Home!

Hello friends,

36 hours of travel and 2 lost bags later (thanks United), we made it home! Due to some schedule changes, we got back a couple of days early, so we get to spend Christmas morning at home instead of on an airplane. It was an amazing trip - more details in the days to come. Time to rest...

Brian, Noelle, Ernie, and Anna

Ethiopia Update

Hello friends,

 

We just wanted to drop a quick line to tell you all we made it here safely, and that Anna is as wonderful and perfect as we expected.  We have mostly been taking it easy so far, hanging out at the House of Hope and getting to know our new daughter.  Anna does everything you would expect a 4-month-old to do.  She enjoys watching everything going on around her, likes her tummy time, wakes up Mom and Dad in the middle of the night, spits up quite frequently.  Everyone here says she is very serious, but we've gotten a lot of smiles out of her in the last day.  I guess she was just waiting for her mom and dad to get here from America...

 

Brian

Leaving Tomorrow

Hi all,

Tomorrow is the day! We leave at 7:30 AM (thanks for the ride, Dad), and arrive in Addis Ababa Monday night. We will be back in the evening on Christmas day.

I'm not sure if we will be able to post while we are over there, but we will do our best. Thanks for all your support in this journey - next time you hear from us, we'll have met Anna!

It's a Girl!

Great news! Our court date in Ethiopia was this morning and everything went smoothly, so we are officially (finally) Anna Etagegnehu's parents. Which means we can post pictures! So here she is:

We're not exactly sure yet when we will be traveling, but it looks like it might be the week before Christmas, arriving home on Christmas day. More info as we get it...

Conversations with Ernie

Part 2: The birth of Jesus?

Setting: In the car on the way to visit Grandma and Grandpa

Ernie: Dad! God and Jesus are in my heart!
Dad (proudly): That's right!
Ernie: ...and when they were tiny babies, they lived in my tummy.
Dad (getting confused): ok...
Ernie: ...and then they were born!
Dad: How did they get out?
Ernie: Through the door.
Dad: What door?
Ernie: The door in my head.
Dad (confused): Then where did they go?
Ernie: To Jerusalem!

What do they learn at Sunday School?

This episode of Conversations with Ernie was brought to you by the letter L and the number 2.

Conversations with Ernie

A new feature on the Frick blog...not necessarily adoption-related, but guaranteed to tickle your funny bone. Or your money back.

Part 1: Ernie contemplates the Mystery of the Holy Trinity

Scene: Ernie and Dad are sitting in the living room on a typically gorgeous Northwest afternoon (it was cold and rainy).

Ernie: Dad, you're my father.
Dad (wondering where this is going): Yup, you're right.
Ernie: And I'm your son!
Dad: Very good, kiddo.
Ernie (thinking hard): And Mom's the...Holy Spirit!
(Dad just shakes his head - if only it were that easy).

This episode of "Conversations with Ernie" has been brought to you by the letter H and the number 6.

Work Party

Last Saturday, we had a little work party to get our little girl's room ready for her arrival (still no word on the court date...being patient is hard). Some selected images are below. I have also created an album on Picasa if you want to see the rest of the fun. Oh, and Noelle wanted me to point out that the room is not all the way finished yet - she is planning some further decoration on the walls.

Before:

During:

Sorting Clothes and Toys:

After:

What's Next

So the obvious question is "what's next?" Now that we have our referral, how do we go about actually getting our daughter home? Well, unfortunately for our nerves, it requires more waiting and patience (something we do not have in abundance right now). At some point in the next few weeks, there will be a court date in Addis Ababa, at which we will officially become our daughter's parents under Ethiopian law. We will not be at that hearing - we have granted power of attorney to someone who works for our agency in Addis, who will appear on our behalf. At that point, we will be able to post pictures and other information about our baby girl.



After that, more waiting happens (insert Jeopardy theme here). A few weeks later, we will have an appointment at the American embassy in Addis to finalize our baby's visa and other travel documents. Both Noelle and I will be traveling for this, and we will be in-country for about a week. Then all we have to do is figure out how to get an infant through 24 hours of travel...

Big News

This seems to be an appropriate time to make our first post on our adoption blog - we got our referral today! That's right, after months of paperwork and waiting and stress, we now know who our new daughter is. This morning, our contact at our adoption agency called with the news that we had been referred a seven-week-old baby girl. We don't have much information about her right now, and we are not allowed to post pictures or too much personal information about her until the adoption becomes finalized in Ethiopia, but we will be posting more about her as we know it. She is as beatiful and perfect as we expected.

It was a wild day. Noelle was on her way back from a physical therapy appointment when she got the call. As soon as she got home, she told me everything she knew (which wasn't much), and then we spent the next half hour refreshing our email accounts waiting for the documentation from our agency. We finally received a picture, some basic background information, and the results of blood tests, etc. that were done in Addis Ababa a couple of weeks ago. Of course, we spent the rest of the morning on the phone with family and friends, telling them about the new addition to the family.

Our baby is now at the House of Hope, a transitional home in Addis Ababa that is run by our agency, so we know she is being loved and cared for. It sounds like we will be traveling within the next three months to pick her up. In the meantime, we have lots of work to do to get her room ready and prepare for her arrival. We'll be using this space to post updates, pictures, and more information as we get it and are allowed to share.