Introducing Tarike Daudt

Introducing Tarike Daudt!

Here are the first pictures of our daughter! She is SO amazing! Tarike has a smile or a funny face for everyone at the care center and all of the nannies just love her!! We were able to take her to our guest house today and she was great. She has become attached to us already and is, so far, always happy. We just hope that continues for our 22 hour trip home. We can't wait to share her with everyone!

An amazing experience!

We have been having an amazing experience! Almost everyone is totally healthy again after small bouts with stomache upsets and we are finally starting to adjust to Ethiopia's time. We have had VERY busy days and are exhausted by the end of each. Tomorrow we get to bring Tarike back to the guest house where we are staying and Tuesday she comes into our care forever! She is so beautiful and very happy! Yesterday when our visit was over, she actually cried when we left - she likes us!! Today we all drove south to meet the birth families of our children and we were able to say thank you for blessing us with a daughter. It was extremely emotional, painful, and wonderful at the same time!! To do this, we drove 4 hours south of Addis Ababa! Driving in Ethiopia is a life threatening act! Since we made it there and back in one piece, I can enjoy all of the memories and photos of that trip. We were able to go through a typical hut, photograph many, many beautiful children who LOVE to see their photos on digital camaras, and see how beautiful the countryside of Ethiopia really is. It is amazingly green and fertile-looking. It is hard to believe that there is so much hunger but the hills, huge population, and dependance on rain makes this area known as "the green famine". So far, this has been a life-changing experience for all of us. Ethiopia is beautiful and the people are very welcoming, but we are looking forward to coming home!!

We are here!!!!

Greetings from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! After what feels like many days in the airplane, we made it safely and uneventfully to Ethiopia. There is not too much to tell yet as we arrived late and it was dark for our travel through Addis Ababa to our guest house. So far, we have only seen a lot of poverty and begging. On the other hand, our house is very nice and we received a large update on our daughter. She is doing VERY well, is growing, and melting the hearts of all of the nannies! We also received a number of pictures of her at the care center and I am amazed at how beautiful she is. It is truly amazing to think that she is a 10 minute walk from here and we can't see her until tomorrow morning!! It is 11:40 p.m. here so almost 3:00 p.m. for all of you. Well, we are going to go to bed!!

Ethiopia - here we come!

We are leaving today to meet and bring home our beautiful baby girl!!!! I can't believe it is finally here. The car is packed, we are going to try to go to bed and get some sleep (yeah, right!). We were able to pack FOUR suitcases full of donations! Thank you all so much for donating all of the great, and needed, stuff.



There isn't too much to say as we are such a mix of emotions - excitement, fear, anticipation, anxiety, more excitement, etc. I will SOOO miss Connor and Jack as we have never been away this long or this far from them before. I know they are in great hands but I will miss them very much! I have posted our last family picture before our new addition and photos of our donation bags. Thank you again and I will try to keep everyone posted during our trip!! God bless!

Update on our baby girl!

We received an update on Tarike! She is sitting well, seems to love toys, is creeping on her belly, and then some. I cannot wait to see and hold her!! An amazing thing happened to me for the second time this morning. Those of you reading this blog that are adopting may have experienced this. When you are pregnant, from the time that you learn that you are going to have a baby, you are carrying your child. In adoption, when you learn of your child and who he/she is, you are usually still months away from holding him or her. It may sound unusual and hard to believe but, while thinking of our baby, my arms quite litterally ached to hold her! It was a sensation similar to "restless leg syndrome" if you have ever experienced that on a long car ride, etc. This has now happened twice and makes it even harder to wait to hold our daughter. She is such a part of our family already and we get to meet her, finally, in 6 days!!

We are also looking forward to meeting the wonderful families that will be traveling with us to bring home their children. I have had an opportunity to learn a little about a few of the couples and am so excited to meet them in person! For example, we will be able to fly with a family from Oregon the entire way to Ethiopia - sharing excitement, fears, and feelings about our life-changing adventure! Also, the couple that we will be sharing a guest-house with in Ethiopia (bed bugs and all!) appear to have SO much in common with us I just know we will get along great. It is great to know that we will have others to share in this entire process and, hopefully, become great friends!! I thank God for hand-picking our daughter and the people with whom we will be sharing this adventure, both on our trip and after we return home to enjoy our forever family!!

We are SO ready!

As an update, we have been told that the bed bugs are gone - yeah!!

We have been so busy getting packed and ready for our "little trip". It is so hard to believe that one week from today we will be on our way to meet our baby girl! We received an update on her progress and she appears to be doing quite well - holding toys, creeping on her belly, sitting well, showing toy possessiveness - apparently she really likes her toys! I may be biased but I think she is just amazing!!

Bed Bugs!!!

Okay, I am freaking out a little bit! We received our room assignments the other day and Matt, Tyler, Evan, Matt's mom and I will be staying in the "traditional" (aka old) guesthouse. The good news is we will have two rooms, our own bathroom and a shared bathroom, and we will be staying in the house with only one other couple and a friendly dog named Lily. The bad news - BED BUGS! A woman who is in Ethiopia right now said that the house we are in is really roughing it and that they are getting bed bug bites during the night! I know, I am going to Ethiopia, what did I expect? I have been prepared for poor bathrooms (gross holes in the ground), cold water, power outages, mud, cool weather, strange food, possible stomache problems, etc. I do, however, have serious issues with critters eating my blood while I sleep!!!! I will do anything for my children - but I don't have to be happy about it, right?