An update to our blog is way overdue. I’ve struggled a bit
over the last week with several things—jet lag being one of them, as well as
where to start in telling you all about our trip to meet our two children. Fair
warning—this is a long one.
Adoption is a tough road in many ways. One of the things
that is difficult, and I think most adoptive families would agree, is the
waiting. There is waiting at every turn. And just when the paperwork and the
fundraising seem to be taking over your life and things are seeming just a bit
too hectic, you exchange that for a little bit more of…you guessed it…waiting.
Honestly, I think I prefer the crazy seasons of paperwork over the waiting
because at least in those seasons I feel like I’m doing something to help bring
us closer to getting our babies home.
The waiting was long over the summer season, thus the reason
that we did few blog posts. Honestly, there wasn’t much to report! Aubrey and
Micah’s home country was having some political issues that kept adopting
families from being able to move forward in the process. Basically, we lost a
little more than two months just waiting for certain people to be given
authority there to hold a meeting that we needed to take place, in which we
would receive verbal approval to travel. Later, would come the written approval
and then finally travel dates would be given.
After so much time, when our travel dates did come, it
produced a flurry of activity. The email said that we could choose to travel on
August 31 or wait until mid-October. Well, that made it a no-brainer for sure,
but that meant that we had one week to get our plane tickets purchased, get
plans made for our children who would need care here, organize care for our
animals, buy what we still needed for our trip, get the house in order (I hate
coming home to a messy house after a trip), and pack everyone up. We made two
to-do lists—one for Cliff and one for me—and started tackling things one by
one. By the end of the week things were looking good and we were already
exhausted before the trip had even begun!
Mountains of Germany
Unfortunately, because we had such short notice, we had few
choices concerning flights. We had a terribly long layover in Toronto both
coming and going—8 ½ and 6 ½ hours. That doesn’t include the drive time to
Pittsburgh, the 8 plus hour flight over the ocean, the two shorter flights, and
the two
