Busy Weekend

We went to Seattle to speak with the Bishop from Burundi. He happened to be in town and we thought it might be a chance to impress upon him our sense of urgency. We ended up spending a few hours discussing the adoption and things to expect in country.

Some of the things we learned were that the Bishop is working tirelessly to bring our kids home. (I say ours because we are not the only family with a child in Burundi anymore) However, his wish to help is not always enough. Others are helping, too. There are several ministers and government workers who are working to bring this adoption about. They may not have the same urgency that we do, but things are moving along. The next step is to be able to convince the state department that everything is on the up-and-up.

Other than that, we learned that culture and language differences have been and will continue to be a major barrier. When trying to get the answer to what we thought was a simple question, we ended up having to rephrase and re-word the question several times before we finally found the correct sequence of words to get the answer we wanted. For instance, we wanted to know who was BB's primary care giver. Because the Bishop is in charge of paying for BB's care, his answer was, "I am." It took several times, but finally we arrived at, "Who puts the food in his (BB's) mouth?" We finally got the answer. A young lady who attends a local college. So, one step closer...right?

We ended up staying for dinner and then driving home, where we arrived late.

Yesterday, we had a long slow morning. We ended up going to a local fruit stand. Dagdagan Fruit Stand. They have a delightful stand with a small hay bale maze filled with pumpkins. We bought some gourds and pumpkins and then brought them home to decorate our doorstep...and we my eventually dine on a few of them.

As we drove back toward Yakima to get a few items, we saw the Oscar Meyer Weiner-mobile...I just had time to clock one shot as it rocketed past.

And here is Cora as we walk in toward one of the stores we visited yesterday. I ended up buying a new jacket on Saturday. Cora got new shoes and we basically had a good weekend. I hope the rest of the week continues that trend for us and everyone!

Seahawks! Go Hawks!

We went to Seattle to see the Seahawks. My favorite Sister-in-law (Sorry Molly, but cough up some Hawks tickets and the title is yours!) and Brother-in-law (Same goes for you Paul!) ended up with a couple extra tickets. We happened to be free and, well...isn't it obvious? We accepted. I have never been to a large sporting event and figured, "what the heck! It's been thirty-four years, maybe I should go see a major sporting event!"

I may have taken a pictures more than a normal fan. But, I was impressed by the dedication of the fans (Short for fanatics, right?). Almost every one of them was wearing some sort of Seahawk Paraphernalia. Even I had a Seahawks hat...I managed to come across one months ago. Here are just a few of the pictures. Cora will probably have some diffrent ones. You can find her here.

On the up side, we had a great...GREAT! time. On the down side, just at the final stages of the game the 49ers pulled their heads out of their hind ends and spanked the Seahawks on theirs. (Fans of both teams forgive me for my terminology, I am new, like I mentioned, to major sporting events) This sequence of photos shows us on our way, at the game, and leaving! It was an awesome day.

THANKS EMILY AND RYAN!! I might even spend a day or two with the football game on the TV...

Seattle Traffic, Burundi, Food

We are back from Seattle. We met with our agency and up dated our home study. We did some shopping and we ate some good food. I have plenty of pictures to show for my efforts, so please bear with me.

I don’t think I have told you quite how I feel about traffic. I know I mentioned that yesterday sucked. I am disgruntled with the amount of humanity on the roads. No wonder gas costs so much. Maybe some of those people should walk, since they sure can’t drive! I had a few choice words for those wonderful Seattle residents who did their best to put dents in my beloved car…er…Cora’s car. Here are a few pictures of the lovely traffic we dealt with. I have again neglected to discuss my love of the traffic. I suppose, you will just have to read between the lines.

As for the good food, here are a few of the dishes and a couple pictures of our dinner with our agency.

The first is of our dinner with the agency. The reason we had dinner with them is that the Bishop from Burundi, a small country in Africa, had come to finalize arrangements between the agency and their government for families in the US to adopt children from Burundi. We have been looking into other options for adoption while we await China’s eventual (?) speed up. We will continue to wait for a China baby, but we do want to become parents. So, we went to meet the Bishop, who is also some sort of diplomat to the US. His brother-in-law was president of Burundi for 100 days…until he was assassinated. He was also a political prisoner for a period of time. Despite his hardships, he is a genial and friendly man with a striking sense of humor. It was an honor to share a meal with him. We will be one of the first families in the Burundi program. If all goes well, we may be parents by Christmas! Cora will write in MUCH more detail, and probably more eloquently than I, on her Blog.

Our meals were excellent. The dinner with the Agency was at the Ram brewery in University Village. That is a nice little shopping venue. We went shopping and just enjoyed walking around it this morning. See how nice the center was?

We saw this, which seemed to indicate we were in Seattle...let me put it this way: You know you're in Seattle when...

We spent some time in Eddie Bauer. Here are Cora's feet whilst she tries on a top.

About noon we decided we needed sustenance. We settled on Zao’s Noodle Bar…remarkably GOOD!! See what I had? Some sort of grilled pork thingy, a la Vietnam. I also had something they called Thai Iced Tea…pretty good. Cora had a seafood noodle thingy…they were both good.

See the look on her face because I decided to take the camera out...AGAIN?

We ended up at the Macaroni Grill at Northgate for dinner. I had some sort of medley…three dishes in one. Chicken Parmeninan…ptarmigan…err, some sort of chicken, lasagna and something else. OK, I DON’T know what I ate, but it was pretty good! Here are a couple pics from that resaraunt. Note Cora tearing into her bread...

I also took a few pictures on the way home…from the driver’s seat. Cora does not approve of me doing more than driving…pictures by the driver are frowned upon. So, I began taking her picture after every shot I took…I am not sure all of them turned out…her eyes may have burned straight through the camera at times.

Note the snow on the mountain

I like some of the buildings in the University district. Don’t you?

Also just some scenery.

It was a good couple days. We enjoyed it.