Almost Home....

It seems like the longest week of our lives just waiting for Dave and the kids to come home!!  I don't know if it is the stress or anticipation, but it feels like a never ending week!  2 and a half more days and they will be home! 

Dave and the kids are doing very well.  They weren't able to do the lake trip-it was too cold.  Instead Dave spent the day with all of the kids in the orphanage-playing soccer and just having fun!  It has been 2 years since Dave was there so lots has changed and the children have all grown!  He said Danny was physically attached to him (literally on his back) the whole day and was ready to go!  He will fit right in with Alex!  Yordanos was a little more reserved, but is warming up very quickly!  Kind of like Joseph! 

Tomorrow is their embassy appointment and then they head home Friday evening.  They fly to Dubai and then head to JFK.  They have a few hour layover in JFK on Saturday morning and how cool-my sister is planning to meet them there!!  Then my parents and the boys and I will meet them at the airport on Saturday afternoon!  I can't wait to see the boys and Danny and Yordanos' faces when they meet!!  I keep picturing it in my head-can't believe it will be real on Saturday!

Here are a few pics that Dave sent-Danny is so cute with his missing teeth!  Yordanos is gorgeous!!!

More later...

Love,
The Slovers

6 More Days.....

6 More Days until they are home!!!!  I think it hit me today when I spoke to Dave this morning and he was actually in Ethiopia!  Made it all so real!  It is so cool-we have been able to speak through skype!  He is doing well-safe and sound.  He went shopping today for all of the stuff that we wanted from Ethiopia!  I laughed-he said Ayele (our driver in Ethiopia)  said I shop better and can spend money much better than Dave!  SO true...Ayele and I were always shopping when I was in Ethiopia!  Hopefully tomorrow he will meet with Hope staff and get the paperwork done and also meet with the Dr. from the orphanage.  He is planning to get the kids on Tuesday-can't wait to hear all about it!!!

The boys are doing great-both missing dad, but they are good.  Joseph spent the weekend with my dad and Alex and I ran around and did lots of stuff!  We all spent the day today at the beach-nice end to the weekend! 

More later...

The Slover Family

On his Way....

It's still a little surreal and sometimes we have to pinch ourselves to make sure it is real-but yes Dave left yesterday (Friday) for Ethiopia to get Danny and Yordanos!! He is in flight as I write this-he will arrive in Dubai this morning (night there-about an 8 hour time difference) and stay overnight in a hotel and then leave in the morning (our night) for Ethiopia. Travel is a bear-the flight is about 14 hours to Dubai and 4 hours to Ethiopia-but it is all worth it!!

Along with all of the required paperwork and embassy visit, he has a lot planned while in Ethiopia. He is taking all of the kids from Bethel Orphanage (about 17 kids) on a Lake trip-should be a blast for all of them! He is also going to be able to meet with Alex and Joseph's family as well as Danny and Yordanos' families so it will be such an amazing experience! This will probably be our last trip to Ethiopia for a while so we made a LONG list of stuff to bring home-can't wait for Ethiopian coffee and spices!! Luckily, we have two wonderful gentlemen who we keep in close contact with in Ethiopia who will be joining him and helping him out a lot on the trip so he won't be solo all the time!

The boys are doing well-of course they miss their dad, but they are really excited about Yordanos and Danny coming! They are counting down the days!!

Please keep Dave and the kids in your thoughts and prayers! Hopefully I can give some updates on his trip-communication is not always easy there and they are entering rainy season so all depends on power and Internet outages!!

Here are a few recent pics of the boys!  I had to post the one with Alex in a tie-he wanted to dress just like his dad one day-didn't last long-he took the tie and shirt off before he even got to school! 
 
The Slover Family...of 6!!
 

Almost Home....

We are getting closer-Dave is scheduled to leave on April 30th to travel to Ethiopia to pick up Danny and Yordanos!!!  We are all so excited-they boys are making plans for their new brother and sister.  Alex even wants to share his clothes with Danny-not so much Yordanos yet!  Every day-it becomes more of a reality that we will soon have four beautiful chldren and be a family of 6!  Wow....They will all return to USA on Saturday, May 8th-the day before Mother's Day!  I can't believe we will actually have all of our children on Mother's Day-how special! We are truly blessed!

Our plan (at least for now) is for us both together to take off a week with the kids-doctors, fun, etc...and then I will take off until the end of the school year.  It really is too late to officially start them in school this year, but we will spend some time socializing and acclamaiting and visit school a few times.  A dear friend who has been right along side of me through this adoption process just returned from Ethiopia with her two children (they are at the same orphanage as our kids) and they have had a wonderful transition-very happy!  Hopefully we will have the same and the boys will be a HUGE help with the kids.  What a godsend-who better to help than the boys-who have already been through this and can speak their langauge.  She also sent mesome pictures of the kids-hey have grown so much!  Danny has gotten taller and Yordanos is a young lady now.  We haven't seen a picture of them since August of last year-way too long.  SO precious!

