Welcome Home Kiera Party!

Our church is amazing!

They put on a potluck for Kiera today to welcome her home and into the church family. It was great. There were many people there, good food, many well wishes to Kiera and I got to share about our adoption journey. There were also donations made to Holt orphanage to help care for the children that have yet to be placed in their forever families. What an awesome event.

Thank you everyone.
Joel and Mandy

Baptized into Christ

Today Kiera was adopted into God's family through Baptism. We are so happy for her and excited to continue teaching her about Jesus.

Adoring Aunts and Uncles

Proud Grandparents

Wonderful Godparents

We are so blessed that God has brought Kiera into our family and now has also made her a part of his family. It was a wonderful day as we celebrated with family and friends.

Blessings!

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P.S. The Packers also won and are on their way to the Super Bowl ... Kiera was excited.

Kiera + Water = Happy Baby

We just got back from a great family vacation to an indoor water park. This was Kiera's 1st experience with water besides the bathtub and she seemed to love it. I'll let the pictures show you the rest. Enjoy!

Updates from Home

Hello Everyone!
Sorry it has been so long since our last update. We are just enjoying being home with our beautiful daughter. After the long days of travel home, adjusting Kiera to our timezone, 1st doctors visit, including tests and shots and 1st ear infection, we are finally getting a schedule down and beginning to get used to be a family of three. And of course we are loving every minute of it.

Let me back up some, for those of you that haven't heard the full story. Our flight home was delayed from the start. Apparently there were snow storms in Europe, so our flight out of Ethiopia was delayed from 11:59pm to about 3 in the morning. We finally arrived in Amsterdam and missed our connection, so we had do wait 4 hours for our flight back to the USA. (Luckily there is a baby care area at the Amsterdam airport and we were able to lay Kiera down in a full size crib to stretch out for a nap). Once on the plane to the USA, Kiera did really well, but Joel on the other hand was the troublesome one. He got sick on the flight (dehydrated, maybe a 24 hour bug of some kind). He almost passed out and they airline put him on oxygen. They were about to call for a doctor or ambulance on arrival, but we decided that would be a bad idea, since we would probably be quarantined and Kiera wouldn't be able to get her citizen stamp on her Visa if we didn't go through immigration. Well we made it to MN airport and of course missed our connection back home. We had to wait another 4 hours. We finally got on the plane at 8:30pm, but didn't take off until after midnight. More memories ... the airport closed all but one runway, we needed to get de-iced, and the jetway broke as people were boarding and maintainence had to come inspect the plane to be sure we could still fly.

We finally arrived home around 1:00am. And to our surpise there were still many people waiting in the airport to meet Kiera and welcome us home. How wonderful that was, but I bet if was a little tiring for them as well. Kiera got to meet her Grandma and Grandpa, Great Grandma and many other friends and family. The next day she also got to meet Oma and Opa. And last weekend we even had Christmas with her Aunts and Uncles on mommy's side. She did a great job with all the people, but we were happy to have her home and start getting used to being the 3 of us.

 

 

It took about a week, but Kiera did adjust her time zone pretty well. She is a good sleeper and a fun baby. We cannot wait for the rest of you to meet her. We also know she needs her mommy and daddy time too, so this will have to happen gradually.

We love you all and enjoy the pictures!

Joel, Mandy and Kiera

Home Sweet Home!

We finally made it back. It is great to be hear and to have Kiera with us. Our expected 24 hours o travel turned into 38 hours due to delays in Amsterdam and Minneapolis due to snow storms. We sat in Bole airport in Addis for 5 hours while our flights we rearranged, then took our flight at 3am Ethiopia time. We had 4 hours in Amsterdam (A great airport to be in with a baby as they have special nursery areas and play areas). We flew to minneapolis and then had to wait again as our Plane was late arriving. Then when we finally got on the plane, about half way through boarding the walkway broke so they had to find another way to board people and check to make sure there was no damage to the plane. We also had to sit waiting for de-icing and wait our turn on the one open runway.

