And really - who doesn't like watching monkeys "monkey around"? 
I tried taking many pictures of Maya and finally got one.
And we couldn't leave without a ride or two on the carousel. Even Makenna enjoyed a ride with daddy. 
Hopefully anyone reading this not so exciting post for anyone besides us and the Grandmas are having a great Labor Day weekend!
GRRRR!!!!! I clearly was not thinking straight when I justified why Maya's hair was "down" and not styled. I should have said "Maya's hair is not messy. It is down and natural and beautiful". Instead I justified it and blamed myself for sending her to school with messy hair. Shame on me. Shame on me for not saying the correct thing. Shame on me for not sticking up for Maya's natural hair which I think is beautiful by the way. Yes, it is crazy but it is her hair.
Today was just a bad morning. Tomorrow has to be better, right?
We made it home okay. My mom, sister, and her family met us at the airport. It was so good to be home and to see familiar faces! Maya did extremely well on the flight home. We left Addis about 2 hours late on Friday which landed us in DC 2 hours late. We had to hurry in DC in order to make our connection. Let's just say we barely made it.
Our flight to DC went very well. We had brought Maya a seat which ended up being the best thing we could have done. Maya slept until we reached Rome which was about 8 hours. She then spent the rest of the trip sleeping, eating, playing, and flirting with those around her. The flight attendants were so great. There were at least a half a dozen families that were adopting on our flight and 3 of them are from our agency. We really liked having other families we knew on our flight. At one point I took Maya on a little walk and we went to visit another family. Well...this nice Ethiopian woman (who lives in the USA) stopped me and just took Maya from me. She just thought Maya was the cutest thing ever and had to hold her. It is Ethiopian culture to help care for all babies and to kiss stranger's babies whenever. In the Addis airport another woman came up to Maya and gave her some kisses. It is strange at first but then you realize it is just the culture. Maya loves strangers so it didn't bother her one bit.
On our flight from DC to Chicago, Maya slept. Dave and I watched some tv as we were trying hard not to fall asleep. We wanted to stay up as late as possible to help get us back on American time. When we reached Chicago, we ran into a family that we spent the week with in Addis. It was so good to see them. Their little one and Maya were in the same room at the care center and shared the same nannies. We spent some time with them while we waited for our connection to Fargo. On our Fargo flight Maya played and played. She must have exhausted herself and she just fell right to asleep in my arms at the end of the flight.
Hope you enjoyed reading about our week 3 years ago. It seems like yesterday in so many ways. Happy Forever Anniversary to us an everyone we traveled with. Thank you for the great memories.
We had Maya with us all night last night. She did so well and slept through most of the night. We did have to wake her at 10:00 for her medication and we woke her again at 1:00 to eat. She is sleeping in this little crib next to Dave. We would have let her sleep through the night but she was becoming very restless and probably would have woken up on her own. She is an amazing little girl. We haven't had luck feeding her through the bottle but she does love eating from a cup. We have a cup from the care center that we are using. About an hour ago, she just had approximately 6 oz of formula. She is a happy girl right now.
**Okay, just has our first poopy diaper. Wow - I'm not used to that smell.
Today we had breakfast at the other guest house. There are two guest houses and 11 couples. Three couples are in the traditional guest house and the remaining couples are in the modern guest house. Let's just say we got the short end of the stick as we are in the traditional guest house. The food is prepared in the modern guest house so we must venture over there for our 3 meals. It is a short walk but a muddy one as the roads are not paved. Since it is the raining season, the roads are mostly water potholes and muddy. I guess I could have left my flip flops back home.
After breakfast a few couples went shopping. We brought Maya along and she did very well. She really likes car rides and fell asleep instantly. Dave carried her in the baby Bjorn which seemed to work well. After shopping we headed back to the modern guest house for lunch. I finally was able to eat and it tasted very good.
We are now back at our guest house relaxing and spending time with Maya. We are also going to start to pack our things as we head back tomorrow night. It will be nice to get home as we are missing our dogs, a warm shower, and our bed. Of course it will be sad to say good-bye to the other couples we have met as well as to the city where our girl spent the last six months.
I just wanted to post a quick update on our days activities so far. We woke up early this morning and went to confirm our flights back (you need to do so in person or they will cancel your flight...). At the first office we stopped their computers were down and since we needed to also change Maya's ticket, we couldn't do so w/ the computers (you could only confirm) - so we dropped everyone else off at a spot to do some shopping and myself and one other went to another office to make our changes. We hope that Maya has a ticket for the way home...
I then connected back up with Theresa and the rest of the group half-way through their shopping trip. We purchased a lot of cool souvenirs and coffee. We hurried back to the guest house to eat and change as we had an afternoon appointment to meet the woman and policeman who found our daughter. It was very nice of them to make the trip from Butajira to Addis Ababa, it is a 2 hour drive by vehicle and I must imagine much longer via bus. She confirmed much of our daughters story and provided additional details which are very special and someday we can pass along to Maya.
Later this afternoon we have the goodbye ceremony at the Care Center where we take full-time responsibility for our children. It is supposed to be a very special ceremony where the nannies say goodbye. It is going to be especially hard for the three nannies who have taken care of Maya (Nejbya) as she has been in their care from a very early age.
