Today was an emotional day for me. When we picked Malia up from the orphanage, the orphanage director asked me if I wanted to see where she was from. I, of course, said yes. I was expecting her to get out a map and point. She, instead, told me to come back on Thursday. I thought that was strange, but not much was 'normal' at that point.

When Thursday rolled around, I learned that our driver was going to take us to Debre Zeyit, Ethiopia, where Malia was born. We picked up the orphanage director along the way. I assumed she was going to point to the location where she was born and that would be that. Scott and Angela traveled with us, as their twins were born outside of Debre Zeyit in a remote village. We were told that it may be a bumpy ride. I'll get to that in a bit...

Good morning!

The ride to Debre Zeyit wasn't too bumpy, but it was very stinky. We traveled through the industrial area of Addis Ababa, following and passing large trucks hauling all sorts of things. Everyone drives on diesel, and it really smells. We tried breathing into our sleeves for some of the ride, but it didn't help much. Mom's sinuses haven't been the same since this trip. We were pulled over by a police officer (who was standing on the side of the road and flagged us down) on our way to Debre Zeyit. Apparently this is common place there. They can ask you to stop without cause. The officer wanted to check Alazar's license. Once he saw he had a license, we were off again. Really, the fact that he checked his license was funny to me. After two trips, it seems to me that you would have to FAIL the test to get a license. Then again, the fact that so many people can drive in that chaos and not crash, I guess is talent right there.

Debre Zeyit was beautiful. The trees, plants and flowers were gorgeous. I was on edge; because when you travel outside the city of Addis, you are at risk for contracting malaria if you are bitten by an infected fly/mosquito, etc...We did not opt to take the anti-malarial meds, because they have some pretty crazy side-effects. Mom and I were constantly scanning our surroundings. Nick was too busy enjoying the scenery and learning of the history of the city from Alazar to be concerned about bugs. Hence the reason why he is still sick?!?

We stopped at the Elolam orphanage in Debre Zeyit. Our orphanage director got out and returned with a woman. She informed us that the woman was the nurse for Elolam. She was the woman who took Malia to the doctor to have her medical check-up when she arrived at the orphanage. We also learned that Malia lived at the Elolam orphanage in Debre Zeyit for about 2 months before transferring to the branch in Addis Ababa. I believe it was somewhere around this point that we learned we were going to be visiting the home where Malia had lived and the woman her mother had worked as a nanny for before Malia was orphaned. We want to keep her story private, as we feel it will be up to her down the road if she wants others to know. I hope you understand. I would love to share the story and photos of this part of the journey, but I just do not feel comfortable putting that on the World Wide Web. If you visit our home, we would love to show you the pictures!

After our emotional visit to Malia's first home, we hopped in our van and traveled to the remote region where the Van Neste twins were born. You know what I find funny? I traveled home to TRF a few weekends ago to visit mom and dad. As I was approaching Crookston, I read a sign that said, "Bump Ahead". As I drove over the bump, I began contemplating the necessity of that sign...That particular 'bump' was NOTHING compared to the bumps we encountered on this stretch of 'road'. It clearly was made for horse/donkey and buggy, as that was the majority of what we passed as we drove. Nick informed me after the trip was over that the brakes were not working on this stretch of the trip because of the extremely bumpy road. Thank you Jesus we made it home safely.

After asking many people walking out on the road for directions, we pulled over. There was a tiny I don't even know what to call it on the side of the road. We learned that the twins were born in, and lived in, this home. We, (mom and I, of course Nick did), did not get out of the car, but I know the journey was very meaningful for the Van Nestes.

The children came and stood by our van. One was 'brave enough' to wave at us. I waved back and they all giggled and whispered and jumped up and down. I am pretty sure we were the first 'white people' they had ever seen. Oh how I wish we had taken things with us that we could have given to them. We did give them the gum we had on us. They were dirty and had bugs on them, but their smiles were so bright.

We bumped back to the hotel, where our babies waited with the nannies. Nick went out with some friends to visit his ET friend, Bisrat. I am not sure what all he did, but do know that he didn't return until wee hours of the morning...He will have to tell you about that and about his friend Bissy.

At this point I really had no idea what day it was. After being up for two days and a time change, you can probably understand. Nick had been out the previous evening with his Ethiopian friends, and witnessed a 'brawl' at about midnight as he was just getting home. He woke mom up, as he was getting the Flip Cam out to record it. He has serious thrill issues. Apparently it was very interesting.

I actually could not forget that today was Wednesday, February 16th (aka Day 4), as we had our embassy appointment that day. We enjoyed some amazing, warm sunshine while leisurely getting ready to head to the US Embassy.

