Happiness...

Wow~

What a day today has been! We started the day bright and early and headed to the DC Dulles airport. We flew for what seemed to be forever! Stopped in Rome for fuel, another long flight to Ethiopia, then another flight to Uganda then on to Kigali! We arrived here about 3 hours later then expected.

Our POA met us at the airport and told us that we were going right to the orphanage! We stopped at the hotel just so the luggage could be dropped off. Then off we went to the orphanage. We got to see a small part of Kigali as we drove. There were lots of wedding taking place today!

We arrived at the orphanage and within minutes they were bringing out our children. We have traveled with the Spores and the Bowers. First, little Cooper Spore was brought in, then Sonya Bower, then Gracie Smith. The first 2 kiddos did well but when the sister tried to hand me Gracie she started to cry...then Sonya started to cry. I fully expected her not to want to come to me and for tears to flow. After about 20 minutes or so, I was able to hold her. She was very shy and kept an eye on all of us. She didn't want to go to Ryan or the kids for a little why but she eventually warmed up. We even got to see her teeth! She does have them. After about 45 minutes, she started to show just a bit of personality. She went to Ryan and he held her for awhile. We walked around with her, holding her hand.

The kids are of course all excited and just want to touch her. She does have a belly on her! I will have so much more to write as the days go on but wanted to give you just a brief update!

Pics aren't loading so I will try to get it figured out!

Washington DC

We are in Washington DC. We had a great day of travel and landed here at 5:30pm. While in the plane on the runway we could see the Washington Monument as well as the Capitol building. Then while on the highway we could see the Jefferson Memorial. We will count this as our DC tour!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner in the Hyatt lobby bar. Crab-cake sandwiches, a burger and pizza were our holiday menu. There was also a koi pond in the lobby so we are being culturally diverse.

We are all so excited about tomorrow. We take off from DC at 9:30am on Friday. We arrive in Kigali at 8:30am on Saturday. About 24 hours of travel await us! The kids did great today and I hope they continue to do great tomorrow.

Thanks again for all of the prayers! Please pray for little Gracie. Her little world is about to be turned upside down!

Ready

We got the call around noon yesterday that we are going this week to Rwanda. After a flurry of activity over the last day, we are ready to go! I sit here and think about what has happened over the last 36 hours and I am just amazed.

To each of you who have helped us in this last mad dash, thank you. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for loving our children. Thank you for meals so I didn't have to worry about cooking. Thanks for folding laundry. Thank you for washing sippy cups and tiny silverware. Thank you for opening packages, boxes, unwrapping things. Thank you for helping me just think through stuff. Thank you for painting our daughters room. Thank you for getting her furniture ready. Thank you for making her a room that she will grow up in. Thank you for praying with us. Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for the phone calls and emails of support. Thank you for the generous donations for the orphanage. Thank you for the donations for our family. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You all know who you are and I just can't thank you enough. The last 36 hours we have been slathered in God's love and it just feels so good. I am not good at asking for help and I am so glad that I did. Thank you for the memories. Thank you for the love.

We leave at 8am on Thanksgiving to fly to Washington DC. We stay the night in DC then on Friday morning we board a plane for Rome. We then fly to Ethiopia and then to our final destination of Kigali. We should have Gracie in our arms on Saturday afternoon (Saturday morning in the states). Wow.

Big Update!

We are leaving for Rwanda on Thursday (like in 2 days!)! AHHHHHH! I can't believe it!

Flights were available. We are available. We are on our way.

Only a few more days till we have Gracie in our arms!

Introducing....

We are proud to introduce our daughter, Grace Elina Smith. Grace was born on April 25, 2007. She is 2 1/2 years old. Her given Rwandan name is Elina which means bright light. We gave her the name of Grace. We know that we are covered in God's grace in our lives and wanted to honor Him in her name. We are all thrilled that we are so close to having Grace join our family. We still do not know much about her background and how she came to the orphanage. We are hoping to receive that information soon. Thank you for continuing on our journey with us.

K & C - first picture with their little sister

W... (totally skipping V)

We passed court today! We are officially a family of 5! Wow, what a feeling. We leave in about 2 1/2 weeks to pick up our Gracie!