Wednesday December 18 2013

 

Today was our third day with beck at the gest house. We are starting to call Yaregal Beck. Saturday is the day we go on the airplane. In Ethiopia we call it air-o-plan.  

Thursday, Dec 12th

Happy Birthday, Grandma Loretta!  We miss you so much!  We have a video for you, but have to post it on Facebook because we can't get it to load here.  Love, Sid, Lil & Beck

It's Sidney's mom here, wanting to share a little bit more about what we have been doing.
Every morning, we go to the orphanage and spend a couple of hours with Beck.  We bring stuff to do, and we usually end up playing with the other kids too.  We try to make a point to love on the kids who we know don't have families yet and the ones who we personally know their families.  We play LOTS of soccer, some days we bring a beach ball, some days we bring balloons.  We always bring bubbles.  We've brought books to read with him, cars to play with, coloring books & crayons.  We try to mix it up every day.
In the afternoon, we do quite a few different things.
We've stayed at our guesthouse and played with kids, we've walked about a mile to the coffee shop and back, we've gone shopping, we went up Mt. Entoto, etc…  We're trying to experience as much of the culture as possible (and I feel like Sidney & Lilly are seeing both the good and the bad parts of Ethiopia)

On Tuesday, we went with Ordinary Hero (an organization that helps people both in ET and in the US) to play soccer with some kids.  These are all "street kids" meaning that before they got hooked up with this organization, they were living on the streets.  These kids are all un-adoptable.  They range from 8-17 years old and now live together in a big house.  There is a guard at night and a cook & housekeeper there during the day, but no one there for the day to day needs of the children.  These kids are absolutely amazing.  As part of the requirement for living in the house, they are required to go to school.  5 of the 17 or so kids are #1 in their class.  They have nothing, yet this organization said "we believe in you, we're going to give you a house and food, pay for your school" and these kids stepped up to the challenge.  They don't have blankets on their beds, (and it gets pretty cold here at night.  The other morning there was frost on the ground) their sheets are so thin, you can see through them.  Those who have pillows have holes in them.  If they are lucky enough to have a backpack for school, it is either a toddler sized one (picture a 17 year old boy with a Dora backpack that is too small to fit a text book) or they are completely falling apart.  They all share a couple of pens, and if they're broken, they just use the inside refill part.

Looking at everything we brought with us for 2 weeks, and we have more in our room than these kids do combined.  I don't think Sidney and Lilly truly understand what those kids go through every day.  Which is good, because they can look at them for who these kids are, and not their circumstances they live in.

So, while we are waiting to take custody of Beck, we are lucky enough to be experiencing these things that most people don't get to.  I'm praying it gives our family a more realistic view of the world around us instead of focusing just on themselves.

Wednesday December 11th

Today we fond out that we couldn't bring him home until Monday. We just played with him today.

But THREE more days until we get him (unless it chages again)

Yesterday we went to the orphanage in the morning and then shopping in the afternoon.  We bought the rest of the Christmas presents for our friends and family.  It was fun!

Sunday, Dec 8th & Monday, Dec 9th

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to church in the morning.  We sang Christmas songs.  Then, we went to Betsy's house and had lunch and played with her kids.  We had LOTS of fun.
Today, we got to see Beck again at his orphanage. We thought we got to bring him home today, but they didn't let us, so we get to bring him on Wednesday.  We played lots with him today.

Afterwards, we went back to our guesthouse and then walked to Kaldis.  It's a coffee shop kind of like Starbucks.  It was easy to walk there, (mom said about a mile) because it was all downhill, but coming back it was all uphill so it was hard.

We are so excited to bring him home with us!  My mom said she'd try to upload more pictures tonight and in the morning if the internet worked.  Its not working good now, so we can only get one up.

Love,

Sidney

Saturday, December 7th

Ha ha!  It feels like summer here.
Today, we were with my mom's friends family.  They have two boys and one girl.  The little girl was adopted from Ethiopia when she was a baby, but they all live here now.
We went to a pizza place that had really good pizza.  They weren't that big,  about the size of a small pizza at coops.
After that, we went to "The Sheraton".  There was a huge park and a swimming pool and inside it was decorated for Christmas.  It felt like Christmas! The first thing we went to was inside and looked at all of the decorations.  Then we went out to the swimming pool, but we didn't go swimming.  We might get to go back and go sometime this week.  Next, we played in the park.  It was the BEST PARK EVER!  They even sold cotton candy and popcorn in it.  The last thing was a HUGE fountain.  We stayed there a long time.  It was pretty.

More pictures from our trip 12/4-6

Beck

(*****updated pictures early Sat am, CST)

This is on the airplane, it is the sun rising over the Sahara desert.

This is our first day meting him.

Today was our second time seeing beck.In Ethiopia his name is Yaregal.

Today there was a goodbye ceremony for a lttle boy who  was there .

A goodbye ceremony is when a kid from  the orphange is going home so they have popcorn and  candy but there was coffee for the grown ups. 

We went to Mount Entoto this afternoon. It was rocky if You were up on the mountain you could see the churches that where wat way way far away. And a Lot of people were caring a lot of sticks on there back. They had a lot of sticks and it weighed a lot.  They carry them down the mountain and sell them to people.  They make about 100 birr ($5 US) for them.

Wednesday, Dec 4th

We made it to Ethiopia.  

We had to sleep on the airplane because it took all day and all night.  We got off at 7:30 in the morning In Ethiopia. It was really warm.  It felt like a warm day in May or June.  Not too hot and not too cold.

There are lots of dogs and cats and we've seen horses, donkeys and chickens so far.  It's funny because they're in the street with all of the cars.  

We went to our the place we are staying, called a guest house. It's really nice.  We have 5 beds in 2 big rooms.  The living room and kitchen have 3 beds and the other room has 2.  We unpacked, took a nap and then ate supper. 

It's are fist time sleeping in our beds (besides Lilly she slep in mom and dads bed).

Supper was amazing.  It was lasagna made with Ethiopian spices.  It was spicy, but still tasted really good.  

Then we played all evening with other kids who are staying here.  There are 2 kids who are being adopted and 2 kids who live here because their parents are in charge of the guest house. Mom's friend Betsy and her daughter Kayla stopped by too so we all played together.  It was fun.  

This is us playing in the back yard.

This is what it looks like from the back yard. 

Tomorrow, we get to go see Beck!  I'm so excited!!!!!

Live swans

We are In Washington, D.C. This is the hotel we stayed and the swans are real. They are in a pond in a great big lobby. We could see the people cleaning the pond this morning but we had to leave.

We are about to get on the airplane to go to Ethiopia. we won't get of the airplane until tomorrow morning. Then we will be in Ethiopia. 

The swans did not make ant noise when we were down there. The picture was when we were going to leave. It was early in the morning when we left.

At the airport

We are at the airport right now and in two hours we will be on the airplane. we will  be on the airplane for three hours. We will spend the night in Washington, D.C. Then we leave in the morning for Ethiopia 

Tomorrow. is the day that we leave.

Here are some words we say in Ethiopia 

thank you =ah-ma-say-gah-na-loo
hello=sa-lahm

bye= chow

brother= wen-dim 

sister=eh-het 

we are going to be drop off in the cities and going to the airport.

The first place we are going is Washington D.C.  Then we'll go to Ethiopia.
Our brother will be coming home with us this time.

  

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