"He Repeats Any Words He Hears"

We just got an update on our Tariku. I must admit it was a superb feeling even hearing that about him. That he speaks well in his language and is learning Amharic (the national Ethiopian language) daily, as shown in the title, he repeats any words he hears. We also got a chest x-ray (which looked perfect) and I count that as a picture. It looks precious even in his chest x-rays! It kind of reminded me of an ultrasound of our babes, accept this time there was a personality report with it!

So it's been a good week. Yesterday we got our Hep B shot, we'll have to get 2 others for the series. We will be scheduling our other vaccinations today so that when they say, "You can go pick up your son." We can say, "On our way"! I also talked to a few travel agents yesterday about our possible travel time (February-March). Both companies said this was the best time of year to travel as it's the cheapest and easiest to get flights. It sounds like we'll leave from Moline, IL, stop in Chicago, IL, head to Washington, D.C., 8 hours to Rome where we don't get off the plane but they refuel and clean for 45 minutes then we head on to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for another 8 hours (I might have that wrong but it's close). Anyhow, it doesn't sound too bad considering I've been to Australia where it was about 21 hours. Either way, going there we will be embarking to pick up our son and on the way back we will have him and be on our way to settling in as a family of 5. It will be a great trip indeed!

We also had the guys who are going to renovate the upstairs come twice this week. We should be getting the layout today. It sounds like they will have it done in 8 weeks so long as we keep getting timely acceptance from the good folks at the Y. It was SOOO nice hearing them talk about it all. He said once we give them the okay to go they would start demo and within 2 weeks would see drywall being hung and the new layout would be obvious. What did I say to that? "Go ahead!" The only problem is that we will have to move out of the upstairs altogether. Right now that houses our master BR, BA and living room. Doesn't sound like much but we've crammed A LOT of furniture in that part. It shall be interesting to see us all downstairs!

That also means I couldn't decorate for Christmas like I usually do. Truth be told I'm typically a minimalist as far as decorating goes...that is, until it comes to Christmas. Then minimal is no longer in my vocabulary and "Santas every time I turn around" is how I would explain my decor. Thus, I was forced to decorate the kitchen and that's about it. It still looks great if you ask me.

Better be off to train my favorite client! Happy Friday!