The Weekend

It has been a long, long time since I have posted and I have plenty about which to write.  But my wife says I have to choose one topic, so we will see if I obey.

 

I can’t tell you how awesome our new life has become.  The new increased family size makes our household a bit louder (and it was not quiet initially), and a bit wilder.  But Geta and Tamene have sure put our focus back on family.  We eat dinner together each night, our extra-curricular activities are scaled back (just random luck I think), and we spend a lot of time on weekends doing family things.

 

We went to McKinley Park on Saturday and Geta and Tamene had a ball.  They loved the slides and just playing outdoors.  We saw a “woosha” or two (“woosha” is Amharic for dog).  It is so cute to see Tamene start babbling in pure excitement but half fear every time he sees one.  Geta rode a scooter over to the park along with our older kids.  Of course, it was hardly faster than walking.  But she had a ball.  Today, in the driveway, I held the bike up as Geta rode next to me.  Again, this was about at the same pace as the scooter ride.  After a trip or two around the driveway, she clearly wanted to do something different, but I couldn’t exactly figure it out.  When I let her show me, she started walking the bike in circles.  Yes, that is her holding the bike pushing it around in circles.  But it made her happy, so I was game.  They were both amazed by the toy lawn mower.

 

And tonight, and I only wish I had a picture of this, Kristen, Courtney, Emily, Joshua, Geta and I played Uno on the King Size bed upstairs (while all of them also watched Extreme Makeover Home Edition (I would rather watch paint dry)).  And Tamene was playing with cars (beep beeps as he calls them) up there, while I was multi-tasking, chasing him and playing Uno.  Then he wanted to sit on the bed, so you got it, it was Kristen, Courtney, Emily, Joshua, Geta and Tamene, Oscar (the “demet” cat) and I all on the bed with the tv blaring.  Patrick had lost tv privileges for the week so he couldn’t join us.  If he hadn’t lost those privileges, we might have had to get a second bed.  It was a sight to see.

 

Anyway, the week went well.  Kristen was back at work part-time and Geta started school.  We had a doctors visit, but I made it into an outing and we all had fun.  The shots weren’t something they would like to repeat, but it was much better than the first trip.

 

I often sit thinking about Geta and Tamene’s family and I sure wish I could do something more for them.  Courtney and Kristen and I had a little talk Saturday night about them and Courtney was so sad.  Ethiopia truly has a special place in our heart now.

 

Which leads me to what I should be posting about.  They have an awesome library program in Ethiopia and I plan to post soon about it so that you can all check it out.  I am signing off for now with your anticipation of my next post running high I assume.  If you want a preview, google Ethiopia Reads and it will lead you to the site.  But I will post with a picture or two and some reflections about our visit there.  Talk to you soon.  Mike