2012 — Page 24

We Have Arrived!

We arrived in EE early this evening and are now in our hotel. We have walked around a little but are now back in our room resting. Tomorrow we leave at 10:00am for Allysen’s orphanage. — it is about 6 hours from here. We will stay there until Friday afternoon. –I think. Then on to Bella’s region. My daughter and I are pretty tired so I think we will be going to bed. Here are some photos:

Getting Ready

I still can’t believe that I am leaving on Friday the 8th to see my girls. I can hardly wait, but I have so much to get done in just 5 days. My 22 year old daughter will be traveling with me on this first trip. We still have almost all of our stuff to pack and I even have quite a few things to buy — a new flash card so I can take a lot of pictures, new batteries for my camera, a few more toys for the girls, etc.

Now that I am so close to leaving I want to spend as much time with my kids as possible. I will miss them so much. I have been enjoying reading time with the little ones more each day as I realize that I will be gone for 2 weeks and won’t get to read to them for all that time. I am just not a good traveler — I miss home too much. But, it will be worth it to see the girls and then to bring them home to our family. My daughter, on the other hand, loves to travel and will probably enjoy this trip very much. She has traveled to EE several times and has enjoyed every trip. That is one of the reasons she will be traveling with me — I think she will help me not be quite so homesick and she really wanted to go and meet the girls on this first trip.

One thing I will really enjoy is getting pictures of the girls’ country. I want to get as many pictures as I can of the cities they live in and the orphanage and most important of all — them! I love to take pictures and being in a different country will definitely give me new material for pictures. So, I will enjoy that.

I am so excited about finally getting to see Allysen and Bella. I really don’t know much about them. I know that Allysen can’t walk and is fairly quiet. Bella , on the other hand, is walking — at least I think she is. Bella is actually the younger of the two but she seems to be doing pretty well. Allysen has had more medical problems than Bella — heart issues and some feeding problems. I guess I won’t really know how they are until I actually get to see them. It almost doesn’t seem real that in a week I will be in EE and driving to Allysen’s orphanage on Sunday the 10th. Then I will get to visit her on Monday! My daughter and I will visit Allysen for 5 days and then drive to Bella’s city and start the 5 day visits over again with her. We will be leaving to come home on June 23. Then we have a 4 – 5 month wait for our second trip — hopefully no longer than that! Then we will get to go and bring the girls home for good! I so hope that we will have them home before Thanksgiving. That is what I am praying for.

As usual, here are a few pictures of some of the kids.

Caroline And Sarah Walking Duke of Gloucester Street

In Williamsburg