Lindy's Birthday

We had a great day! Visited a museum, ate lunch at a great little outdoor food court, and celebrated Lindy turning one!!
By the end of the night, when she was opening the gifts, she was so tired, we could barely get a smile... she fell asleep in the ergo as we walked back to the hotel! Here a some photos of the day:

From TheNeeleys Blog

From TheNeeleys Blog

From TheNeeleys Blog

From TheNeeleys Blog

From TheNeeleys Blog

A few cute pics

From TheNeeleys Blog

From TheNeeleys Blog

And...the bidet?

It is of good construction and we have been told there is a bidet repairman available.

What I miss, in no particular order.

1. Ice, ice, ice cold anything to drink. I'm getting used to room temp water but man oh man.
2. Paper Towels. Most places have one little paper napkin per plate, some forget that, but we have a 1 year old and 4 year old; things are gonna get a little messy people!
3. High Speed Internet at the drop of a hat. I've become so accustomed to it being with me anywhere with my phone, and fast.
4. Good old tap water, I get dry mouth trying to spit after brushing my teeth for fear of swallowing something I shouldn't.
5. Clean air. It's partly due to construction near our hotel but I can taste the dirt in the air and the autos both diesel and gas burn dirty, black smoke from most tailpipes.
6. Florida orange juice. They have wonderful juices here, tropical blend, passion, pineapple, mango, and orange but it just ain't the same and Ev agrees with me.
7. My guitar. I have wanted so badly to lead our group in song through this trip but I haven't even seen one since I left and I knew Aubrey wouldn't let me use it for a checked bag. :)
8. American beer. The lighter beers here are all lagers and they tend to give me a headache. I know it seems like everyone else cracks on our beer but I happen to enjoy it...and do I need to mention COLD, ICE COLD!!!
9. Sports talk radio. This might seem weird to some, but I don't know how to explain it, 97.1 theFAN keeps me in the know.
10. Family and friends. I miss my across the street neighbors with their kids taking baths in our pool. I miss hearing about the farm and all it's problems. I miss my in-laws taking care of Evelyn. I miss my friends that I play bball with and go cycling with. I miss hanging with other couples that also appreciate American beer. I suppose I even miss Winston our dog, but our time is coming to an end here and I want to soak it all in, there won't be many times I will be on the continent of Africa.

Neeley Dan out.

Church in Kenya

Yesterday was a great, relaxing day! We were able to sleep in.... that felt wonderful. Lindy slept in until 9:30am! We took it easy for the morning and then headed to an outdoor market. The market was crowded and the vendors were pushy, but it was fun anyway!

With today being Sunday, the group thought that it would be fun to visit a church service here. Well, it was definitely memorable! At one point I did have tears welled up in my eyes as the crowd was worshipping to a familiar song...but, when people started falling over and shaking with the 'holy ghost'... it became a bit awkward! They were throwing towels that said "holy ghost" at people and I guess you were then expected to dramatically display your emotion...be it tears, or laughter, or whatever... seeings how the service was to last several more hours, we decided to leave. When we got outside, Evelyn said, "did we leave so that we didn't get hit?" Hahaha. A good memory!

We enjoyed some time in the pool this afternoon... Lindy loved splashing water in her face! And this afternoon, we have all had a good nap. We may do some sight seeing tomorrow.... the other families have to finish their medical appointments in the morning since their children are older than two... and then safari on Tuesday.

Height and Weight

Okay, I was able to convert her height and weight from kilograms and centimeters... she is 29.5 inches long and 18.7 pounds!

More Pictures

Evelyn's favorite waitress at Chez Lando Hotel Restaurant in Kigali! The staff at Chez Lando was superb! So kind and helpful!

And Lindy's funny face! Her smile just takes over her whole face!

In Kenya

We made it to Kenya yesterday afternoon (Thursday)... all went well with those travels. Our hotel here is very nice! We have carpet here, so it has been fun to see Lindy crawl!

