Tues/Wed

Howdy!!!
Since I haven't posted in a while we will take a minute to catch you up.
On Tuesday we woke up and visited our boys who were the most amazing things ever. They have grown alot and are more adorable than ever. they smile and laugh more than I remembered! Taft has 2 little teeth in front, what a fun surprise! How adorable to see him giggle with 2 little pearly white chompers smiling back at you.

After the visit we had lunch outside, 3 plus courses as usual. Then, off to shopping for local infant food to ease the transition, shopping for traditional items, and coffee houses. Tigist took us to the local Korean hospital as well to pay for stool sampling when the boys are back, and we got little poop tubes to drop off and be analyzed before we return. On Monday night, Kelly had a friend over late into the evening chatting with all of us. Her husband and her adopted from Toukoul a couple of years ago, and have returned to Ethiopia on mission work. She told us that the hospital can analyze a dirty diaper for parasites and bacteria and then the boys can be on meds if there are any problems before we go back home. The US is not accustom to testing for the types of issues our boys might have so we wanted to take to opportunity while we are here just in case.

We were home in the afternoon and prepared to go to a traditional restaurant for dinner. We witnessed a cultural wedding in the streets on the way to dinner and then had an amazing dinner. We all sat on little leather stools surrounding a giant injera and ate ourselves crazy, while the ethnic dancers and singers performed for hours. What an amazing culture we have become part of. Too bad Tyler didn't get called on stage to perform this go around. Late that evening we prepared bags and cribs and everything to bring our boys home on Wednesday.

Wednesday we woke up and after a nice crepe breakfast headed to the market for an additional stop for infant food and water. Then we visited he boys for a few hours and were able to give gifts to all 8 of their nannies. We enjoyed an amazing coffee ceremony after lunch, and Wendy made a cake to celebrate Kelly's birthday. Now we have an hour or so to finish our preparation to bring the boys home. We leave to the orphanage in just a bit, and the boys will be ours forever! We look forward to the typical parenting task and sleepless night. God Has blessed our family for sure!

Arrival

Howdy!!!
We arrived in Addis Ababa last night, after our 3 long flights, the last 16 hour one was a killer for sure. We settled right into the guest house and were greeted by all our old friends from the house last trip, as well as 2 families from America who traveled with us last time. Wow it is great to be "home". We were able to visit for a few hours on the balcony last night when the group broke the news that the orphanage wasn't accepting visitors today because of the Ethiopian Holiday celebrations taking place. What a bummer! We will not be able to see our boys until Tuesday! Therefore, we hired a tour guide to take us to the Portuguese bridge today. the company as well as the beautiful canyons and waterfalls were amazing. We were able to stop and visit a village as well in order to see their way of life. Kelly, our buddy, took pictures of the village last time and had the photos printed to deliver to the people there. They were amazed to see printed pictures of themselves for the first time ever, and I can tell her gift made their day. We have had a great day, as good as it can be not able to visit our little ones. Next we are off to a 1.5 hour Aromatherapy massage!!!! Wooo-hoo! destress time after all this!
We will keep you updated and appreciate your prayers as always! Love yall!

Blast off

We will try and update our blog while in Ethiopia. We found a little dial-up center last time, so hoping we can make our way over there again. Calling and emailing individuals is just too hard. So please check back for how things are going in Ethiopia here! Love you all, we can feel your prayers lifting up our family already!

We Prepare

Thanks to God we are leaving for Ethiopia in a few days. I am thankful that we didn't give into the bad news of the delay and I had a feisty hubby calling and emailing everyone possible at 3am. I could never say we didn't fight for this! All night I was humming the tune "God of Heaven come down, Heaven come down". He did! Praise God for paving our path ahead of us! Our heart breaks for the other families who are not going to be traveling with us. Last night we tried to be happy that the boys will be in our arms in a few days, but we couldn't get over the guilty feeling. While we celebrate, families will still be waiting. The families we traveled with on trip #1 and fell in love with over the weeks.
Now the excitement of preparation, times 2!!!! We are going crazy washing clothes, towels, sheets etc, setting up toys, making homemade babyfood, installing carseats etc...times 2!!!The guys are not even home yet, but they feel like twice the work already. We had the carseats x4 inspected by our fire dept...and go figure an engineer and math/science teacher couldn't do it right. We bought every gadget possible, well 4 of each thing and then come to find out some of those gadgets are safety hazards...ooppps, return please? Then we make 72 tiny little baby foods...and duh freezing causes expansion..didn't cross our mind...until this morning when the lids blew off 72 little tubs! Gotta love first time parenthood, yet we are loving every minute of it!

Heart break

Yesterday we received news that our Embassy date would be pushed back 2 additional weeks and worst case scenario up to 4 because the US Embassy is relocating. We cried, prayed, cried more. Then we got active....
We contacted every person at the US Embassy possible, senators, governors, etc to get to the root of everything. Come to find out there was more to the story and our case has not been handled the way we assumed it was. As of now the documents are being hand delivered on Monday and we are hoping we should still be able to fly out next week, and attend the original appointment. When you mess with a Johnson, you mess with fire. We were not about to accept another delay getting the busy home with out a fight. We were up at 2:00am, since the hours are so far ahead in Ethiopia trying to take care of matters.
We are praying for a miracle!!!! Waiting another 2-4 weeks would break our heart and be so hard physically and emotionally on all involved, particularly our tiny babies. Join us in prayer for a quick safe journey.

A Shrine

So we have officially become THOSE PARENTS!!! With albums, huge prints and too many frames to count..we have covered our home with our precious angels! We are so excited to bring them home..the count down continues...2 weeks!!!

September 1st

This month, literally in September the boys will be ours for life!!!

Quick update...because of your prayers we were able to find a vessel to take formula to our little Taft! Our attorney is actually visiting the United States from Ethiopia while the courts are closed. He offered to carry back loads of it and take it straight to the orphanage for us! Praise God!!! Thank you for all your help and conacts to help us feed our little man!

Just 23 more school days....WOOHOO!!!! Oh we forgot to mention, yes I am back at school. My campus hired me back until we leave for Ethiopia and I can officially be a stay at home mom. I am officially a Mentor Teacher, responsible for teaching newcomer teachers the ropes of teaching, lesson prep, intruction, active parcipation, etc. So for a few weeks longer I am teaching teachers how to be teachers. The position is not just an honor and flattering, but thankfully makes the days fly by, meaning we are that much closer to travel dates!!!