ETHIOPIA OR BUST!!!

As you've read our case was submitted to court last Friday the 15th.  I was expecting to wait maybe two weeks to find out when we were going to court.  You can't base your case off anyone elses because each one is different so I really wasn't sure when we would find out.  So naturally, I've been working on the nursery and staying busy to keep my mind off things.

I was at work this morning and was taking a pyament for a customer when an email notification came through on my screen showing the first few lines of an email from Sue, our agency director.  It said "go meet your baby on July 9th for court".  My eyes got really wide and I said rather loudly "OH MY GOSH!"  Of course the customer sort of freaked out thinking I had double charged him or something crazy, ha ha.  I told him that I just got a really exciting email.  LOL

So as you can imagine, we are beyond excited and freaking out a bit getting things together since we will be traveling in about 2 1/2 weeks!!  Woot Woot

I got the email this morning that I've been waiting for for almost 3 months now and that is that we are being submitted to court tomorrow.  I literally felt like the clouds had parted and that the angels were singing "HALLELUJAH!!!!"  ha ha

You truly don't know what patience is until you adopt.  At least when I was pregnant I knew in 9 months that he would be here.  I could plan, put things on a timeline and not have to guess.  I'm a planner and I hate not being organized.  It's tough when there are no answers - it's the nature of adoption.  I was trying to explain to my husband that the Ethiopian court system doesn't care when his training camp starts and that he'll just have to figure it out.  He actually thinks he should have a say when we have court - silly boy....We got our shots last week and need to go back for more but for the most part we will be ok with what we have and will just need to finish out the Hepatitis series when they come due. 

Each case is different so it's really hard to say but I am hoping that in about two weeks we will have a court date and that it will be about 3 weeks or so from that day.  Meaning, we will hopefully be traveling in 5-6 weeks.  STAY TUNED...

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted, OPPS!  Probably because, sadly, I don't have much to report.  As some of you know the judge in Ethiopia had quit her position very unexpectedly last month.  There was a stand-in but the process has been slow moving and the new judge has requested some new paperwork from the original orphanage and our Power of Attorney in Ethiopia is having a hard time getting them to release the documents we need.  The orphanage doesn't understand why they are asking for these documents because they have never asked for them before.

We continously get updates and photos of Sanai, she is now about 13-14 weeks old and weighs about 12.2 lbs and is 24.6 inches long.  She has changed so much from her original pictures that it sort of makes me sad.  The hardest part is feeling like I'm missing out on all her cute faces and her first smiles.  I know she is getting great care though which makes it a bit easier.

I get up every Saturday morning around 6:30am and get on Skype and am able to see her for about 5 minutes.  The nanny will go get her and hold her up in front of the camera.  Of course she has no idea what she's looking at but I can talk to her and ask them to kiss her for me!

This Thursday we have doctors appts to start our immunization shots. We have to get the tetanus shot, Hepatitis A and B and the T-Dap.  Our family doctor is in the process of adopting from Haiti so I'm sure he'll have some helpful insight on any other things we might need.

So until we hear any more news we just wait and hope that we hear something soon!

It's not often that me and the hubs get a date night - or that we dress up.  I'm kicking myself that I didn't get pictures of us last night because we both looked pretty darn cute and we had a lot of fun.  I had heard several things about an organization called Oridinary Hero since they are based out of Nashville.  I wasn't exactly sure about what all they did and avocated for but if it had to do with orphans I am all about it!

We bought tickets to the benefit, which was held last night at a downtown hotel in Nashville.  We were excited to hear that the Director of our adoption agency was going to be there as well.  She is based out of Florida so I'm not sure if we would ever get a chance to meet her otherwise.  We also met another family who is adopting a little boy who is about the same age as Sanai and they came from the same orphanage/village!  I'm hoping we might travel at the same time since our cases are running along the same timeline.

The event was a silent auction and a presentation.  We were served dinner and met some neat people.  The guy we sat next to had adopted from Sierra Leone, West Africa and him and his wife have started an orphanage there!  It's amazing the things people can do with the grace of God!

The video they showed had me in tears so I wanted to share it with you.

http://ordinaryhero.org  VISIT THEIR WEBSITE TO GET INVOLVED! 

It's been several weeks so I figured it was time for an update.  Unfortunately, there isn't much to say. Our case isn't any further today than it was a few weeks ago.  We are waiting for our documents to be submitted to the federal court system in Ethiopia.  Once our case is submitted it should take about 4 weeks for our court date and we would be traveling to Ethiopia to meet our daughter!

My heart fell into my stomach last week when I found out from the adoption agency Director that the judge of the court, a young Muslim woman who had that position for a long time, had QUIT!  Instead of waiting to train another person she left, instead of waiting until the courts shut down in August she left!  Grrrr.  This means a lot of uncertainty and at this point we are just sitting and waiting and HOPING we get a court date before the rainy season shut down which is the whole month of August and September.

I've been trying to just stay busy and not think about what's going on or else I'll go insane.  It's awful that there's absolutely nothing we can do. They weren't kidding when they said you had to be patient!

So in the past few weeks we've had a lot going on.  Tommy had the chance to MC the high school's Black History Club talent show and there was a lot of really good acts.

We also got involved with the local Habitat for Humanity in helping a local woman get a home she needed.  The football team also joined in the building and it was so neat to see how many kids showed up. 