My first impression of Nairobi was that it felt dirty... I guess the area between our hotel and the airport is not a nice part of Nairobi. The traffic is insane! Way worse here than in Kigali! We were going to try to have an Embassy appointment this afternoon, but they close early on Fridays, so we went to an open market area.... that was pretty crazy, too! Tons of people.. made me a little nervous to keep an eye on Evelyn, our bags on our shoulders, and all the while carrying Lindy in the ergo. I did buy a few cute things, though. Fun!Fun!

We had our medical appointment this morning; that went very well. Because Lindy is under 2 years old, she did not have to have a TB test done, so we were able to complete the appt. and have the results all done this morning. The doctor felt that she looked very healthy, she did a physical exam only, no blood draws! Thank goodness! We only want to have to do that once! We'll do that in the states when we are home! We had also signed a vaccination waiver affadavit so that they would not give any vaccinations here in Kenya, so we didn't have to do any of that either. (We also had our doctor write a letter stating that he was planning on examining her upon her arrival and would be giving any needed vaccinations at that time, based on need.)

I'll post a new picture in a bit... I guess we are heading to dinner right now. We are looking forward to a good relaxing weekend! we have no appointments until Wednesday! :-)

Fro-hawk

From TheNeeleys Blog

From TheNeeleys Blog

Basic updates

I kind of got a picture of Lindy smiling in this one! She is doing terrific.... Dan just mentioned this evening that she is smiling and giggling so much now... She was fairly reserved in the beginning, but imagine what this little thing has been through in the last few days!




As far as stats on her: she's smaller than I expected...she definitely has chubby cheeks and chubby legs, but overall she is smaller than the average one year old. The dresses I brought are fine for size, but the 12 month pajamas are kind of loose. She can sit up on her own, but can't stand... If we hold her hands, she'll use her leg strength and stand, but nowhere close to standing on her own or walking....which is fine with me because I am content to hold her all day long! ;-). She can repeat what we do... For instance, making sounds with our lips, making zerbert noises and sticking out her tongue. She is very ticklish!! She gets quite a kick out of being tickled under her arms! She laughs out loud with that!

Today we had an appointment with immigration to get her passport. That was successful! And such a cute passport at that! We then had an appointment with the US embassy....not as successful. We thought that would be done while we were there, but they asked us to return tomorrow at 10:00am (Wednesday). I think it will be fine, though. We are just concerned with the timeline of things. We need the US embassy here to process and send on to Nairobi US embassy to get the visa for Lindy to enter the US.... There is one check that can take several days to complete for that to get finished, so we are praying for that to occur so that we can stay on track to return at the time we have planned and paid airline tickets for! We are flying out of Kigali on Thursday morning to head to Nairobi.

Tomorrow will likely be difficult in another way as well.... We will be visiting the places where our children were found prior to entering Home of Hope... We have been given a little information so far as to when the children arrived at the orphanage... Incredible thoughts to process and deal with....

Thanks for all the comments and prayers... We are doing good!

What words can't say

Location:Chez Lando Hotel Room

My girls

Tears streamed from my eyes as I laid in bed minutes ago...

I was sound asleep, daddy, then Evelyn, then Lindy, then Aubrey across the bed. Lindy woke with a loud cry, just one, but Aubrey was right on top of it. Evelyn was also startled with this cry, she said, "baby sister woke me up" but little did Evelyn know that she must have been sleep talking because moments later she was rolled into me breathing heavily, normal. While Evelyn lay next to me, Aubrey readied a bottle and quickly began what was a ritual with Evelyn for a long time, a mid-night bottle. Oh the sounds that Lindy made taking that bottle, it was all over at that moment, just little grunts and big breaths, baby noises. Lindy took that bottle well and Aubrey finished things off with a little rocking in the bed. I love my girls with all I have and am so proud of them all. I contend that my love is not now spread between more, but that God has given more for me to give. I have to get some sleep, thank you all for your prayers.

