Today was supposed to have been our original court date but because of a national holiday here (I think it's African Unity Day??) we now have court tomorrow. That left us with today as our sight-seeing day.
We were picked up at the hotel at 9:15am - they said they'd pick us up at 7:00 but our driver ended up stopping to have 4 new tires put on his car in the morning before he came to get us since it was a long drive today. That wasn't too bad because it gave us time to meet the other family that flew in late last night. We had a nice talk with them in the lobby before they headed to breakfast. It was great to meet them even though our time was short. (they got to meet their daughter today - yay!)
We drove about 2.5 hours and saw some different countryside which was really nice for a change. We headed to do the Canopy Walk in the Kakum National Forest. OSHA would not approve of this place at all. First, I believe we climbed roughly 9 million uneven steps to get high into the forest (keep in mind it's also 8,000 degrees outside, the amount sweat dripping off of us was crazy) After the hike there was a rope bridge about 250 ft in the air. (that's a total guess, I'm bad with judging that kind of stuff. Google the Canopy Walk in the Kakum if you are interesting in seeing it) It was really fun and a neat experience. We were also famous there ... several people wanted to take pictures with us (the white people) and I had a middle school aged girl ask if she could get my number so we could be friends. :) She said she liked my hair ... a frizzy, curly mess wet with sweat - lovely.
After that 2 hour canopy walk experience we loaded back into the car (thank goodness for working a/c in the car for a chance to recover!) and drove another hour further (mostly along the beautiful coastline) to see the Almida Castle. The Almida Castle was built orginally by the Porteguese, then it was taken over by the Dutch and then sold to the British. The tour was very interesting, full of history. It is still hard to hear of how horrible the slave trade was, the conditions were unbelieveably inhumane in that castle. After that great tour we were finally on our way to pick up E!
Greg & I were a little concerned about how well things were going the last 2 days. She had been giving us a lot of silent treatment which we don't know her well enough yet to know if that is just her response to being tired or that she was just not having fun or enjoying us. When we finally arrived at her house tonight she came running out with huge hugs for us. That felt so good! We had a few hours at the hotel eating supper and playing with her and she is now sleeping like a baby right here beside us. We gave her the picture book that I made for her tonight and showed her all of the family pictures, our house, etc. She went pretty quickly over the house and pictures of "things" in the book but any page that had the other kids on she was intently looking at them and saying their names. I asked her tonight what she most looking forward to in the U.S. - "playing with Caris" was her answer. Awwww! There was a picture of the trundle bed that is in the girls room and she was really intrigued by pulling out the drawers and sleeping right there next to Caris. (she sleeps right next to the other kids and her foster mom now so I think that will be comforting for her to be right next to Caris like that)
Tomorrow morning will come early for court. We are being picked up at 6:00am and it will take about 3 hours to drive there. E picked out one of the dresses that I brought along from home to wear (which was actually my nieces dress!) instead of wearing the new African dress we bought for her at the art center. She had a good time putting all of the options out on the bed and making her choice. Hopefully it will be an uneventful night of her sleeping here and we will pass with a full adoption order tomorrow.
All in all, it was probably one of the best days we've had here ... and we get to fly home tomorrow night - although saying goodbye to E tomorrow night will be sad, we also can't wait to see Braden, Caris & Cade on Wednesday after school! This not having all of our kids together for the summer is not going to be easy ... but nothing that is worth doing is easy.
Robin
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