Civil War (heading out to the enemies territory)

A tradition has formed. Somehow I have been fortunate to go to the University of Oregon Ducks vs. the Oregon State Beavers civil war game the last several years. I am quite happy to keep this tradition going. I don't care if it is in Duck country or Beaver country, what I care about is being there and watching my Ducks win.

This year we were at Reser Stadium in Corvallis where the Beavers play. I got myself all "ducked out" (see what I did there? clever, huh?) and headed out on the Beaver Bus. This is an old airport shuttle bus that has been converted by my friend Duane who went to OSU and carried 19 Beaver fans and me down to Corvallis. Of course I got plenty of ribbing from most everyone one the bus: "Who let this guy in here?" "Are you on the right bus?" "Charge him extra!" I expect that and would be upset if it didn't happen.

When we arrived we began the preparations for a fantastic meal. We set up the tables and put out all the food and we feasted. Too much of course, but it was a day of celebration. 90 minutes before kickoff a few of us walked over to the stadium area and took in the pregame festivities. Duane batted for pride after a little girl almost hit a home run; we saw the band playing and cheerleaders cheering; I got to hang with the Duck who does pushups of the total amount of points we have every time we score; we saw some of the die-hard fans; and I got to high five the players as they came out.

These people know how to tailgate!

BFFs

The game was great! Well, in the beginning it was close, and it was great and then we dominated as expected. During that first quarter I heard plenty from the Beaver fans around me. I was in a season ticket holder section and I was "alone." Again, I expected a few comments here and there and for the classic drunk guy several rows back to yell. As it turns out there was a 60something year old behind me who liked to yell and didn't like that I was in his section.

Because it rained for much of the game I wore my raincoat. I don't have an Oregon Duck raincoat, but I do have a green and yellow raincoat that says "Ethiopia" across the back. When I would stand and cheer for my team, this guy shouts "That's not Ethiopia playing down there." Several times. Classy. I was thankful he let me know, as I was totally thinking they had replaced the Ducks with all Ethiopians (so well known for their football skills).

As the rain subsided I took down my hood. In the back of my mind I thought, "Maybe I should roll my hood and zip it up. I don't want some drunk bonehead to toss anything in there. Nah, no one would really do that, would they?" Sure enough, at one point I decided to just check and there were a bunch of jelly bellies in there. Classy. I emptied them out and dropped all but one on the ground. The other one I placed on the knee of the 16 year old kid behind me and told him I thought he might have dropped something. His dad tossed it at me and said, "Wrong target pal."

Jelly Belly boy behind me. Classy!

After some time I turned to my right and saw the 60something dude with a giant bag of jelly bellies. Classy! I couldn't believe this buffoon actually did this. Oh, I forgot to mention that he punched me in the back at one point and I totally let it go (Classy!)...then I discovered the jelly bellies. As he began to leave the stadium, well before the game was technically over (we know the game was over for a long time) I yelled to him, "I think you forgot something." He did not reply.

I turned back to the 16 year old and his dad and apologized and we actually had a really good conversation. The game was over and we headed back to the bus for round 2 of the goodies and headed home after. I was pretty silent in respect of the depression that had set over the Beaver Bus. All in all, it was a pretty great day! I ate well. Hung out with friends AND we won! I would totally do it again and again. Thanx D!

That's a lot of orange.

First World Problems

There are many things that make me think about my time in Ethiopia. It may be seeing an Ethiopian woman who works at the airport in Denver or running into a former student who is from Ethiopia at church or it may be the smell of bread baking. Often it is when I see someone who is homeless and hungry. I saw a lot of people like that while we lives there for our two months.

Lots of difficulty. Lots of tragedy.

We saw lots of people sleeping on the ground.

Having seen all of that you would think I would not complain when it comes to the little things that frustrate me in life. Recently a phrase that has gained a fair amount of popularity, especially on twitter, is "first world problems." Essentially it is when someone complains about something seemingly trivial that someone in a 3rd world or developing nation would never even consider an issue.

It becomes comical at how easily we can complain about the dumbest things.