Nick was out chatting with the other families, and found out we needed to go 30 minutes early. Early?!?! The embassy was asking to see us before lunch. We hurried into the van and quickly arrived at the embassy. The building is beautiful. You cannot take photos of any government buildings, but let me just tell you it stands out from the other buildings in Ethiopia. This really struck a nerve with Nick...

We were the first family called to appear before the embassy. I was stinkin' nervous. We took Malia with us as we approached the window. The man asked us a little bit about ourselves and then asked several questions about Malia. They were intense, and I think I stuttered my way through most of them while Nick was silent. He says I didn't even give him an opportunity to talk. After the questions about Malia, he told us our case was approved! That was sweet music to our ears! We could finally breathe for the first time in what seemed like months!

After all of the families were cleared (praise God!), we had the nannies from the guest house come to our hotel room to watch the babies. We then took off to do some shopping/bargaining. Being on the streets of ET is so hard to explain. It is different than anything I have ever experienced. We were approached constantly to buy gum, have our shoes shined, give money, etc. It is so hard. You want to help everyone, but you know you can't. We used Alazar, our wonderful driver and friend, to guide us as to whom we could/should give money to.

We went shopping in the same market that we went to our first trip. We saw some of the same people on the streets that we did back in December. There was one boy in particular that ran up to Nick and said, "I remember you Nick!" They followed us the rest of the shopping trip, and Nick promised to come back with new shoes for him. We did go to a shop later that day and buy some shoes, however; we were discouraged about giving shoes to teenage boys, as they often sell them for drugs. Nick gave the shoes to his ET friend, Bisrat, for him to give to someone in need. In Nick's defense, he did promise them that he would bring them new shoes NEXT year when he returns. His friend Bisrat updateds Nick on thier status.

There were also some girls who followed me the entire time. They were trying to sell me gum and kept saying, "Sister, sister, please." I first tried to brush them off by not making eye contact and just saying, "No. no." Angela Van Neste had brought along gift bags for all the orphanage kids and had some left over in the van. She gave some to those two girls when we were getting back into the van to move to another shopping spot. Our van was swarmed. I felt like Michael Jackson when he arrived at court during his trial. Don't you remember seeing his car/SUV overwhelmed with fans/people? Anyway, the police were on the street and were shoeing (aka hitting them with sticks :-( ) people away. Alazar looked at us like, "I told you so". :-) The staff in-country often discouraged us from giving things to people because they believe it encourages begging. That makes so much sense, but man is it hard to turn a blind eye!

Back to those two girls. While we were driving around to another shop a little later on, we saw them on the street carrying the bags from Angela. They saw us and started screaming, waving and smiling at us. We were pulling over a little farther up the road. They came back up to the van and hugged us and thanked us for the gift bags. I couldn't resist giving them some money at that point.

We traveled back to the hotel and back to our babies. Remember what I said about Malia not staying quiet for long? Check this out...I LOVED that she was calling me Mama. And, in my mind, she totally knew what she was saying... :)

Nick was off to explore ET with Yonatan or Alazar or somebody...

We woke up bright and early on Valentine's Day. I didn't sleep the greatest (excitement, time change, etc). Really, I shouldn't complain, because I made Nick sleep on the couch, as I didn't feel that the full-sized bed was big enough for the two of us. Seriously, he is a bed hog. And, in my defense, I am really not much fun to be around when I don't get my sleep. :-) Nick decided to sing me out of bed (I think he was a little excited, too). For all of those who have heard Nick sing, you know that is not a good thing...

Breakfast was yummy, and we were able to meet up with one more family that was staying at our hotel, traveling with us, adopting through CCI, and was en route to bringing their children home. Dan (the man...he is SERIOUSLY the man) Quinn was traveling ALONE to bring home his 5 year old daughter and 1 year old son. We all scared him a little by our reactions that he was going to bring those babies home on a 20+ hour flight, solo. After all, we had 3 adults to 1 baby. :-) More on Dan and his family later...

We all (Tunheims, Van Nestes, Greens - Brian and his 13-year-old daughter Gatlin, and Dan Quinn) loaded ALL our luggage into one van and headed for Dulles International Airport. We flew on the new Ethiopian Air direct flight to Addis Ababa. It was so nice to not have any stops. I believe our plane left at 11:00 a.m. eastern time and was about 12 1/2 hours in length. I think mom watched 5 movies! She thought the flight was very relaxing; she had NO CLUE what she was in for!

