Back to School

Tomorrow starts another school year for all of us. The kids are a LOT more excited about this school year than I am! With all of the school changes handed down by our wonderful Governor Scott Walker, the school atmosphere is quite dismal. Morale is at an all time low and we are still waiting to hear what our "employee rules" will be this year. It's actually very depressing!

For the kids though, it is a year of change and excitement!

Cassie will be a Junior and driving the other three back and forth to school. Jordan will be an Eighth grader, while Noah will be a Sixth grader at the middle school. Muluken switched over to Weyauwega Elementary School (to be with the other 3 kids) and will be in the Second grade. Amazing and scary all rolled together.

Cassie will be an FFA officer, student council officer, and play softball this school year. Jordan will be playing volleyball, basketball (school team and traveling team), and be the manager of the high school softball team. Noah will be playing football, traveling basketball, and possibly running track. Muluken will be playing on an eleven-year old classic soccer league! Cassie and Noah will also be playing in the school bands. Cassie plays the sax and Noah plays the trumpet.

And, if I didn't think the other four were going to keep me busy, Tinsae will be coming home soon to add to our chaos! But, that will be a BLESSING!

Let's all pray for an AWESOME school year!!!!

On Thursday, July 28^th, we left home to head to Ethiopia for our court date. We were off to a rough start from the beginning. In Appleton, Brad had a hard time getting thru security. I, of course, got picked for the random security check. I made it through quicker than Brad. For some reason, they didn't like his socks!

On the flight from Appleton to Chicago, we didn't get to sit together. It was a 1 - 2 split. One seat on one side and two seats on the other. It was a quick flight. Brad of course fell asleep next to some guy. His mouth was wide open! In Chicago, we only had to wait for about 10 minutes and then stood  in line to board our plane. Pur seats were 56D and 56E, which meant we had to walk all the way to the back of the plane! Yes, we had to get the last seats in the entire plane! There was a reason we got such a great deal on our tickets! LOL!

Food was served. Hmmm. What can I say. There were warm vegetables (think BROCCOLI) touching my chicken and rice. Need I say more? Yuck! Of course Brad ate the whole thing! The movie screens were way up in the air in the aisle. Not on the back of the seat in front of us. Ugh! (I guess that's why I brought my iPad!) The first movie was called The Prom. Needless to say, Cassie and Jordan would have LOVED this movie. I watched it. It was pretty good. Brad rolled his eyes but was found to tap his foot to the music! The second movie was some sci-fi thing. Brad was into it. I listened to the iPad. I LOVE my music!!!!

The rest of the flight was uneventful. We arrived in Frankfurt, Germany around 6:30am. We made our way around the airport (hard to navigate when you don't know German). The airport is HUGE!!! We couldn't believe the size of all the planes. Brad almost took out one of the security people with the handle of his suitcase. The man knocked it out of Brad's hand and the man got it right in his eye. He started yelling something in German, that didn't sound too good. Everybody came to the aide of the man and they weren't happy with Brad. After sweating it out (literally Brad had sweat running down his face), made it thru security and the man never looked at us again!

We tried to eat breakfast at the McDonalds. Yea, not so great. Let's just say that the food wasn't much like the American version. Brad didn’t want to eat at any of the restaurants! We had over a five hour wait until our next flight. We tried McDonalds again for lunch before our flight. We were hoping that if we ate early then we could sleep on the flight and not wait for any food. Brad ordered. He got 2 chicken sandwiches, 2 large French fries (one size only), and 2 hamburgers ( with the works on). At least it was better than breakfast.

We took a bus over to our plane and loaded it on the tarmac. This time we were a little closer to the middle of the plane. We both took a sleeping pill and that was all she wrote. I think I was sleeping before the plane even left the terminal! I slept for about four hours and felt so much better. We arrived in Addis Ababa at 9pm (Addis time). We were in our hotel room around 11:30pm and lying in bed by 12:30am. 

 

I started not to feel good while in the Frankfurt airport and by the time we landed in Addis, I was really feeling nauseous. When I woke up on Saturday morning, I was miserable! My stomach was rolling and my head was pounding. I must have got the stomach flu on the plane or something. I laid in bed until 8:20am and then tried to get ready as quickly as possible, because we were getting picked up at 8:30am. I could hardly keep my head up and I was so light-headed. We piled into the van and it wasn’t even 5 minutes into the trip that I started throwing up in the back of the van. YUCK!!!! The smell, the bumps in the road, and the noise was just too much for me. I just wanted to go back to bed!

