THE Trip, Day 4: Six Month Flashback

We woke on Wednesday with the whole day ahead of us and no real plans other than to hang out with Mikayla.  It was a relaxing day of chatting with friends, playing with our kids, and watching our kids play together.  It was such a joy to watch Mikayla develop even in the short time that we were in Ethiopia.  When we first met her in November, she wasn't even sitting up.  By the second day she was starting to pull up on things, and by the end of the week, she was just beginning to do a cute little army crawl.  We say that her buddy Silas taught her those cool tricks!

At first Mikayla didn't just use her arms to help her pull up, she also used her mouth.

We spent quite a bit of time up on the roof.

A photo op with the two littles up on the roof

I'm so glad that our little suite at the guest house had this coffee table.  It was PERFECT for the 11 month olds!  How cute are they together?!?

We actually ended up having a yummy lunch from another one of our favorite places to eat in Ethiopia, Zebra Grill.  This little gem of a restaurant was only a couple of blocks away so we sent Brian and Phil to pick up burgers for everyone.  There were also a few things left on our "buy" list that we wanted to get before we left.  Since we couldn't take the kiddos out in public, Brian and Phil headed out to the Alert Colony.  This is a place where people with leprosy live, and they also create goods that are sold in a little shop.  Brian did a great job shopping and we have a few gifts we will be able to give Mikayla as she gets older, and we have a few more decorations that bring a bit of our little girl's culture to our home.  While the guys were out, Mikayla had her first melt down during nap time.  Of course it happened while Brian wasn't there!

Lessons Learned from this Day:

-Do absolutely as much as you can during the first trip because there just isn't a good time to be out and about once you have custody of the kids.

- We brought small bags for dirty diapers, but the Mummerts told us about Arm and Hammer bags.  I honestly think that we were changing Mikayla's diaper constantly, and when you are stuck in a fairly small/hotel type space, the effects just seemed to linger constantly.  The Arm and Hammer bags are nice because they actually do seem to absorb some of the odor (not just cover it up).  Have you noticed we learned a lot about diapering our first week as parents?  Mikayla had LOTS to teach us!

-Alert was a good ways away from where we were staying, but Brian said it was totally worth going there

-If you need to take a taxi somewhere, ask the staff at your guest house to negotiate the rate to your destination and back before you leave.  Our guest house had one lady in particular who was quite the negotiator!