Pool Time and Pictures

We took some time taking pictures of her in a dress from my Aunt Mary.... I wanted to be able to include a picture of her in the dress with a thank you note! We had fun sitting in the grass (which desperately needs mowed!). I also got to capture her latest funny face... she puts her chin down to her chest and looks up at you with those big brown eyes and gives a sly smile! Too cute!!

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous here! So I thought I would post a cute picture of Lindy enjoying the water.... but, because of her giardia, I haven't been letting her in the pool and I was feeling bad for her to just have to sit and watch... So, we put water in a tub and let her splash around! She loved it!

Moving along

Well, for the most part... we are moving along swimmingly! Literally, we are enjoying the heat and swimming in the pool! :) I can't believe we have been home for just two weeks... it feels longer for some reason. Lindy is doing so great! In fact, the last two nights she has slept a solid 12 hours without waking up in the middle for a bottle... that has been fantastic! The only major hiccup for her has been the medicine she is taking for the giardia... She HATES it! I feel like we are torturing her when we give it to her.... and we are working so hard at building trust with her and assuring her that we love her and care for her.... and then we have to literally restrain her to get the medicine down and she looks up at us with this look of fear.... as if to say, "Why are you doing this to me?". It has been hard. I tried mixing it with food, no luck. (in fact, I tried a bite of it and didn't want to swallow! Why would she?).. we tried mixing it with chocolate syrup... nothing... she actually refused a spoonful of chocolate syrup!! Something has to give. I think I may be calling the doctor today. We are only on day 4 of 10!

The good news is that Evelyn tested negative for giardia! So, who knows why she was having some symptoms... possibly just re-adjusting to the states? When I told her that she didn't have any of those germs in her poopie, she said "good, but do they know why my tummy is so upset all the time?" She is so sweet...

Evelyn has two playdates this week with friends from school. She is SO excited! I am glad that she is being able to get out and have fun. She has been remarkable as a big sister... I have not seen an ounce of jealousy, if anything she wants to love on Lindy a little too much! Lots of hugs and kisses to the point of Lindy pushing away a little bit. :) I'm sure things could change, but for now I am so happy to see Evelyn really embracing the big sister role!

News of the Day

Okay, so the news of the day is: Lindy has giardia! I know, I was surprised too... she has no symptoms, no diarrhea, no overly bad smelling diapers, nothing! So, we are starting a medicine today... haven't given the first dose yet, but we hear it doesn't taste very good... That's exciting, especially since she hates medicine in the first place! We'll see how this goes.... three times and day for the next ten days! Woo Hoo!

So, after hearing this news we started to question whether Evelyn may have it as well... she has had some unexplained diarrhea and upset tummy issues...so I just was at the doctors office picking up stool sample containers for Evelyn... it's a little easier getting a stool sample from a diaper! fun.fun. :)

Doing Good!

Well, we have had almost a week at home... our bodies are well adjusted to time change! We are finally not tired until it is actually bed time, instead of nearly dozing off at the dinner table! :) Evelyn is so happy to be back home with Chase and Campbell! She has been playing with them as much as she can... it's so great to have cousins as neighbors! Dan is back to full swing at work... crazy how busy it can be after being gone for two weeks! Lindy and I are getting into a groove, too! She is doing great with sleeping... going twelve hours at night and 31/2-4hours in two naps during the day! She is becoming very animated and loves to play peek-a-boo and repeat anything the kids do! She will cover one eye with her hand and wait for us to say, "Where's Lindy?" She just smiles and smiles! Evelyn, Lindy and I got in the pool for the first time yesterday... the weather here hasn't been quite warm enough to do that yet... It was nice to just relax and have the sunshine on our faces... Lindy can't stop splashing the water in her face!

We are on our way to Children's Hospital for Lindy's first appointment here in the US... We scheduled it before we left... The Children's Hospital in Columbus has their own international adoption clinic, so we felt that might be a good start and then continue her care with our pediatrician here. We aren't exactly looking forward to this appointment, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do!

HOME

We made it home!!! We were so fortunate to have a bassinet on the plane from Ethiopia to the states... that made the long leg of the journey much more enjoyable. With the bassinet, came more leg room for us all! Evelyn slept for nearly seven hours and Lindy did great with her own bed! Dan and I struggled to get much sleep but having the girls sleep was terrific.

How wonderful it was to be welcomed by family... We were able to meet family at the Dulles airport, which was so fun! Evelyn was so happy to be able to see her Uncle Davey, Aunt Debbie and Madison and Emma! We were able to sit with them for about an hour and a half or so and just relax... We had made it through customs and immigration, Lindy's visa was processed without any complication! It was good to have her in the US! The plane ride from Dulles to Columbus was a breeze!! I barely had time to finish the drink they gave me before they were taking it back for landing!

When we got home, we were so surprised to see how much work had been done at home!! Our amazing group of friends worked on our yard, by pulling weeds, planting annuals, spreading mulch, edging flower beds... it was unbelievable!!! I can remember when we left, I had said to Dan that there were so many weeds and he was saying that this will have to be the year that yard work just won't be able to be a priority! What an amazing gift from our friends! My anxiety is gone when I look out the window and see the beautiful flower beds and no weeds!! Thank you, thank you, thank you! That was such a great gift!!! Seriously, so wonderful!

