Where in the world is (er, was) Andy?

I added a new continent to my roster this year - Africa. Have, of course, been expecting this to happen, but it was still both great and amazing for it to happen not only once, but twice. For those who don't know the back story, we have been in the process of adopting a baby from Ethiopia for the past 18 months or so. In January of this year, we were finally matched with a beautiful little girl (that story is really told best here). That began the nearly 6 month long breath holding process of waiting for an Ethiopian court date (first trip) then US Embassy date (second trip) which would lead to us eventually bringing her home. That has finally happened and July 2nd, we arrived back in Portland with Davy Beach, our 7.5 month old daughter.
As part of this whole process, we basically spent a month in Ethiopia. We were there for 15 days for our first trip - partially for the court trip and to meet Davy for the first time, then spending a week road tripping around the country seeing what it was like. We were then there for 12 days for our second trip to take custody and have the Embassy appointment. We didn't get to see very much on the second trip, but the first more than made up for that, as we wound up traveling around about 3500 km over the course of the trip.
As with any trip like this, its tough to sum it up - especially one as important to us as this. Suffice it to say we were blown away by what we saw. It was wonderful to see such a different scenery, to meet a gracious, welcoming people, to witness such an ancient culture in person. We loved the places we saw, the food we ate, and the people we met during our travels. And this sentiment is compounded by the fact that we will now forever be tied to region by our child. We want her to understand where she is from and as part of that process we needed to see at least some of it ourselves. You cant "know a place" in such a short period of time, but even the brief glimpse gave us a lot of perspective we hope to someday share. And, of course, we'll someday return there with her to see it (if she wants) but until then, she'll experience her first home through the stories, photos, and things we brought home with us. To see more of the photos from our trip, check out my Flickr account or the albums on facebook.