Pike Place Market

I'm headed off to Ethiopia in a few days, so we're spending this Labor Day Weekend with friends and family.
Today we went to Pike Place market. We pretty much ate our way through the market (as usual) We came home with no pretty flowers or flying fish, but full bellies and stiff legs.

We ate lunch at Pike Place Brewery (is that the name of it?) Anyhow, our verdict is great beer, crummy food, even Destiny wanted to know why they only put pickles on the burger and how mayo became "secret sauce." We stopped in the morning for a meat-pie at the Pirosky shop--Destiny was thrilled to have eaten at the same establishment that Anthony Bordain (of the Food Network) has. One of her favorite shows.

We had a very good time. We also visited the piers and waterfront (LOTS of weddings today). I don't recall how it came up but somehow we were discussing phoning my mom. Rob said "I would like my mother-in-law's phone number."

Destiny said "you have a mother in law?" We explained that yes, Grandma Kelly (my mom) is dad's Mother-in-law.

Destiny looked very worried and concerned and said: "Does she know?"

On the way home, we took the long way across the 520 floating bridge and we were discussing the UW interview of Bill Gates that we had seen last night (relevant also because of the Gates' Foundation's humanitarian work in Ethiopia). I pointed out to Desitny Bill Gates' home--and she said "when I grow up, I'd like to be Bill Gates, except not Bill, I'd like to be Destiny Gates."

She cracks me up.

What to pack?

I've totally been stewing on what to Pack for Ethiopia.

For those of you who know me well, especialy if you've known me the last ten years, I've packed on a few pounds. I was loosing them very well with hockey last year, but this adoption anxiety has given me a bad case of the munchies (I'm a terrible nervous eater) and I've gained some back.

I know this is temporary--I've lost it before and I'll loose it again, so I've not invested in a whole lot of big clothes. I've got a few standby functional outfits, but I don't like how anything fits. I can usually make things far more flattering by wearing cropped pants, above the knee skirts, and um.. "sculped" blouses.

However, I'm about to spend 21 days in a Muslim/Orthodox country, and folks, it just isn't going to be forgiving in the same way it is here, and baring even knees may be positively scandalous.

I'm trying to be respetful of other cultures, and my fashion sense may just have to be sacrificed. I love the way African women dress. The layers, beautiful colors and patterns, and scarves tight around their faces. These outfits are terribly flattering and the women are completely gorgeous.



Inspired, I went shopping, and tried on several long lovely skirts...and discovered that I looked like the fairy Merriweather from "Sleeping Beauty" (you know, the bell-shaped one).

I was laying in bed last night trying to invision what to pack. I've got a few good pairs of jeans that are figure flattering and appropriately modest, and some nice sweaters, but I fear I'm going to be looking more like the second photo (Babushka) than the first.



Oh well, I still get to go and experience Africa, and bring home my lovely new daughter. So alas, das vedanya for now friends!

Countdown begins

Just one week to go. I leave for Ethiopia one week from today.

I'm so excited to meet our new daughter, and I feel so priveledged to have this opportunity (thanks Rob and Destiny) to go visit Ethiopia in person, to record some memories for Melat, and learn about the culture so we can preserve and celebrate it to the best of our abilities here at home.

Today we're rounding up the last few notaries, finding that #)*)%#)*% 2007 tax return (thanks to Megan at the agency who kept a copy for us, when ours was lost in a computer crash). Just in the middle of printing up the last of the douments we needed, the computer ran out of ink, so Rob's off to locate that at the store.

I'm starting to think about what clothes/shoes to pack, and what to do at the airport (I grabbed a couple favorite movies and tossed them in the bag). Well, here goes nothing, but all that I can think of through all of this is hugging our little girl for the very first time.

A Destiny funny story

A few months ago, Destiny was learning some songs in music class at school. She was singing one at TOP OF LUNGS in the car, but I couldn't quite make it out. It sounded like the Star Spangled Banner, but the words weren't quite right... I asked her "What are you singing?"

She said "It's a wedding song I learned at school." I said "A *wedding* song?"

She said "Yeah, it goes 'Who's the broad in white stars?"

What could I say to that?

For my friends with big families

I've been delighted/inspired by my friends with big families (I seem to know several these days). I'm awed, delighted and inspired by your organization and resourcefullness!! (And I don't mean that in the insensetive "wow you've got your hands full" kind of way...I think it's *great!*)

I saw this web site today, with T-shirts replying to the insensetive big family/adoptive family questions. These T-shirts have fun witty slogans like:
* "Yes they're all mine, and I have more at home"
* "No, they're not all mine, I round up the neighborhood kids and take them grocery shopping with me."
* "Yes, they're all mi-- WAIT, where did THAT one come from?"
and finally:
*"yes, I know what causes this, and I love doing it."

they all made me laugh. The whole collection is online at http://www.cafepress.com/evilgeniusstore/1225539

Just when I thought it couldn't get crazier!

