Taking the hint

Okay, Cath and Paige, et al...I have been a shameless non-blogger the past few days, not for lack of trying-mind you, but a few glitches in the otherwise seamless (haha) groove of the ark has kept me from my computer more than usual. I haven't even returned email (gasp!) Tonight, however, for those about to stalk---I salute you---with as much of an update as I can muster before someone wakes up, throws up, or shows up.

As you read, albeit briefly, everyone arrived safe and sound on Saturday. It was a really wonderful homecoming, if you don't count the fact that all of their their checked baggage ended up diverted on a totally different airlines to parts unknown, but our most precious cargo arrived on time and in one piece. We headed home with the Boy riding shotgun and me trying to make friends with Baby T, who until recently had decided that Dad was a much better Mom than me. I had spent the night before their arrival putting the finishing touches on the house re-do as well as the cleaning spree that just had to happen. I had all the carpets professionally cleaned, all the bed linens washed, and all the laundry folded, pressed and put away in the appropriate rooms. Then, around 11pm, I heard N coughing upstairs (not too unusual last week with the croup diagnosis and all) but all of a sudden, the coughing became much louder. I ran upstairs to find that N had decided to go into competition with her soon-to-be roommate for who could throw up the most. I'd be hard pressed to call a winner in that race, but I do know that N's clean-up required a late night bath as well as a turn with the steam cleaner over the carpeting...and this was the only night I declined having one of my sister's-in-law stay over ("No, I don't need help. It's just one more night. What could possibly happen?" Sheesh.)

Finally, we arrived home. Fortunately for us, it seems that our daughter is a VERY good reader in her native language. It seemed that her Dad was able to do some of his best communication with the little English/Amharic phrasebook throughout the week. It looked something like this:

Dad: After finding the word he needed in English, "Okay, H, read this one. Okay, do you have that one? Okay, now don't forget that one." (shuffling through the book) Now read this one."

This continued until a string of words was arrived at that formed the semblance of a sentence thus conveying a thought.
Our daughter is very patient with her ferenge family.

Everyone was just exhausted (except Baby T, who had spent the better part of the airplane ride asleep and by the time we arrived home, was on schedule--in Ethiopian time--to be waking up to greet the day) so by early Saturday night, B and I were the only ones awake, but even we crashed pretty early after such a long week. A friend of ours recently compared his trip to Ethiopia for the adoption to inhaling and holding a deep breath---for a looonng time~and then when it was over, just letting the breath out in one big sigh. I think he's got it down to a T.

We have pictures from the airport arrival, but we were unable to get a CD of the photos and my scanned ones are really crummy. So, tomorrow, my plan is to attempt an outing with the four who are currently home during the day, and see what I can do to remedy that situation.

We seem to be plagued by a host of technical difficulties with cameras, photos and video. Our digital camera refused to hold a charge nor did it allow the *rechargeable* batteries to, well, recharge which cut our picture taking down quite a bit. We were able to get quite a bit of video of Layla/Wanna, which was very nice, but I don't have the correct wire to upload it to the computer. And, as above, I am down the arrival photo CD. But, in the meanwhile, here are a few pictures of the boys on their trip with H and Baby T.

Meeting each other for the first time at Layla/Wanna


Celebrating after the embassy appointment was finished.