Location:Chez Lando Hotel Bathroom, 1:48AM

What a day!

I am laying in bed....Lindy is sound asleep beside me; thumb in her mouth, laying on her side with her left leg crossed over her right. What an absolutely perfect way to end this day.

Long story short, we had an appointment that was supposed to take no more than a half an hour..... It ended up taking 5 hours which included us having to leave twice. Once to get a line filled in that had been left blank, have that stamped and then made copies of... Then after that was reviewed, it was determined that we needed to leave again to have that document notarized. After we completed those requirements, we then waited... But, again...Praise be to God! We were able to complete that task that was necessary! One check off the list!

By the way, Lindy and Evelyn were with us that entire time!! They were both AMAZING! Thanks to the ergo carrier (thank you Jennifer!), Lindy was able to have her nap like she is used to having! And, what can I say about Ev? I am so absolutely proud of her! She literally was unbelievable!

I read a quote recently that another Rwanda adoption family sent in an email... I can't remember word for word, but it said that God's grace will come to you at your time of need.... You can't store it up in advance. I really felt that today! God's grace was with us!

Home of Hope

The orphanage is amazing. The premises have tall brick walls all the way around, their tops are lined with broken glass bottles. There is a beautiful garden that looks like the soil was shipped in, it's so rich and dark. The buildings are well kept, we see detioriated ones all over the city, but these are in good shape. It is placed on a steep hillside, as most of Rwanda is, but this seems steeper than most, every building is down another set of steps. While we were there for the first time, it was a Sunday, as we held Lindy in our are arms we could hear singing from the nearby church. We drove past the church on our way and could see through the open doors of the church a packed house, 600-700 easy as it was a very large church. Their singing struck me, it was loud, spirited, and just an awesome backdrop during our visit.

Location:Chez Lando Hotel

Evelyn loving Lindy

Here is the sweet moment Evelyn shared with Lindy....

Lindy had fallen asleep during the bumpy bus ride! I know, I know... She has a thumb in her mouth! We'll see if we can transition her to a binkie, or else we'll deal with it when she's 4 or 5 and I get concerned with her teeth! ;-) Which, by the way I think she has four teeth right now and two on the way soon!

From TheNeeleys Blog

Our baby girl

Wow, what can I say?! It was an unbelievable experience! Watching the nun bring Lindy outside to meet us was unreal! Even just sitting in the bus driving down the extremely bumpy and extremely STEEP dirt road... when I saw the blue gate and the sign above it.... I just broke out into tears! THIS is what we have been waiting for...THIS is what all that hard work of paperwork and waiting was all for! I have to say, Praise Be to God! What an awesome journey.... All 5,000+ miles!

One of the nuns asked us how we ended up at this orphanage... We described a little of our journey to this point... And realized that she is from Indiana...and knew of where my Dad grew up... I'm thinking, "are you kidding me? We came all the way to Rwanda to get our baby and a nun is here from Indiana?!...". She mentioned that she had been at Home of Hope for about two years, was in Rome for five years prior to that and then Ethiopia before that! She only is able to visit home once every ten years! One of the men in our group described it as the nuns being married to the church... That is so true... They have such a commitment to the Lord and to the work of the church, it's amazing! The nun that brought out Lindy to us was such an example of humility... She wasn't looking at the camera when we got our picture with her, and someone said that she needed to look at the camera instead of looking at Lindy... She responded by saying that the baby is more important than herself... What amazing women these sisters are!

Another touching moment was when we had to bring Lindy back to the orphanage for the night.... Evelyn wanted to walk up with me.... She had said several times during the day that she was going to miss Lindy tonight... Anyway, she asked me to hold Lindy down low so that she could give her a hug and a kiss.... And as she was kissing her she just started to cry! She cried pretty intensely and just kept kissing her on the cheek... She didn't want to have to give her back. In that moment I was so glad that Evelyn came with us on this journey! For her to be a part of bringing Lindy home. This is her sister! What a wonderful feeling it is to see the compassion in Evelyn at her age.... She is a tender hearted girl, and I love it!

