I am sitting here in Saint Louis with Gene and K waiting to begin a 24 hour track to Ethiopia to meet our son!!!!!!!!!! It has been a whirlwind of events so I will try to journal them here.
Thursday morning was a normal day at work in the summer. Gene and I were still waiting to hear a court date and had been told it "could be" as early as the 20th of June but we do don't have our hopes up.
I went to a meeting with Debbie from Central Office and had just finished finished telling her about our adoption journey when my phone rang. I almost didn't check it but Debbie told me go ahead sure enough it was the travel coordinator from our adoption agency! She told me that Ethiopia had designed us a court date but that she wanted to call me to tell me in person because of the timing. She then told me the court date was JUNE 17th!!!!!!! I'm all like "Ok, June 17Th, that works, wait JUNE, that's in 4 days" ( Add in lots of jumping, screaming and more ahs). Then our family coordinator tells us that we need to be in Ethiopia by Saturday morning so we have to fly either TODAY or TOMORROW!
So for the next two hours I begin working with our travel agent to find flights. I went back to my work to tell everyone and then called in the troops. My parents swarmed in like a tactical team and we turned my office into "travel central". I had both my computer screens up, my iPad, the phone and my dads cell phone going all at the same time. Bless my sweet co-workers who sat and watched the chaos that in sued.
We made a plan to get children where they needed to go (S to West Plains to get her hair done for camp, K was with the YMCA camp in Camdenton and had to get picked up), checked all the various medications that were needed and create a list of the items still needed.
Our travel agent gave us our flight option but there were no flights for Friday, which meant we would have to fly THAT evening....in fact it meant we would have to leave for Saint Louis in 2 hours! After scurrying around we realized that was going to be impossible.
We called our family coordinator and spoke with her and the agency was willing to work with the court on our behalf and allow us to travel on the next available flight which left on Saturday.
We spent all evening and all day Friday packing and woke up at 5 am this morning to head out to STL. Our flight path is Saint Louis to Toronto, Canada then on to Frankfurt Germany before arriving in Addis Ababba, Ethiopia.
After 3 hours of driving, 16 hours worth of flights and combined 6 hours in layovers we will arrive in ET at 7pm (that's 10am Sunday Morning for everyone at home). Then Monday morning is the Big Day. We will get to meet N and see if we pass court to officially call him a Collins.
Thursday morning was a normal day at work in the summer. Gene and I were still waiting to hear a court date and had been told it "could be" as early as the 20th of June but we do don't have our hopes up.
I went to a meeting with Debbie from Central Office and had just finished finished telling her about our adoption journey when my phone rang. I almost didn't check it but Debbie told me go ahead sure enough it was the travel coordinator from our adoption agency! She told me that Ethiopia had designed us a court date but that she wanted to call me to tell me in person because of the timing. She then told me the court date was JUNE 17th!!!!!!! I'm all like "Ok, June 17Th, that works, wait JUNE, that's in 4 days" ( Add in lots of jumping, screaming and more ahs). Then our family coordinator tells us that we need to be in Ethiopia by Saturday morning so we have to fly either TODAY or TOMORROW!
So for the next two hours I begin working with our travel agent to find flights. I went back to my work to tell everyone and then called in the troops. My parents swarmed in like a tactical team and we turned my office into "travel central". I had both my computer screens up, my iPad, the phone and my dads cell phone going all at the same time. Bless my sweet co-workers who sat and watched the chaos that in sued.
We made a plan to get children where they needed to go (S to West Plains to get her hair done for camp, K was with the YMCA camp in Camdenton and had to get picked up), checked all the various medications that were needed and create a list of the items still needed.
Our travel agent gave us our flight option but there were no flights for Friday, which meant we would have to fly THAT evening....in fact it meant we would have to leave for Saint Louis in 2 hours! After scurrying around we realized that was going to be impossible.
We called our family coordinator and spoke with her and the agency was willing to work with the court on our behalf and allow us to travel on the next available flight which left on Saturday.
We spent all evening and all day Friday packing and woke up at 5 am this morning to head out to STL. Our flight path is Saint Louis to Toronto, Canada then on to Frankfurt Germany before arriving in Addis Ababba, Ethiopia.
After 3 hours of driving, 16 hours worth of flights and combined 6 hours in layovers we will arrive in ET at 7pm (that's 10am Sunday Morning for everyone at home). Then Monday morning is the Big Day. We will get to meet N and see if we pass court to officially call him a Collins.
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