I spoke at a youth group north of Seattle recently and one of the things they did in the beginning of the meeting was give students an opportunity to gripe about their "first world problems." It made me laugh as we all shared our ridiculous complaints when you put it in the light of "real" problems others have around the world.

Wiktionary defines it as "a frustration or complaint only experienced by privileged individuals in wealthy countries."

Jamie Kennedy, in his movie Malibu's Most Wanted, plays a guy who grew up in Malibu and acted as if he grew up in Compton on the streets. At the local coffee shop he complained about the difficulties of growing up in the Bu. Like how sometimes his latte is lukewarm. #firstworldproblems

I went to the store to look at the new Call of Duty for the Wii. It said Wii U on the package. I asked the guy about it and he told me they do not make it for the Wii. I said, "You mean I am now forced to buy the Wii U if I want the new Call of Duty Black Ops 2?" He replied, "Well sir, it is a 6 year old platform." DON'T CALL ME SIR! And that's stupid. #firstworldproblems

I do not like coffee (except for when it was made over a fire in Ethiopia daily at the coffee ceremonies) but I love going to Starbucks. I typically drink the Refreshe Tea. It's a decent drink, but I go there more for conversations with people. What I love, besides the cake pops, is their salted caramel hot chocolate with soy (lactard here).  What makes this drink is the sea salt they put on top! It is an amazing mix of sweet and salty. When the season starts to wind down they begin to run out of the salt. They always tell me they can make it without the salt, but I tell them it's not worth it and then leave. #firstworldproblems

Starbucks round 2. I LOVE the Green Machine Naked juice. They now sell Evolution green something or other and it is DISGUSTING!!! Seriously, it has over 5 sticks of celery in it. I would rather get celery sticks and my own made peanut butter and enjoy that. Hey Starbucks, get rid of those awful Evolution drinks (yes, even your employees hate them) and bring back the Naked Juice. #firstworldproblems

They are now doing "winter finales" on TV and I have to wait till January for a new episode of Parenthood. #firstworldproblems

I have seen several of these online, or ones like it.

I went and visited my parents and they didn't know their wifi password. #firstworldproblems

The person I wanted for president didn't get elected. I am moving to Canada. They may change my ability to get the doctor I wanted. #firstworldproblems

There is nothing to drink at home except a virtually unlimited supply of fresh drinking water. #firstworldproblems

It's crazy how much we complain about the most ridiculous things.

What is a first world problem you deal with?

Olympic Fever

Olympic fever has hit the Williams household hard. On Friday night we had our every-other-year Olympic-opening-ceremony-party at the Unwins. This is always a fun night with lots of craziness. This year we decided we should all bring food that represents the countries we are from. Steve made perogies (Polish), Jenga made German chocolate cupcakes, Brenda brought sushi (I had no idea she was Japanese, although I suspected it), The Condellos brought stuffed shells (Italian), Sean brought pizza (Italian?) and we made Norwegian waffles and mashed potatoes with hot dog pieces mixed in.

This was a seriously major display of food!




We loved the opening ceremonies. I particularly loved Mr. Bean. Man did I laugh. The combination with classic and digital age was great. Although it was very interesting that any videos people posted from inside the stadium was taken down off of youtube. Almost like, "Hey, we are celebrating social media and technology, but please don't use any social media/technology to let anyone else know." Kinda backwards thinking when you think about it.

That being said, our family is completely engrossed in the Olympics. I tweeted that I had lost my wife for the next couple of weeks. That is true, but I really am enjoying these Olympics! Misty & Kerrie. The redream team. Women's soccer! Runners (Go Ethiopia). Norway winning random events. Ryan Seacrest's fun side interviews (Phelp's sisters and mom). The stories behind the stories. The tears. The gut-wrenching awful moments when someone misses a parallel bar. Gabby. The tweets and USAToday app breaking news updates that come to my phone before an event is aired on TV (ugh).

I love it all!

The closing ceremonies will be a sad end to this exciting time. I'm proud to be a German born Norwegian-American with Ethiopian kids! It certainly is a fun time to share as a family too. We have been playing a lot of cards together with the Games on in the background, with pauses for the important moments.
Thanx world. Game on. Compete hard. Enjoy the victories. Pick yourself up in the defeats. Live fully in all you do!

