Court, Shopping and Lunch... (July 12)

Tuesday July 12, 2011 (Court Day)

8:30a.m.
Family will be picket up by Dan and head to the court directly.

After the court, head for lunch at Mekush, an italian restaurant and then shopping. This is the only shopping trip we can arrange for you, please plan making all of your purchases. After shopping you will be brought back to your hotel.

2:00 p.m. After rest come to HH for brief visit with your kids.

4:00 p.m. Be brough back to your hotel by Dan for the DAY.

We got an earlier start this morning for sure... got our breakfast buffet and coffee and before we knew it Dan had arrived to take us all to court.  We all dressed up REALLY nice, skirts, suits, etc... Everyone looked awesome! :) (But, if I was to re-dress for this day - I don't think I would have worn a skirt... We did soooooo much running around and it would have been nice to feel a little more comfortable.)

We drove to the courthouse - it was a ways away.  Once we got there we went into a BIG OPEN room full of LOTS of people.  You could pick out the ones waiting to go to court about their adoption and you could also see the ones there, with potential witnesses relinquishing their children.  

It was a very strange feeling... 

I was SO ready to get in there and see the judge and hear a Major MIRACLE that our MOWA letter was there... After waiting for about an hour, our three families got called in... At first glance around the room there were folders and paper EVERYWHERE! You couldn't even see out of one window because it was stacked so high with folders and papers.  I thought to myself, 'how in the world do they possibly keep all of this stuff straight?' ...then I took a look at our judge. She looked like she was 16, she didn't have a mallet or anything (like you would expect an American Judge to have)...  instead she was wearing a Smirnoff T- Shirt (Yep, a Vodka T-Shirt - OH MY!) and was completely and totally laid back in her chair. It certainly wasn't what I had expected.

She asked ALL families at the same time:

Do we have other children?

Biological or adopted?

Do they know about this adoption?

Are they okay with it?

Are we prepared with issues like the color of their skin?

Have you experienced any Ethiopian culture?

Have you seen your children?

Do you want to proceed?

All of us answered YES to everything except that we do not have adopted children at home.

....That's when she told us ALL of our paperwork is in order and the only thing we are waiting for is.....   yep, she broke the bummer news that none of us had a MOWA letter.  That they are behind and we should expect to see one in about 20 working days.  Oh I AM PRAYING those days speeeeeeeeeeeed by and we have a court decree to pass on to the U.S. Embassy ASAP!  

After she said those final words - we all kind of looked at each other, like is that it?? (...maybe hoping she would surprise us and pull 3 MOWA letters off her desk full of crazzzzzzzzzy paper clutter) :)

...a little disappointed we all left the courthouse, snapped a few pictures outside, talked to a little shoe shine boy and gave him some birr... and headed out to do some speed shopping... On the way to where we would be shopping we actually passed the MOWA office!!! Oooooooh it would have been SO AWESOME if we could have just stopped in  and asked real nicely if they could write up, or locate those letters... we could even type it out for them and hand deliver it - where ever it needed to go! :) (okay, maybe that wouldn't have been too well received - but I have to say the thoughts went through my head as we passed MOWA! :))

Dan dropped us off right in front of a store I think he wanted us to do most of our shopping there, maybe they have a little agreement or something... we noticed the prices were much higher... we went next door and Carrie and I bought a beautiful coffee set for like 150 birr... LOVED IT! We also picked up a little wooden stool and a really cool ball for little M.  We got some beautiful crosses, Erik got a knife, and I got a few scarfs and purses for gifts and a pretty silver necklace for me... It was FUN... I wish we would have had more time... I'm kind of a pokey shopper! :)

 Our next stop was LUNCH! MMMM MMMM! We were hungry! We stopped at Makush Itialian Restaurant.  The art was BEAUTIFUL there - I saw a LOT of paintings I would have LOVED to have purchased... the food was amazing and the company ROCKED!!! LOVE these families... and Dan was sweet too! :)  We got ready to leave and had to hold up a tad since Dan locked his keys in the van  :) - He made a call to Wass and he was on his way to the rescue to open up the van so we could head to HH to see our little girl... :)

OUR LITTLE BIRTHDAY GIRL....

♥ Couldn't wait to celebrate her 1st BIRTHDAY with her... ♥

 (A beautiful view on our way to HH)