From Dulles to Addis . Day's 1&2 of our Journey to Noah Tamirat

Ok so after a week home i'm finally ready to start blogging about our trip. I kept a travel journal so some of this might come straight from there we shall see. First I want to say that i'm not gonna sugar coat things here..the travel for me on the way there was hard..I didn't sleep much on the plane and I was in rough shape when i arrived in Ethiopia.

Our plane sitting at the gate just waiting for us.

Day 1. Unlike alot of the families Dulles was our home airport. All day long I anxiously awaited the time that we would load the suitcases and drive to the airport to start our long journey. My parents drove us to the airport and we were at our gate and waiting by 6pm for our 8:30 flight. My stomach was already in knots and I sent sean in search of some crackers. We spent alot of time just checking out the other families and wondering which ones might be with AGCI. We knew that alot of us were on that flight and we actually picked out the families we thought might be in our group but we didn't approach any of them. We did meet a nice family that was traveling to adopt with another agency and spent time talking with them while we waited on our flight. We ended up leaving an hour late because we had to wait for some clearance or something. This was not fun since our plane had been sitting at the gate since we arrived and we were more then ready to get off the ground.

Mommy & Daddy awaiting takeoff. Lets get this plane in the air. *I can assure you we didn't look anywhere near this happy when we landed in Ethiopia and there will no pictures of us at that point*. Our travel group can attest to how rough we looked haha.

Day 2. Somewhere along the way Saturday turned into Sunday. There was no sleeping on the plane and the further we went the worse I felt. Excitement was building in my stomach and unfortunetly that wasn't the only thing. The layover in Rome was uneventful and we were on our way to Addis. I ate very little of each meal just to put something in my stomach. I will admit to grabbing for the airsickness bag on landing in addis and the flight attendant sitting right ahead of us(we were in the exit row) looked a little nervous that I might use it. Surely it wouldn't be the first they had seen. Once we landed we made our way to the escalator that takes you down to the visa area. Can I just say when you get to the bottom of the escalator move to the right quickly....don't just stop and stand there people go somewhere. I was feeling really sick and getting pushed and shoved from every direction. I at some point lost Sean in the crowd and finally found him again in time to get in the insanly long visa line. Not long after I was running for the bathroom where I promptly emptied my stomach into a wastebasket (huge hint for future travelers....use the bathroom before you get off the plane unless you know you can wait until you get to the hotel). Somehow we managed to drag ourselves thru the very unorganized line for visa, figure out which customs line to go in and then find our luggage and make our way out to where Johannes was waiting..I was so happy to see his smiling face(even at the very late hour of our arrival)and the sign that said AGCI families. Ahhh we are here. After we got all the families togeather it was off to the hotel. We took in as much as we could on the drive to the Union but honestly I just really wanted to get to bed. I was so scared that I would be sick the next day and Almaz wouldn't let us bring our son back to the hotel with us. The first person I met at the hotel was Dawn's husband Tim. Please forgive the blank stare & the couple seconds it took to answer you simple question of "Are you Renee" ummm yeah I should know that answer haha. Next Dawn came down the stairs into the garage area and it was so nice to finally meet her. We all went up into the lobby to check in and make our way to our rooms. We were on the 3rd floor (no elevators in the hotel) boy would I get a workout this week carrying 20lbs of baby up and down those stairs. I wish someone could have carried me upstairs as easily as they handled our luggage. It's very late and we have a baby to meet in the morning time to get some sleep.

And before I forget Sarah thank you again for being an angel and helping me with one of our suitcases at the airport it was very much needed and appreciated.