Itinerary

We have had several people ask us what our trip is going to look like so we thought it would be helpful to post our itinerary for you. Here goes:

Friday 17 July 09: We are flying out of Cincinnati. We fly to New York and will have an overnight flight to Dubai. Thirteen hours. Oy.

Saturday 18 July 09: We arrive in Dubai at 7pm local time and will spend the night at a hotel. Thanks, Emirates!

Sunday 19 July 09: Depart Dubai in the morning and arrive in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia around noon. We will go to our hotel and have the rest of the day to get acclimated.

Monday 20 July 09: We will have a huge paperwork meeting with all the other America World families in country preparing for our Embassy appointments later in the week. That afternoon we get to meet Mathios!!! We'll spend a few hours with him at the Transition Home and that night will have a special Ethiopian meal with all our travelling families.

Tuesday 21 July 09: We will have free time in the morning and that afternoon will get to go pick up Mathios for good! We'll spend several hours at the Transition Home, taking photos for a few other waiting families and loving on their kids and will have a traditional coffee ceremony with the nannies. Then back to our hotel for the evening.

Wednesday 22 July 09: We have a free morning before heading to the Embassy that afternoon. Each family gets called in one-by-one to be interviewed and I think having a last name that starts with Z will once again not be helpful. Could be a long afternoon for all of us!

Thursday 23 July 09: We have the opportunity to go visit two of the orphanages that America World works with in the city. We aren't sure what we will do yet, it depends on how Mathios is doing, but we hope to visit at least one of them. And word is that there is some sort of Guys Night planned for this evening!

Friday 24 July 09: We don't know exactly what is planned for Friday, but again, we can choose to do whatever we want. We might try to see some sites if we have the time, but we'll just have to be flexible. We depart Addis at 8pm headed back to Dubai.

Saturday 25 July 09: We'll start our day in Dubai and too many hours later will land in Cincinnati at 4pm. Home again, home again, jiggety jig! Hopefully we will be united as a family of four (and joined by several other family members and friends) by 6:30pm!

That's a lot going on for 8 days! It's going to be an amazing, life-changing trip! Pray for us!