2 weeks & 2 days

Well, we are now in the final countdown. We are booked to leave for Ethiopia on Saturday the 16th of May. Our flight leaves Austin at 12 noon. We have a 4 hour lay-over in Washington DC where we board Ethiopian Airlines to Addis Ababa Ethiopia. We arrive there at 7:00 pm on Sunday evening. We are going to stay in a hotel near the airport the first night and will get to go meet Abate and Fantu on Monday. We have our Embassy appointment on Wednesday the 20th to complete their VISA application. The VISA won't be issued until Friday morning and we fly out on Friday night. We arrive back in Austin on Saturday afternoon. Should be a fun, hectic adventure. I've still quite a bit of stuff to get done before we go. I'm tackling the bathroom this weekend and am going to try to get it complete. I went today and bought all the materials I need. Mostly mouldings and a bit of paint. My weekend is going to be busy. We are also collecting toys at our church to take to the kids at Kidane Meheret Orphanage. We can take at least 2 big suitcases full and will consider paying to take an additional one if there is a need. I think it will be successful if the response I had from people after mass on Sunday is any indicator. Apologies for the long paragraph, but for some reason lately this blog won't let me begin a new one. I hit enter and the cursor just disappears. So that's the latest news for now - ABATE AND FANTU AND AFRICA HERE WE COME!