Good Bye Emily and an update

Emily left today to spend a year of her life in Ethiopia. You can check out her blog here. I am so excited for her. She is going on her own as a volunteer but will be working with Celebrate Children International in their transition house for a few months. She will then be heading to a number of orphanages outside of Addis and staying at each for a few weeks or months. I have really loved having her home since she finished school and will miss her tons. I can't wait to hear all her stories though, and what God is doing in her life and in Ethiopia. (These pictures are from our graduation celebration NYC trip a couple weeks ago. And yes, the unrecognizable dark blob to the left of my Mom's banana split really is Sandra Bullock (gasp!).News on the adoption front:
I spoke with our case manager yesterday and was told she has not yet been able to get ahold of the HH director but is hoping to touch base today. We should hear more details as to what is going on with our case and what is being done to fix the problems by the end of the week. We have also learned that the previous photo misunderstanding may, in fact, be correct and all of us are more or less waiting for confirmation that other traveling families will no longer be allowed to take photos for us. I have not lost all hope yet as we haven't heard any of this from AGCI directly but we are fairly certain this will be the case. Since AGCI doesn't do child updates or photos until just weeks before travel this could mean an even more difficult next few months. We will see. We were very blessed though to hear from 2 families who traveled about our baby boy. Here is what we heard:

Hey Autumn, I held your little one in Ethiopia! He is so sweet and so very small still. He is getting better head control and loves to be held. He did NOT appreciate being put down :) He just stares into your eyes and is waiting for you to snuggle and hold him! It was such a pleasure to see him. He still looks like the picture you have just a little more filled out with a slightly rounder face. Sorry I was not able to take pics... Thank you again for the honor of holding your baby! -Connie

I did get to see B. He seemed really little and is super cute! I saw him outside in the courtyard the last day (Doug escorted us over). Most of the time he was sleeping, but he seemed like a very content and happy baby when he woke up. -Kendra

Thank you so much Connie and Kendra for taking notes on Elias B. These few sentences are so helpful during this temporary separation. After reading these updates Brian let me know he is ready to snuggle!