Tomorrow morning (Monday) we are to get to the ministry office and get the letter that allows us to get her passport and then we can have her full time after that!

This has been so wonderful, I can't even explain! It felt so good to have me, Dan, Evelyn and Lindy all together!

Dads, are you out there? Including me.

I'm pretty sure that Aubrey is writing right now, we might repeat, but it's fun to get the different perspectives. I'm guessing there are a few AWAA families out there reading this and I'm asking for the men to step in and say something. I see so many blogs that my wife has been watching for the last 6 months (including ours) that have very little input from the husbands, now that we're here I get to talk with the dads and hear what they have to say, it's good to hear and I bet other guys would appreciate it. Okay off my soapbox.

Location:Chez Lando Hotel

Wait for it....

Location:Rwanda

First Morning

It is 6:30 am local time, just past midnight at home so I'm ready to go. First nights sleep in a bed was good, just the three of us for almost the last time. I'm on the patio outside our room, the sunrise is unreal, I'm in Africa, Rwanda, the birthplace of my youngest. It's fun to think about everyone reading and we appreciate the comments, it reminds us you're out there. The Internet is a little trying at times, but at least we have it, really just wanting to keep everyone posted. We love you all.

Location:Chez Lando Hotel

The long leg, Part2

Our flight from DC to Addis Ababba had a refueling stop in Rome. This essentially broke a really long flight up into two really long flights, I mean anything over 6 hours is really long.

We cruised at an altitude of 33,000 ft and for much of the post-Rome trip we had a tailwind of 45 MPH which meant we were scoot'n along at 600 MPH plus ground speed.

At one point Evelyn was leaning in Aubrey's lap, Aubrey was in mine and we all three attempted to sleep in coach class seating.

The stories of why the people were on this flight were varied. A group of young Americans were going to Ethiopia for a mission, a family spaced over three coach class seats and two first class were adopting both a little boy and a little girl from Ethiopia, yet another was a Chinese American woman visiting her best friend who lives in Kenya temporarily, and another two young women in Med School who were going to assist a hospital in Africa somewhere. These are all in addition to the many coming back to visit a grandpa or grandma as one little girl who made friends with Evelyn said she was going to "Etopia" to see her grandma.

Composed from the plane, finally posted on Sunday AM

Location:Entebbe, Uganda

Long day of travels!!

We have spent so much time in an airplane! My feet are swollen.... I have taken some aspirin periodically and we have tried to walk around as much as possible. We were delayed in DC for two hours, which made us very concerned that we would miss our connection flight to Kigali. Fortunately, the airline ended up holding the flight in Addis Ababa and we walked right off of our 15 1/2 hour flight onto our 3 1/2 hour flight... We are having to stop in Entebbe, Uganda to let off some passengers, which is ending up taking over an hour... Although there are a few people that we have enjoyed getting to know. A young Rwandan man that is probably 24 years old who has lived in Canada for the past 6 years! He speaks Kinyarwandan, English, French, and Swahili! And a young Ugandan women who lives in Rwanda and is a business reporter for the only english newspaper in Rwanda... She has been helping Cherri with common words and phrases in Kinyarwandan to help her communicate with her son!

Cherri and I are both surprised at the nervousness we feel in our stomachs! We are incredibly excited, but there is NOTHING like this feeling! It's so great to be with someone else who is in the exact same place.

I'm also noticing how the scenery looks just like I expected! I've seen so many pictures of African landscapes from my parents, and now I'm here!!!

We are thinking that with our delayed arrival into Kigali, we may be headed straight to Home of Hope from the airport!! We'll see!

