Friday, January 27, 2012

Tizita's Growing

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The staff at the transitional house where Tizita is staying e-mail us photos every other week or so. They sent us a few pictures of our little girl today. I can't believe how much she has grown and filled out in less than four weeks!


~AnnMarie

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Beetles of Ethiopia

We saw a lot of interesting vehicles during our stay in Ethiopia, including quite a few old Volkswagon Beetles.

Some of them were trying to look tough,

some were flashy,

but most were just basic transportation.

C.O.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Lalibela, Ethiopia

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Lalibela was our most memorable destination and the highlight of our trip, other than meeting Tizita of course. Simply arriving in Lalibela was a treat.

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The road coming into the town twists and curves up and down hills and valleys. Cliffs are scattered with homes and buildings and there are livestock and people walking everywhere.

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Tourists travel to Lalibela primarily to see the rock-hewn churches. The 13 churches were made during the reign of King Lalibela in the 13th century. The churches were not built but rather carved out of stone. It took a true visionary to look at a huge section of bare bed rock and say, "let's turn this into a three story, elaborately decorated place of worship. Pick up your rock chippers guys and let's get carving."

The churches are, in my opinion, one of the great wonders of the world. They are every bit as impressive as the pyramids of Egypt. Not that I've ever seen the pyramids but I have a good imagination.

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This is the view from the top of the Church of Saint George. It may be difficult to see the perspective here but these things are huge! You can see people in the shadows standing at the base of the church to get an idea of the size.

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Here's the view from the base of Saint George looking up. This structure was the last one in the series to be carved and the most elaborate of all the churches.

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Again check out the tiny people in the shadows to get a little perspective of size.

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Inside there were columns, staircases, relief artwork, various rooms all carved out of solid bedrock. We were in awe.

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The churches are connected by a series of tunnels and walk ways. This tunnel was long and completely dark for most of the way. We had to put one had on the person in front of us and the other on the wall to stay oriented.

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Notice that Harold is barefoot. Any time we entered a church we took our shoes off as a sign of respect for the Holy place. Our tour lasted all day and we were able to visit all 13 churches.

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For dinner we headed out to, Ben Abeba, a one of a kind restaurant still new to Lalibela. Frank Gehry eat your heart out man.

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We arrived just before sunset to catch these spectacular sights.

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We had a very nice dinner for about $15. The business is a collaboration between a Scottish woman and a man from Lalibela. The menu is small and a bit odd but surprisingly delicious. The very simple food was just right for those of us prone to "traveler's" stomach.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Our Ethiopian Tour: Days 1, 2 and 3

We arrived in Ethiopia well before our court date to adopt Tizita. We wanted a chance to see some of the amazing country we had heard so much about. Getting a taste of Ethiopia and it's culture will be very important in future conversations with Tizita about her birth country.

Day one of the tour began in Bahir Dar. We arrived by plane and were met by our local tour guide and driver. Throughout the journey we were impressed with the quality of our tour guides. They were knowledgeable, friendly, spoke excellent English and were truly enthusiastic about the information they shared with us.

Stop number one near Bahir Dar was the Blue Nile Falls.

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After a short hike, we rounded the bend and came upon this view.

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Once upon a time the Blue Nile Falls were even more impressive but due to a new hydro electric dam, the amount of water doing the actual falling has decreased. There's a lot of mixed emotions surrounding this but at any rate we found it a wonderful hike and a beautiful view.

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I wonder if the cows appreciate the view?

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Fisherman in a Papyrus Boat on Lake Tana

The following day we took a boat ride across Lake Tana to visit the monasteries that date back to the 14th century.

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After our couple days in Bahir Dar, we drove 175 km (about 100 miles) to Gondar. The drives from place to place were just as interesting as the destinations themselves.

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The list is endless of things one can carry on one's head. Our favorite was a stack of mattresses about 8 mattresses deep. Unfortunately I could not snap a photo fast enough of the mattress man.

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Our driver bought Harold this goofy hat. All the guides and drivers seemed to enjoy Harold. With all the horseplay and goofing around it felt like we had two kids to keep track of!

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The main attractions in Gondar are the medieval buildings. Medieval architecture isn't what you normally think of when you think of Ethiopia but as we discovered, this country is full of surprises.

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The Rudstroms visiting the palace of King Fasilidas.


~AnnMarie


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Want to Help?

A few people have recently asked if there was anything they could do to help us out with Tizita's adoption. All the prayers and good wishes have been a great help and encouragement to us, so first of all thank you for that. But there just happens to be a way for you to help in another capacity. The orphanages that care for waiting children need help obtaining some basic supplies.

The transitional house that Tizita is currently staying at asks that families bring donations to help cover some of the costs of caring for the children. We brought a few things on our last trip but would like to help out even more.

