Change of Plans

After the excitement of getting our court date and rushing to book our airline tickets in order to secure the best price, we found out that our court date has been rescheduled. We will now be attending court on October 26. We knew that it was possible that our date could be changed, so it wasn't a total shock. We were a little disappointed initially, and it did cause a day of stress for me. I immediately contacted our travel agent to get our tickets changed. I thought it was going to be a huge hassle, but it turned out to be much easier than I anticipated. For any of you who may be reading this and are planning to travel to Ethiopia soon, I highly recommend booking your travel with Susan Parr. She has been amazing so far! It really feels like she is taking care of us, and it's nice to have one less thing to worry about. :)

We found out that our agency is having a national conference during our original court date, and the Ethiopia staff will be here in the US to attend that conference. That would leave nobody left in Ethiopia to take us to court, and very few others to take care of us while we were there. No good! So it's really a good thing that our court date could be rescheduled. Another huge positive to the date change is that we went from having one local family to travel with, to two local families to travel with! Our 3 families have been in contact, and have managed to book all of our travel together. We will have travel companions the whole way to Ethiopia, and the whole way back. Since Brandon and I aren't experienced world travelers, this is a huge comfort to us!

So, the countdown has been restarted. We are keeping busy during our wait. There are lots of donation items to gather up for the orphanage, books to be read about international adoption/attachment/bonding, Amharic words and phrases to become familiar with, and PACKING! Actually, we haven't started packing yet...more like planning what will need to be packed.

Our hope is that we will be able to bring L home by Christmas. Please start praying now that we will pass court on the first try, and that our Embassy date (2nd trip) will be scheduled quickly after we pass. We already have 3 matching Christmas stockings for our 3 adorable kids! Hoping to use all 3 this year!!! :)