The next 2 weeks will be busy with planning, preparing and packing-so much to do-so little time.  Hopefully my next post will be an update on how Dave and the kids are doing in Ethiopia-so stay tuned!

Here are a few pics too!

Love,
The Slover Family of 6!!

Slover Family of Six....

The day has finally come for us....after 2 years, 3 months and 6 days we finally passed court for Danny and Yordanos.  We are just so elated that they are officially our chilren!  It couldn't have happened on a better day-also Alex's birthday!  It has been such a long journey for us all with so many ups and downs, we are just so glad this part is over and we can't wait to bring them home into our family.  The boys are extremely excited about their new brother and sister and are already making plans for them.  No travel dates yet-we expect to travel in 5-7 weeks hopefully.  Dave will go to Ethiopia this time to pick up the kids, while I stay home with the boys.  As much as I'd love to go (and yes it is killing me not to go)-It's still to early to leave the boys or to bring them back to Ethiopia.  They have made so much progress and are really doing wonderful it has just been an amazing transition the past 3 months.  God works in amazing ways and always has a plan-I think we needed this transition and healing time with the boys before we could bring Danny and Yordanos home. I guess this was always the plan.   We always kept faith and knew in our hearts it would happen.

I can finally post some pictures of Danny and Yordanos YAY!!!  Here are few of the boys also and I will try to update this weekend more on the boys, who are officially Slovers now also-their adoption was finalized on 2/16/10!  I am going to try and be a better blogger-but with a family of 6 it may not happen!!

Merry Christmas!!

I haven't posted much lately, but I wanted to post a few pics of the boys before our trip to NY!  One more day until Christmas...what an exciting year it has been for us-full of surprises and wonderful new experiences!!  The holidays are so different with kids-we thought it was a busy, crazy time before kids-we had no idea!!   The boys had no idea who Santa was so that was pretty funny explaining.  Last night we did this portable north pole experience on-line where you personalize a message from Santa to your child (ww.portablenorthpole.tv/home)-Alex loved it-Joseph kind of smirked and laughed-but itwas too cute watching them take it all in!  All night-Alex talked about Santa's majic eye- too funny!  It really has been such an amazing experience to watch this through their eyes.  We feel it is important to be careful not to let them ge too caught up in the Christmas craze (it's pretty easy o get caught up in it) so we did a few things to make sure they know what Christmas is really all about and that they never forget where they came from.

We are all vey excited about our trip to NY-we fly out Christmas day at 4:30 and then we rented a car and we are driving back home right before New Years. We plan to stop in Wash. DC where the largest Ehiopian population in USA is and do some shopping and go to a restaurant. We are almost out of berbere (their spice) so we MUST get some more. I am learning to cook Ethiopian food and te boys tell me I am pretty good-for those who know Ethiopian dishes-I made doro wat this week-took 4 hours and my house will never smell the same, but they really apreciated it! 

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Enjoy the holidays with your family and friends.  We are thankful for so many things thisholiday season, but especially that we get to be parents to Joseph & Alex! Thy have learned so much in the past 3 months it has truly been an amazing experience to be their parents!

We are blessed!

I haven't been too good about blogging lately so here is a quick update.  Thanksgiving was great!  We went to my brother and sister in laws house and they had a guest from Ethiopia.  He and his wife were so nice and they made Ethiopian food and brought it for the boys-injera and doro wat!  They were so excited it was so fun to watch them enjoy this meal!  This was a true treat for them!  They loved speaking Amharic to him and I think it was comforting being around someone from their country!  Truly a blessing for the boys!

It was so nice having some time off from work and school-we took the boys on their first camping trip!  We take our boat to an island in the intercoastal and camp there.  Besides the mosquito bites-the boys had so much fun! We went with another family-the kids played well together-they had a blast fishing, swimming, playing, etc...  Joseph finally got his cast off so he enjoyed being able to do all these things too!  I learned a lot about camping with kids (all new to us!!)-bring LOTS of clothes-you never seem to have enough!  It was pretty cold too (for Florida)!  We can't wait to do it again!!

We have some good news on Danny and Yordanos-we are waiting for a court date for Danny-should have it in a week or two and Yordanos' paperwork is just about done an then they will file for a court date for her-probably next week!  In 2 days-it will be 2 years we have been waiting-I can't believe it has been that long.  We just want to have them home with us and hopefully it won't be much longer now! 

