sure how things were going to turn out. As I prepared for the meet I had Asha on my mind. As the bar got higher and higher I thought more and more of her and what it will mean to me when I finally get to hold her in my arms. That was motivation enough to keep me focused on the jumping. Soon after I finished, I went over to my phone, looked at those big brown eyes and became lost in the excitement.

There is a funny thing that happens when you are adopting. You carry pictures of a child you have never met around with and you share them with everyone. You brag and say that's my little girl as if you have raised her from birth. It makes no difference that you have never met face to face. I can't tell you how many people I have showed pictures to. It's amazing! The mere thought of Asha brings me a joy that goes far beyond jumping over a bar, winning an Olympic Medal, or lots of money. I could go on and on but to put it simply....it's just pure joy when I think about her.

The Travel Date is FINALLY HERE!

Yep, I know.. I haven't written for weeks on end... but who's reading this stuff anyway, really? :)

The good news is that we got our travel email on Tuesday and need to be in Ethiopia by the weekend of May 11. We're leaving May 9 just to give ourselves a little extra time to rest up (that's me, especially) from jet lag, adjust..visit Asha at the orphanage and so forth. I bought our tickets today and we got a reservation at the Hilton Addis Ababa as well. Good News!!

The other big news is that we've been cast on a DIY Network pilot and will be filming in our house next week for three days while they remodel our living area. It seems crazy, but we'll be happy for the improvements before Asha comes home.

I can't wait to see what they do!

Well, that's about all for now. I'm running around a lot this week, trying to get as much done as I can before things get really crazy next week.

Kate

Asha has a great smile

Getting Ready for Asha

Today I made the trip to Home Depot and bought all the supplies I need to paint Asha's bedroom. We're going to paint it a very pretty, pale yellow. It's brown right now- not a very girly color! It's such a relief to be able to finally do such things- we know who she is, how old she is (give or take a year or so) and most of all, know she'll be coming home SOON! (Don't get too excited- we still don't have a travel date.) I also went to Old Navy today and found the cutest stuff! I bought several outfits but had buyer's remorse and have decided to return it all and wait until the big "gently used" sale coming up in a couple of weeks. Myself and two girls from church are going to this Lutheran Church in our neighborhood for a kids' clothing sale. I also hope to pick up some clothes to donate to the orphanage in Ethiopia while I'm there.

When we got those new pictures yesterday, they just took my breath away. I also began to feel a longing to scoop her up and give her a big hug. That little girl has already been through so much in her young life. I look at her photos and I can't look away!

Alright, well.. I need to put primer on the walls in her room. I'll post some pictures when we get the room together...

Until later!

We got a new Photo!!!

Well we got a new photo today!!! Hooray hooray. Kate got an email this morning from someone on the Yahoo group that just got back from Ethiopia. We waited impatiently for the photo to come. Kate tried to clean house and I pitched in as best I could. I was participating in what Kate refers to as "man cleaning". I'll let you imagine what that means.

After an hour or so of attemped distraction we had to just get our of the house. So we opted go for a walk and take Nikka out for some playtime. Just before we walked out the door we got out the door we checked the mail and there it was. Three pictures of our beautiful daughter. We both fought for just a minute of the view of the laptop screen. It was a great moment. Fantastic I tell you.

It is more apparent each passing day how much we desire to get on that plane and just go meet our little girl. Kate and I have so much joy and love in our hearts for our precious daughter. Well, that's enough for now. Until next time.

Shopping for Toddler: Mindful Consumerism

Well I just finished my first shopping experience. Kate and I went off to Target to see what we may need to bring our little girl home. We got ourselves a scanner gun and made our way through the maze of consumerism and did our best to avoid the normal trappings. It was fairly easy at first as the practical side of me said she needs shirts, dresses, pants, and shoes. She also will need things like sippy cups, toothbrush, socks; oh yeah a car seat too.

As we made our way through the aisles it dawned on us that she would need some toys and things to play with. Thanks to the good folks in marketing we were directed to the age appropriate toys in the back of the stores. Toys for this and toys for that. Learning toys, fun toys, computer toys and talking toys. Toys toys toys toys. Toys are everywhere. I was struck by the masses of technology toys that exist in today's marketplace. I am sure that the toys are good, helpful and amusing. I know that nothing existed like a cellphone toy or laptop toy or just about anything else out there in the marketplace when I was a kid. I had Tonka Trucks, star wars figures, a few matchbox cars and other things as well but nothing close to today's standard. Some of those toys that were around then are are still around but in "upgraded" versions. I digress.

