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Video from day 1

We've been having difficulty with our internet connection being too slow to load video, but we managed to get one up so here it is:)

Day 2 with the boys...

We just dropped the boys off at HOH and it was more difficult than yesterday. I know that is what they are used to and the nuns are so wonderful to them, but we miss them! One more night without them and then they will be with us (as long as we get our travel letter on Monday). Today was even more perfect than yesterday- here's what we did:)

• Went to HOH at 8am, but the doors to the infant room were locked. As we waited we were mobbed by 30 or so 2 & 3 year olds. They were all crying and holding on to our legs so much that we couldn't walk. I bet that the care takers at the orphanage were wishing we hadn't shown up right at that moment:) We held a few of them until they let us in to see Levi & Judah.
• When we saw the boys this morning, they were all smiles and they seemed happy to be going with us. They were fed right before we picked them up and by the time we got back to our B&B, we could tell they were ready for a nap.
• Levi & Judah proceeded to take a 3 hour nap, which we found out was pretty typical for the kids in the infant room. Another adoptive mom (who has lived here for a year) said that the kids in the infant room spend a large portion of their day sleeping so all the activity over the past 24 hours probably really wore the boys out!!!
• We enjoyed taking turns laying with them and snuggling- it was a great morning:)
• When the boys woke up, we attempted to feed them some rice cereal (I think more of it ended up on their faces and clothes than in their mouths, but we tried).
• After eating, we played with the boys for about and hour and then took a walk down to Bourbon Coffee, which is the Rwandan version of Starbucks. We met another adoptive family there and talked adoption stuff until our driver came to take us back to the orphanage.
• When we arrived at the orphanage there were 3 other adoptive families that just got to meet their kids- Smith, Spore, & Bower families (they had just arrived from the airport). It was a beautiful thing to see them all holding their kids tight.

Our plan for tomorrow is to pick up the kids first thing in the morning and go to our POA's church where they have asked Adam to preach. We will spend most of the day there doing church Rwandan style, which will be amazing. We are praying for everything to go smoothly on Monday so we can obtain our travel letter and then it is on to working on the Passports. We are also planning on visiting the genocide memorial as well as other cultural sites around the city while we are here. I will keep the pictures coming so if you get sick of seeing our kids, sorry about that:) Lots of love from Kigali!!!

Adam & Katie

Details

We did not get our travel letter today, which means that we had to take Judah and Levi back to the orphanage at 5:30pm. The sister's were very sweet and understanding- they let us lay the boys in their cribs for the night and told us we could come back first thing to help them wake up and get ready for the day. On a side note, their cribs are TINY! Adam and I were both surprised at how small Levi & Judah are because they looked so much bigger in the picture. When we saw their cribs, we realized the scale of the picture was somewhat skewed. The clothes we brought still fit well with a little room to spare:)

On a scale of 1-10, this day was a 35 (at least). Here is somewhat of an outline...

• 9:00 Our POA picked us up and took us to the orphanage (my heart was beating out of my chest!!!)
• 9:45 The nuns brought Levi & Judah out for us. They had just woken the boys up from a nap so Judah was a little cranky, but he warmed up pretty fast.
• We headed over to The Minister's office to request our travel letter from Veronique personally. She was very sweet and wanted to hold the boys- she informed us that The Minister was out and may not return in time to sign our travel letter.
• After The Minister's office we went to exchange money with our POA and then we took Levi to the Dr. because he has quite a chest cold, but the Dr. said he was OK and that we should just monitor him for a few days.
• Following the visit to the doctor, we took the boys back to our bed and breakfast to feed them and have them take naps. Levi wasn't tired so he went on the coffee adventure (see pictures below) with Adam.
• The boys' schedules were completely thrown off in terms of eating, sleeping, and their normal surroundings, but they held up like champs. Levi had a little melt-down around 4:30 and then we heard from our POA that we would have to take them back to the orphanage.
• Our kind driver took us back with the boys and waited while we said goodbye (for an extended period of time). We also met two other families from the US who had adopted from HOH and met the in country representative for AWAA who was so very sweet to us.
• We ate dinner at a local Italian restaurant with really good pizza and now we are almost too exhausted for words, but so happy.
• THANK YOU FOR PRAYING FOR US AND STANDING WITH US!!!!!!!!! WE CANNOT WAIT UNTIL YOU GET TO MEET THE BOYS:)

These pictures are worth a thousand words...

While Judah was napping today, Adam took Levi on an "adventure" to a local coffee place. He managed to get the oh so serious Levi to laugh and giggle for pictures so you all could see his cute smile. We also happen to think that the last picture is priceless- we think he's saying, "yeah, I'm the man."

The Best Day Ever!

Today was amazing...there is so much to write, but I will leave it to the pictures for now.

We have arrived!!!

We arrived safely in Kigali at 1:45 local time. It is now 4:30am local time and we are getting settled in our room. Our POA will be by at nine in the morning to take us to the orphanage and then we will be stopping by The Minister's Office. Please pray for this first meeting- we are total strangers to Levi & Judah and we want this transition to be one that is good for them. We are off to try to sleep for a few hours and then what a wonderful Friday it will be!!! All our flights went perfectly and all of our luggage arrived with us- we feel so blessed and taken care of.

Sending our love from Rwanda!

Adam & Katie