Monday, May 25th...We met Hannah!

We woke up Monday morning and had a yummy breakfast at the Guest House. Robel, the awesome guy who took care of us while we were in Addis, informed us that we were going to have a change in the schedule. Instead of doing paperwork before going to the Transitional Home, where Hannah was, we were going to go shopping instead and move the paperwork until the next day. So we had a free morning to shop. I bought a couple of beautiful wooden crosses and several scarves. It was a pretty interesting day...people trying to get us to come into their "stores", which were about the size of our bathroom at home (very small). The women would pull out scarves to show me and if I didn't look like I loved it, they would pull out another color. I ended up buying way too many scarves! There were several people begging for money, which was hard, and Robel's street kids sold us gum and shined Andrew's shoes (tennis shoes) :). It broke my heart to hear those kids say "Mama, Mama, want to buy some gum?" Robel teaches his street kids to sell something or provide a service instead of begging for money.

After shopping, we ate lunch outside at a wonderful restaurant (can't remember the name of it) and then we headed to the Transitional Home to meet Hannah for the first time.

We pulled up to the gate and pulled into the driveway. We all started getting butterflies knowing she was inside about to meet her family! There were 5 other families with us and we waited while they went in alphabetical order and brought out the babies. We were next to last.

We watched the door carefully and finally the sweet nanny brought our sweet baby Hannah to us and put her in my arms. (The video of this will be posted later.) She was sooooo much smaller than we had thought! We cried and loved and kissed on her and the whole time she did great. We took her to the courtyard and held her. We were able to stay there for a few hours. We couldn't have asked for a better "Meetcha Day"!

We said goodbye to Hannah later that afternoon, knowing we would be back tomorrow to pick her up and have her with us forever! Robel took all the mommies to a Day Spa and we had massages and manicures! It was wonderful and relaxing and great for such an emotional day!

After the spa, all the families went to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant, which included singers and dancers. We had a great time and the food was great. (Eddie and Andrew didn't eat much, but Joey and I ate well!)

Will post about Day 3 tomorrow!