Ethiopia - Day 5 - Visit #2 With the Boys + Surprise Coffee Ceremony + Dinner at Fasika = Best Birthday Ever!!!

I woke up on August 5th (my 36th birthday!!!) with the joyous contentment of knowing that I was the mother of two wonderful boys. Our first thing on the agenda that day was to go visit them at the care center. We decided to go visit Jeremy in his environment, so we went to the toddler room first, armed with bubbles and balloons, hoping that this visit with him would be more fun for him than the last one. And it was!

After we played with him (and the other kids) for a while, the care givers brought out breakfast, and we got to feed him, which was fun! I love feeding my baby bird!

After breakfast, we took Jeremy with us to the baby house to visit Zachary. Poor Jeremy cried and cried again until he fell asleep in Brian's arms. This was our first photo as a family of four:

Here's our wee one:

I loved seeing his name written in Amharic:

After saying goodbye to the boys, we went back to our guest house, where some of the guest house staff had arranged a surprise coffee ceremony in my honor to celebrate my birthday! It was so sweet and special! Our driver, Solomon, bought me a beautiful birthday cake, and everyone sang "Happy Birthday to you" in both English and Amharic! It was awesome!

That's the coffee pot sitting on hot coals. Coffee is traditionally served with popcorn in Ethiopia.

These are some of the wonderful women who work at the guest house!

That night, all of the Gladney families were taken out for dinner to a fantastic restaurant called Fasika for a traditional dinner of Ethiopian food and amazing performances featuring music and dancing from various regions in Ethiopia.

These were two other Gladney moms who I got to know and love while we were there!

The dancers came around the room and danced with the patrons. I got to try out shoulder dancing!!!

It was a great day!!!