He visits us in the guest house

It's been fun digging up all these memories from a year ago. It's amazing how much I've forgotten until I look at our pictures or read other fellow travelers' blogs.

Today, our kids were delivered to the guest house to spend a short time with their adoptive families. The bus pulled into our courtyard and the nannys walked off one by one with each of our children. Samson looked tired and confused. Our family went out into the courtyard to greet him and when he saw us, he looked really nervous. And when the nanny handed him off to us, he screamed. It was all I could do to hang on to him - he fought so hard to go back to the nanny.

An employee from the guest house was standing close by and waved her hand back and forth, her way of encouraging us to not just stand there but to leave quickly and take him to our room.

Even though his reaction broke my heart, I don't blame him for being scared. He had already gone through 3 transitions at this point in his life. He most likely began to trust someone at each transition and now he was being ripped away from what was familiar to him, yet another time.

So, we brought him to our guest room and almost immediately upon entering our room, he stopped crying. He relaxed a little, got down to explore the room a little and began interacting with our family within minutes.

We experienced our first diaper change with him and then headed down to the dining room to feed our kids.

Then, outside to play with the toys in the courtyard.

(The man in the picture is our guest house guard. We actually never spoke to him but he somehow left a lasting impression on our family. =)

I believe we helped deliver them back to the Care Center and then headed out for a day of touring and an evening of dinner and dancers at a traditional restaurant.

Pictured here is one of the doctors and us touring a women's hospital that our agency runs and operates in Addis:

Touring a stadium that our agency built:

Lucy

Part of our traveling group at the restaurant: 

Yummy injera, dora wat and other dishes to sample:

The dancing was incredible! The man in the center came out and individually danced with many who were part of our traveling group, including Steve and Pete. We have it on video!

 Tomorrow morning we go back to the Care Center and our children leave with us, leaving the Care Center one last time.