We were all really excited to head north to Milwaukee a few weekends ago to reunite with the families that we traveled to Ethiopia with in December of 2010. We missed last year's reunion and couldn't wait to see these friends again after 2 1/2 years of thinking about them and looking at their pictures via blogs and Facebook.
This picture was taken in Addis Ababa in 2010 (our first trip to ET). We all stayed together at our agency's guest house and bonded deeply over the riveting experience that adoption can be.
The reunion in Milwaukee was wonderful. Time and time again, Jake and I looked at each other and gasped, "Can you believe how nice these people are? How lovely? How interesting? How kind?" We were all thrown together randomly from all over the country and, my goodness, I'm not sure you could find a more wonderful group.
Scott and Carrie, our hosts, organized a perfect weekend. (Their son Jackson is one of Sintayehu's buddies from the Care Center and has the most beautiful Ethiopian eyes!) On Friday night we had a picnic complete with a bounce house, slip-and-slide, playground equipment and good food. We all reconvened for breakfast on Saturday morning and then headed to a county fair. It wasn't the Wisconsin State Fair (which may have been a bit overwhelming), but it was a charming little county fair that was just perfect for our group. Here are some scenes from the fair:
Sintayehu adored Grace, whose mom writes a beautiful blog here...
Oliver snapped the above photo of Jake and I. It's one of my new favorites.
Miss Sintayehu wading through kernels of corn.
The kids at the carnival and a beautiful sky. We let each kid choose one ride/attraction. Sintayehu chose the "choo-choo train," Eli chose a sky-jumpy thing, and Oliver choose a balloon/hamster wheel that went over water. Something for everyone, I suppose!
Big brothers with their little sisters:
This is pretty much what I did all weekend. Laughed and hung on every word. Such great people!
Ethiopian food! OhmygoodnessOhymygoodnessOhmygoodness. We don't have an ET restaurant nearby so this was quite a treat. We took over the entire place. It was so so fun to be taking in a bit of Ethiopia with these people.
After dinner fun:
The group:
(This woman's hubby took the photo. Thanks, Dan!)
After saying goodbye on Sunday morning, we decided to spend some time at the lakefront before heading home. We loved the art museum and enjoyed another gorgeous day. Delightful!
Can't wait for next summer's reunion!
Lovely post of the great reunion. Wish we could have talked more! Maybe next year when the kids are all that more self sufficient! :) Thanks for posting a link to my blog. You are sweet.
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