Travel was much harder from the UK to Ethiopia. We found out we only got 20kg's per person, and had to pay a large fee to bring all our bags. Our check-in process took quite some time, and the flight was shorter but seemed much longer from the UK to Jordon to Ethiopia.  We also had a delay as an elderly women who did not speak english refused to buckle her seat belt and family members and crew had to finally force her to wear it.   WE then waited to get visa's and bags, but our Case worker did meet us, and we were so excited to finally have arrived.

After getting to the hotel at about 3:00am local time after starting at 10am London time the day before, we crashed till noon the next day.

We were prepared for Meskerem (Sarah) to be shy and hesistant to come to us or be held, from what we were told, but we were in for a great surprise. We were told she wouldn't come to strangers, and was shy as that was the experience of our case worker; however, She let us hold and cuddle her, and play together and have a lot of fun. The kids played games (jump rope, soccer, duck-duck-goose, red-light-green-light..) with the other kids at the orphange and were not ready to leave after an afternoon visit. It was such a great day. What a joy to have made it here finally, and to hold Sarah. We'd sent her a picture book back in April, and it almost seemed as if she did know us. What a blessing.  Our hearst litterally lept for joy.

Internet is really slow here, so pictures have all been shrunk and posting or blogging does take some time. Everyone is is better spirits now, but still tired and adjusting to timezones.

We have our embassy appointment on Tuesday, and are slowly transistioning Meskerem to being with us. We'll bring her to the hotel after our appoint Tuesday, if we can wait one more day till then :)