Paul and Becca

There is so much to say and so much has happened.  I will do a quick bullet point list to give you an idea and hopefully I will have time and space to post some details and pics soon.

• Paul left for Addis this morning.  He has several meetings with other doctors at other hospitals.  He will be back on Wednesday.
• Nathan is walking all over the place.  He is so proud of himself and because of the praise he learned how to say “good job” while clapping for himself today.  (Actually it sounds like “gah gah”, but with the proud smile that follows you know exactly what he means.)
• We moved into a different house (about 100 yards from the duplex we were in).  We spent last weekend moving the main things and I am still finding knew homes for things.  We moved into a three bedroom house with an office for our new baby and Paul’s growing administrative duties to have some more room.  It is a beautiful house and we have more space than we ever had in our Dallas apartments.  It is however, amazing how much you can accumulate in 7 months.
• Nathan is a signing fool!  He does signs all the time.  And on top of it he is a chatter box!  I think I can teach him a few new words every day.  Today we learned “ott ohh” (I can’t think of how to spell it, but you know…what you say when something drops to the floor) and night night. 
• Nathan is blowing kisses.  It is so adorable.  Nana taught him this while we were in the states.  He puts his hand to his mouth and goes “mmmmch”
• I am working a lot in the hospital kitchen.  Ok, I am not cooking, but I am very involved in the decisions and overseeing the staff.  We recently hired a trained cook who has management experience and she is amazing.  It has been great to see her come in and do things that I can’t do since I am not there every day.  Nathan, Etagainu and I are going to have lunch with the kitchen staff tomorrow.  They love when I visit, especially when I have Nathan.
• I like to point out my growing belly to some of the locals I know.  They just laugh, because it is not cultural to show that you are pregnant.   Many women hide it for a long time, especially if it is their first.  But I am proud of my baby bump and people ask “tinnish lidget endet no?” = “how is the tiny baby?” or in order…”tiny baby how is?”
• We got to see the baby yesterday on sonogram.  It is perfect and healthy.  Sharon, our OB, checked everything she could.  She said nothing is showing signs of preterm labor, that is very good news when you know you will be on a plane around 29 weeks gestation. 
• You may be asking…”well…boy or a girl?”…”is it a brother or a sister?”.  Well, we want to wait to find out…..of course most of you who know me, know that that is not true for one second.  I was going crazy waiting to hear that Nathan was a boy.  We couldn’t tell on the sonogram this time and honestly we may not know until I have an American sonogram.  I will let you know when we know.  But I am handling it well, the anticipation isn’t quite as strong and it was so great to hear that everythink looked good.

love to all, Becca

I think a lot of times it is hard for Paul and me to relay all of what goes on here.  Especially on the medical side of things, we may share too much information (“T.M.I.” as my mom would say) or smarty-pants-Paul may use words you have to look up or scratch back to college biology to deduce a meaning.  Well, the surgeon who covered for Paul while we were in Kenya, Dr. Campbell, had a news story written about his experience here in Soddo.  And I thought some of you may appreciate a bit of what we experience in other words…click here!

We made it back to Soddo safely.  The first five hours (out of 18) on the plane were rough with Nathan, but then he went to sleep and slept for 8 straight hours…including through our layover in Amsterdam and the first 3 hours of the next flight.  KLM is one of the best airlines we have ever been on.  They are all so nice and carrying a toddler is like magic…we get to be first in line, get extra food, we even got two extra seats on the last leg so Nathan could lay down.   They really were great and we got an amazing deal on our tickets.

It is good to be back in our house and back on Ethiopian time.  Nathan did better than either of us with switching time zones.  Everyone welcomed us back with a pizza party and cake.  And tonight is Harry’s (the Optometrist) birthday, so we are celebrating with cake and ice cream! There is always a reason to celebrate.

It was so great to be back in the states for a little while.  It was restful and refreshing and it gave us a better sense of how to pray for you.  Especially in light of the economy, we have been praying diligently for friends who have lost jobs and actually catching up on current events makes me realize that we have to pray for everyone else to keep their jobs too.  We look forward to seeing more of you this summer when we are in Dallas and Houston!

Love, B, P and N

We are headed home to Ethiopia today. We leave from Atlanta around 6:30pm ET and will get to Addis around 10pm (3pm ET) on Saturday. It is a long flight with Nathan. On the way here he kept signing that he wanted me to take him outside, it is very hard to explain to a 14 month old that we can’t go outside when we are 35,000 feet in the air.

We have had a great time here in the land of plenty, but it has also helped us put our committment to serving in Ethiopia in perspective. We are anxious to see our friends and family in Soddo. They have planned a pizza night for Sunday, when we will drive from Addis to Soddo.

Thanks to everyone who has prayed for us during this unexpected trip. We hope to touch base with more people on our trip this summer. love, Becca, Paul and Nathan

Here are some adorable pictures that my dad took while the fam was visiting Atlanta.  I left the files kind of big, since some of you like to print them out and since we are in the land of high speed internet and … I can.

He’s walking!!!  Nathan started walking yesterday.  It is so amazing.  He loves it and is so proud of himself, of course, the constant encouragement and clapping is only reinforcing his pride.  He is afterall the first born child and grandchild on both sides.  So for his first steps, my parents and sister were there as well as Paul’s dad and brother.  So Nathan had quite the audience.  In the picture below, he is just standing.  We have a video of him walking posted on our old website.  Click here http://paulandbecca.blogspot.com

You can also see that Nathan got a professional haircut, instead of a “chop-job” by momma or daddy…

Hey everyone, we made it to Atlanta.  We never would have guessed there would have been snow here when we landed.  The flight after ours out of Amsterdam was cancelled…that would have been beyond describably horrible with delirious, sleepy Nathan.  We have spent some precious time with his grandmother and she is now in a hospice home.  We have loved spending time with Paul’s brother and wife, John and Sarah.  We are privileged to call them not only family, but great friends.  Our time is always filled with laughter, fun games and reminiscing the hilarious stories that only two brothers can share (BB guns, gun powder and bologna sandwiches to name a few). 

Mommy and Nathan in the snow

Mama with the family and her Ethiopian scarf

My parents and sis are coming to Atlanta this weekend as we well as Paul’s dad, so we will enjoy some more family time.  Nathan is loving all of the attention and Nana has already spoiled him.  And JD is the best babysitter!  Nathan is sooooo close to walking.  He loves to stand up without holding on to anything and then trying to take a step.  He usually falls back on his bottom and laughs and then does it again!

Nathan is loving eating goldfish, Cheerios, string cheese and yummy yogurt (compared to the runny stuff mom makes).  I am loving eating Cheetos, gummy bears, chicken and dr. pepper!  If you want to know the first place Paul picked to eat after leaving the airport…Chipotle!  Some of you could have guessed that after he asked one Dallas chipotle if we could rent it out and have our rehearsal dinner there (unfortunately it didn’t happen.)

Well, that is an update from our end.  Maybe Nathan will start walking before we leave and we can post a vidoe before our fast connection goes away.  So if any of you have been wanting to send us huge emails feel free to send them before next Friday.  If you want to call us please email and we’ll you our phone number here paulandbecca@gmail.com

love,

becca, paul and nathan