So, where are we at?...

We booked our airline tickets!

We leave Springfield on Friday, March 4th. Our first layover will be in Chicago (let's pray for good weather) and then from there we will fly onto Frankfurt, Germany on Saturday, March 5. We have a 2-hour layover in Germany and then we'll fly onto Addis Ababa from there. We should arrive in Ethiopia on that same day, March 5th. Of course, the flight will be MUCH longer when you take in account the time change.

On Sunday, we're supposed to meet with the other families traveling for court and have an orientation where we'll learn the dos and don'ts while in Ethiopia. They'll go over our legal documents at that time too and prepare us for the court process. We'll have a traditional Ethiopian dinner that evening with our group.

On Monday, we'll travel to meet Aidan! The trip is between 6-7 hours. We'll have about 2-3 hours with Aidan. Then we'll eat lunch and make the journey back to Addis.

Sometime during our trip we're also supposed to meet with the pediatrician to discuss any questions we might have about Aidan's health reports. We don't, but it's great to have this assurance.

On Tuesday, we'll have a brief tour and do some shopping. Eat lunch and then appear for our court date. We hope to hear the words, "He is yours". The whole process at court is only supposed to take 5 minutes or so. From there, we will board a plane back home WITHOUT Aidan. This is going to be the toughest part. :(

We leave Ethiopia on Tuesday evening, March 8th and arrive in Germany on March 9th. We'll have a 6-hour layover (yuck) and then fly into Denver. From there we'll fly home to Springfield and should arrive at 11:00pm on Wednesday, March 9th.

Exciting, huh?!?

I've also scheduled the appointments for our immunizations. This is a lovely list of the vaccines that we'll be receiving (all well worth it to bring our baby home):
Yellow Fever
Hepititis A and B
Tetanus
Typhoid
Meningitis
Malaria

I have to go to two different clinics, because the malaria vaccine requires a physician's approval. It's a bit of a pain, but it feels great to have it scheduled and "on the books". Yay, one more step done!

So, last, we're getting everything ready to send off for our Visas. We hope to have that done and ready to mail off tomorrow or on Friday.

I think that's about it. We have a conference call with Holt on February 18th. This will be a time for them to tell us more news and for us to ask even more questions. Whew!

It's starting to feel VERY real now!