  Our Hotel

 Holt's Ethiopia Office

We went to Holt’s office for about a 20 minute orientation and then headed off to the care centers. We dropped the first family off where their daughter was staying and then we headed over to Tinsae’s care center. When we walked into the building, there were a few little children watching us walk in. And there was Tinsae. He was watching us walk in and he was checking us out. We bent right down to his level and said hello! Tinsae is just beautiful! His hair is cut short, about the same length of Muluken's right now. He is identical to his photos. He is very inquisitive, with a serious face. I had to tickle him a LOT to get some adorable smiles, but the smile is so adorable! He is lighter skin than Muluken. He is small but has a little tummy on him.

We gave him a small, red Cars car that made noise, his picture book (pictures of our family & home), and nerf soccer ball. He held onto his new possessions and didn’t let them out of his sight. He showed the nannies his picture book, but he wouldn’t let anyone take it away from him. He threw and kicked his soccer ball, but didn’t really want to share it with his little friends.

Tinsae shared his bedroom with 2 little boys and a little girl. The nannies shared that he was very close to the little girl. The children were all about the same age (we think). We were not supposed to ask about the other children but we were able to hug and love on them! They were precious!

Tinsae let us hold him, snuggle him, and give him hugs and kisses. He was just so sweet! His skin was so soft. He was also VERY ticklish! 

Tinsae ate a bowl of something that looked like spaghetti. He let the nanny feed him with a spoon half of the time too. Afterwards, he drank some water. The other children were all put down for a nap then. Tinsae was able to play with us a little longer. He then said “shint” which means he had to go potty. Since all the nannies were out of the room, I took him to the bathroom. He sat on a little plastic potty. LOVE that he is potty trained! 

When Tinsae returned to the playroom, he looked around, found his new red car, and went into his bedroom. He climbed over the back of his little bed and laid his head down on his pillow. He was tired! Out first visit was done!

One thing that we thought was funny, was during our first visit to the care center. When we were playing with Tinsae, the nannies were watching a soap on TV. I couldn't believe that they have soaps in Ethiopia! Tinsae kept watching it and Dad kept laughing! It looks like we better buy a portable DVD player for my return trip to bring Tinsae home.

We then went back to our hotel. The others went to each lunch and I went to bed. For the rest of the day and night! The bed was hard, but it worked! We had a TV which actually had 3 stations in English! One of the channels was MTV! Crazy! We've had a lot of rain and thunderstorms here too. The power went out this afternoon, but Dad said the generator kicked in, so it didn't affect us too much except for the WIFI. I was sleeping, so I didn't even know it happened. I woke up around 11:45pm on Saturday evening. I ate 2 pieces of cinnamon bread that I brought in my carry-on. I finally got some food in my stomach!

On Sunday morning, we headed over to see Tinsae again at 9:30am. We dropped the other families off first and then headed to CC#2. There was another family going with us this day, because they were there for the Embassy Date.

Tinsae was so cute today! More smiles, but none on film. He came right over and sat down on my lap. He wanted to check out my purse and see what new goodies we brought today. He took out my carmex and put it on his lips, my lips, and dad's. He tried another Tic Tac but didn’t like them anymore than yesterday. Tinsae also found my gum, in which he quickly unwrapped it, let me take a bite, he took a bite, and then shoved the rest in Brad’s mouth. So cute! 

We colored with crayons, traced our hands with my pens, hit balloons up in the air, blew up balloons and let the air out over and over, emptied an entire pack of Kleenex and covered up his red car, and just snuggled with him! He’s adorable, cute, sweet, tiny, and everything else a little, 3 year old boy could be!

Today, the nannies gave me his bowl of food to feed him. Tinsae wanted nothing to do with the food. (I didn’t want to try it either!) Tinsae would turn his head all the way to the side every time I would bring the spoon towards his mouth. It took 2 of the nannies to even get him to try a little bite of the stuff. YUCK! He finally started to eat the sauce part of it, but wanted nothing to do with the meat portion. I don’t blame him! He watched me very closely, making sure I didn’t get the meat on his spoon. One time I got a teeny, tiny piece on the spoon, and he picked it off and put it back in the bowl!

Somehow Tinsae knew we weren't coming back tomorrow, so when the nannies wanted to put him to bed for his nap, Tinsae wouldn't get off my lap. He actually cried when I carried him into his bed. I felt like such a bad mommy! I didn’t want to say goodbye! It was so hard to see his sad little face looking at me from his tiny, little bed.

