A Craving for Ethiopian Food

Tonight we went out to celebrate finishing up with our homestudy interviews/visit. I will admit that I am the last person that I ever thought would have a craving for Ethiopian food, but I kept thinking about a lentil sambusa all day (and no, I've already told Sean I'm not pregnant, or at least to my knowledge I'm not). We went back to the Ethiopian restaurant in Raleigh and really enjoyed the food. I've taken quite a liking to Ethiopian food. Ciara really liked the katagna (slightly fried injera, buttered and spiced with berbere) and wanted more after it was all gone. We tried doro wat tonight along with the two lamb wats that we had before. The doro (chicken) wat was super spicy, and Sean loved it. It came with two hard boiled eggs in the middle of it (neither one of us could eat them). There was also a type of Ethiopian cheese on the side. It kind of reminded me of tofu. The owners always take an interest in Ciara, and we hope that we will learn a little more about the Ethiopian culture each time we go. By the way, I'm getting close to mastering tearing off the injera, scooping up the wat, and feeding myself all with my right hand and without touching my mouth. Sean has a way to go :).

We continue to work on our paperwork. Sean's supposed to be writing his letter of repentance for those traffic tickets but is still trying to think of what to say (let's face it, most of us have had one or two). My big task today was to try to work on getting our bank (Wachovia) to issue us a new letter of good standing for all of our accounts. They had already issued us one but it was not notarized. I had read online how this can be an awful ordeal and our representative at Gladney also warned us that many families often run into snags with this bit of paperwork. Thankfully, one of the sweet tellers at the Clayton branch made one phone call to the person who issued the letter initially. They said that they would get it done and notarized today, and we should have it in a few days. I was so thankful and can only say that Wachovia has been super to deal with regarding this letter.

There isn't much else to report except that somehow Ciara thinks her baby sister is in her belly and is going to come out of her belly button. We haven't talked with her at all about where baby's come from, but we do have a dear friend who is due at the end of July. Ciara knows that there is a baby growing in Mrs. Lisa's belly and then jumped to the conclusion that her baby sister is in her belly (yes, it continues to be a sister and now she just thanks Jesus for her baby sister, instead of asking for one) . I've just told her that her baby sister/brother is not in her belly but is in Ethiopia. If any of you have any other words of wisdom--please share them. This is new territory (I was thinking we still had two years or so).

Home Study Interviews/Visit Completed!

Good news! We were able to finish up with all of our interviews and home inspection yesterday with our Social Worker, Connie, from Gladney. We are so excited that we are continuing to move forward and make progress on getting our little one from Ethiopia. We are hoping to get most of our documents for our dossier completed in the next two weeks, which will leave us waiting for our home study to be completed, to receive fingerprinting appointments, to receive our I 171 H from USCIS, and to receive our passports. We are hoping to be able to submit our dossier sometime in September, but we continue to realize that the most important thing is that everything happen in God's timing. We will continue to keep you all posted.

Update

This has been a fun and busy week. Ciara's cousins, Caitlin and Collin came back with us Sunday afternoon and spent all week with us. The week culminated with all five cousins, Ciara, Caitlin, Collin, Andrew, and William playing together yesterday afternoon before Melanie traveled with Caitlin, Collin, Andrew, and William to Concord to visit family for the weekend. We had a blast bowling, playing in the pool, watching movies, going to the park, and just playing around. Going from one child to three was fun and a challenge (coordinating medicines, baths, meals, etc.), but it has increased my excitement to fill our home with with more children and for Ciara to be able to enjoy (and I know there will also be lots of arguments) a sibling.

William is about 14 months old and last fall, Ciara screamed every time I would try to hold him. It had been a while since we had seen them, and I was anxious to see how she would react. To my surprise, she was very attentive to his needs and didn't cry at all when I held him (although he did--he's quite attached to his mama). The funniest thing (and the grossest) was that Ciara saw his baby food and formula. She asked me if her baby sister would drink and eat that stuff (she continues to state that it will be a baby sister and we continue to remind her that she needs to talk to Jesus and that the most important thing is that we receive the child (boy or girl) that He has planned for us) . I told her that her baby brother or sister would probably drink/eat that stuff, and she wanted to try some of the milk after William had his bottle. Melanie was generous with the "liquid gold" (aka-formula) and let Ciara try some. She drank a number of swallows before she decided that she didn't want anymore. It made Melanie quite nauseous. It was also quite amazing that when William cried, Ciara ran to get her stuffed "Brandi" (a dog) to bring to him to try to cheer him up. When they left, she told me, "He's a good baby boy." Yesterday evening she couldn't stop talking about William. I asked her if she still wanted a baby brother or sister. She said, "a sister" and then asked "Does Jesus have me one?" I reminded her again that she just needed to spend some time talking to Jesus, and so she said (while sitting on her tricycle), "Dear Jesus, Ciara want a baby sister."

We did make a little progress on the adoption journey this week. Our social worker is scheduled to come out on Monday, June 25th to finish things up for our home study. Sean was able to obtain his employer's letter, and we received approval of it. We're still waiting on fingerprinting appointments from USCIS and hoping that they aren't scheduled for our beach/mountain vacations, but it will be worth it if we have to travel a day to Charlotte and back to get them done.

And, one last huge surprise, I'm actually ready to go back to the Ethiopian restaurant and craving the food/experience a little. We couldn't convince the twins to try it with us.

Fine Dining

Last night was so much fun. I was really scared about how spicy the food would be and took a preventative dose of Pepto on the way. The restaurant actually had the traditional "basket" tables, but we chose a regular American table since we had to get used to just using our hands (in Ethiopia, you can only use your right hand and you have no plates or utensils). It was tough to master tearing off a piece of injera (a spongy pancake looking sort of sour bread) and then scooping up some of the wat (a thick stew). We tried a number of things: beef sambusa and lentil sambusa (a thin pastry filled with beef or lentils cooked with green peppers, onions, and herbs; dabo colo (wheat nuts); katangna (fried injera, buttered and sprinkled with berbere (red pepper); and three types of wat (thick stew): kay wat (prime beef cubes simmered in berbere sauce seasoned with exotic spices), Yebg wat (pieces of lamb slowly simmered in spicy berbere sauce, garlic, onion, and butter), and Yebeg Alicha (tender pieces of lamb braised very slowly in turmeric sauce with touch of ginger, garlic and green pepper). I was very pleasantly surprised. My favorite thing was the lentil sambusa and the non-spicy lamb wat (I will have to clarify next time which one is the least spiciest). The Kay wat wasn't too spicy, but the other lamb wat set my mouth on fire, although everyone else thought I was nuts. We are both excited to go back and try some more of the foods.

Good News!

Oh, I'm so excited. I just received word from our Ethiopia Program Coordinator that we received a "passing" score on our medical examinations, physician's letters (both of which took 4 trips to our doctor), our birth certificates, marriage certificates, one of our reference letters to the Ethiopian government, and my employment letter. We still have a number of documents to complete before our dossier is finished, but it is nice to have this set of paperwork completed. After all of our dossier documents are reviewed, I will have to get them authenticated at the NC Secretary of State, prior to sending them to our agency and then the US Department of State. It is great timing, as we are going with two of our friends tonight to a local Ethiopian restaurant in Raleigh (for the first time). Now, we can make it a time for celebration as well. I'll be sure to share with you details about our dining experiences.

By the way, I have enabled it where you can add comments. Blogging is new to me, so I didn't know about this setting. Feel free to share your comments or questions. As always, please continue to keep us in your prayers!