US Trip, Part 2: Gettysburg, DC, Baltimore, DC, and Gettysburg

Our drive from Poughkeepsie to Gettysburg was relatively uneventful. It was beautiful, what with the reds and oranges and yellows, and I did manage to take another million or so pictures (which are also still living on Eric's computer). About an hour into our journey we passed the same "Welcome to Pennsylvania" sign we'd been cursing just a few days earlier, but we were much less agitated this time around.

We arrived at Kimmy and Brad's house just after dinner time. My parents and my sisters and their significant others were there waiting for us, and there was much shrieking as the kids threw themselves at their aunts, uncles and grandparents. I saw my family while I was in the US in July, but Eric and the kids hadn't seen them since last Christmas. And none of us had seen my new niece yet, who was born in August. So there was much shrieking and cooing and all sorts of rather nauseating familybonding that I'll just gloss over. And by gloss over, I do mean "include at least one picture of Olivia because she's a big ball of squishy squeaky baby with a TON of hair, and who can resist that?".

The first week we were in Gettysburg was a little bit of mayhem.

On Tuesday, we re-adopted the twins. We were up at the crack of dawn dressing three very sleepy kids for a court hearing. Our hearing was in Rockville, MD at 8:30. That meant we would be battling DC's rush hour traffic to get there. We left while the sky was still dark, and we arrived in plenty of time. Eric's parents and his sister Pam were already at the courthouse when we arrived. My parents and the loadful of people that were coming with them were running rather late, thanks to the fact that a certain somebody who shall remain nameless (KIMMY) drank too much coffee and had to make a pitstop - in DC rush hour traffic, mind you - on the way down. Our lawyer suggested that we get started without them because the judge was technically on vacation had come in just to hear our case. We filed into the courtroom, and just moments before we were all ordered to rise for the judge, my parents, my Aunt Barbara, and my sisters Kimmy and Missy slid in.

The acutal court proceeding took all of ten minutes. The judge basically took one look at us and said, "It's pretty clear that you've all been a family for quite some time, and this petition is just the necessary legal leg. Of course I'm going to grant it!" The she offered to let the kids sit in her chair while everyone took pictures.

So we're official now! The re-adoption makes Ben and Desi our legal children and grants them all the rights and privelages as if they'd been born to us, including citizenship. We celebrated with breakfast as IHOP, and spent the rest of the day with Eric's family.

On Wednesday, I drove to Baltimore with the court orders for Ben and Desi's re-adoption and filed for their new birth certificates. Because we needed them immediately, it was complicated and no one made the slightest attempt to be helpful, which is not all that surprising, but still a bit disappointing. I finally managed to get the right person, and she said she would do her best to get them as quickly as possible. We had to drive back to Baltimore on Thursday to pick up Ben and Desi's new certificates.

On Friday, we bought a house.

The closing went smoothly, and the only glitch was a bit of miscalulation on our mortgage lender's part that meant our monthly payments were going to be lower than originally stated - a glitch that we were more than happy to wait for them to work through! We drove to the house immediately after the settlement, and made a huge list of things we needed. Then we headed to Lowe's and bought fifty million gallons of paint and a gajillion fence boards.

We spent all day Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday working on the house. On various days, we ha Eric's parents and sisters and brother-in-law and my parents and sisters and Missy's boyfriend up to help us. And so we painted and we built.

And then we painted some more. And then just a little more painting. And we still didn't finish the painting. Do you have any idea how many coats it takes to cover this:

That was the living room. It was orange (in case you hadn't noticed). Very, very orange. Even the ceiling was orange. It's looking better and better, but we still haven't finished. Once I'm happy with it, I'll have a "before and after" post, complete with a ton of pictures. But I'll spare you those for the moment.

On Wednesday, we drove down to DC to get Ben and Desi's new passports. The court hearing made them US citizens, which we thought was supposed to make their Ethiopian passports null and void. It was apparently a slow day at the passport office because we got straight in, were seen right away, and had their brand spanking new passports in our hands by lunch time. Eric headed to the airport to fly to Las Vegas for a work conference, and I headed back to Kimmy and Brad's house for a much-needed nap.

We spent the rest of the week relaxing and playing.

I did a little more painting, and Missy, John and James (John's little boy) came up to help. Di and Dan brought Olivia down, and I did some more snuggling with her. Horse rides were also a big favourite of the week.

Once Eric was back from Las Vegas, we had just a day or so to get ourselves ready to head back home to the UK. Knowing that we'd be back in a few months, we left a ton of stuff in the US including one of my most comfortable pairs of pants - blast!

We left Gettysburg around lunchtime and headed towards New Jersey. I had to buy shorts at a Goodwill for the kids because it was so warm at the start of our trip. But this was our view on the drive to New Jersey:

Yep, that's most definitely snow. And it wasn't limited to the highways of Pennsylvania and Jersey.

There was more snow waiting for us when we landed in the UK.

Our drive home from the airport was more than a little trying. It was a seven-hour car ride that should have been a two-hour drive at most. Our plane landed in Heathrow at 6:00am, and we slid right through immigration and customs (Ben and Desi came into the UK on their Ethiopian passports because that's where their visas are - apparently their Ethiopian passports are still good!). Our baggage was among the first off the plane, and we made it to our car before 8 o'clock.

Not an hour later, we discovered that the main motorway between Heathrow and our house was closed for a good ten-mile stretch. That meant they were detouring everyone off the motorway, funnelling three lanes of traffic through tiny one-lane town and village roads. It took us an hour to go half a mile. The kids, thank goodness, slept, but Eric and I, who had not had the luxury of sleeping on the plane. We were pushing the I've-been-awake-for-twenty-four-hours mark when we decided that we just needed to get out of the slow traffic and find a place for a stretch. So we drove way out of the way and found a McDonald's for a quick trip to the bathroom (and that speaks volumes about our states of mind at that moment because we all know how much I loath McDonald's). Imaging our frustration when we hit more traffic about twenty minutes after getting back on the road towards Stratford. At that point, you just have to do whatever it takes to stay awake. And for us, that included playing with the camera:

We eventually made it home, and Eric and I slept while the kids - who had plenty of sleep between the airplane and the sitting in the car - trashed the house.

Whatever.

So our trip was over, and it was so busy that we certainly felt like we could use another few days of holiday! But alas, we had to start preparing for the next adventure, and nothing takes preparation like a move across the ocean...