Tuesday in Addis

Tuesday:
He is officially ours, forever!!!
Today was a great, but very long and dramatic day.
Early this morning, we went to the transition home to pick up our
children.  Then we immediately drove to the Embassy to have all of our
official paperwork finalized and to get Silas' visa.  Well, after
waiting about an hour, they told us that they simply weren't ready for
our group yet so we all had to come back later.  Not that big of a
deal, but a little bit of a letdown.  So, we had lunch at a local
place, the Zebra Grill, which was an interesting combination of
Italian & Mexican (as in, a burrito with marinara sauce on top),
pretty good though.  Then, straight back to the Embassy.  After
waiting in line for another hour or so, Amber and I were the first
from our group to be interviewed.  It went great! It only took about 5
min and we were done and Silas' visa was approved.  That meant that
everything was done for us to be able to bring him home...that's an
amazing amount of refreshing right there! Of our 8 families in the
group, 5 passed just fine.  3 are having some pretty big paperwork
issues - PLEASE PRAY FOR THEM!  There were lots of tears and prayers
being said as those 3 families were told that they may not be able to
take their kids home with them.  AGAIN, PLEASE PRAY FOR THEM!
Our day with Silas has been wonderful! He is the happiest child ever!
He is hugging and laughing and playing and...uh, just awesome!  He
wasn't eating so well today as he didn't like our formula.  So, after
only having 1 bottle at 9am, we had to go back to the transition home
to get the specific formula they gave him...we got that at about
6:30pm and he ate it around 8pm.  So, yeah, not much food for him
today, but tomorrow looks to be better!  Even with little food, he was
not grumpy at all.  He didn't much care for the antibiotic we gave
him, but he was still able to take it.

We're missing Gibson & Maya terribly.  We just wish they could meet
their new little brother...soon enough I guess.  Please give them lots
of kisses and squeezes for us!  (thankfully, Amber was able to talk to
them on the phone for a few minutes today!)

Now we are unbelievably exhausted and gonna try to turn in early (it's
about 9pm here).  We love you guys and thank you so much for your
prayers.  You guys are a huge part of getting us here and we will
never forget that!

Hopefully we'll get another update out tomorrow.  G'night...or, for
those of you in the midwest, good afternoon.  :)

phil (and Amber)