I was excited to hear about two families currently in Ethiopia who are blogging their trips. The Henn family is there adopting two little boys, and the Waal family is adopting a pair of girls. They arrived in Addis on the same flight, have already each picked up their children, and will be heading back home soon.

The Waal family has already shared lots of detail about their experience. They took a couple of fun pictures at the airport in Addis that brought back fond memories. I've mostly seen that airport at night, so it was different to see it in daylight.

An especially sweet post on the Waal blog is this letter to his girls, written by the new dad. Also don't miss the video of 6'4" Mr. Waal, sitting in an airplane seat on Ethiopian airlines, with his knees crammed into the seat in front of him. Fun times. My 6'1" hubby is hoping that Lufthansa will be a tad more generous with their leg room.

Reading blogs like these will give you more of an idea of the types of things you might experience when it is your turn to travel. Speaking of waiting for your turn to travel, here at the Owlhaven, we are counting down the days until we will be blogging from Addis ourselves. We've had some second-guessing and uncertainty in scheduling tickets. Our wonderful travel agent, Susan Parr, has looked up at least five different itineraries now, without murmuring once. But our tickets are now on the way to our home right now. If all goes well, we should be a family of 12 by mid-August.

I alternate between feeling like that is way too far away, and then looking over my lists and wondering how I'm going to get everything done before we leave. I currently have an Everest's worth of luggage in the corner of my bedroom, making it hazardous to stumble to the bathroom in the dark.

In the next week or so, I'll be sharing some of my to-do and packing lists, in hopes that it might help other travelers think through their own lists. Stay tuned for all the details!!

Links to previous blogs from Addis

December, 2006
February, 2007
June, 2007