Ethiopians are beautiful people. Period. The flight attendants were no exception. One asked mom if we were sisters. She told her thank you, and I rethought my choice of not wearing make-up on the flight. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is 9 hours ahead of us, so when we landed it was about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, February 13th local time. The staff in country is amazing, but time is not important in ET like it is in the US. So...no one was waiting for us at the airport. We called the guest house, and ended up waiting about 30 minutes before our driver arrived.

Gatlin Green and I are pumped to be off the aircraft you see behind us.

The journey begins...

Nick loading all the luggage on top of the van.

We arrived at the guest house and unloaded. Mom was not too impressed with the bathroom. She does not 'rough it'. I wonder where I get that from. :-) I believe it was at this point that her left eyebrow went up and didn't go down for the remainder of the trip. Nick immediately hopped in the shower. I wanted to go get Malia, like 10 minutes ago, so I put together some gifts for the nannies at the orphanage while he cleaned up. We were able to meet up with the Flores family, who had gotten to ET ahead of us, due to issues with their case. It felt like seeing family again when we were able to give them hugs and talk face-to-face. Amanda Flores had been getting ready for the day when we arrived, so we didn't get to see her until Nick was already dressed. She brought their daughter, Hanna, down from the upstairs. She showed us bites she had all over her face. We were then told by one of the staff members he had found a BED BUG. OMG. I must say, my mom is one.tough.lady. However, when it comes to bugs, and the possibility of taking them home with her, she about loses it. We got our things out a.s.a.p. The Flores' took care of hunting down a hotel while we traveled with Dan, Brian, Gatlin, Angela and Scott to get our babies!

A typical building be constructed. Notice the scaffolding? It's made out of Eucalyptus trees.

One of MANY fruit stands you see in Addis Ababa.

A main highway on our way to the orphanages. Ethiopians hangout all over the place, even on the side of the highway.

The building in the center is a shop that sells all sorts of things. These types of shops are everywhere!

Elolam was our first stop. This time we had lots of gifts for the older kids. They were just as adorable as the first trip. Mom had a really hard time keeping dry eyes. Seeing Malia and taking her home was awesome and heart-wrenching. Malia had really bonded with one of the nannies at Elolam. The nanny was holding Malia and sobbing saying goodbye. Ugh, let me just tell you, that was so hard! I felt so bad taking her away. I knew it was God's Will, but my heart ached. Malia was much quieter at the orphanage and van ride back. She didn't cry, but it was evident she was older and a little unsure about us at first. It didn't last long, though...

Mom and I at the gate of Elolam Orphanage where Malia is.

Handing out treats and toys to the children at Elolam Orphanage.

Mom is loving on the children.

Our sweet baby girl.

Grandma Rosie holds Malia for the first time.

Scott Van Neste holding one of their twin babies, Hannah.

We will never forget this nanny for the love she gave to Malia!

Next, we traveled to the Transition House where Dan's children and the Green's children were. We spent quite a bit of time here loving on our friends, the Couches, son Samson and several of the babies. We were so bummed the Couches were unable to travel with us, and we brought lots of toys and treats for Samson. He immediately recognized us from the first trip and clung to Nick. He did not want to let go of Nick when we had to leave. Nick had a translator tell him that his mommy and daddy loved him and were coming soon...they embraced and cried together. Later on in the week, we found out Sallee and Montie were cleared to travel. Nick had our driver make a special trip back to the Transition House so he could tell Samson his mommy and daddy were coming in 2 days. More tears from both! We love that little boy!

This is a typical site on the streets in Addis Ababa.

Brian Green reuniting with Kaleb.

Precious Samson enjoying the gift we brought for him from his mommy and daddy.

Bennet Green patiently waiting for all of us to climb back in the van so that she can begin her journey home.

After all of the emotions, we returned to the guest house to find our friends had a hotel in mind. After some strong-arming by Nick, he really is 'THE MAN' also; we all had rooms for the week at the Wassamar. They initially told him they only had three rooms, but he insisted that we needed four for all of our families and somehow he was able to make it happen. The rooms were nice. The bathrooms always smell bad, because the water is unclean, but other than that, we were happy.

It was at this point that I'm pretty sure I lost it. 30 hours with no sleep + new baby to bring home + missing Kaleb = Ann being a puddle. I took a nap, Mom and Nick decided they were going to wait until night time to sleep. Nick was off to explore Ethiopia, and Mom and I rested in the room for the remainder of the night.

The view from our hotel room.

We are falling into a schedule at our house, and that means I finally need to post about our second journey to Africa. In some ways it feels like it was just yesterday and in others it feels like it has been months since we traveled!

