Thank You To All Of You!!!

Thank you to all of you for your support, your well-wishes, your emails, comments, texts ... wow, it was a very overwhelming day spent mostly at my job ... and as you can imagine, not beeing extremely productive considering how my brain was scattered in all kinds of directions .... and concentration? ... forgetaboutit!!!!. It's been a crazy busy wonderful day for me .... I didn't get to call you guys back yet or respond to your emails and texts, but I will ... very soon!

Well, what's next??? We wait ... some more ... that's all you do it seems in an adoption process .... hurry up and wait ... it's worse than the military.
Our tentative visa date at the American Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is on 18 March 2010. This means that the Saturday or Sunday before the 18th we'll have to travel. Nothing is set in stone though until about one or at best two weeks before this date .... so it'll be a lot of rush rush at the last minute .... but for all of you out there who have already been through this, you know, it's just how it is when you get closer to your traveling date ... u do all this waiting and then everything happens at the last minute within one or two weeks! "Why such a long wait?" - some of you might ask - well, paperwork has to be done like birth certificate, passport, etc. and once that is done, because Hanna is older than 2 years, she has to take a TB test (American CDC requirement to enter the US). The results for the TB test to come back takes about 3-4 weeks .... this test cannot be done earlier but only after certain paperwork is completed. If the test comes back negative ... we're in business ... if it comes back positive we're in deep dudu ... because than it would take months before Hanna could come to the US. So please pray hard for us and for Hanna that her TB test comes back negative.

What have I accomplished today? Well, the two biggest things I did was to go ahead and put the flights on hold with Golden Rule Travel - we'll be driving from Montgomery AL to Atlanta GA, and then hop on a plane to Frankfurt, Germany, and then from there to Addis Ababa. As far as lodging, I have emailed Zeyedeh at the Melkam Guest House for room reservations but I haven't heard back from him yet. So that's all apart from the regular Tuesday routine of work, karate, dinner, etc.... I'm exhausted now ... I need to take my happy bee-hind to bed :)!!!!

Thanks again very much for all your outpouring support! I truly appreciate that!