love so strong and true

dear Caleb, how I love you!

my precious baby

I feel long overdue in posting, but MY GOODNESS, what a whirlwind the past week has been.  We’ve been stateside 4 days and I’m just now starting to feel human again.  My brain and my heart are so full I feel as if they are going to burst at any moment.  I was putting away my passport today and noticed that we entered Ethiopia on January 25th and departed on January 28th.  Whew!

The long and short of it is that last Saturday morning Mom, Meredith and I left my house in Auburn, drove to Atlanta and boarded the first leg of our journey to Addis Abba, Ethiopia.  32 hours, 7923 miles, and many, many prayers later, we arrived at the Ethiopia Guest House at 2 a.m. Monday morning.  A mere 9 hours later, I found myself on a van on my way to meet my son for the very first time.  It could not have gone better.

After our first meeting we spent a few precious days getting to know each other at the Ethiopia Guest Home, we then boarded our flight for home. I’ll try to fill in more of the details later, but for now I just want to revel in our first few days as a new family.

On that note, I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite Caleb pics so far.  I’m sure there will be more where these came from.

See you in a few HOURS buddy!!!

The recycling will be picked up again

The work week will begin anew

The milk will probably need to be replaced

The weather in Auburn will be beautiful and in the mid-60’s

Mom, Meredith, and I will be in Addis Abba, Ethiopia

I WILL MEET MY SON FOR THE FIRST TIME

I truly can’t wait to meet you buddy.
Your momma will be here soon.

So I had a little surprise waiting for me when I got home from the holidays . . .

Question: What’s worse than having rats in your house?

Answer: Smelling dead ones in your air vents.

In case you’re curious, YES, I am totally grossed out and YES, I have lysol-d my house from top to bottom, and YES the exterminator did come and spray the special deodorizer spray (FINALLY), and YES, he said it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Bummer.

Good thing this happened now instead of 2 weeks from now when I HAVE A BABY!!!!!

So I guess in blogland, everyone makes a big deal out of the changing of the year.  Best of lists, worst of lists, lists of memorable moments, yada-yada-yada.  We’ll if you know me, and quite a few of you actually do know me in ‘real life’, you’d know that I am a list maker.  To-do lists most specifically.  They help me stay focused.  Keep my ‘eye on the ball’ so to speak.  So in light of the new year and to appease the blogosphere, here are a few of my favorites from,

“Oh Nine baby, OH NINE!”

Good Reads:

Good Watch:

Good Great Way to Spend a Tuesday Night:

Random Fun Things that Happened in Alabama in 2009:

POTLUCKS

Roots, Rock, Reggae @ Fred’s Feed & Seed

Bella’s Birthday at Hickory Dickory Park

Eating One’s Way Through The Season (HOORAY for CSA’s)

Many, many more things happened that were fun and delicious and joyful and sad and perfect and imperfect and hilarious and miraculous in 2009. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year, it’s that sometimes, it’s best to keep the memories closer to heart. Some stories are best between friends.  Some times the best is yet to come.

Here’s hoping 2010!

Let’s do this!

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