Unfortunately, donating via the Rudstroms is a bit of pain due to our remote location but there are a few options if you're interested.

1) Shop in person and ship it up.

2) Shop online and have the company ship for you.
or
3) If you live in Brevig, just drop it by our house

Our address is:

AnnMarie & C.O. Rudstrom
P.O. Box 85105
Brevig Mission, AK 99785

If you'd like to go with option two I suggest www.drugstore.com , they will ship to us for free if you spend $50 or more. I looked and they have quite a few options for formula and diapers there. And if you're an ebates member you will also receive 6% back on your drugstore purchases.

Update: A friend of mine had trouble with drugstore.com, they said the contents were too heavy and they would charge extra for shipping.  Amazon , however, worked well for her.

It can take up to a month for items to reach us both through the USPS and even drugstore.com so we wanted to make sure and get this information out to you as soon as possible. We will hopefully be going back to Ethiopia sometime at the end of February or early March which is surprisingly just around the corner.

The basic donations need list:

diapers of all sizes
formula with iron
infant and toddler clothing
your extra plastic grocery bags could also be put to good use

*Diapers and formula are a higher priority than clothes but clothes are just plain more fun to buy.

I'm not sure how many of you will send donations but I'm going to think and hope big. No matter how much is sent to us we will find a way to get it to Ethiopia. One of the adoptive families traveling at the same time as us had waivers from the airlines to check extra bags of donations for free. So excess baggage shouldn't be a problem.

Please spread the word and share this with anyone who might be interested in donating. The gifts of others before us has helped our adoption and sweet, sweet Tizita. I pray that we (you and I) can be a blessing to those who are still to come on this amazing journey of adoption.

~AnnMarie

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Seattle Too

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On our way to Ethiopia we spent two days in Seattle to break up the crazy long journey a little.

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Of course we had to go to the top of the Space Needle

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to get this wonderful green screened family photo

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and drink overpriced wine in plastic cups.

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Being Christmastime and all, Santa was chillin' at the Needle as well.

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And then we saw the Oscar Meyer Weiner mobile, that was fun.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Introducing Tizita

We passed our court hearing on Monday, January 2nd making our daughter Tizita officially a Rudstrom. Unfortunately it takes about 2 to 4 months for the U.S. embassy to issue her a passport and travel visa. So, we still have a bit of a wait until we are able to take the munchkin home.

Let's spend a little time getting to know the little darling shall we?
 
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This is Tizita Rita Rudstrom. 

Tizita is the name given to her by the police who found her.
Tizita means "memory" or "to remember fondly" in Amharic.

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Harold was the first to discover that Tizita has ticklish feet and that placing stuffed animals on her head also makes her smile.

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She is a total cuddle bug (the opposite of Harold),

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she yawns when she's tired,

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and scratches her nose when it itches.

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Tizita is very comfortable in her daddy's arms. In fact, when she babbles she says, "da, da, da, daddy". We will be working on associating "daddy" with C.O. first thing when we have her home.

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And most news worth of all, Tizita has recently changed her relationship status from "single" to "family of four".

Monday, January 9, 2012

Lost in Translation

We were surprised to find that many people in Ethiopia speak English quite well. English is taught as a class in the elementary grades then high school classes are taught completely in English. Despite this, English is still people's second language and a few translations are, shall we say, creatively interpreted.

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Who can say, "run on sentence"? This was some very helpful information about why we absolutely cannot pay for our hotel with a check.

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This system of lock and key was brand new to us. The doorman demonstrated and there were these very helpful instructions and yet for some reason we struggled every time we tried to get into our room.

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Warning: This toy may lead to underage "inebriety".

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The very pregnant mommy here is fortunately "happily" about her situation.

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Ummm, is "Japy" in any way an acceptable adjective?

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And our favorite story from the trip, "The Banana Fruit". We ate at a nice restaurant at our hotel in Gondar. They had a three course meal menu with a few options for each course. The dessert section listed, orange zest cake or banana fruit. C.O. assumed the banana fruit was another type of cake but was sorely mistaken. I laughed as I ate my delicious orange cake.

~AnnMarie

Sunday, January 8, 2012

During the 1970s and 80s the Russians were in Ethiopia.  They are no longer there, but their cars are.  There are thousands of these old Lada 1200s that are still being used as taxis.  Some of them are in nice looking condition, and the owners have them customized with all kinds of chrome accessory's.

C.O.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

A Taste of Ethiopia

We are back in Brevig Mission after a wonderful time of traveling to Ethiopia and meeting our daughter for the first time. I'm overwhelmed, jet lagged and not in any shape to do a proper post. So for the time being I will share some photos that do an inadequate job of capturing the beautiful and amazing country of Ethiopia.

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~AnnMarie