We purchased our plane tickets yesterday! We are officially headed to Addis Ababa on Saturday, February 14th! It will definitely be a Valentine's Day to remember! We will be flying on Ethiopian Air and I hope to have an UNeventful plane trip! It takes around 30 hours to get there (that includes stop over time in DC and Rome). We arrive in Addis Sunday evening. Since it will be so late, we will just head to the hotel and sleep. I think we will go to the care center the next day to see/get Joshua! Our Embassy appointment is the following day (Tuesday). Then, we leave to return home late Friday evening, finally returning home on Saturday afternoon. We debated whether or not to get a seat on the plane for Joshua on the return trip. Finances weighed out over sanity, so hopefully the plane will not be full on the way home and no one will be sitting with us, therefore giving us the extra seat without the extra fare (which was pretty significant!). I hear that the airline has a bassinet in the bulkhead that they give to parents traveling with infants, however they will not reserve them and it is first come, first serve when you check in for your flight. There are three available on the plane. We'll see what happens there!

Now we are getting down to the business of preparing for the trip. I need to start packing so I can figure out how to pack what we need in the amount of luggage we can bring and keep the bags under 50lbs. I have gotten used to driving and just packing the whole house in the back of the car! We also want to take over donations for the orphanage in Addis. Our case worker let us know that there are shortages of diapers, wipes and formula in Addis. This then drives the price up for the small supply they do have. We are planning to take a bag of just these items and then have that "extra" bag space to bring back things we may purchase there (coffee!).

Slowly but surely we are getting ready!