Tonight she comes home with us and we will have Thursday and Friday to adjust before beginning our 30 hour journey home. :)
We had our good-bye ceremony at the care center with all the families, adopted children, and the nannies. It was a very special time as this is when the nannies say their good-byes. Maya has been in the care center since she was 9 days old and the nannies have become very attached to her. One nanny made a point to come over to us to hug and kiss Maya as well as hug Dave and I. We all cried at that moment. It means the world to us to know that Maya has been so well taken care of. She is such an outgoing little girl with so much personality. It seemed to us that Maya was very well liked amongst the staff. We could never thank CHSFS enough for giving us our precious Maya.
Once the ceremony was finished, we headed back to the guest house for dinner. I finally had a chance to call my mom to check on things as she is house watching and taking care of our dogs for us. While I am on the phone, Maya begins to scream. The nice cook offered to take her from Dave and tried to calm her done. After some long screams, Maya finally ate some food from a cup and went to sleep. We have never seen that side of her and didn't know what to do. Thankfully it all turned out okay.
Hello everyone - we had another busy day so far. We got back to the guest house late last night as we had dinner with our friends who are also in town. Our friend is from Addis but lives in Fargo. We had dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant which was great. Dave is a big fan of Ethiopian food but I don't care for it as much. I am craving a cheeseburger right now but will have to wait until we are back in the USA. I also have to note how cheap the dinner was. My meal was 48.00 BURR which is $4.80. The same meal back home would have cost me at least $12. We did have a great time with our friends and were so glad they were able to take us out. Our adoption agency has a schedule for us and keeps us close by so we don't get to see much of the city.
Today we had a busy morning driving around Addis. The goal was to do some shopping but it didn't end up that way. I ended up getting motion sickness and still have it. The driving here is unexplainable and something that we have never seen. There are no stop signs, stop lights, traffic rules of any kind, and people walk on the street. It is amazing there isn't many car accidents.
This afternoon we went to the USA embassy to get a visa for Maya. Before we left, the nannies brought the children to the guest house. Maya was dressed is a very cute dress and was very happy. She did fall asleep on the ride there and snored! At the embassy she focused on the Monday night football game. Yes, they had the game on a day later. And...we have determined that Maya is daddy's girl. She snores and likes football! The embassy went extremely well and we are officially her parents. Honestly, I am so happy and I love that girl so much. She is so sweet and happy. She even took some of the bottle today from Dave! She struggled with it yesterday but did take about 3 oz today. We are so pleased. If we haven't mentioned it before, they cup feed all the babies here as it keeps down the infections. Maya has never been breast feed or bottled feed until now. We hope she continues to eat from the bottle as it will make a better trip home. Oh...I have to say that the nanny yesterday told me she doesn't like bottle and that she will give me a cup tomorrow when I take her home. It was kind of funny to be honest. The nannies just love her so much and know her so well. It will be hard for Maya to leave them as she is very attached.
We are off to the Crown Hotel tonight for a traditional Ethiopian dinner and dancing. Although I don't feel well, we are still going. It should be very interesting.
Update: Maya never took a bottle and we had to feed her with the cup the nanny gave us on the entire flight home. We then transitioned Maya to a sippy cup. I have also learned to love Ethiopian food too as long as it isn't too spicy. Amazing how things are so different 3 years later!
In honor of Maya's 3rd year forever home anniversary, I thought I would share our blog posts from 3 years ago. Here is what our blog post from day 1 and 2 of our trip which included meeting Maya:
Hello, can you believe we are starting our third day here in Ethiopia. We will try and provide you with enough detail to give you an idea of the adventure we are going through.
Ethiopian Airlines
We flew out on Friday morning, having no issues getting to the airport and checked in. We quickly connected with four other families using the same agency as us and another using a different agency. It was nice to find others who were in the same situation as us. The flight itself went with no issues outside of being confined to very small space for 15 hours. The food was good and we were fairly on schedule.
We arrived in Addis Ababa and claimed our bags and converted some dollars to local currency with no issues. There was a drive waiting for us as well as another couple that had flown in earlier that morning. As we caravanned with our bags to two vans waiting for us, we saw the first images that told us we were not in the U.S. anymore. There must have been a 1/2 dozen men cutting the grass using hand held cutting knives and another group following and picking up the grass...
We piled all of our bags into one van and then we squeezed into the other. We rode back to the guest houses where we had about 10 minutes to drop our bags and then pile back into the van and off to the office. We did some paperwork there, got a ride back to the guest house to eat lunch. After lunch we got a ride to care center to meet our daughter!
Meeting our Daughter!
We were all brought into one room to wait to be called to meet our children. Amazingly Theresa and I were called first to meet Maya Nejbya (pronounced Neji-bia). We were told to follow the social worker and as we walked into the room we were being filmed, which will be included in the DVD they are creating for us.) She is so amazing - she smiles and cuddles and is absolutely the most beautiful baby - still a bit hard to believe that she is our daughter. She is so loved by everyone at the care center, from the nannies to the photographers - they all stop to play and kiss her each time they see her.
The Trip to Hossana
Time is short, we'll post more later but here are a couple of pictures!
Seeing Maya again
We were able to go see Maya again on Sun night - this time we brought the camera and video camera. Some pictures below - isn't she amazing!
She really is the most amazing little girl - she has the flu and was obviously not the same happy girl as she was the day before, but she didn't fuss or cry. We spent over an hour with her on Sunday, just getting her familiar with us.
Some of you may know that they cup feed the infants here at the care center due to the fact that it easier to keep the cup sanitized vs. bottles and nipples. We watched the cup feeding on Saturday but today Theresa had the opportunity to feed Maya. It was very interesting to see Theresa feed her for the first time - I was able to capture it on video!
