More Referrals in the Ethiopia Program

Exciting news today on the adoption front! 6 Referrals we given out to families waiting today. I think today is even more special because our local friends Shawn and Lisa received their referral of siblings! We met Shawn and Lisa when we were first started the adoption process in December. I look forward to Lisa's emails and postings everyday! We are so excited for them. They have waited a long 7 months...and it came today!!!Congrats to you Shawn and Lisa! We cant wait to meet them and I'm excited for the day our little ones will have play dates together!

Congratulation to all the other families who received referral's! Just in time before the courts close for a few months in Ethiopia.

If my calculations are right.....there is a possibly we might be getting THE phone call in August or September!?

Ouch!!

Its time for travel immunizations. John and I both just visited the overseas travel clinic in our county health department. They only get in a few yellow fever vaccines each year and reserved a couple for us! We are hearing so many different list of vaccines that we need, so we just decided better to be safe than sorry and just to get all that are recommended for travel to Ethiopia by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I have to admit I was so nervous and have a horrible fear of shots! (even though I see patients getting injections every day at the dental office!) After it was over with...it wasn't so bad! As soon as our arms feel better, and we make it through the 5-10 day wait for side effects, I will be going back for 5 more!!

Here is some great news! Our adoption agency today announced that its raining referrals again! Its been a few weeks and today 4 families received word on getting their children. Its always so exciting to hear this...that means that we are moving up in line and getting closer to bringing home our baby.

Some other families from our agency recently came home from Ethiopia. We really enjoying reading their blogs and checking out the photos. Go check out Annies blog..her little girl is a doll!! http://www.anniesadoptionadventure.blogspot.com/

Also the McGregors recently returned home with their son! http://mcgregorjourney.blogspot.com/

Cute kids! We cant wait!

Back from LA!

We had a great weekend in California. We are definitely planning and taking some more fun trips while we wait on baby!

John loves Sumo. John loves sumo like a a lot of men love football! I really enjoyed watching John getting star struck when we would run into Sumo wrestlers around LA, before we attended the tournament Saturday night.

We spent Friday at Magic Mountain theme park. We rode roller coaster after roller coaster.....until we couldn't take it anymore! When we were on a roller coaster and I spotted a sumo wrestler below, John would of jumped off just to go meet this wrestler...as soon as we were off the ride, John took off though the park looking for him. Luckily he found him and I was able to get a photo with a disposable camera!

Saturday morning we drove our rented convertible and headed to Beverly Hills and Hollywood and Rodeo Drive. That was so much fun...my kind of thing! We enjoyed seeing the Hollywood sign and driving around the neighborhoods! On Sunday we drove to Malibu and had an awesome brunch with a bottle of champagne overlooking the ocean. I highly recommend Duke's Malibu Restaurant & Barefoot Bar!

Saturday evening was the Sumo tournament. It was pretty entertaining! I haven't always felt that way.....but once I learned about what these wrestlers endure with their rigorous training and lifestyle a sumo wrestler undergoes it totally changed my perspective. Their unique lifestyle is primarily devoted to one thing – gaining as much weight as they can. They do this because sumo wrestling has no weight divisions. So a 200-pound wrestler can compete with a 400-pounder.

The object of the game is to make some part of the opponent's body touch the floor or to push him out of the inner circle of the ring. Speed, agility and special sumo wrestling techniques contribute to winning but the heavier wrestler usually has the upper hand.

A sumo wrestler's lifestyle is composed of three things: training, eating and sleeping. Wrestlers live together in "stables" or training schools where their training, diet, and sleeping regimens are strictly watched and implemented. Sooo..... when you learn about all of the rituals and traditions it changed my view..I used to think, why would I want to watch obese men in diapers wrestling ? Here are a few photos...can you tell that John is just so excited?!?

1 Month down......

We just haven't posted in a while...nothing really exciting going on now that our dossier is in Ethiopia! I actually miss running home at lunch to see what great surprise will be in the mailbox or trying to figure out how with our schedules can we achieve getting documents completed during our busy work week! I guess now.. the GREAT thing is..its almost been ONE WHOLE month that we have been officially waiting. We have been just trying to keep busy. Taking fun trips each month, entertaining at our home and playing some golf! Last month we went to Chicago, and had a great time with Johns parents. Tomorrow we are leaving for California! We are flying to LA, just to hang out, try some new restaurants, go to Magic Mountain and for Johns excitement of the trip...we are going to a Sumo tournament. (I'll be sure to take some photos to post!)

I'm sure you have heard Google earth......someone told me to look up their house today on Google Earth. After looking up my house and others...I decided to hop on over to Addis Ababa and see what it looked like. I was really amazed! I am going to post the pictures that I took!

This is the Sheraton Hotel....

Larger View of the city!

This view where you see the Blue letter A- is where the House of Hope is located!

(I'm goin there!)