A Reminder of Ethiopia

Yesterday I got a Facebook message from our dear friend Nancy. We met her and her husband Hubert and their 2 wonderful kids while we were staying in Ethiopia. They are really great people. We shared many meals together during our stay. Perhaps the best thing about meeting this family was the fact that their kids and our kids connected equally as well as we did. Having them there also helped lessen the blow of summer vacation without friends back home.

Nancy said they were coming to Portland for 2 days and wondered if we had time to get together. OF COURSE! We would have worked very hard to make it happen if we were already busy, but thankfully we were not. We had planned to take the kids to Bullwinkle's Family Fun Center already and then we met up with them at Bridgeport Village for dinner. Although the trip to Bullwinkle's could perhaps deserve its own post, I will refrain and just add a few pictures with comments down below.

When we finally saw them across the way we all ran over and began slinging around hugs everywhere. It was so good to see this family. I can't even tell you. They live in Vancouver, BC and we had talked about the possibilities of some summer vacation connections, but it was so good to see them before summer's arrival.

Nancy is a runner, so we ran together a few times while we were in Ethiopia and Hubert has a way about him that you just can't help but like him. I know very few outgoing people like him. Most people I come across I find that I am always initiating the "hello." Not so with Hubert. I like this guy. Kynzi and Nia connected really well and Karston and Kai were like peas in a pod. I know Karston grieved the most when we left the States and it was as if God said, "This is right and I know the pain that comes with doing the right thing at times, so here you go." It was beautiful. I loved seeing Karston and Kai walk with their arms around each others shoulders like solid friends do.

They were also instrumental in helping us celebrate Karston's birthday thousands of miles away from home. That was HUGE for him and for us. So today we sat around the dinner table at Claim Jumpers and just enjoyed each other. The older kids sat at their own table and the adults and littles sat at a table. We talked about transition, bonding, life now, the future, running, etc. These are good people. People I like being around. I have some great friends here in Oregon (no buts here) and it is great to be able to talk about a life we had that not many understand.

Thank you Lord for friends from all over the world.

Karston enjoys some cotton candy at Bullwinkle's

There is still plenty of discussion as to who won

Enjoying a virtual ride that bumps and shakes

Nyah desperately wants to play skeeball

Whack-a-mole spider style

On our way to see our friends

Finally the world is right again

The littles keep "sharing" off each others plates

Trying to get one more shot before we left

Welcome Home

After a long day of running around to almost every corner Addis we finally headed to the airport to catch our 11PM flight home. We got there with plenty of time to spare. It was 8PM and we were checking in. The problem was they didn’t have Haakon and Nyah in the system. My dad had paid for them (you have to pay the taxes for a lap-child). The next 2 hours was spent trying to figure this out. 5 different people worked on it. In the end we paid for a new set of tickets for them and said we would just get reimbursed when we got home.

Haak and I went to our seats in coach (loser) class and Jeanne-Ann, Nyah, Kynzi and Karston took their seats in first class! They were flying on rewards tickets and the return tickets (as we had to change them from Sunday to Wednesday) were cheaper if they flew 1st class! Imagine that! Thankfully Haak and I slept most of the way to Frankfurt.

In Frankfurt we would no longer fly Lufthansa, but we would be on Continental. They could also not find Haak and Nyah in the system. Jeanne-Ann and the kids were booked in 1st class for this leg all the way to Newark as well. After era considerable amount of time they were able to find Haak but not Nyah. Something must be pretty jacked up in their system. Anyhow, Jeanne-Ann mentioned to the lady who was helping us that as soon as we landed in Newark our babies would become American citizens. She said it was really important for all of us to be together at that moment and wondered if there were anyway she could seat me with them. It was too late to use rewards miles and she informed us it would cost 3,000 Euros. That’s about $5,000 USD!!! Just to upgrade. Gulp.

