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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 cleaning the [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 piano:
“I’m gonna go do [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]