Stops Along the Way

Prior to meeting Isaiah for the first time, we made several stops along the way. The first challenge we had was what to do with Kyler and Macy while we were gone in Ethiopia. We had family close at home that could have watched them, but there was too much inconvenience and challenges with schedules, etc. So, we decided to take them to Ben's parents down in Florida. They spend part of the winter in Siesta Key. The kids were obviously right on board with this decision. We made the 18 hour drive on January 16th. The kids travel well, as long as we have the DVD player and plenty of movies for them to watch. The weather was beautiful, especially compared to Illinois weather. The kids spent each day doing plenty of this....

and this...
and this...

We spent a few days in Florida with them before we flew out of Tampa. It was hard saying goodbye to the kids. There were so many emotions with the excitement of going to Rome, visiting Isaiah, the fear of flying, so many flights, and the stress of our coming court date. So, with tears we gave them one more hug and headed to the airport. I hated leaving the kids behind, but when we returned we found out that they only asked for us once the whole week we were gone. Maybe it was good that they were having so much fun in Florida with Grandma and Grandpa. And, Grandma and Grandpa were wonderful to entertain them and help us out.
We arrived in Rome at 7:30 in the morning, not well rested. We only had two days to spend in Rome though, so we headed out. The city was beautiful with so much culture and history. Everything is very accessible, so we walked around until the afternoon seeing all the sites. By afternoon, though we were too tired and had to go back to our hotel and take a nap. After a couple hours, we were ready to go again.

Everything was so impressive.

Of course we had to taste the gelato! The display alone made my mouth water.

After two days of running around, we were ready to board another plane and begin the next phase of our journey. From Rome, we went to Frankfurt where we met up with several other couples from our agency. It was fun to swap stories and talk about how excited we were to meet our children. It helped to make the layover go quickly. The flight over the Alps was definitely awesome and made me feel so insignificant. I then drifted off to sleep, lulled by the plane and exhausted from the past few days and the days to come.