 After we left the care center, we went back to the hotel and ate some lunch (Brad ate). Then we did a little shopping. We found the soccer jerseys that I wanted to make sure to buy. We also bought a few other wood carvings and bracelets for the girls. I was still not feeling great. I didn’t really eat much of anything again today. Nothing sounds good or smells good. I so miss my comfort foods of home.

On Monday morning I was up by 4am and couldn’t sleep anymore. We had to eat breakfast at 6:30am and then leave for Holt's office by 7:30am. Then we went to court at 8:30am. We were at court until almost noon.

We spent one entire morning at the Ethiopian High Courts. After standing in a very small, hot, overcrowded room, for over two hours, we were finally called into the judge's room. There were 3 women. One was the judge, and two were younger girls who were kind of like clerks. There were stacks of large file folders on the desks.

The judge stated a child's name, and our attorney shook his head no, telling the judge that family wasn't here. The judge stated another name and again, it was not for one of our families in our group. The judge then stated that our files were missing and we needed to leave the room. Back to the over-crowded room. Our attorney disappeared to check on our files with the clerk of courts people. They stated that our files were in the judge's room. Then we waited some more, because the judge just went on with their list of names. After about another 25 minutes or so, we were called back in. The judge asked us a few questions, and as a group, we all answered. Then the judge asked who was there for Tinsae Yonas and we raised our hands and said we were. She then stated that the court approved our adoption and Tinsae was ours!!! The MOWYA letter was already in the file, so she was able to rule on our case! The biggest smile crossed my face and a huge sense of relief came over me.

Then, what happened next was just unbelievable. The judge stated that she could not approve the other two families' adoptions. She stated that MOWYA declared they were not going to give their recommendation to the court for these children because the listed guardian on their file, Mussie Orphanage, was closed down. The judge stated that she was going to make a court order that the southern region courts need to write a letter and give guardianship to Holt, and then MOWYA will write their approval letter, and then the judge will give her approval of the adoptions. How long will this take, nobody knows. The judge won't rule on anything for these children right now.

We left the room totally speechless. Our attorney stated he would tell us what happened when we got out of the building. We went down to the first floor to a huge downpour of rain. We stood within the front little lobby, and the attorney stated the above to us. We had questions, but you could tell the attorney had no idea what was going to happen or how this would all work out.

We all ran to the van and were just shaken with the news. There were some tears, frustration, disbelief, and just total shock. No one expected this to happen! The driver started to head to some restaurant for lunch, because that was on our schedule, but none of us wanted to eat. We had the driver call the Holt office and we told them we wanted to come over to their office and discuss what just happened.

By the time we arrived, the attorney was already there. They ushered us into their front room and sat us all down. Robin from Holt did most of the talking. Holt stated that this was the first time they heard MOWYA was not going to give their letters of approval. The families who had court last week did not have their MOWYA letters either, but nothing was said that there was going to be a hold up or problem getting them. They all just assumed MOWYA was still trying to catch up writing the letters, and the letters would be coming shortly.

With this new judgement, everybody just sat there in disbelief. We were all in agreement that this was not in the best interest of the children! Holt did not have much to say, whether encouraging or not. The other two families wanted to know why they approved our adoption, and it comes down to MOWYA writing the letter. We assume it is because Tinsae has some health issues and they just pushed him through. That is what Holt was thinking too.

So we left Holt's office and went back to the hotel. Sad, frustrated, shocked, upset, etc! We all ate lunch together and talked some more! None of us could believe what happened! With not getting much help or questions answered from Holt, was not sitting well with any of us.

Brad and I were happy that Tinsae was approved, but we just could not even think of relaxing. We felt so bad for the other two families and any other families that this news was going to affect. We tried emailing Pat at Holt in Oregon a few hours later. All we found out there was that she was out of the office all day Monday! UGH!!!

Then Jenny received an email from Jennifer at Holt, stating “happiness” about  4 children who have approved court decrees, were moved to Addis. There was nothing about the new status of the MOWYA letters for the other children. Again, FRUSTRATION!!!

We left Addis uneasy. Nobody knows what is going to happen and it didn't seem like Holt was stepping up and completing any investigation of their own to see how this could be worked out or even expedited.

The only thing that is keeping me going right now is the adorable pictures on my camera and knowing that Tinsae liked us! He was so sad when we left the second day that he was crying!! I need to have faith that I will be traveling back to Ethiopia really soon to bring Tinsae home! We need him home as much as he needs us!