The walls went up quickly

He thought he was really doing something by pounding this dirt!



After all the building we headed to Knoxville for a football game.  Tommy is an assistant coach for an indoor football team for the Knoxville Knighthawks.  He used to coach an arena football team in Louisville for around 7 years but has moved to coaching high school football for the past two years.  So when a friend of his called to ask him to help coach again he jumped at the chance!  We have a lot of fun at the games but unfortunately they didn't get a win that night.

Watching warm ups

Coaching the defense

So between all the waiting we are just trying to live life and have fun and pray that things start moving.  Please PRAY that we get a court date soon!

It's been a couple weeks now since we received our referral and since then all I can see is her face!  Gosh, it's so much more daunting when we know exactly who our daughter is and knowing as each week passes that she's getting older in an ORPHANAGE while we sit here and wait for the red tape. You have to have patience to go through this journey!!

Currently, our paperwork is being translated into Amharic (their native language).  We are waiting on a few other things on their end before our case will be submitted to court.  Once our paperwork is submitted it should take about 30 days before we travel to Ethiopia for our court appearance.

To pass the time we've been trying to keep ourselves busy, therefore we decided to get out of town this past Easter weekend.  Friends of ours graciously allowed us to hang at their cabin this weekend near Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.

It's so quiet and peaceful and we didn't do a whole lot while we were there beside lounge around and watch movies.

The first night we were there we decided to make a fire and roast some hotdogs.  Micah was mostly interested in beating the tree's with sticks, but thats to be expected I guess!

We decided to eat dinner out on the screened porch that overlooks the back treescape.  Through the trees is a view of Lake Nolin.  After dinner we ended up walking down to the lake. 

The next morning we decided to take advantage of the local attraction which was the caves.  We pretended that Batman called Tommy and invited Micah to come see his Bat Cave. It was pretty hilarious!  The caves were discovered hundreds of years ago by explorerers and they were pretty amazing.

Going into the cave

At the furthest point of the cave, about 3/4 mile in

Coming out of the cave

We headed back home on Sunday afternoon and apparently couldn't get enough because our Easter dinner consisted of another dose of roasted hot dogs and smores over a fire!  We plan to try to make it a weekly occurance now that the weather is nice.  We hope everyone had a great Easter as well!

What a day it has been!  I walked into work this morning only to find an email from our security department saying I had received a large email from a recipient that was being analyzed.  And it was from my adoption agency!  I new it was a picture of our baby girl.

I called our IT department and BEGGED them to release the email.  I could tell the guy was sympathetic to me but he said there was nothing he could do and that it would be released in 24 hours.  There was NO WAY I could function so I emailed the Director at the adoption agency and asked her to send it to my hotmail account which comes in on my phone.

It showed up a few minutes later on my phone but the email was too big to open on my phone!  SERIOUSLY!! ha ha.  Luckily I was able to sneak out of work and run right down the road to my house and open it on my laptop.  I sat on my floor and looked at all the pictures and cried.  She's so beautiful and I wish I could share her pictures but legally she isn't ours yet and we aren't allowed to show her photos online.

I don't have any fancy editing software to block out her face like others do so you'll have to settled for my cut out heart. ha ha  Meet our daughter, Sanai (Sun-eye) Bereket Johnson.

We haven't received her medical records yet so I'm not sure how old she is but we are hoping to receive those soon as we were told she went to the doctor on Friday.  So as far as I know once we receive her medical records, it will be our official "referral".

It could take up to 10-12 weeks until we have a court date which will be our first visit to meet our precious daughter.  We will travel to Ethiopia for our court date.  Then we will have to say goodbye which will be the most awful thing for another 10-12 weeks.  August and September is known as the rainy season and the government shuts down during this time period and no cases are processed.  We are hoping our case will then resume and we will be traveling back to Ethiopia to pick her up once her visa is approved.

In the meantime, I'll try to keep myself busy so I don't go crazy waiting.  It reminded me that I have several things FOR SALE if anyone is interested.

I have several tshirts still available. I think we sold about a million and we can't order anymore but we have several size smalls and two size mediums left.  They cost me $5 each which is what I'm selling them for (I'll even ship them for free!).

(purple, dark green, navy, maroon, blue and gray)

I've also got these tshirt scarves.  They are in several posts below if you want to see them on someone.  They are super cute and would be a great Easter gift for someone.  I only have the colors shown and they are $3 each (free shipping)

(purple, blue, green, white and dark green)

We also have these adorable lion pillows that my son Micah wanted to show off.  ha ha  They are $5 each and would make another great Easter present for a little boy or girl!  (free shipping too)

Don't forget about these vibrant felt flower Spring wreaths!  I have a couple left that would look excellent on your front door, or your mother's front door. (hint, hint) These are $20 with free shipping!

And lastly, I have a few pairs of earrings for $5 each, free shipping that would be a great little gift for any female.  I sold a lot of these and I apologize that this isn't a great photo but I have more detailed pics I can send if your interested.

FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME AT MONICA452@HOTMAIL.COM IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ANYTHING ON MY PAGE.  IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT YOU CAN PUT THE PRICE INTO THE PAYPAL LINK TO THE RIGHT WITH DETAILS ON WHAT YOU WANT AND IT WILL BE ON IT'S WAY TO YOU!