Introducing - Aliyah Meseret

It's hard to believe that we've already been to Ethiopia and back! It was a whirlwind trip but such an amazing experience. We arrived on Saturday morning and got to meet Meseret on Saturday afternoon. We were the only family to arrive Sat morning so we got to spend time with her alone which was great. She was very cautious and withdrawn but after a few hours she relaxed a little.

Sunday was more time visiting and then on Monday we went to court and after the briefest meeting with the judge, the judge announced, "she's yours!" We then spent the rest of the day with Mesi, as the staff at the orphanage calls her, and she even got to come stay the night with us at our guest house. I'm so glad we got that extra time with her because when she was finally alone with just us was when she really started to interact with us and we got to see glimpses of her personality. We didn't think she would get to stay with us so we didn't really have any toys but we improvised with a cribbage board and ipod. We were amazed how quickly she figured out the ipod, she seems to really like music.

We learned so much about our baby girl which is going to be really useful in helping us prepare for our second trip. I have a lot of pictures of Ethiopia which I'll share in another post and also more about our daughter (hehe, our daughter :) and what we plan on doing to help her transition home.

Thank you EVERYONE for all of the good wishes and kind notes. It means so much to us to have your support on this journey!