Making sweet progress

Birth certificate was issued. Passport is also ready. Next we have a 4 day medical clearance and then we submit to embassy for the visa! We have been so lucky with our process since we've arrived in Ethiopia!

Court Decree

Yesterday (july 14) we got our court decree so that means we finally got to go get our boy and bring him back to our guesthouse! It also happened to be his 2nd birthday! To celebrate, big brother hit little brother in the face with a green balloon for a while (so many giggles from both) and then a few beers were drank by the grownups. Now we wait for our MOWA letters. In the meantime we plan to feed this little man as he is quite small. And if you're wondering why I'm awake at 4:38 am in addis it's because we are all 4 crammed in a tiny room and the two youngest ones snore!!! Which is fine because the call to prayers from the local mosque will start soon and I love listening to it

the next step

so now we are waiting for the court to issue us The Adoption Decree -- piece of paper stating the results of our court date. . . . once we have that piece of paper, then we can go to our little man's orphanage and get him out of there and bring him home to the guest house with us!  until we get that decree, we visit him every day!

on our first visit with him, he 'let' me hold him. . . it was a reluctant 'let' but better than not letting me.
on our second visit he laughed a little and we played some games.
on our third visit he smiled when he saw us coming and showed us his running skills!

making progress slowly but surely. . .

we LOVE being back in ethiopia.  it feels like home.

we passed court

and that means that there are officially 4 Kiyvyras on the planet earth!  and the other good news is that we made the little dude laugh today, and let me tell you, it was hard work!

now that we got your attention

here is something worth watching about adoption:

An Adoption Story by Jillian Lauren

alright folks

it looks like we will be flying to addis ababa on monday morning!  i am planning on updating this blog during our trip so that folks can follow along if they want.  the schedule of events will go something like this:

court date (july 10)
court decree issued
MOWYCA letter written
birth certificate issued
passport issued
visa medical completed
submit to embassy
embassy interview

this process is predicted to take 3-8 weeks.

while we are there, we plan on doing a lot of eating.  if you're interested in what and where we are eating (and of course, what we think about it all, or more accurately WHAT DAVE THINKS ABOUT IT) check out dave's food blog:
berberecoffeeinjeraplease.blogspot.com

so off we go on our own magical mystery berbere tour. . . wish us luck :)

we have a court date!

amazing! we found out today that we have a court date.  in two weeks!