Our journey started on Sunday, February 13th. As most of you know, my mom, Rosie, traveled with us. We only had 1 day to book our tickets and got on the plane 2 days after that. Because of the short notice, tickets from Fargo to Minneapolis were astronomical. We decided that we could save money on the trip out by driving to Minneapolis to catch a plane there. It was more important to us to land in Fargo on the way home.

Uncle Luke kindly offered to drive us to Minneapolis that Sunday. So, Mom, Nick, Luke, his girlfriend Jessica (who came along for the ride), myself, 2 totes, 4 large suitcases, 1 camera bag and 3 carry-ons crammed into my Honda Accord. We girls in the back seat had our feet crammed up on totes. We watched '13 Going on 30' (which is one of the best movies ever made, by the way) to occupy our time.

Jess and Luke dropped us off at the airport, and we had about 4 hours to kill until we caught our flight. This was clearly too much time for me. While mom was crazy nervous, Nick and I were pumped up. I decided this was a good time to pig out on everything in sight...in particular an entire bag of gummy worms. Let's just say those came back to haunt me (or more so Mom and Nick) later on. :-)

Our flight to Washington, DC was great. The plane was about half full, so we all spread out across 2 seats. We had a driver pick us up at Dulles and bring us to our hotel for the evening. The hotel was great, and it was awesome to re-connect with the Greens and Van Nestes, who were also staying at our hotel. I went to bed dreaming of picking up my little girl.

So, I just wrote a big reflection on our adoption journey in Malia's baby book. While doing this, I finally took the time to read through her paperwork that we received in Ethiopia. Many of you know that August 27th, 2010, was a special day to me. A church friend had given me a scripture that God had put on her heart for Malia a few weeks before that. On August 27th, I read that scripture, as it was on my daily prayer calendar at work. Immediately, chills rushed up and down my spine and I felt an immediate connection with my baby girl. My heart was leaping for joy that day, and I felt so much love for her. I wasn't sure what it was, but it was so profound. Well, I found out today that that was the day that her mother gave her up for adoption. I just have to say that God is so good. I can say with 100% confidence that he orchestrated this entire adoption. It was His plan long before it was ours. I am so grateful to God for loving me and blessing me, even when I am an undeserving sinner. All praise, honor and glory is HIS.

To my dear Malia, I will always pray this scripture for you...

The Lord your God is with you,
He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17

To Malia's birth mom:

Thank you for loving your little girl so much, that you wished for a better life than what you felt you could provide her. We will be forever grateful, and will love her with all of our hearts. We love you.

These videos will give you a glimpse of the sights and sounds of the streets of Ethiopia in the city. I apologize for the shakiness of the videos. One will never understand the traffic and conditions of the roads in Ethiopia until you personally experience it.

The blue and white vans are taxis. As you will see, there are a ton of them. In-order for the Ethiopian government to keep personal cars to a minimum, they impose an outrageous import tax on vehicles. Hence the reason there are SO many taxis. Each taxi is taking a specific route. It costs roughly 2 Birr, or approximately 12 cents, but may take you some time to get to your destination as they make multiple stops. During the rush hours these taxis are JAM-packed full of people. It's a two person system. There is a driver and then there is another person who typically hangs out the window (as the vehicle is moving) yelling to let people know the route they are taking. It's quite interesting to watch...

The blue and white cars or three-wheel motorcycles are taxis as well, but will take you to a specific location. The cost can vary depending on the distance, anywhere from 10 Birr to 100 Birr, or 60 cents to 6 dollars, and of course, this too is a barter system. Rick Flores and I took a taxi to the airport one evening for 40 Birr, or 2 1/2 dollars. As we exited the airport we were bombarded by taxi drivers who were willing to take us back to our hotel. The price started at 100 Birr, went to 75 Birr, and finally someone offered to take us back for 50 Birr.

Their traffic laws are not like ours. Generally, for the most part, they do use the two-way traffic lanes like we do, but as you will see, there are taxis and people everywhere. It is illegal to talk on a cell phone and drive in Ethiopia. There are random police officers standing in the street. If they wish to pull you over for no reason they can, all they have to do is wave you down. This happened to us...the police officer wanted to check out our driver's license. Also, there are very few traffic lights. The few traffic lights we did see seem to be there for decoration, as nobody paid attention to them.

The streets are filled with shops of all sorts. Fruit, meat (meat that hangs out in the open for days), clothing, shoes, household, mattresses, and I even saw a casket shop. All of the goods are for sale using a barter system. We were thankful for our driver, Alazar, in so many ways. Not only did he get us from place to place safely, he also was our translator and shopping expert. Automatically when shop keepers see Americans coming, they know that we have money...to say the least, Alazar saved us lots of money.

