Travel Plans; Part 1!

We have our tickets to travel to Ethiopia! It feels good to have these booked and to know exactly when we will be leaving. There is still so much to do before we take off so the count down helps us be productive. As I type Josh is upstairs painting the walls of our daughter's nursery. Things are really coming together and we can't wait to show you some of the things we have been working on. We're having fun! Alright, back to the travel plans. It's official: we leave Saturday, February 12, 2011. AKA: 33 days from now. But that's not all! There are at least three amazing pieces to this particular part of our adoption journey.

First, a few weeks back I was up in Portland for a Baby Shower with my high school friends (which I still haven't posted pictures from. Wups.), and then to welcome home friends from our adoption small group who were arriving from Ethiopia with their 8-month old twin girls. I was with my sister and other friends from our small group while Josh was back here leading the Saturday night service.

The Camera Crew

Our friends, now a family of six!

 We were running a bit behind schedule (late flight, long wait at a restaurant, and then an impromptu shopping trip to Baby Gap) and I was feeling guilty for deserting my husband for thirteen hours. I texted him to say we'd be home in an hour and he wrote me back with some fun news; a shower gift from his parents had arrived and he was going to wait until I arrived home to open it (which is incredibly kind of him. I wouldn't have lasted 30 seconds!). Josh's mom had been asking us about a car seat earlier in the week and so we assumed they'd gotten us something from our registry, which had me pumped.

When I arrived home I immediately asked where the gift was and he told me it was on our coffee table in the other room. Oh. If it fit on top of our coffee table it wasn't a car seat or a stroller or a jogger. I mentally got back on track, reassuring myself that they had gone through the time and effort to make something sentimental and memorable for our daughter. We walked out to  the living room and I saw a long, narrow, nicely wrapped package. I sat down and Josh told me to open it. Inside the box I saw this...

My heart stopped. My mind went blank. WHAT? I looked up at Josh and tears started streaming down my face. Was I really looking at two tickets to Ethiopia?! I started jumping up and down, screaming and praising God. I noticed Josh wasn't shocked as I was so I asked if he already knew. Turns out he had been on the phone that evening, while I was at Baby Gap, working out these details with his generous and thoughtful parents. Using their airline miles, Josh's parents gifted us with two round-trip tickets to Ethiopia! They wanted to get us something we really wanted and needed and decided to check out their miles, just to see. Usually international flights would have used twice as many miles as the ones needed for our round-trip to Ethiopia. Josh's dad made up these fake tickets, Josh printed them out to look like the real thing and wrapped them just before I came home! WHOA! Another example of God's incredible provision in this process. Our gratitude is DEEP.

Yikes. This post is getting super long so I'm going to wrap it up for tonight. There is more fun news to share so check back in the next day or two!