Wedding Pics

Beautiful Day!

Beautiful Bride!

and they lived Happily Ever After!

Tom Davis

Tom Davis with Children's Hopechest is back in Ethiopia identifying more orphanages to support.

If you ever wondered what the orphan problems in ET look like you should read his blog! http://tomdavis.typepad.com/

It will break your heart into a million pieces!

Oh Lord, please show us how we can be part of the solution for hurting children around the world! Open our eyes to what is going on and cause us not to look away.

too much of a good thing

I leave tomorrow night to go to ETHIOPIA. This will be my third trip and I am getting pretty comfortable with the trip. Only this time I will be spending lots of time with our daughter. (It feels weird to say that.) I can't wait to see what her personality is like. To see if she is healthy and well and developing. To think that I will get to hold her, sing to her and pray for her while she is in my prescence is nothing short of amazing.

I am collecting some things to take along and tomorrow I am driving around town and picking up more boxes and bags of clothes, toys, blankets, shoes, etc. to take to the orphanage. I have a jumperoo and a bouncy seat to take, too.

I am like the Purple Heart or Salvation Army truck in your neighborhood.

My problem, I already have a bunch of things that the "nice" people dropped off at my house.

I am not sure how I am going to get all this stuff to ET.

Hmmmm.........Maybe I will try to send it cargo.

Something interesting to do in lovely Doha

This morning 2 friends and I headed off bright and early to the fish market in Doha. A friend of mine goes pretty often and has been wanting to take us there.

It was a very aromatic experience, if you can imagine. I commented to my friend that I wished my blog was scratch and sniff so you could experience the intense fishy smell. Believe it or not, we did get used to it after a while.

I was amazed at how big the market was and how many stalls there were, it seemed like there were at least 50 different stalls. Each one was overflowing with everykind of fresh seafood you can imagine. The fish market is open everyday in Doha and everyday these stalls are full of fresh caught seafood. I couldn't help but be amazed at God who made the sea and everything in it.

We walked around checking out all the fish, crabs, lobsters, prawns, squid, and several unidentifible critters. We all ended up buying whole Hammor fish, which is a very common fish in Doha waters and on Doha restaurant menus. We also bought some shrimp. The next step is getting your fish cleaned which cost 1QR per kilo (which is a bit more than 25 cents. These guys work hard cleaning and prepping your seafood however you ask them too...the only thing is there is a bit of a language barrier and it can be hard to communicate what you need them to do. There is also an area entirely dedicated to cleaning the shrimp. I do not know how those guys squat all day cleaning shrimp.

After that stinky business, we headed over to S. home and her housekeeper graciously shared one of her recipes for steaming a whole fish. It was delish! We all went home with the recipe and our fish to prepare the same thing for dinner.

I had a very busy day today, but I was determined to cook that seafood. (Sorry honey that you weren't here to enjoy it) My youngest son LOVES seafood so it was really special for him.
I ended up frying the shrimp and they were YUMMY! I cooked the hammor whole in the oven because I couldn't quit figure how to rig up a steamer the way she had, and although it was very good we were so full on the shrimp that we didn't eat much fish.

So, if you are looking for something interesting to do in Doha, you should check out the fish market. I took a ton of pictures. The men working there reminded me of the children in Ethiopia. They liked for me to take their picture and then show it to them on the screen. I will try to put them up soon.

I have Wedding pics, Easter pics and now Stinky Fish Market pics all to post. Let's blame it on the slow internet in Doha!

April Crazy

This is a hectic month for us. Abbey, Will and I were gone the first week of April to the US. Cole was gone another direction....to Jordan for an outreach trip. Bill was in Italy and then flew to Houston the day we were flying back to Doha.

Last week was a rough week for me. I hate to complain, but this is my blog. I felt like Satan was trying to steal my joy. We had just found out our court date for Ella Grace and did feel immensely blessed. When I was reading old blog post, I realized that court date was exactly what I had prayed for and asked you to pray for as the best case scenario. But, even in light of this great, wonderful news, I still felt down and defeated. Part of it is the numbing effects of jet lag and part of it was my darling girl was sick all week.

Things are going much better this week. Abbey is feeling better. Bill is home. He got home about 9pm last night. Just having him here makes things better. He and I were able to get some paperwork needed for the adoption notarized today at the embassy (they even granted us an emergency appointment since this was the only day we could do it).

He and Cole are leaving mid week to go to Dubai for the Little League All Stars tournament. I am so proud of Cole for making the team and I hope they have a great time in Dubai. I am a little jealous, because I really wish I could go too and see him play. But, the day they get back, I am going to Ethiopia to see Ella Grace. Bill and the kids will join me there midweek and get to meet her too. I can't imagine what it will be like for them to experience Ethiopia for the first time.

Our April is crazy! It makes me tired just rereading this post. I hope May is a little calmer and we can all at least stay on the same continent!

We have chosen a name for our girl and I hope you like it.

We are going to name our sweet baby girl

Ella Grace

My mom's name is Eleanor and I have always wanted to name a baby after her and Grace is a such a beautiful name that reminds us of God's amazing grace. We are planning on also keeping her Ethiopian name which means "beautiful".

Got my tickets!

I just booked my tickets to go see our girl in Ethiopia. We are getting an IR3 visa for her which will make her a US citizen upon crossing the border and eligible for a US passport. In order to do that, both Bill and I have to meet her in person before our court date (May 25).

So, soon I am flying to Addis Ababa to stay for almost a week. Bill and the kids are coming on mid week for a shorter visit. The five of us will fly back to Doha together. I can't wait to hold her in my arms. To tell her she is ours and we love her. I know it is going to be next to impossible for us to leave her.

We have gotten several new photos of her lately. She is getting chubby cheeks and the nannies have started braiding her hair. What a cutie with her tiny braids!

We have a court date!

The next step in our adoption of our baby girl is securing a court date. We have been waiting a month to hear that our case was submitted to court and that we have a court date. I found out today that we are in court group J and that our court date is MAY 25!

Please put May 25 on your calendar and pray that our case is successful the first time around. Sometimes cases don't pass due to various reasons, mainly missing paperwork or something minor like that.

If we pass (and I am trusting that we will) it would mean that we would travel to pick her up about 4 weeks later! This would be PERFECT timing for our family.

In the meantime, we are going to visit her in Ethiopia in two weeks. To say I am excited is an understatement!