Rainbow

This is what we saw above the YMCA this evening after karate...the biggest rainbow we'd ever seen! So big that I had to take the picture in two parts and try to put them together. The picture doesn't really do it justice though, the colors were beautiful!

June 2, 2003

We didn't know it at the time, but June 2, 2003 was one of the biggest days of our lives. That was the day Merete was born (or at least the date we were given as his birth day). I was reading another adoptive family's blog and they were reminiscing about what they were doing the day their new child was born, I thought it might be fun to do the same. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of calendar events for that day, so we'll go with the week of his birth...

June 2003. Elijah was 2.5 and still at his first preschool. We were in the same jobs at UF, more or less. I was the Senior Behavior Analyst in Gainesville, Han was the same in Ocala. We had just bought our first house in early May. By early June we had just gotten back from ABA in Chicago. Elijah loved the city! ABA was in Chicago again this year, and he didn't remember much from his first trip. We stayed at the same hotel, right across the street from a great park. He had vague memories of riding a bus (which we had), but we hadn't done much sight seeing that year (unlike this year, when we tried to hit all the major kid-friendly museums).


Back at home Elijah enjoyed swimming in his new pool in the back yard. That pool quickly became dirty and I seem to recall a certain dog named Beau deflating it with a swift swipe of his oh so sharp nails. Whatever the reason, it's history and I don't believe we ever got another one!

Elijah, apparently, also enjoyed putting stickers all over himself. These days he picks out certain pieces of paper and fills it with stickers he collects. He also loves to give stickers to others (hm, I wonder if Merete will become his new "sticker pad"!)


As for us adult, I think we were just working at work and working on the house. I was taking violin lessons at the time. I hadn't started karate yet (not for another year) and was physically a lazy bum. Except for the summer long painting of the house and furniture, tilling, etc. We were trying to have another child, but we were going down the biological route at the time. I wouldn't be for some months (over a year) before we started talking about adoption.

It's really amazing to me that halfway around the world, this child was born and neither his family or ours had any ideas how our lives would cross and change forever 3 years later. It really makes me wonder what else might be happening, right now, that will change the course of our lives down the road...

The Newest Van Goh!

We just heard that Merete is officially a Van Goh! Well, technically his new name will be Merete Han Goh on his new birth certificate, but we will re-name him once more to Merete Mathewos (perhaps another middle name) Van Camp-Goh. We made it through court today (we meaning our paperwork) and he is officially ours as of today. Which means we can now post his picture!

Here he is a couple months ago. Since then he's gained 7 lbs! And hopefully he's smilling a bit more now :-)

Counting the days...

Our court date for Merete is still a week away, and it seems like time is moving much too slowly while we wait to hear if he's legally ours...at at the same time it's moving much too fast when it comes to being prepared!

E and I put together a care package for him, the problems is that everything had to fit into a gallon size plastic bag. E drew a picture of the family, gave him his little backpack (we had his name put on it), and picked out some cars and a train to send over. I made him a little photo album and flash cards of the family, etc. We also included this great book, Zufan and the Flower, which is in Amharic, English, French and Spanish (guess he'll only need a couple of those for now). It took some doing but we fit it all into the bag, and hopefully the next group of families to travel will bring it to him!


This weekend I tried making some "traditional" Ethiopian food. First I made the berbere spice, which is really a combo of tons of other spices, including lots of paprika and cayenne pepper. It's used in many different foods, especially wot, which is a red stew (red from all that parika and cayenne pepper!). I only used 1/3 of the cayenne pepper to make it "mild". I then made sega wot (red beef stew), which turned out to be too spicy for E and nearly too spicy for Han. So, I'll have to make more berbere with much less cayenne for those two boys. We'll see if Merete's palate is more adventurous (I hear they are used to very spicy foods there). I also made Injera, which is a spongy bread that is used to pick up and eat the food. When we had it at the restaurant in Chicago, I didn't like the sour taste to it, so I tried making a not-so-traditional version that didn't ferment for 3 days. It was a hit with the boys, but I actually missed some of the sour when eating the beef stew with it. And I won't go into much detail, but cooking it took a lot of trial and error to get the right texture! Finally, I made a veggie dish with potatoes, cabbage carrots and onions. It was mild and simple and definitely the easiest to make! All in all, not a bad first try, but I'll have to keep experimenting.


Here's E and his friend after tonight's karate class, when we made them do all sorts of exercises that got them nice and sweaty. He'll probably need a hair cut before school starts, but it sure is more fun when it's long and spiky! Oh, and we've been watching "Ninja Warrior" these days, which is an obstacle course show. E keeps trying to make objects in the house obstacles, so maybe this weekend we'll have to set some things to jump over! If you get a chance, check out the show, it's hilarious!!

How we spent our Sunday...

...with laptops on our laps or a DS in hand, for hours...

R. Nadal def. R. Federer 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7

The rest of June, and July 4th!

So we continue to go around, visiting new and old places, in search of our futures. We went to Baltimore and visited KKI. We had a wonderful dinner at Roy's (Hawaiian Fusion) where I had Opakapaka, which had been swimming in the oceans near Hawaii just 24 hours prior. I note this here so fellow fish fans can look up their nearest Roy's and give it a try. Here's a view from our hotel and later the flight home.

On these rainy afternoons, we've been working on our new hobby...puzzles. After the 5th one I've decided to get something more challenging, so I've ordered a 2,000 piece world map, which should keep us entertained for a while. Here are a couple of our recent favorites.

We've also rediscovered the joy of finding frogs everywhere! It seems like every time we open E's water toy, there is at least one frog hanging out in there.

In adoption news, we recently passed our 1 year LID anniversary for China. In a year, they have referred 67 days worth of LID's. There are still 528 days before they get to us. I've stopped the predictions because they are so sad at this point. Some have suggested that things may speed up after the Olympics. I have my doubts, but I'm guessing that more and more people will drop out of the program as this wait gets longer. Things from Ethiopia are moving along well, on the other hand. We have our court date: 7/28. That is but a week before the court closure, so we really hope we make it though the first time around!

Finally, we couldn't make it to the fireworks at UF, but we did go to High Springs for theirs last night. The festival in the afternoon was a bit lame, probably due to the rain. We kept busy at the mall and returned to find the place packed at 9 pm. We couldn't find a parking spot, so we "paused" behind some one's car and were prepared to leave if need be. It turned out to be a perfect spot, as soon as we had E sit on the roof so he could see everything.