So what what am I getting at? You'll have to stay with me for a minute so I can explain myself. I recently heard Donald Miller of "Blue Like Jazz" in an interview with Relevant Magazine speak of someone that wanted to bring toys to a mission and the mission asked them not to. The reason, because toys often bring about greed and fighting among other things with the kids. Miller also mentions a person in Scotland that didn't want to bring their friends back to the US before their kids are beyond a certain age because they would like to shield them from the mass consumerism of our present culture. They wanted the kids to really value the relationship with their siblings and friends more than any "thing" that they could want or have.

What I am getting at is that all of the toys that were considered the best, the high end ones, were all "learning" toys. All toys that allowed your child to interact with a machine or game that would teach them something. Maybe I will show my ignorance here but I thought that interacting was to be done by children and parents or children and friends. Don't get me wrong here I am not saying that they are all bad. I am sure they are good things in many if not most of the toys out there. It's just that I worry that it creates an environment that is too easy for me as a parent to ignore my child in the name of amusement and learning.

In wrapping up I would say is that my hope is that I will navigate the course well be mindful of my time and money as a parent. I would prefer to think that I would value that time so much with my child that would want to be there, side by side watching, learning and interacting with her. The idea of reading to Asha makes me nearly melt right now. Maybe I'm nuts, maybe it's just the years of waiting to be a parent makes me ultra sensitive to gift and privilege of having a child. I just don't know, I just thought I would get some thoughts out.

I've been too lax

I've been too quiet here on the blog- it's not for lack of things to write about, rather the opposite. Waiting for the travel call is so hard. I know my daughter is half a world away from me and yet I cannot do anything to speed the process. I've been working for the past 3 weeks, which has been a great distraction. Last week I really started to get the nesting instinct, though... I'm ready to paint her room, get her furniture together and get ready for our baby girl to come home. I know Matt feels the same way. I'm watching the Yahoo Group daily to see if more families are getting their travel dates and then trying to estimate when it is that we can expect OUR travel call. It's hard to tell, but we probably have 4-5 more weeks to wait.. ARGH!!!

Tonight we went to Target to add items to our registry. Matt mentioned in line that this will be our last Easter without bunny rabbits! WOW! That's so cool! :)

We also found out that one of the social workers from our agency (Wide Horizons For Children) visited with Wubnesh (Asha) in Ethiopia this week! She said she was a little shy at first since she'd just woken up from a nap but had a sweet smile and good eye contact. She also said she'll be sending us more photos (with more hair!) on Tuesday. We can't wait!

I guess that's all for now. I'm sure I will write again soon. I'm pretty tired though and won't do my feelings justice.

Kate

Just Waiting

Well it's been a few more days and I keep thinking over and over again about how much I can't wait to meet my daughter. I think of the first look, the first hug, the first step toward my travel to meet her. Kate and I both want to leave right now and go to Ethiopia. We are at that point where nothing seems to matter other than Asha.

I don't think you can be fully prepared on your first adoption for the aftershock of knowing who your child is and then not being able to immediately go meet them. You're in standby mode until you the the long awaited travel call. The end result is a joyful stress. You are stuck in the limbo of hurry up and wait and you don't know whether to scream for joy or for frustration. Yes I know I may sound as thought I am complaining but i'm really not. I'm just impatient! I guess I'll only know for sure if it gets any better the second time around after Kate and I bring home a sister for Asha....trust me we are already thinking about it!

Well I hope to have another picture up soon. Some others have traveled to Ethiopia recently and promised to take some pictures for us. We're hoping that they come soon!!! Thats the news for now. Until next time.

The excitement of knowing you have a child.

For those of you out there in internet land that know me, you'll know that I am a pretty reserved person. I don't tend to get overly emotional about much. Yet I find myself very emotional about knowing that I have a daughter out there. I want to know where she is, where she is from and above all else when I get to meet her. The pictures I have of her are posted on my desk at home, on my computer at home, my computer at work, on my ipod, and just about everywhere else I can think of. I guess you could say that I have the baby bug.

Tonight Kate and I were sitting on the couch searching the web for all thing Ethiopia. This is a completely normal thing to do when you know that your child is half way around the world. At least I think it's completely normal. Having said all that I thought of nothing other than google maps. I thought wouldn't it be cool if I could see the area where she is from. Wouldn't that be amazing. Wouldn't you know it, thanks to those smart guys at google I was able to find the region where Asha (that's her new name) is from. I'm not really sure how close we are to really knowing where she is from but I do know that she is from the Hosaina region in Ethiopia. I've included a link if you want to check it out. I was encouraged to see that the town has track, it's made of dirt but that's good enough for me. Well that's enough for now. Follow the link to see the area Asha is from.

