Our little Eli has grown!!

Our baby boy has grown! He has grown 2 1/2 pounds and almost 2 inches in the last month and a half! He is now 5 months old and weighs 12 lbs and is 24 inches long. Poor little guy has had chicken pox already though and a bad case at that! I'm going to try vitamin E on his spots when he gets home. Speaking of getting him home, it's official.......we are leaving August 13!!!! We are heading to Rome first for a couple of days to see the sights and get used to the time change. Rome is an hour difference from Ethiopia. Ethiopia is 8 hours ahead of us! Whew....between jet lag, the time difference, and this emotional journey we are embarking on, I'm sure we will be physically and mentally exhausted when we get home!! We will need your prayers. :) We will get to Rome on Friday at 7:45 a.m. their time, be there 2 full days, leave at 1:15 a.m. and get to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 8:10 Sunday morning. We luckily have all day to unwind! Monday morning, August 17th, is Meetcha Day where we will meet Eli for the first time. We will be traveling with 7 other families. They call the babies alphabetically, so thank you Brian for being a "C" name!!! We will be called first!!! We will spend a few hours with Eli and then have to leave him. :( That will be hard, but the next day is GOTCHA DAY where we get to keep him FOREVER!!!! Wednesday will be our Embassy Appointment, Thursday, we visit the orphanage, Friday is shopping and then we leave that night at 10:15. We will get back to OKC at around 6:00 in the evening on Saturday! Wowee!! What a journey for this little Oklahoma family of 3!! I'm sure we will be changed forever through it all. I pray that God will make us better people and help us to see things more clearly on a grander scale. Keep checking in, because we will try to post while on our trip to keep you updated!