Ethiopia: Day 5- Saying Goodbye to Joshua

You can't go to another country, and not go shopping!  Jason was still feeling sick, so it was just Emily, Brandon and I with our driver.  He took us to the "Post Office", which was a bunch of little tent like shops with a lot of cool hand made items.  We were told to bargain, and I tried just a little.  Then decided I don't care.  Regardless of what I paid for items it was still dirt cheap.  I gave up, because I felt heartless.  Our driver followed me and insisted on carrying anything I got.  I could get used to that:)  He was so kind.

We finished up, and headed back to see how Jason was doing.  I hate that I don't know our driver's name.  He did introduce himself,  but I couldn't pronounce his name.  I felt bad asking him again and again.  Anyhow, he was so concerned about Jason (his new bff).  We checked on Jason, though, and he seemed to be feeling better.  Phew!

Jason and I ran to grab a quick coffee, and came back to meet a different driver, who was taking us to court.  He knew little English.  He kept saying, "other couple", but Brandon and Emily weren't going with us, and Kara and Rob weren't either.  So he finally got Alemu on the phone.  Ok, so Alemu is Adoption Associates Employee that "makes things happen" for families while in Ethiopia.  We discovered throughout this next day that he is well known, well respected and definitely will not miss a beat in the process.  We joked that he is part of the mafia, because I swear he could make the waters part if need be.

Once we got things figured out our driver took us to meet Alemu at the courthouse.  This was our first time meeting him in person.  He took us up the stairs to this crowded room of about 100 people.  There were a couple of guards walking around with machine guns (I don't know guns at all, so I should say looked kinda like machine guns), but nothing scary.  We sat down, Alemu disappeared for a few minutes, and we started talking with a group of three couples who had been there for a while for the same reasons we were there.  Boom...10 minutes later, our name was called putting us in front of all the other people who were ahead of us.  I kinda felt bad...kinda:)  Thank you, Alemu.  The judge was so kind.  She asked us questions about our girls and how they feel about adoption, how we will maintain for our boys their Ethiopian heritage and if we understand this is a done deal... no turning back. It was maybe five minutes.  Approved and official.  We waved goodbye to our waiting friends:/, and went outside to wait for our driver.

Kara and Rob were in the van with their family along with Brandon and Emily.  They were going to meet Anya for the first time, so it was so awesome that Brandon was there to take pictures.  When we got there all the children had just woken up, so they were all a little spooked by all these people.  It didn't take Anya long to warm up to her sweet family.

 We found out the hard way that balloons were not a good idea.  They popped, and totally freaked the kids out...

Bubbles.  Joshua loves bubbles.  We tried our hands at a few tricks to wake Joshua out of his sleeping stupor, but bubbles won... 

But after about a half hour I had this great idea that maybe we would put them away and play something else...

 bad idea...

I swear I tried to give the bubbles back but he just sat down in serious disgust

So we quickly grabbed a ball, and "bubbles?  what bubbles?"

Joshua's soccer debut!:)  Thanks, Ellie, for playing so sweetly with him!!

Then sidewalk chalk... I tried some little tests with him to see if he was tracking with me like I draw a straight line, and see if he can then draw a straight line.  Success:).  He was going to town...chalk all over-- all over his pretty plaid shorts (they dress them in whatever is on top of the clean clothes pile...no regard for "this is girly":)

We had a hard time getting these two to be still so we can have a picture of them together for their graduation open houses:) so Jason had to hold them in place--they are so happy about that:)

...time to say goodbye

Ugh...hard to look at... This was us leaving.  The look of "wait...where are you going" breaks my heart.  We will be back, little buddy, as soon as we can.