Today

I will write a bigger report tomorrow. We are pretty exhausted.

Another great hour with our new daughter. An amazing experience with the Kolfe boys. The feast was unbelievable. The boys threw us a celebration to start the night with coffee, popcorn, music and dancing. They honored our gift but in reality we were giving a gift of an amazing experience. The last time they had a feast like this was about 11 months ago.

More later..... Bed time.

Sent from my iPad

Almost done

Cultural dinner

Last night we went to a cultural dinner place that had traditional music and dancing. It is set up mainly for tourists as we were not the minority in the place. But it was fun. This country hits your senses all over the place with sights, smells, tastes, emotions.

Onions for the feast

Futball with the Kolfe boys

Before the feast

Since Kolfe has about 300 boys now instead of 150, we decided to feed them with an ox instead of sheep. This is the before picture. Thanks again to all that contributed. I have an after picture that I will not post if you are curious. But when we killed the ox, the boys cheered as they anticipated their tummies filling up soon. We eat this evening with all of them. Really looking forward to it.

Wireless Internet engage!!

Thanks to the adapter that let me pull pics from a memory card to an iPad and a hotel down the street with wireless Internet we are live with photos!!!

Great day. We met our daughter today. She is a complete ham! She is a complete chatterbox and Definately loves the attention and spotlight by any and all. We spent an hour with her today and I would guess that she spent the better of 40 minutes complete attached to Oscar. She made him take his sweatshirt off and let her wear it in the first five minutes! I wish I could post some pictures but it is not allowed. So you all will just have to wait a little bit longer. It will be so difficult to leave her here but for now she is in a great house with caregivers that absolutely love her.

After our brief visit, we arranged for the feast. Apparently there are now 300 boys at Kolfe (vs 150 3 years ago). So we will feed those tummy's tomorrow with an ox, sheep, injera, veggies, bananas and sodas. Tonight we go over to kill and butcher the animals in preparation. The Kolfe mommas will likely be cooking most of the day tomorrow to prepare. The rest of the Gladney gang are going to join us for the preparation tonight then we will go to a traditional Ethiopia restaurant that showcases dancing and music from all the regions of the country. It will be fun but exhausting. Thanks again to all that helped purchase the feast. They boys get one of these about once a year if they are lucky.

Today we also visited a handmade silk factory. Very cool. Going to sleep well tonight!!

Scott.

Sent from my iPad

So many things to wash. No machine!

Potty training en masse!

Cement donkeys

Jet lag!

Traditional coffee station

Palace from the 1800s

Addis Ababa is quite different than the stereotype for geography in north Africa

Scaffolding

Ethiopia's version on scaffolding

Repacking aid at our guest house.

All is well

We had a nice day so far visiting an old church and old palace (1800's) on Entoto mountain.   You can view they entire city from the top of the mountain on a clear day.  Today wasn't very clear but still a great view.  Last time we came the city really cleared up on Sunday b/c most of the commerce was down from church.  It seems a bit worse this trip but perhaps it is just the wind.  

Oscar and Bryce are a bit on sensory overload and are hopefully napping right now with Emily at the guest house.  We had a wonderful traditional Ethiopian lunch.  A lady was preparing for afternoon coffee.  Roasting green coffee beans, grinding them, brewing fresh espresso.  Our lunch began with a handwashing, we ate lamb, dried beef and lentils (shiro).  The lentils were a huge favorite with the boys.  

We have had to coach the boys a bit on how touchy the culture is with kids.  All the adults that we talk to (guides, housekeepers) give the boys huge hugs and spill over with love towards children.  Men/Women both share the same kind of sheer joy for children.   In all the attachment books and such that we have read, I can only imagine that this cultural detail gives even orphaned children a huge boost in the first few years of their life no matter what the conditions are.  

The Addis Flower (new flower) Guest House is wonderful and I am very happy we went this route rather than the Hilton.  It makes the experience more genuine and we will be meeting some need friends that are also in the process of adopting.  

Coffee with Belay this afternoon to plan out the week.  I think we will do the Kolfe feast on Tuesday.  There are about 300 boys that we will be buying a feast for (meat, banannas, coke, injera).  

Tomorrow will also be a big day as we will meet our little one for the first time.  Very exciting.

All for now.     

-Scott

AHH MAH SAY GANALLOW = Thank you.  

ARRIVED!

Hello all

We made it safe and sound.  All is well.  The flights were fine with no issues.  Bryce did get sick on the frst on and flled up about 3 bags but had no issues on the second flight from Frankfurt to Addis.  I highly doubt that I will be able to post pictures while we are here as I did not bring the laptop but I looks like we will be able to update.

 

We made t throught customs without any problems at all.  All 10 packed bags (9 of which were humanitarian aid) are all safely with us.  Customs briefly asked me what was in the bags, "clothes, diapers, formula and nothing to officially declare".  He said ok.    Thank you for all the prayers. 

 

Oscar got sick last night in bed.  I think he was so tred that he didn't realize it until after.  So hopefully emily and I hold out from getting sick.  Should be a rather easy day today with no certain schedule.  Will update when we can.

Scott

Ready to go

Truck packed

Off to the airport!

Packing!

It's hard work sorting and packing stuff!!!

Almost done!

9 bags of humanitarian aid.  1 bag for us.  Packed almost all the stuff that we collected.  We ran out of weight and hard bags to get everything, but we will be going back next year so no worries.  I think we got 95% off all the formula, clothes, diapers, wipes, shoes, etc...

Supplies

Friends/Colleagues:

Emily and I have a room full of old bags and a crazy amount of diapers, clothes, wipes, blankets, etc. You guys are awesome.

This foundation was kind enough to send us 200 pounds of infant formula: http://brightontheirworld.org/. They ship formula to traveling families that are willing to act as mules to deliver to orphanages in Ethiopia (insert Scott mule jokes here).

We made sure to put everything on our dining room table, so our Thanksgiving guests tomorrow have to help us pack, sort, and weigh the 12 bags we will be taking before they can eat turkey!

Again, thank you so much for the support. I look forward to sharing pictures and stories of our adventure and your generosity.

Bartender, hit me again!

Ummm. Well, it has been a while since we have posted. 3 years, 9 months, and 13 days to be exact.

All is well with the Lydick family. Nevaeh is a princess and keeps her older brothers in line. We decided about 18 months ago that she needed a little sister.

Very long story short... Emily & I and our 2 oldest sons (Oscar 9, Bryce 7) will be boarding a flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in two days for a court visit to help finalize the adoption of our precious new 3 year old daughter. With Nevaeh, we only needed to travel once and were able to bring her home on that trip. Since then, the rules have changed and we needed to travel twice.