Day Six

That night Olivia wimpered a lot in her sleep. She is actually having quite a hard time sleeping at night but we just found out she has giardia (an intestinal parasite that 95% of kids coming home from Ethiopia have apparently) so hopefully once that is taken care of, she will sleep better. Just trying to keep it real for you other adoptive mommies out there:) Anyways she woke up at 4:15 and took a full 8 oz bottle. She went straight back to sleep but we were wide awake. Paul took advantage of the night time power and uploaded pictures to the lap top. We had to wake her up at 7:30 so we would be ready for our shopping day! We went down for breakfast and then headed over to Hannah's Hope at 9:00 to drop off Olivia while we shopped. We arrive in the shopping area and are told we only get an hour and a half. I already know that I want to get special items to give Olivia for every birthday until she is 18. I know that sounds crazy but I want to be able to share with her a little of Ethiopia while we have those hard talks that I know will come up all the time but more so around birthdays. Anyways I got tons of great stuff.....little necklaces, an Ethiopian doll, small purses, a few cultural dresses for the little kid birthdays and bigger dresses, nicer jewerly, cool purses for the tween and teen years, and some really nice Ethiopian cross silver jewerly for the older teen years. I also got some cultural outfits, a small drum, and a guitar like instrument for Jackson. I got a few things for the house like a small mesob (small ethiopian woven table), an Ethiopian cross, and a few things to hang on the walls. There wasn't much time so I decided I would give my coffee away as gifts and really try and focus my time on the kids. I definitely got the most of all the families but the only way I was able to do this was to split up from the group and have Paul do the negotiating while I picked out the stuff. And I only spent less than 200 and I got this REALLY awesome dress that was 40 dollars:)

this was at one of the shops....i found it pretty funny

This is the court building where our case was heard.

Then we went to the Italian restraunt and we all got pizzas. I think Johannes or Almaz said the pizzas take a long to make but really I didn't think it was any longer than any American sit down restuarant. We spent our time looking around at the amazing art on the walls. All of the paintings start at around 200 and go up from there. The smaller ones are about the same as the big ones which I found weird. I really liked this one of Lalibela but I just couldn't spend any more of our money:) The pizza was pretty good although it is a little weird to have cheddar and mozzerella on your pizza.


We got back to the hotel around 2:00, put all of our loot in the room, and then walked over to Hannah's Hope to get Olivia. We hung out there for about an hour and took lots of pictures and video of her special mothers that worked there. It truly is a special place.....very clean, lots of toys and the special mothers really love the kids. Then we head back to the hotel but sitting in the room is not her idea of fun. She loves watching other kids so we all head outside to the front court yard to watch the bigger kids in our travel group play soccer. We are pretty tired by this point and time doesn't seem to be passing quickly enough to bedtime. We got some dinner in the lobby and then took Olivia up to the room for a bottle and we were all asleep by 7:30.

hanging out with the twins



Most of my pictures of Hannah's Hope have other kids in them so I can't post them but here are a few to help you get the feel of the place.