Hosaini Ethiopia:

We got our referral!!!!

So I am going to beat Kate to the Blog. We got our referral yesterday morning and we are so excited. I don't have much to say other than Kate and I are very very excited!!! We'll post more pictures when we get them. I can't believe how awesome it is to be officially a Dad. I am sure that I will have more updates in the coming hours and days.

Okay, Okay, Okay!!

So, Matt's been bugging me about posting to the blog and I figured I'd better take a couple of minutes to do so. As you read in Matt's recent post, we are still waiting for our referral and it seems that the wait will extend beyond 6 months for sure! I say that because today we have been waiting 6 months. I guess part of the reason I haven't been writing much is because I was pretty sad about everything and felt that the best thing I could do was to keep myself busy with other things. It seems that the more I get involved in checking the yahoo groups, checking emails and so forth, the more anxious I get about the referral and the fact that it's not happening. I absolutely trust that things will work out for the best and that when the time comes, we will receive the perfect children for our family- it's just hard waiting. There's no nice way to say it- I'm sick of waiting! I was also a bit bothered because I'd never heard of a sibling referral taking up to 12 months and was somewhat blindsided by that communication. After talking with my agency, I felt a bit better because they aren't actually saying we will wait that long, just that it's a worst case scenario kind of thing. I was told that we would "probably" get a referral in the spring.

Hmmmm... On the positive side, it gives us more time to save more for travel and to do whatever else we must to get ready for the big change. Matt said last night "we're getting closer- a lot closer than we were 7 years ago!"... that's so true. We wanted to start our family back in 2000... so everyday we are MUCH closer.

:)

A long wait than expected....Maybe

Well, our wait for our two children may be longer than expected. We thought it would be no longer than 6 months for our referral. It seems that because of the age children that we requested it may take us a bit longer. The agency says that it could be up to 12 months. When Kate told me that it just broke my heart. I am so ready to be a dad and I know that Kate is very ready to be a mom. We are both ready to be parents...or at least we think we are.

It's been a hard 24 hours considering that it may be another 6 months. Kate and I talked about it today and we do and don't want to change our requirements for our adoption. If we were willing to take an older child it would more than likely expedite the process. It's such a hard call. We're caught between a rock and a hard place. We want our kids so badly but we feel like that we should stick to our request for the ages that we put in for.

I could go on but I won't. I think it's important to just note the way that I feel and what we are going through as a couple as we wait for our adoptions to go through. It's such a long and hard process. I was telling Kate today that I will surely cry the first time that my kids fall asleep laying on my chest while I am sitting on the couch. I can't wait for that moment. It can't come soon enough. Until next time.

Sick and Tired and Waiting

Well we made it throgh the week and we didn't get our referral. I fell ill all week and all I could think about was trying to feel better. Kate on the other hand was checking the web on a regular basis in hopes that our referral would be awaiting in her gmail account. We both know that we will get the phone call first and then we will get the email but none the less we are waiting. I wish we just knew when we would get the referral. Sort of a pre-referral time. It would give us a time we could plan to have our lives as parents will begin. It is so hard to just be there waiting, sitting, hoping and praying for the word that you are officially going to be parents. I know that time will come soon enough but the longer we wait the harder it gets. I say this for both Kate and I, we just can't wait to be parents.

Waiting for our Referral

Waiting for our referral has seemed like an eternity and it only seems to be getting longer. We've been waiting for over five and a half months. Rumor has it that the people at our agency haven't ever had people wait longer than 6 months when waiting for their referral. Our luck would be that we will be the first exception to that rule. Anyway, all in Gods timing.

Lately I have been thinking about what fatherhood will look like. I am sure it will be a total life changer if you know what I mean. I am really excited about the entire process. I've thought about everything from soccer practice, the kids first day of school, the kids getting their first "booboos". Just tonight Kate and I were thinking about how Nikka, our dog, is going to react to the kids. We both decided that Nikka will probably be eating any piece of food that the kids don't eat. I am very much looking forward to parenthood and all that it entails. I am sure that I will make some mistakes but I think that's to be expected. All parents do make mistakes.

As each day goes by I keep thinking that we will be getting our referral today. I hope each day that we get our referral. I know Kate is very anxious as well. Anyway, soon enough, soon enough.