But we made it. We got in at about 12:30 (I forgot to look at the clock). Great-grandma, Grandma, Grandpa, Oma, and Opa were there along wig many wonderful family and friends. It was an awesome homecoming.

Joel and I are pretty exhausted but Kiera is great besides the schedule being a mess. She slept most of he plane rides and seemed to enjoy it anyways. We are going to have fun trying to adjust the schedule.

We are glad to be home! We love you all!
Joel, Mandy and Kiera

Leaving Tomorrow

Well - 

It's been a while since our last update.  We've had multiple power outages.  So now I'm finally able to send out an update.  

Today the orphanage did a farewell ceremony for all the kids who were being adopted.  It was great.  They gave each of the kids a traditional Ethiopian outfit for them to take home.  Kiera has a little white dress with an Ethiopian pattern weaved into the material in the front.  When they finished dressing her in her new ensemble, the nannies said she looked like an Ethiopian Patriot. They had us cut the cake as a family and Joel led a prayer (of course). Kiera got to try her first cake (Sister Martha insisted that we have our own pieces of cake, because the first one brought out was for Kiera (she seemed to enjoy the frosting for a little while).

 

 

Tomorrow at midnight we will be leaving Ethiopia (4:00pm Wausau time). So when you are all leaving work, we will be on our way home.

 

 

 

 

Love you all and see you soon!

Joel, Mandy and Kiera

Sweet Kiera!!!!

Family picture as we picked her up from the care center.

Playing at the hotel.....
She loves looking at herself in the mirror!

Feeding before bed......

 
Sleeping.
Yes, the Moses' basket is too short!

(These two are from Saturday.)

Drinking juice from a cup:

We will not be continuing this practice yet ... too messy! 

Big smiles!  :)

"Gotcha Day"

Well Everyone –

We got her!  Mandy and I have officially taken custody of our baby girl.  We got her.  At 5:30 pm (Ethiopia Time) we walked over to the orphanage, but this time it was different.  We went into the waiting room, and then they brought her out to us.  She had her hair done up in little poufs, and she was wearing a purple sleeper. 

I had the camera rolling during the moment when Mandy and I took custody.  (Sorry I had to downgrade the quality a little bit…It took 2 tries to get the file uploaded to youtube from our sketchy internet connection).

Here’s the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBc-MhsIx6g

Today (Nov. 29, 2010) is our official Gotcha Day!  It’s the day we finally got her.  In fact that was the first thing I said to her.  “I Gotcha.”

We didn’t have to stay at the orphanage care center very long though.  We left shortly afterward and we brought her back to the hotel.  We played for a while, had our first bath time, and now, as I write these words, Mandy is soothing her and getting her ready for bed.  (oops…I’ve just been told that she’s already asleep).  :)

(For the record, Mandy and I have no idea what to do with her hair tonight.  Should we leave it down or put it up?  I think we’ll end up leaving it down tonight and we’ll see if it’s tangled up by morning.)

Well, I think I’m going to go down to the hotel kitchen, try to order us some pizza, and then we’re going to try and get some sleep.  It’s strange…I’m one of those guys who doesn’t cry…I just don’t…I don’t have a problem with tears, and I don’t see anything wrong with crying.  It’s just that my emotions tend to express themselves through my mouth long before they express themselves any other way.  But today I cried. (good tears though).  It only took a daughter to get me to cry. 

Thanks for all your prayers, support and love.

Joel & Mandy and Kiera

Birth Mom Meeting

Today we drove to Durame where Kiera is from. We got to see the first
orphanage she was in and meet her nannies and the head nurse who
admitted her. This was great.

But the best and hardest part was meeting Kiera's birth mom. She is a
sweet woman and truly loves her daughter. This will be something
great to share with Kiera as she grows up.

We are resting now in preparation for tomorrow when we take custody.
From then on it will be the three of us in the hotel.

Blessings,
Joel and Mandy

More Pictures!