Last days in Addis...

(This is the view from our guesthouse...it overlooked part of the city but was set back and so the noise was muted..a little!)

It is incredibly sad to leave somewhere that has such special and significant memories and return home again to the world of lattes and washing machines.

Ethiopia is my two youngest children's homeland, their birth family lives(d) here and the language and culture of this beautiful place have washed over them since they first entered this world.

I longed to be back even before I had left. One day we will go back and visit. We will take our little ones back home but for now, we have these memories.....

(Waving to Dave from our window at the guesthouse. Josh is wearing his Ethiopian Rasta' hat.)

This is our room a few hours before we had to leave for the airport...a complete disaster. How do you possibly fit in all those little presents and bits of pottery??

We had to be at the airport at 4:30 a.m which meant getting up at 4 a.m. Not good with five kids ranging from teenage (never want to get up) to babies!

This is a view of the guesthouse. We loved it here.

This is where we sat as a family on our very first day in Ethiopia and just grinned ...we kept telling each other,

"We are in Ethiopia!! We made it!!Can you believe it..arrgghh..I can't believe it!"

This is where we came back and just sat on the bed and cried after we had been to the Hope project and seen the hundreds and hundreds of children living in the slums. This is where Dave and I said to each other that from this moment on, we would do everything we could to make a difference..

This is where we held hands and took deep breaths, just minutes before heading out of the door to see and hold our new babies for the very first time.

This is where we first gave a bottle to Moses and where I first tucked Ayana into sleep.

A lot of firsts in this guesthouse, I would love to come back and stay here, it is very special to me.