We truly are blessed....here are a few pics!

 

2 months in the Country!!!!

Wow-I can't believe it-yesterday was 2 months that the boys have been in America-feels like much longer!!! They have done so much and learned and grown so much too!  Where does the time go??  It really makes you keep things into perspective when you think-gosh it has ONLY been 2 months-they have come so far!  Sometimes our expectations are so high that we forget these little guys (not so little anymore!!) were taken away from everything they'd ever known-food, culture, people,country, etc... and placed with a family they barely knew.  They really are doing great considering all of these factors! 

Last weekend we took them to Orlando to an Ethiopian restaurant-it was amazing!!  Great food and the nicest owners-they spent time with the boys speaking Amharic-the boys really enjoyed it!   The boys said it was GREAT injera-that is a HUGE compliment!!! We even brought some home and the owner told us we can freeze it-we did and it wasn't bad a few days later!  The boys really wanted these wrist and headbands with the Etiopian colors-I will post a  picture-it is really cute!  I love it how they are so in tune with their culture-we hope they never forget where they came from and always have a piece of Ethiopia in their heart.  After lunch, we took the miniature golfing and then we went to a gathering of families who are in the process or who have adopted from Ethiopia-that was nice to meet different people.  Most of the kids were younger, but the boys enjoyed it!  Hopefully we can find a few kids from Ethiopia who are in their age range-still searching!!!

This week we baked cookies-that was a riot!  We ate more of the batter than we had for cookies-just kidding-but they really enjoyed it!  Alex couldn't believe how the cookies got so BIG in the oven!  It is so much fun watching all of thee "FIRSTS" through their eyes!  They really want to see snow so we are contemplating going up to NY after Christmas.  Then we could also see our family and they can all spent time with them!  We'll see-hopefully it will all work out.  I get tired just thinking about a trip like that-but I know it will be totally worth it when we are there! 

Tonight I took Alex to "Movies in the Park"-a huge screen outside where all the kids and parents watched Monsters and Aliens!  The weather was perfect-just needed a little blanket (yes-even in Florida!!)!  It was the first time our town did it-huge success and a lot of fun for the kid!  Joseph didn't want to go so he went with dad to baseball!    Sometimes it is good for the kids to get quality time alone with each parent-we are learning that quickly!  Life is good.....

Hoping to hear good news on Danny and Yordanos soon-Danny's paperwork is all done and Yordanos is close if not already done.  Just waiting for them to be filed for a new court date-it is 2 years this month we have been witing for them to come home.  Makes me sad...but we will wait as long as it takes-they are our kids. 

Here are a few pics of the boys-more later!  Take a look at th last picture of Alex on his "man-made contraption"!! 

Quick Update

I can't believe it has been 2 weeks since I posted!  Everyone has been asking "How was Halloween for the boys?"  We did a lot of prepping ahead about Haloween-books, pics, internet, etc... so they were pretty prepared!  Joseph dressed up as a vampire-he is going through this vampire stage right now-wants to watch vampire movies and find out abut them so the costume was very fitting.  Alex was a storm trooper-we started out with the costume and that didn't last very long-I think he trick or treated in is clothes, face make-up and of course all of the guns and swords!! We went trick or treating in a friends neighborhood and there were TONS of kids and and stuff going on so they got a good taste of Haloween!  Alex loved going to the houses, Joseph got a little bored-but he's 14-not too surprising!  Alex sorted out his candy in catgories-right up his alley as a kid who likes everything to have a spot/place.  Joseph wanted to send his candy to Ethioia to his friend in the Faith/Hope orphanage-so sweet!   The boys are very motivated by money so we decided ahead of time that we would participate in our dentist's program where they pay you $1.00 for every pound of candy and then tey send it to the soldiers.  We went on Sunday and turned in candy-The boys really ejoyed this and didn't complain at all.  They also enjoyed carving jack-o-lanterns-didn't like the pumpkin seeds too much or the pumpkin smell! 

Overall, things are going very well.  School is great-they are learning so much. Joseph gets his cast off in2 weeks-YAY!!  They can swim again and ride bikes-Woo Hoo!!!  Alex is doing a lot better with following directions and boundaries-but he is definitely a give him an inch and he wants a foot kid!! 

We are heading to Orlando today to go to an Ethiopian restaurant and to a gathering of families who adopted children from Ethiopia!  Should be a blast-we are all looking forward to it!!  Can't wait to see them interact with ther children from Ethiopia!!  They both stll speak Amharic all the time so we are so happy about that-we want them to keep their langauge!  Will post about it this eek-at least try to!

Eoy the pics!!  More later....