Hannah's Hope Ethiopian Reunion 2008, Missouri

Last Thursday my sister and I along with 5 of our kiddos headed south/east to the great state of Missouri for the first ever (older child) HH Ethiopian Reunion! Hannah's Hope is All God's Childrens orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and this was our first gathering since we come home last August! The very best part of this reunion was that of all 12 children that were present I had met everyone in person except three of the girls! Children I had not seen in over a year I got to hang out with, get slammed with water balloons and chased down with water guns and see how they have grown, esp. their hair! I really don't think any of them reconized me but they did remember our daughter (her ET name is Birtukan, her now American middle name). That was interesting as Major Cutie did not remember any of them except maybe Sharon's son, Abdu, maybe! This long weekend turned out even better than I could have excepted with MC and me. It is really hard to explain but I kept MC in very tight quarters. She never left my side except for about 1/2 hour the whole weekend. This was my intent the whole time. I knew I needed to keep her near me as we are in the trenches with attachment and I was not about to risk that progress. On several occasions MC did ask if she could "hang out with my friends" and I said I would go with her. Many of the Ethiopian children still speak Amharic and I could see at first Major Cutie didn't know what to think of that but she soon told me she remember Amharic and was smiling. (FYI...she does not remember any Amharic as we were in the restroom and she heard her cousin Izzy talking in a stall and told me, "Izzy is talking Amharic!!" ...of course, Izzy was speaking English!!LOL!). But MC did great! She and I played the whole weekend together on swings, at the pool and just had a great time together. It was nice to not have to worry about my little Boo who stayed behind and went to Grandma's for the weekend with my sister's 4 year old son. There is so much I want to share about attachment and forming parent-child relationships that I am learning from Dr. Katharine Leslie that I applied that weekend and will continue to do so...but for now let me post some pictures!! We didn't drive straight through to Missouri but instead stayed the night about 4ish hours away and the kids had a late nite swim at the hotel pool!
Sharon had this great idea to have T-shirts made in the colors of the Ethiopian flag. The Ethiopian children wore yellow, siblings wore green and mom and dads wore red. I am the one holding MC on the right hand side. I don't know if you can click on the picture to enlarge it or not.This was at Sharon's home. My oldest son is the one with all the air, then Abdu, "M" whose parents traveled from New Hampshire and Sharon's other son.Major Cutie being majorly cute!My oldest son...who might have been flirting with a few girls????? I won't mention names but one was American and one was Ethiopian-American!My neice and daughter hanging out in the trees and Sharon's little Guatemalan princess on her way up! Last August when we came home and traveled with Sharon and Murph we got to really know their son. I loved seeing him again and he and my oldest son really hit it off!That's it for now. We'll have to CHAT later. I'll keep posting photos as I have time! Chao!