When it seems that all hope is lost...

Rely on the other traveling families who are adopting from Ethiopia.

We were thrilled yesterday to receive in the mail one of the disposable cameras that we placed in H and Baby T's welcome bags. Adoptive families send the cameras and then pictures are taken there and the camera is mailed back to the family to develop and have more pictures of their children. Sounds like a great concept, right? Well, in theory, it is; and, in theory, communism works, too. So, even after the warnings from other families that cameras were not returned or pictures were of every other child at the orphanage except theirs, we still believed (when the camera arrived) that we would have pictures---27 of them to be exact.

So, this afternoon, after taking N and CB on an outing to the Children's Museum and for lunch, we stopped and dropped off the camera for one hour processing. Needless to say, it was a full 6 hours later before we were able to return and claim our pictures. It should have clued me in when the total was 38 cents for the pictures, but I held out hope. I ripped open the package only to find two very blurry, very dark pictures that may or may not have been taken of our baby. I handed off the photo cd that came with our negatives to P with the hopes that if a picture was on there our own personal geek squad could find it. No dice.

Sadly, I came to terms with the fact that the prospect for new pictures was bleak. There haven't been many families traveling during the court closure and the first families traveling will be traveling with us. But, just when it seemed all was lost, two families just posted pictures from their recent trips to Ethiopia and guess who we ended up getting pictures of after all???

Finally, in something blue!!!