You will see goats, cows and donkeys that sometimes appear to be roaming freely. However, their home or keeper is nearby. You will notice that some of them have a painted strip. That's so the owner knows which animals are his.

Below are two videos that I took as we were on our way to the transition house. The transition house is run by our international agency, Celebrate Children International. The children are typically moved from the orphanage to the transition house after their case has passed court.

This video gives you an idea of the sounds of Ethiopia. The music in the background is traditional Ethiopian music that is being played from a nearby shop.

Below is a video that I took as we were driving through the city of Debre Zeyit which is about 45 minutes southeast of Addis Ababa and considered a "resort community" because of the nearby lakes. This is the city that Malia was born in.

This video is of a side street in Debre Zeyit. We were in this area around lunch time. The children in purple uniforms where on their lunch break from school.

In this video you will see police officers in the streets toward the end of the video. They are wearing dark blue pants, a light blue shirt, a white hat and sometimes a dark blue coat. From what I learned, you can get out of pretty much anything if you are willing to bribe the police officer. Our sweet driver, Alazar, said he never does this because he believes that as a Christian man, he feels as if he is telling that police officer it's okay to sin by accepting his bribe money.

All cars in Ethiopia are manual shift cars that run on diesel. By the end of the day we were blowing black boogers from the smog. Yum, huh!?! The pollution and smell is indescribable. The next two videos were taken from the balcony of our hotel. In the first video you will see the guys hanging out of the taxis as well as police officers directing traffic. In the second video, you will see a little "traffic jam" and a large green truck that would most certainly meet the pollution control standards in the US. Please note that this area of Addis Ababa is very nice area of the city compared to other parts of Addis Ababa.

We traveled some very treacherous roads while going to visit an outlying village some distance from the city. The roads we traveled simply were not meant for automobiles, they were only meant for donkey and buggy. It was quite a trip...not to mention that our brakes started not working properly on the way there due to the rough roads. I neglected to mention this to Ann and my mother-in-law until we were safely back in Addis Ababa.

We have officially been a family of four for ten days and are finally getting adjusted to being home. We have so much to blog about, but have had very little time to do so.

A very special thanks to our friend Ria Czichotzki with Rialee Photography for sharing in our special day and capturing our homecoming! Ria, we are forever thankful for you and your friendship and are looking forward to bringing Malia and Kaleb up to the studio tomorrow.

We were so elated to be welcomed home by so many dear friends, family and colleagues. To be honest with you, after flying half way around the world for 30 hours we really thought we had made a mistake by inviting people to the airport to welcome Malia home, but once we saw all those smiling, happy faces waiting to embrace us with so much love and anticipation, we were thankful we had invited you.

The trip home was tough. I began feeling sick at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and began vomiting shortly after I told Ann and Rosie to board without me. Once you have made it through security you do not have access to restrooms without going out of a secure area and trying to get back in, which is virtually impossible to do. Luckily my mother-in-law had a plastic bag in her carryon bag that I was able to use, but then there was no garbage anywhere in sight to dispose of the filled bag. Thankfully we were able to get "bulk-head" seating so that Malia could be placed in a bassinet and we were near the bathroom. With Ann on one side of me and Rosie on the other, surprisingly I was able to keep to myself with a blanket over my head and the "vomit bag" affixed to my mouth. Over the course of several hours after making several trips to the bathroom, not knowing if I should sit or kneel first, I seemed to have rid myself of every ounce of fluid in my stomach and bowels. I then laid on the floor in front of our three seats for the remaining 16 hour flight back to the United States. It was a great weight loss plan, as I lost nine pounds in 24 hours!

I was so fearful of eating and drinking, that I had starved myself for the first 16 hours of our trip home. Upon arrival in the US, I finally felt better. I was so thirsty and hungry, that I felt like I was going to disintegrate, but yet I was so afraid to eat, as I didn't want to experience this all over again as we had two more flights to get us home. We still had to get from Washington DC to Chicago and finally Chicago to Fargo. To date, I still am not feeling 100%. My appetite is not back to normal, which is blessing I think, but I am still so tired. I have been to bed no later than 9:30 all week, which is extremely rare for me. One night I was in bed by 7:30 and a couple nights by 8:30.

I'm so thankful for my amazing wife and mother-in-law who cared for Malia on our way home. Ann had very little sympathy for me as she felt that I ran myself ragged while in Ethiopia as I was "out and about" exploring and only slept about 10 hours while in-country for five days. However, after being home a couple of days she too began not feeling so hot and at one point posted the following message on her Facebook wall, "Sick. Stinkin' parasites. That is what I get for not having sympathy for Nick when he was sick." Those words were music to my ears...

Stay tuned...more to come...