4 days

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The Babymoon

Hello Tegegne! How are you? Do you know that we will be there in a four days? That is so soon.

A note to you about our babymoon. You see, your father and I decided to spend our last days before parenthood in one of the more lovely cities a person can find. Paris. We find ourselves sitting on the subway, half full of travelers headed from Versailles to Paris. We sit across from one another. Your dad is enjoying a book, "Into the Wild" by John Krakauer while I listen to Bon Iver and read Julia Childs, "My Life in Paris." Our feet touch and I smile because we are in love. Four years of marriage, on our last trip as two for awhile. We are so happy. Life is good.

Paris. I love this place. Crepes with nutella and bananas. Breads, wine, people dressed with style. The doors. There are not two doors alike in this city. I could photograph every single one. Design is everywhere. Yesterday we toured a Le Corbusier home. Today we will visit Musée d'Orsay and Centre Pompidou. The Pompidou has a cafe designed by Phillipe Starck on it's highest level. He knows design. I could stop on any street and find a photographic moment in my view. And the friendships we have here are wonderful. Just enjoyed another lovely meal with Madam Gerardin and her friend. And last night we enjoyed the raclette (yum!) at Anne's flat just off a very lively street in Paris.

We bought you three books that you and your dad will enjoy! One of them titled, "Madame Trompette veut maigrir" (Miss Elephant Wants to Lose Weight). It's a funny book.

The bag with my coat arrived last night! I have been borrowing a brown coat from Madame Gerardin. Our last bag should arrive today! We will catch a taxi at 4 am to make our way to Charles de Gaul for our 6:30 am flight to ET tomorrow. It is a forcasted 75 and sunny in Ethiopia!

Signing off from Paris.

cordialement,

Kristyn + Michael

Photos from France!

5 days

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And another Number 5....

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bonjour!

bonjour! i only have 15 minutes of internet because our adaptor does not work with our computer charger. bummer. we will try to fix that! one of our bags came today. we have two more that are still lost. hopefully they arrive tomorrow. michael doesn't have much to wear. i, on the other hand did quite well at the "soldes" today. we found three of the thrift stores that were on my list and i found bargains. we also got some sweet black high tops for T, a blue and white stripped shirt, and orange cardigan. the stripes are so french. all three of us have new stripes from paris!

last night we reunited with great friends north of Paris for dinner and an overnight. another wonderful French dinner with 5 courses! today we met up with the Roots from Texas. that was a very good time. can't wait to see them in ET in a few days! we are doing well and enjoying our time here. it's quite cold and it snowed a bit in paris today. tomorrow we will walk around versailles and enjoy the adorable houses and streets. lunch with Mme Gerardin. dinner in Paris with Timothee, Anne, Isabelle, and their friends! they are fixing racellette, and michael is pumped!

we miss you and thank you for your prayers!

-the two almost three of us

6 days

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7 days

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En Direct de Paris

Live from Paris! We arrived at 8:30 this morning, but our bags did not. Hopefully they get here within the next day or two. Air France gave us 100 euros each to compensate for our lost luggage. I thought it was nice of them to throw that good news in with the bad, but as you could imagine we'd like to get our luggage asap. We will look forward to spending the extra euros, especially since "the sales" are going on now in France. We have had a wonderful reunion with our dear friend Timothee. His family is great. We will stay with them in Versaille all week. We've already had delicious cheeses and breads, toured the Palace of Versaille, attended a Catholic mass, and had two great meals with Timothee's family. It was hard to stay awake all day but hopefully tomorrow our bodies will catch up with the time change.

The rest of our week should look something like this:

M: Meet Timothee in Paris over his lunch break, walk around for few hrs, dinner and overnight with good friend Agnes and her father

T: Lunch with the Roots, who are from the States and will be in ET with us next week adopting their two darling children, afternoon and evening enjoying museums and a date night with Michael

W: Daytime to sightsee + shop, evening with Timothee, his awesome girlfriend Anne, and their friends at Anne's appt in Paris

R: Daytime in Paris, Movie night with Timothee's family in celebration of his sister finishing an exam to get into school to be a doctor

F: Catch EARLY flight to ET and travel all day, arrive at Guest House around 8pm and probably head straight to bed

S: Travel to Sodo, where we will stay overnight and meet Tegegne's birth family

8 days

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Off to Paris

Hello from Chicago O'Hare airport in route to Paris then ET. We have had an exciting journey so far. Our flight attenant from KC to Chicago was Ethiopian. Her face lit up as we spoke of her homeland. She says we should eat los of kifto on her behalf. Have you had kifto, Tegegne? Upon arrival in Chicago we noticed a two-hour delay to Frankfort due to a snowstorm there. This delay would cause us to miss our connection to Paris. I took action and went to the United desk to get an earlier flight. The kind fellow sent me to the Lufthanza desk where we waited an hr to be first in line. I then "worked my magic" as Michael put it, and we are are now sitting in the business class lounge waiting to get on a DIRECT flight to Paris arriving 1.5 hrs earlier. Free meal, drinks... Michael keeps saying, "Dude we got hooked up!"

Thank you Lord for your provision and for these businesss class seats to Paris. We are totally enjoying ourselves!

(Timothee we arrive on Air France 8:35am AF667.)