Just when I thought summer couldn't get busier. Our church's annual summer "ice cream social" for the community was yesterday. We hadn't planned to go (I was going to do something ambitious, like double check to be sure all of my Ethiopia documents are accounted for), but the clown was unable to be there due to injury (Sorry Pastor J. Hope you're feeling better!). Rob thought it was a good idea for me to practice my balloon animals before Ethiopia, where I plan to make them at orphanages. I've only had one other practice session with an "audience" (other than that cat that is, who truly doesn't have an appreciation for ballons.

Sure enough, yours truly was the clown, clown suit, fuzzy wig (Hey Destiny, your mom can Rock a 'fro!) and a big orange hat...and yes, red shoes.

I packed a little bag full of baloons and made a BUNCH of little swords, animals and even a fish.

If I get a photo from anyone, I'll post it here. At one point I popped a balloon and a kid said "wow! What was that?" I said it was the sound of any political ambitions I've ever had... disappearing.

All told, it was a fun expereience, and after a few aspirin, I may consider doing it again next year (my hands are totally cramped!)

Busy summer!

It's been a crazy, crazy busy summer around here.

In an effort to keep Destiny academically stimulated, we enrolled her into three weeks of the Boeing Museum of Flight's "ACE CAMP" (Space camp without the trademark). It was a WONDERFUL experience, and I highly recommend it. She met the Blue Angels (pilots and planes), and a real 'live' astronaut. She learned about famous women in flight, and about the science of flight. She came home one day and told me about one plane at the museum named "Connor" that has a sonic boom, but she complained that she couldn't find the sconic boom. I told her she'd been on the Concorde, (not 'connor') and that it makes a sonic boom when it flies faster than the speed of sound. She said "oh! that's what they were talking about!"

We also put her in a scoccer camp run by a local church--also, a great experience. She loved playing soccer, and is a natural athlete, and it was fun to see the other kids from school mid-summer.

She also went on a backyard camping trip with the church, and a four-day camping trip in the mountians with friends. 20 kids, four moms, and one bathroom! I visited one night for dinner and it seemed like everyone (yes, even the moms) was having a delightful time! I'm told that Destiny was helpful and fun with the other kids. She certianly had fun--and came home caked in mud--it rained through much of their trip.

We've had the good fortune to make many friends near us with kids--who get along great with Destiny! One family she's spent practically every Friday with this summer. Another family, one with many children has several her age, and she spends time with them, or we borrow a kid or two for a little while to play. Destiny's "friendship skills" are light years ahead of two years ago.

She's developing into such a kind, sweet and thoughtful kid that I'm just glowing with pride. (Next on the "to develop" list are "responsibility" and "tidyness" but we can only do so much at once ) seriously though, she's doing great.

We'll have to get her into the doctor before school starts as we can tell her ADHD pills aren't the right dose (twitching, antsyness, impulsive behavior and mood swings) this happens every summer with her growth spurt. I wish I'd been tracking her height all summer. We started tracking it after she woke up one morning and announced that she couldn't button any of her pants (serioulsy, they were not tight the day before!).

She grew an inch and a half one week. It's shocking! She's nearly as tall as me, and she's not yet ten yaers old. I think she weighs about 90 pounds now. She's going to be a TALL kid!

She's looking forward to going back to school this year, but is understandbly upset about my traveling while she's at school.

While Destiny was camping, we took our cat (King Arthur) in for declawing. This is a procedure I'm genearlly against as I think it's painful to cats, and leaves them at risk if they get outside. We *love* Arthur. He has the most wonderful personality--wakes me up if I sleep past my alarm, plays Barbies with Destiny, loves to watch TV with us, or just be nearby when you're doing something, but our greatest complaint about our dear little cat is that he is completely viscious with his claws.

He treats Gashing people's ankles as a friendly hello. We've elected not to put the newer and smaller member of the family through all of this (knowing especially that the Ethiopian kids aren't usually familliar with housepets in the first place), so Arthur went in for "the other big snip" while the house was fairly quiet last week.

He's doing better than expected. He's not jumping up onto his favorite high places if the surface is hard (kitchen table, kitchen counter, windowsills, bookshelves, etc) which is actualy really good news as we've been trying to break him of that habit too. He's mobile enough, and doesn't seem to be in a great amount of pain (though he gets a painkiller every evening that seems to keep him pretty happy--he sits in a corner and sways for about 15 minutes and then he's happy as a clam).

He's not up to playing barbies yet, but I get the feeling that any day now he'll be back to his old self, and like I said, I wouldn't recommend this procedure for any cat, but if the choice is a claw-free cat, or sending the cat away for the safety of the family... well, then it seems like a good compromise, or at least the best one I could come up with.