The long leg of the trip

We now sit in the Boeing 767, a 2-3-2 plane, watching the rest of the passengers find their seats. There is an Elderly man just in front of me who is needing two attendants to get seated, perhaps a mental issue? He seems of good health, but wow it took about 5 minutes to get him to sit! Evelyn is playing with her buckle, Aubrey is just sitting watching me type, and I'm sweating! Can somebody please turn on the AC? Does the 30 minutes waiting for everyone to board come off the 15 hour flight? As unreal as this seems it still feels right. Signing off, see you in 15 hours.

Location:Hickory Hill,Ashburn,United States

Flight Delayed

Well, we arrived in Washington, DC at Dulles airport.... We found the flight information and it said "on time".... We then ate some breakfast and decided to go to the gate and the flight has now been delayed by 2 hours! Nyanja said that these flights are almost always delayed... So we roll with it....Evelyn is doing great! She has learned to swallow a pill.... Our anti-malaria meeds are in pill form, she thinks it is so cool! We are excited to meet a family that we are flying with.... They stayed overnight in DC, so I'm not sure that they will know ahead of time that our flight has been delayed.... I guess that will give Evelyn a chance to meet their daughter, Ellie!

It begins......

And We're Off!!!

It's 2:53 am, Friday the 21st of May here.... 8:53am in Rwanda! We are on our way!!!!!

Marmite

My mom was born in and grew up in Africa.... and as a result, I LOVE marmite! Marmite is a spread that we put on toast.. it's yeast extract, actually.... in a dark brown jelly form! Hard to explain, but anyway I love it... it's probably an acquired taste. My daughter has learned to love it... Tonight, I am sitting in my kitchen eating toast with Marmite, thinking of Africa! I'll be there in two days.... holding Lindy for the first time. I'll be sure to stock up on jars of Marmite while I'm there and Lindy will learn to love toast with marmite, too.

Butterflies in my belly

I am now feeling the butterflies that everyone has been asking me if I have had yet!! Lots of anticipation!! Tomorrow is my last day to get ready!! I am feeling pretty good... my list of things to do is getting shorter. Last few loads of laundry tonight and we should be in good shape! My mom and my sister's mother-in-law are coming to clean my house while we are gone... that is a wonderful feeling! My house will be cleaner than it has ever been, that's for sure... it will be SO nice to come home to!

Family Photo

Our family as it is right now... waiting for Lindy!

Last Weekend!!

Okay, so this is my last weekend before we leave! We are getting ready! Suitcases are laid out, Lindy's is all packed, I have bought some clothes and good shoes for hot weather.... I plan on buying food and snacks to have while we are there tomorrow... YIPPEE!!! We cannot wait! I will be holding Lindy one week from tomorrow!

Testing... 1. 2. 3.

My husband is figuring out how I will be able to make posts on this blog from my iPad while we are traveling.... He is so sweet! I had told him that he is in charge of all things techno for our time in Africa! So, here goes... We'll see how it works. I should also be able to post photos....which I know you all are anticipating! ; )

Here is a test photo... Evelyn on Easter Sunday!

Location:Maradon Ct NE,Lancaster,United States

Flights are booked!

We have our airline flights booked! We will be leaving early in the morning on May 21st... by way of Washington DC, to Addis Ababa Ethiopia and arriving in Kigali at 1:15pm on Saturday the 22nd (there time, which is 6 hours ahead of us). We are getting bags packed and panning all the things we need! Two weeks is a long time! I have made several packing lists... Dan thought we should do a 'dry run' of packing everything this weekend so that we know what suitcases work best and make sure everything fits! This ought to be fun! :)

We just can't wait to hold this little girl in our arms... and I am trying to mentally prepare for her response.... we are complete strangers to her! No matter how much we love her and feel like she belongs to us, she is completely unaware of what is going to happen in the next few weeks. I want to be sensitive to that... not to have my feelings hurt when she will likely cry for the nuns when they give her to me. I want her to be able to feel our love for her... I want to give her the attention that she hasn't been getting. I want to be her mom.