Four days and counting

I have about 10 things I should be doing right now (that includes sleeping). But, this is more fun than mopping or sewing or folding some more clothes!

On Saturday, ladies from our church hosted a shower for our family. It was an astounding blessing; and as hard as it may be to believe, I was speechless! We received many gifts for our kiddos and donations for the orphanages in Ethiopia. I was so busy that I only managed to snap one photo. It is a doosey, Ella squinting at me from the deck while munching on a chicken nugget. It screams "Baby Shower!" I will have to rely on the responsible ladies who were taking photos to share them with me (get the hint?).

Mentioning photos makes me cringe because it reminds me that I have a camera issue. Really a memory stick problem. Not necessarily something you want to deal with THREE days before you leave the country to meet your children for the first time. Especially when the new memory stick you bought came from a company who "is on holiday until April 28th". No store, company, or manufacturer really buys my pleading that "I'm leaving for AFRICA in THREE days!" They are probably thinking I deserve to run out of memory space since I've waited so long to handle this. They would be wrong for thinking that, I started dealing with this weeks ago. None of my solutions have worked. All have ended in a "C:13:01 format error". Nice. My mother in law is going to give us a second digital camera as backup.

We had our travel conference call this afternoon. It, like all travel preparations, was surreal. I felt like I needed to pinch myself. After waiting for what seemed like so long, we are finally really going to Ethiopia to bring home our kids!

Though I may sound scatterbrained; I think I have a handle on the situation. Onesies are folded, diapers, formula, gifts, books, medicines, donations (five more pages of items)...are packed, car seats are installed in the huge vehicle, children are excited about visiting Grandparents, lists are checked, documents are copied...in triplicate, and our tickets are here. All that is left (as Seth would say) is to "throw our clothes in a bag and leave". I may have to recheck the list a few more times, just in case. I feel some running around like a chicken-missing-its-head coming on...