That's my summer in a nutshell. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Next year, lets take a vacation.

Happy Birthday Melat!

Friday is Melat's third birthday. I'm sorry we can't be with her for her birthday, but we love her just the same.

Guess what I learned??!!

So, I've been trying to figure out what Melat's name means, and nobody has been able to tell me. One web site said it meant "Purple" but Ethiopians that I know thought that wasn't right. I also doubted the accuracy since the word "purple" wasn't spelled right. Everyone I've asked thought it was a word that related to royalty, but maybe not purple (a historic color associated with royalty throughout the world).

In preparation for my travels, I used amazon.com and ordered up a Amharic phrasebook and an Amharic-English dictionary, thinking it might be helpful during those awkward communication moments. Tonight, I sat down to look up "purple" in the English section and was surprised not to find it. In fact, I didn't find any of the colors, not even listed under color. (am I missing something?)

Amharic has a totally different alphabet. I sat down with my refernce books and discovered that there are 33 different letters, but that each one has a variation that looks a little different based on the five possible following vowel sounds. (I wish I'd paid more attention in English class when they taught about reading phonetic markigns).

After much flipping back and forth between two books, I finally found the right variaion of "M" with the proper next sound and voila, the whole phonetic pronounciation matched, so I think her name means "abundance" which is close to the "royalty" kind of association that my Ethiopian friends thought it might have.

This is such a cool language--I hope to learn a lot more about it during my travels. Sentence structure is a lot like French, Spanish and Portugese with the subject first--which is very nice for people to listen to a language they aren't used to--at least you can usually figure out what they're talking about--even if you don't know what they're saying about it.

Getting ready

I've got flights and hotels and baggage and Malaria pills, so it is all starting to seem more and more real.

I leave September 3rd and I'm scheduled to get back on the 26th.

It seems like a tough wait, but at the same time, the days fly by. I've been working a little extra trying to make sure there's no backlog of things to do or figure out, so that the office can run short a person for a few weeks without adding undo stress on anyone. I'm trying to spend a little extra time with Destiny knowing I'll not see much of her through September (and I'm missing her birthday). I'm trying to keep myself busy and get prepared, so the days go by with minimum distraction.

The days have been very hot lately, which means the nights are too warm for decent sleep too. I'm hoping to make up the sleep deficit some this weekend.

well, that's my update for now, pretty ordinary, just hurrying up to wait. :)

Take a few deep breaths and count to ten.

Ok, so I need to relax. My last post was tense. I've been tired and cranky--the hot weather here in the great PNW has been taking its toll on me and between the warm nights and the stress and excitement of preparing to bring our daughter home, I've been a little extra sleepy (read: cranky).

I need to remember to see the silver lining in this situation.
Not being able to travel Ethiopia with Melat will mean that I miss out on the experience of seeing her country with her, and being able to show her the photos when she grows up, but it does mean that I don't have to worry about the safety and abilty to travel with a toddler. I must remember, I'm new at this toddler thing, and I'm far from an experienced traveler.

Also, while the airfare and travel time are outrageous, I do have the ability to travel, and it has only been a few months since we started this adoption process. I know many others who are waiting years beyond referral in other countries, and here we are bringing our daughter home nine months after our adoption application.
Besides, I budgeted for travel, so while it's shocking, I am traveling farther than I have ever have before, and it's planned for, so I should be thanking my lucky stars!

I'll have time every day (I hope) to play with Melat where she's comfortable. We'll play games and make baloon animals (I'm taking 1200 baloons to Ethiopia to make animals for the kids), and visit with her, so she's not so frightened of me.

Also, there's five other families traveling at the same time that we are--and all are from Washington!! How cool is that? We'll have "traveling buddies!"

Well, that's what I've got for now,

Jessica

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The good:
Northwest Airlines/KLM offers and absolutely incredible airline fare for international adoptions. They offer I think 10% off a one way fare for the child, and 60% off the round-trip for the adults traveling, and give each passenger a free extra checked bag. They also waive any cancelation penalties and change fees, and since my return date is totally up in the air, this is a huge blessing!

The bad: Even with this excellent fare (which two travel agencies have assured me that they cannot beat), it's a two day flight by way of Amsterdam, Kartoum (for those of you who, like me don't know where this is--it's Sudan), and then finally to Addis Ababa, and the tickets for my friend and I and Melat's one-way were $7,900!
The ticketing agent suggested that I immediately open a airline mileage account for Melat because she said this is an awful lot of miles you don't want to loose out on.

The ugly: I recieved an email from our agency today about a meeting held with the agencies working in Ethiopia and the Ethioipan government held a meeting last week where it was decided that families would not be able to take custody of their new children until their date of departure. Which means no photos of her near important cultural landmarks, and most importantly, no time bonding with my child other than "visits" at her orphange! It also means that we may not truly take custody of her until September 25th, even though I'll meet her on the 4th or 5th. I blame this result on my praying for patience during this diffcult wait. I've been awarded an opportunity to practice patience.

