Lux et umbra vicissum…

A Dumb American’s Experience in a Half-Western Hotel When I first arrived at the Ghion hotel, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. The front of the building was certainly impressive enough. There was a winding drive that rambled in different directions amid beautiful landscaping, and the whole front of the hotel was lined with […]

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Refueling in Rome Local time – 12:55 PM   EST – 6:55 AM We’ve been sitting for a bit now, so I’d guess we’ll be taking off again soon.  We just stop to refuel, get more food and drinks, take on a new crew…  and I think I saw someone come through with things from […]

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You’ll read the obituary in the papers soon. “Woman missing after paperwork avalanche – presumed dead.” So, meeting our girls really put me in turbo mode. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do before, but now that our first adoption is finalized everything else can be done… and I’m trying to do it all […]

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This has to be brief because we pay by the minute and I think Michelle is almost done with her email, but I wanted to post something while I had a chance.  This has been an amazing trip.  I met my girls and they’re wonderful!  I’ve helped interview children for adoption, been there to hear […]

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Our bedroom’s a bit of a mess, but that’s not so different from normal. 🙂 I don’t have enough donations to stuff two large suitcases like I was hoping to, so I’ll take two medium-size cases to make things easier on me. I’ll be able to fit almost all of my personal belongings in my […]

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I went shopping today.  I bought a lot of things, but very little of it was for me.  I did buy myself a small sun hat, a pair of cheap sunglasses, and three cheap t-shirts for the trip.  (I haven’t gotten new shirts in a long time… since high school, I think… and I didn’t […]

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Just thought I’d post a quick picture of the bracelets I made for the girls. I’ll give them their bracelets sort of as a piece of promise jewelry… a pledge that we’ll return for them. Though it isn’t immediately obvious, I used the colors of the Ethiopian and American flags when making these. The Ethiopian […]

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I had told Joel some time ago that I was going to take everything with the adoption one at a time at this point unless God showed me somehow clearly that I needed to hurry the heck up.  Which means, mainly, that I wasn’t going to allow myself to be surrounded by paperwork but would […]

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A four year old’s idea of good dinner conversation: “Mommy, why don’t dogs have snot or boogers?” A four year old’s concept of fractions: “Mommy, since there are three of us, why can’t you just split it in three halves?” What the two year old says when she wants to imitate her sister on the […]

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There are several things I’d like to blog about, but I’ll have to do it another time. For now, I’ll just summarize: * I managed to get all of our plants and seeds in the ground over the weekend except the carrots. I didn’t have time to do them, but I hope to get them […]

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