Happy girl and the official day one on the ground!

I had to post some cutie pie pictures of the past few days!! Just a glimpse! :) Teddi squishes her face like this all the time when she's trying to hold in a belly laugh!


She's not too crazy for the head scarf thing but Mommy LOVES them on her!

We were up at 4:00 to be at breakfast for 5:00am, then off to the birth family visit. We had approx. a 4 and a half hour drive to the city of Awassa to pick up our translater and have a "pee break".... wow, they don't make tur-lits like back home in Ethiopia! YIKES, next time, don't drink ANY water to stay hydrated - do anything to avoid the pee-stop! :) Awassa was much larger than I had anticipated!

This was some of the scenery en route to Awassa, it was mostly flat with some mountains off in the distance. People were walking down the roads everywhere with heards of goats/cattle. It was breathtaking... every several miles we'd go through small towns where there were some shops on the side of the road. I just remember saying and thinking over and over "I can't believe we're in Africa"!

After Awassa and getting the translater the six of us (yes six, four in the back seat is a bit cozy to be "off roading") set off for the most extraordinary part of our adventure... we were headed to a dirt road that would take us deep into the mountains to Teddi's home village of Arbegona. It was almost three hours of crazy bumpy torraine and exquisite scenery like I've only seen on a television screen... Words can never describe it and this short video certainly cannot either. It was much too bumpy to film more than a few brief moments so we took several pictures. Side note; that one pit stop in Awassa was the only one in our 9 hours of driving that day - other than getting out to visit the b.families. I just wish somehow I could bring the scenes to you of this trip!

We were very fortunate to travel with someone that I had recently connected with online who was also adopting a three year old from the same village. She and her mom were with us for the whole week and I'm grateful that she was part of our "experience" in Ethiopia - she was wonderful!

I'm obviously not going to post pictures of the birth family visit and I don't really know what to say about it. I have watched the video footage of it a dozen times and cannot keep my eyes of the stunning woman who made the most difficult decision of her life. We were blessed to have the visit in the home that Teddi was most likely born in and lived for her three years until Horizon House - The entire visit was surreal and very emotional, it's still all foggy and I'm so glad we had those wonderful people with us to video and take pictures. After our visit we went to do there's - it was an entirely different experience and one I feel blessed to have been witness to.

Scenery along the journey into the mountains....

The view accross the street from Teddi's home...

Can you see the dirt road? This was the entire trip to the village from Awassa!

It blows my mind to think of the remote place she came from and to now be all the way accross the world to our little New England town.

Back at the hotel in Awassa after the long day - we changed and went to dinner with our trip-mates!

Drained - in every way.... next day, up for a 5:00am departure back to Addis to shower and head to the embassy appointment with the girl who cried, "I've been adopted by axe murderers", "don't make me go with them"! The scratches on my neck the next day when we went to pick her up proved her disgust with me!


Did we actually go to Africa?????????