Testing Video Upload

I'm hoping to post video to this site from Ethiopia, and I'm testing ways to do this. Here's a video of Destiny at the Beach on Memorial Day weekend. My first experience with my camera, so my cinematography isn't real good.

She Smiles!

A new photo, courtsey Carolyn--thank you Carolyn and Selah!!

A child's perspective on alternative lifestyles

We know and socialise with many families with two moms or two dads. We're open minded and believe that good parents are more important than what color, gender or ability/disability the parents are, however, we're also a Christian family and hold values that aren't consistent with that lifestyle--we just feel it isn't our place to judge.

We were at an adoption agency event on Friday night where Destiny was having a great time with the two-year old son of two mommies. We all had a lovely visit and the kids all played great and when we finally all went our separate ways all the kids were tuckered out and getting fussy.

On the way home, Destiny says "That's just weird having two moms." I could tell there was more on her mind than that, and I was literally holding my breath trying to figure out how to talk about this subject (without first having the opportunity to "conference" with my husband on exactly how much we think is appropriate to discuss). As I'm turning blue and about to say "well..." Destiny heaved a heavy sigh and said "it's got to be rough, I mean it's just a double-whammy to get two moms."

I laughed in great relief. Yes, it is a double-whammy, and a double-blessing to have two parents who care and are concerned, and may occasionally nag or boss, or otherwise "incumber" a child by way of caring and responsibility.

Our family

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

A New Photo!

By common demand, here's the newest photo we have of our daughter. This one is from May, but I've had a terrible time scanning it.

Ethiopia bound!

We now have our daughter's birth certificate, which means it's now OK to plan travel. I'm planning to arrive in Ethiopia by the 4th of September (which may mean I have to leave on the 2nd...), and will be there until around the 25th. Our appointment with the Embassay is the 8th.

A What?

Destiny remains extremely jealous that I'm going to Africa and she isn't. Today she sked me to bring her back something special, I explained that I have always intended to bring her back something cool.

She told me "I would like a short-necked Giraffe" (first, what kind of spoiled brat am I raising, second, what is a short necked giraffe? I decided to only ask the 2nd question, which is likely the answer to the first).

Destiny, why do you want a "short necked giraffe?"
So it doesn't break the plane mom!
No, you may not have a short necked--or any--giraffe.
Well, then can I have a rhinosaurus?
No!!! African animals are not pets, they are wild and belong in the wild and you're not even allowed to bring them back for that matter!
Well, you're bringing home Melat aren't you mom?
She's a child--it's different!
Well, she's a mammal, so why's it a good idea to bring her back, and not a short-necked-giraffe?
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SHORT NECKED GIRAFFE!!!

I seriously think she's looking for the legal loophole that will somehow get her out of this sibling thing. This kid needs a little sister. Maybe several....

Another Destiny funny

When Destiny first came home, we were always looking for family-friendly restraunt (you know, where you don't worry about the mess your child is making, but also a place without a mascot).

Destiny liked seafood, so we elected to go to a great place on the Seattle Waterfront called the Crab Pot. Their thing is essentially to do a crab boil. Parts of crab, whole shrimp (teeth, hair and eyeballs), corn, potatoes, clams, mussells, etc. Also, we weren't too worried about tables manners, because they serve this divine creation by dumping it on newsppaers on your table and handing you a wooden mallet (we knew she would love this!).

We didn't tell her what to expect, and when the waiter appeared and dumped this bucket of food on the table, Destiny was quite obviously shocked, and loudly replied "Doesn't he know I only eat blind shrimp? These have eyeballs!!"

The whole place was in stitches, and yes, she loved "whacking" her own seafood, but never could get over the shrimp with eyeballs--and would only eat it if someone took the shells off.

Amazing support

Thanks to my friends at ABC for having an amazing "toddler shower" for our family. You are incredible!! We're now outfitted with lots of supplies for our little one, and many people have sent gifts for the orphanages I'll be visiting. Some have even contributed to AHOPE for Children online (thanks so much!! this is a wonderful organization that helps kids!). Thanks also for everyone who's remembered the "big sister." She's going through a lot of sibling rivalry right now, and she's upset that she thinks I'm "abandoning" her while I leave for a couple of weeks to bring Melat home. (when I remind her of all the shots needed to go to Africa, she backs off her pleas to go with).

I've almost got one very large bag full of donations (I will find a way to get every donation to Ethiopia though!!) Lots of toothpaste and toothbrushes, hand sanitizer, kids underwear, and medical supplies, even clothing. Thank you so much everyone who's helping out. We're totally overwhelmed with support.