She said she would not promise anything but that she would talk to her colleagues. After about an hour she called me up and said they worked it out so I could sit with my family! Amazing! These seats were AWEsome! They have buttons that you push to raise your legs or lower your back. You can even lay completely flat to go to sleep. A 10 inch monitor with over 200 movies to choose from and TV shows and games! I watched 4 movies. Haha. There was even a built in bassinet for Haakon to sleep in. I could go on and on about the food and sundaes, etc, but I wont. I know what it’s like to fly in loser class and it’s hard to go back there once you have tasted the good life.  :)

Karston Enjoying a movie and a snooze

Nothing like stretching your legs on a flight.

We landed in Newark and our babies became US citizens.

It was a wonderful moment. Then all of a sudden our phones lit up as we could finally turn them on for service after nearly 2 months. I tweeted about landing and the citizenship and made calls to family and then to my surprise, my brother decided to drive down from Albany (3 hours) with his 3 boys to see us! We spent a couple of hours together and shared stories about all of our summers’ happening. It was wonderful.

Fred Armisen from Saturday Night Live and Portlandia even greeted us. What a nice guy.

We then loaded up and got aboard our final flight. I had actually been upgraded to 1st class for this final leg, but the rest of my family had to sit in los...sorry, coach class. It was a full flight and all we wanted to do was to be back home. We finally landed. Jeanne-Ann had opted for the very last row because there were no other passengers in that row so she had it to herself with Haak.

We got off the plane and saw our friends Scott and Marilyn Williams at our gate waiting for us. They were headed to North Carolina but knew we were landing a little before they were leaving. Then we headed to freshen up and put on the babies’ “debut outfits.” We walked the long corridor at PDX and then turned the corner (I had the video camera on my phone going) and we heard LOUD cheers. Over 60 people were there celebrating with us. It was AWEsome and overwhelming. I couldn’t believe it. I remembered when Josh and Bex returned home. Bex had asked me to take pictures and they had a bunch of family there. Family time was first and all of us friends stood back as they hugged and kissed and held the babies. Then it was time for friends.

We did not have “blood” relatives there, but our other family was there. Typically I thrive in these situations. I love crowds and I love people. It was a weird moment for me. I saw Jeanne-Ann walk up to some of her girlfriends with Haak and I sort of froze. I wasn’t sure what to do or who to go to. I honestly can not remember another time in my life where I felt like this. I was out of sorts. It was surreal. I felt like I was floating away from my body and watching from above for a few moments.

Finally someone came to me. (I think everyone was like I was when the Manns came home...we weren’t sure when we could go up and didn’t want to be that first one). Then the floodgates opened. It was hugs and kisses and more hugs. Nyah is very attached to me so she was pretty uncertain how to navigate this moment. Haak goes to everyone pretty easily.

I began to cry. It was here. The moment we had been dreaming of for almost 2 years was actually happening. We were home with our 2 beautiful babies from Ethiopia. Our West Coast family knew how to celebrate and they celebrated so well! It was a real honor and pure joy to be part of. Honestly, it is quite a blur, but there are snippets of that next hour or so that I will never forget. Eye contact before a hug that went deep into my soul and spoke volumes without hardly a word.

I will let the pictures that follow speak for themselves.

Eager anticipation

Thanx to Lisa for most of these welcome back photos she posted on FB.

Sometimes a hug is better than any words expressed.

Our Adoption Support Group!

The whole family!

"Erik. Why have you not been to the office in forever? I have a lot for you to do! Get your butt back in there tomorrow!"

On our garage door when we arrived home.

Thank you so much for being part of our journey. Whether you were there or you prayed for or us or gave us a gift or sent us a note or are a faithful reader on my blog. You have been part of our journey. The crazy part of getting home is over, but this journey and the craziness that goes with it is hardly at its end. Continue to join us, won’t you?

We Got Custody of Our Children!!!

I was going to post about our trip to Wollisso today, but a turn of events happened and I thought you should know about it. It is, after all, what we have been asking for prayer for quite some time now. Because Kynzi was so sick on Karston’s birthday (Monday), we moved our visit with the babies to today (Tuesday). We decided we would go and visit with our lawyer, Sintayehu, before we headed to the orphanage. I called him up and he told us to come on when we were ready. We arrived about 2:15 in a rickety old taxi as a storm was brewing overhead.

