Ethiopia or bust...

We leave for Ethiopia on Thursday! I can’t believe it is finally here! We have 3 suitcases on our bedroom floor and only have a few things thrown in them. I have to decide what to take for clothes, shoes, and for our court appointment. The weather is pretty rainy and cool there right now, so it looks like jeans will be worn almost every day. We’re only there a few days, so we really don’t need to take too many things but then again, we’re going to be in Africa, so I better not forget anything important!

I can’t wait to meet Tinsae, hold him in my arms, and give him a great big hug and kiss his sweet cheeks. Please pray that Tinsae warms up to us rather quickly, so we at least have a few good hours to get to know him before we have to leave him again. Also, please pray for safe travels!

Happy 13th Birthday Jordan!

We have another teenager in the house! Jordan turned 13 on Saturday!

She celebrated in typical "Jordan-style", which means it was ALL ABOUT JORDAN all week long! She made brownies on Saturday afternoon and her dad brought home some cupcakes too!


Then on Sunday, we had a big family (& her friend, Karissa) party at Grandma Lenz's house on the lake! We ate Papa Murphy pizzas, fresh fruit, salad, chips, and a DQ ice cream cake! The kids had a blast swimming and throwing water balloons at each other in the lake. 


Jordan received a lot of cool t-shirts, shorts, sparkly headbands, a volleyball net, a release for her new bow, a bucket of softballs, and money! She made a haul!!


Here's a few pics of the birthday girl!

Summer Baseball & Softball Season 2011

The traveling baseball and softball seasons are coming to a close. I don’t even know how many hours I spent sitting in the sun and cheering them on. I got a great tan and must have gained a few more pounds eating all that popcorn, hot dogs, and nachos! 

Cassie played on a 16U traveling softball team. She played in 4 weekend tournaments in Stevens Point, Green Bay, Wausau, and Wisconsin Rapids. Cassie played right field and has an awesome hitting streak! Great job Cassie! 

Jordan played on a 12U traveling softball team. She played at least 2 games during the week in Manawa, Clintonville, and Shiocton. She also played 3 weekend tournaments in Denmark, Wausau and Greenville. She played first base and catcher. Way to go Jordan! 

Noah played on the AAA traveling team and the in-city Middle League team. He usually played first base in the traveling league and all over in the in-city league, and occasionally was the pitcher! I was a nervous wreck when he was pitching but he actually did pretty well! CONGRATS Noah! 

Muluken played on the AAA traveling team (youngest player on the team) and the in-city Little League team (Brad coached). Muluken played second base for the traveling team and all over for the in-city team. He is a speed demon running the bases and always had a BIG smile on his face. He even got to pitch an inning of his last AAA game! Awesome job Muluken!

Here are a few pictures of my athletes!

Swimming Lessons

For the first 23 years of my life, I spent my summers living on Lake Poygan. I took swimming lessons when I was really young and then continued to swim almost every day at the lake. I LOVE swimming! I couldn’t win any swimming competitions but I knew I could swim with all the other “big” kids.

Now, I’m embarrassed to say it, but I didn’t take my own kids to swimming lessons. Brad and I thought we would be able to teach them how to swim. We took Cassie to a “Mommy & Me” swimming class, but that was only when she was 2 years old and it was something fun for us to do together. 

Last summer, I signed Muluken up for swimming lessons. Muluken was never around enough water to swim in while living in Ethiopia, so I wanted to make certain he was able to learn how to float and maybe even “doggy paddle”. Throughout the summer, we went to Grandma’s house to swim at the lake. I always had this nagging feeling of guilt come over me, knowing I never sent the others to swimming lessons. The girls were both pretty good swimmers, but Noah was always apprehensive about large waves or high water. 

So this summer, I signed the boys up for “private” swimming lessons at the local pool. The boys went twice a week for an hour at a time. They swam with one lifeguard and had a lot of fun. The “guilty” feeling has started to go away. They have been learning how to tread water, front and back crawl, and jump off the dock and diving board. I am SO PROUD of both boys! There were some REALLY COLD mornings that they had to go swimming. They didn’t complain at all. Here are a few pictures of the boys’ last day at swimming lessons of 2011.

The NEWEST Driver...

Yes, you guessed it right! 

Cassie PASSED her driver license road test on Friday! YEAHHHHH!

Yes, you've read it correctly! She had to go all the way to Richland Center (2-1/2 hours away) to actually take the test. It wasn't a piece of cake either. This was Cassie's 4th time taking her driver's test, and actually didn't pass for some pretty stupid reasons.

Oh well, doesn't matter now. Cassie will be driving the younger kiddos back and forth to sports, school, etc. Finally, Mom can quit being a full time taxi cab driver! YEAH!

CONGRATULATIONS CASSIE!! We're so proud of you!

NEW Court Date!

Great news! Today we received our NEW court date. August 1st!


We will fly out on Thursday, July 28th and return home on Tuesday, August 2nd. It will be a quick trip but monumental! We will FINALLY meet our little boy! Oh, how I've dreamed of this day. It is so hard to put into words all the emotions and feelings I am going through today. Mostly, excited to embark on this adventure!

Please keep praying for a great trip, awesome meeting with our son, and a quick approval of our adoption!

Three Things...

People always say that bad things happen in threes. Well, we have our three for the week, so GOOD NEWS has to be in the near future.

If you're wondering about the three, here you go:

1) our trip to Africa was cancelled very suddenly;

2) Cassie failed her driver's test for the third time;

3) Noah broke his big toe & will miss the rest of the baseball season;


So you see, we had our three BAD things happen. Now, bring on the GOOD things. PLEASE!!!

Somebody above must have been counting too, because we received a phone call about 3:45pm this afternoon from Holt. She stated that Dr. Fikru is much more positive that our adoption will go through. She stated a few more things need to be worked out such as figuring out who Tinsae's guardianship should be until we pass court.

So, we have hope! That was the best news I think we could have heard so late on a Friday afternoon. Hopefully next week we hear more good news and even upcoming travel news. Now that would be AWESOME!!

So sad...

We should be boarding our plane right now. On our way to Ethiopia. But I am sitting here, typing this sob story of a blog post with tears in my eyes. We are not on our way and we have no idea if or when we will be going back to Ethiopia.

This nightmare started on Tuesday afternoon at 3:30pm with a phone call from our agency's program director. She informed us that we might not be leaving for our court date on Friday due to some happenings in Ethiopia.

She told us that the Mussie Orphanages closed abruptly last week. There were four orphanages in all, including the orphanage that Tinsae was relinquished too back in June of 2010. Even though Tinsae was transferred to a care center in Addis (the capital) back in October of 2010, his paperwork still states that the Mussie Orphanage is his Guardian. Since they closed the doors so quickly, the paperwork wasn't transferred to anyone else. So, the courts are not happy.

According to Holt in Oregon, the Ethiopian courts are threatening to send Tinsae back to the countryside, even though his old orphanage is now closed.

The Ethiopian courts will not hear our case and we are in limbo. We have no idea what is going to happen. Holt actually stated that they don't even know if the adoption is going to go through. Ugh!

We can't believe we are going through this right now. The Ethiopian courts close in August and September, so we really have no idea if and when we would even get to meet our sweet little boy.

PLEASE PRAY! Pray for us. Pray for all the children. Pray for all the families. Pray for the Ethiopian courts to make decisions that will benefit the children.

Just PRAY!!