Edmonton Road Trip - part 2

June 22-26, 09

Our road trip to Edmonton was wonderful. We were able to reconnect with old friends and meet some new ones. Our girls were able to visit children that they had known in the transition house. Raine was excited to see Ruthie (Kenean), Shay (Nardos), and Kai (Natnael). Ruthie was told that they would be seeing our children but I don’t think it really sunk in who they would be seeing, because when they walked in the door, Ruthie walked right past Raine.

Raine said, “I know you. You’re Kenean.” And it took Ruthie a minute to connect Raine’s face with the girl, Mesay, that she knew in Ethiopia!

Savannah, Raine, Maya

Kai, Shay, Briton, Denaye

Cooper and Maya

New Friends

We also made some new friends with Maya and Denaye, who also came from Ethiopia, plus their mum Debbie and their brother, Sam. It was wonderful for our girls to see other kids that have come to live here from their old country.

We only had about 2 hours with Tracy's family, because they had company at home and had to leave early, and that was too bad because we mums were having a wonderful conversation, and we would have loved to have visited longer. As it was, it didn't take long for Ruthie, Shay and Nardos to warm up to the girls and reconnect with them. Soon they were old friends.

Raine, Shay, Kai, Ruthie, Savannah

It is so sad that they have moved to Ontario. Good for them, but sad for us, as I was hoping to keep that connection alive for our kids. Hopefully one day we will get to Ontario and the children can meet up again. Who knows!

And of course, we mums had plenty to discuss with comparing the ages of our children: the ones we had received on paper and the ones we figured our children might be. It is really a strange phenomenon in the adoption world to not know the true ages of your children. I am guessing that in most adoptions from most countries the children are given accurate birthdates, but through the Ethiopian adoptions I have met, the majority of them have no real clue as to how old their children are. The ones that are fortunate are the ones that brought home babies that were referred within weeks of birth, so they can have a pretty for sure idea of how old their child is.

Sharla, Tracy, Debbie, Justine

What was very helpful to me was to meet two mums with girls who were supposed to be *older* than my four year old, but yet they were shorter!! *smile* More about that and ages in another post.

Savannah and Denaye

Our boys had lots of fun with sleeping on the trampoline one night, and crashing on the basement floor the other nights.

I am very impressed with Sharla’s hospitality considering I now know how stressed she was about her upcoming trip to Ethiopia that was *supposed* to happen in another three months. Ironically, it happened not in three months as she expected, but in one month when our agency collapsed in bankruptcy!

Now that I have a trailer I hope to haul it to Sharla’s next spring when 13 of our 15 children can get together for another yearly trip. And this time Sharla will have her two new Ethiopian children for our kids to connect with.

Driving Home

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