After a couple of minutes of waiting he came out and walked us back into his office. Jeanne-Ann and I had prayed for wisdom from the Holy Spirit as to exactly what we should say, because we didn’t want to say anything that might be “the wrong thing.”

We shared our concerns regarding something we were worried about with Nyah. It was something we talked to him about before, but the doctor said it was normal and he told us we had to trust the doctor. Today we told him we had done quite a bit of research and agreed that it was “normal.” Babies who lay in cribs and aren’t held a ton often get flat spots and even misshapen heads. It’s called positional plagiocephaly. We are pretty sure that is what Nyah has. We told him that research tells us that it’s best to get a helmet of sorts that is designed especially for this before they are 10 months old. Nyah is almost 10 months. These helmets, or DOC bands, can greatly help to bring back symmetry to the head.

After we shared our concerns, we asked if there was any way to help move the process along any faster. We had not yet received the MOWA letter (the big slow up in the whole process) and then there was the wait for their paperwork after that came (20 days or more we had been told). He smiled and said, “Well, there has been a change since we last talked.” WHAT? This can not be good news, but he is smiling. Mhmmm...what was it? “The letter from MOWA came yesterday, and I was going to call you, but when you called me and asked for an appointment I decided to wait to tell you in person.” WHAT?! Are you kidding me? I held my breath and said, “What exactly does that mean?” “It means you can go and take your kids.” “Today?!” “Yes! Of course!”

Tears welled up in my eyes as the reality of this news began to register. Was he for real? We were on our way to see the babies after our visit with him. “So we can go and not visit but we can take custody of them today?” “Yes!” Wow! I couldn’t believe it. I got out of my chair and ran around to the other side of his desk where he was sitting and gave him a huge bear hug. Then there were hugs all around. We all hugged each other and we all hugged Sintayehu. He would call over to the orphanage when we were on the way and we would start the process.

I asked him how long the rest of the process would take. He told us he would work hard and make sure that it was done in 15 days or less. Jeanne-Ann clarified what 15 days meant. Not business days, just plain old glorious days! It could be sooner, but he would not promise that. Then it will be up to our embassy. He told us not to cancel our return tickets on July 31 yet. It could still be possible! Can you believe that!?!?! We may arrive home on August 1 as we had originally planned!

We arrived at Tokoul, our orphanage, 5 minutes later and the heavens had opened up and in the 13 steps it took us to get to the building from the taxi we were soaked. We didn’t care. This was a momentous occasion. We were celebrating. We handed over the copy of the letter to the office manager who had just arrived so she did not get the phone call yet. She looked at it and with joy in her eyes she smiled and said, “Wow. Congratulations.”

She called for the nannies to bring them out to us and we sat for a while, as they were still sleeping, and she began the paperwork. The nannies finally came and walked us to the meeting room where we had been so many times before with Haakon and Nyah for our 2 hours or so visits. We didn’t understand. So I walked back to the office and asked if we were still getting to take them home with us. She said, “Yes, I just have to finish the paperwork.” Whew. Huge relief. I ran back to Jeanne-Ann and my FOUR children and explained what was going on. A few minutes later we were loading up in the taxi and headed back to our home away from home, with all four kids!

We walked proudly in to the guest house with smiles plastered to our faces ready to show them off to anyone or anything that moved! Most everyone in the guesthouse knows our story and we were greeted with many congratulations and “awwwws” and everyone agreed how beautiful they are! We have shared the  “what happened?” story many times over tonight and every time it has been a pure delight.

We gave them a bath right away. Haakon was not a big fan, but Nyah loved it. Then we hung out in the room, took some pictures and just loved them like crazy! We fed them, changed about 5 poopy diapers (thank you Haakon) and now they are sleeping in our room in makeshift cribs (there are a ton of families here right now and all the cribs are being used). I can hear them breath as I am typing away at my computer. I keep looking over and smiling as I see God’s plan for our family continue to fall into place.

True, a couple of years ago I would never have thought I would be adopting ANY children, now I can’t imagine it any other way. These are the children God purposefully chose for us, just as He has adopted us into His family!

Thank You Jesus!