And then, walking in to our house that was cleaned by my mom and my sister's mother-in-law, Joan!! I don't think it has ever been so clean! Vacuuming, dusting, cleaning the upholstery, cleaning the ceiling fan blades, all the windows and window sills... cleaning out the fridge, new sheets on the beds! It was so great!!

Unfortunately about 30 minutes after arriving home, Evelyn complained that her stomach was upset... she proceeded to throw up and was feeling pretty sick... By about 4:30 pm (which was 11:30pm Africa time) we were exhausted, Evelyn was in her bed asleep by 5:00, thanks to Bebe, I gave Lindy a botttle and she was asleep by 6:00, I took a shower and was asleep by 6:30 and Dan was showered and asleep by 7:30.... I must have passed out, because I didn't hear Evelyn wake up and start throwing up again... Dan was on top of that! We changed her bed sheets and helped take care of her while she continued to throw up.. Dan slept in her room with her and I went back to sleep in my bed with Lindy. Dan was there until about 2:30-3:00 am and she seemed to have stopped with the vomiting and had fallen into a good sleep... Not 10 minutes after Dan layed down in our bed, he got up and started vomiting!! He ended up in the bathroom most of the night!!! Poor guy, he sounded miserable! Evelyn woke up at about 5:00am and said she was feeling a little bit better and was wanting to watch a movie... I went out in the living room with her and Dan was continuing in and out of the bathroom... moaning and groaning! All the while, Lindy had slept very soundly, only waking up once for a bottle! She didn't end up waking up until about 6:00am (1:00pm Africa time)!! The day has gotten better from then on... Dan started to get some color back and feeling good... by noon, he was having a small plate of food for lunch! Lindy took a morning nap from 9-10:30 and is asleep now for an afternoon nap. Evelyn is playing with Chase and Campbell across the street... what she has been dying to do for the last two weeks! I am going to lay down and get a little sleep myself...

Thanks everyone for your well wishes and prayers! We are glad to be home and can't wait to see friends and family and let everyone meet Lindy!

Random Update

Okay, so the internet connection that we paid for is going to expire in about two hours... so we will make this our last post from Africa!

We had a rough night last night... Lindy was having a fever most of the day yesterday and it got progressively worse overnight... I am pretty sure it was 103-104 degrees! She was on fire! We ended up calling the doctor on call here at the hotel at about 2am... he was able to get us tylenol suppositories to help with the fever... nothing that we were doing was helping... I think the combination of the ibuprofen we gave her and the tylenol suppository finally got it down to about 101 degrees... the doctor recommended that she be tested for malaria in the morning... well, as soon as I googled malaria symptoms in children, we were very nervous! We had a nurse come to the room and look at Lindy first thing this morning, she took her temperature (102) and advised that we take her to an urgent care type facility... So, we were able to walk about 2 1/2 blocks and were very pleasantly surprised at the clinic and the doctors! They examined her, looked at ears, throat, etc.. took temperature and weight and decided to draw some blood for possible malaria or infection... the blood draw went great! They had a laboratory on site and looked at her blood under the microscope. The good news is that there was no sign of malaria... her white blood cell count was high which indicated infection. He prescribed an antibiotic and felt that she should do fine. I had happened to already have amoxicillin for her here and he said that was what he would have prescribed anyway. So, from start to finish the whole appointment lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes and only cost about $11! Terrific!! We have found that she hates to take medicine.. in fact one of the sisters told us that they have had a difficult time giving her medicine and have had to give it intravenously! Thankfully the tylenol is a suppository, but the amoxicillin was quite the chore to get down! Oh well, we feel thankful that we were able to get the medical help and set our minds at ease that she does not have malaria!! She is doing good right now.. laughing and smiling at me and trying to type for me! :-)

Here are some pics to enjoy! We can't wait to be home! See you all soon!

oxoxoxoxox

Woo-Hoo!!!

We did it!! We have all the necessary steps completed to bring Lindy home to the U.S. of A.! This feels so great! I am having a glass of wine... relaxing... and sleeping in tomorrow! We are off to see orphaned elephants tomorrow... swim some more, enjoy a great dinner out in the evening.. and then get packing back up on Friday... and then the LONG plane ride home... Ahh, home!

Lions, Giraffes, and Rhinos (white AND black), Oh my!

And monkeys, and flamingos, and cape buffalo, and impala, and gazelles, and baboons, and zebras, and lots of birds, and another animal I'm not sure what it was called, and warthogs, and common buk and brown buk....

Okay, so the safari was A-MAZ-ING!!! So glad that we did this! Evelyn didn't get to see her wildebeest, though! We will have one more chance on Thursday, when we go to see some elephants.

It has been a long day, I will post pictures of our adventure tomorrow... we have an early appointment to get to in the morning... hopefully our last appointment we need to be able to legally bring Lindy home with us to the US!! :-)

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