Goodnight Max

It's midnight and Max is comfortable in his new nursery (big thank you to Jack for helping me make the nursery possible). I can't tell you the peace we feel watching him sleep in his new home. What an amazing journey behind us, and what an amazing journey yet to come. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts, prayers and kind words over the past several months. We feel very fortunate to have each of you in our life.
Love,
Travis, Rebecca, Austin, Anna and Max
To Be Continued.......Avery 2009

Max and "The Alaskan"

We're home!!! We landed in Anchorage at 10:00PM Saturday evening. This is a picture of Max seeing his very first Alaskan. Thanks a million Curtis for lighting up the house, turning up the heat, picking us up and getting us home tonight. Also a big thank you to Mick for plowing our driveway and making the house accessible. We've got a great network of friends here in Anchorage and we're excited to introduce all of you to Max.

Family Reunion

We had a really nice time with my cousin Carina and her family in Seattle. We met for lunch and tried to catch up on the past 16 years. Happy Birthday Carina! Really look forward to seeing them again in Casper this summer for my folks 50th anniversary celebration.

He does smile!

Thanks again to Melody for posting to the blog while we were gone. I just realized I didn't send any pictures of Max smiling. He is a happy little boy.

Back in the USA

Let's just say that all of our children are excellent travellers. We left Addis at 10:00pm local time on Thursday eve and arrived Washington DC at 8:30am Friday morning local time. Account for the time change and that is almost 19 hours on one plane. Rebecca and I had bulkhead seats so Max was able to sleep in a crib attached to the bulkhead. He slept for probably 14+ hours of the trip to DC. Once we arrived in DC we cleared immigration (the first time) and then waited for our bags. And waited and waited and waited. There were 5 international flights that landed at once. That's 5 planes from 5 different countries with about 50 different views on the formation of a line. It was pretty much chaos. We got our bags and then proceeded to another immigration office to clear Max in the US. No problems whatsoever. Our layover was supposed to be 5 hours but with the late arrival and long immigration process we only had about 45 minutes once we got to our gate. We then flew to Seattle, another 6 hour flight. We checked into the hotel across from the Seattle airport and ordered Chinese food. It was work keeping everyone awake but we managed and everyone collapsed in their beds about 7:30pm. It is 7:00am local time as I write this post on Saturday morning and Rebecca and Max are still sleeping. Austin and Anna joined me for a hot chocolate at Starbucks in the lobby. Our flight to Anchorage isn't until 6:00pm. We are going to meet my cousin Carina and her family for lunch today. I haven't seen Carina in probably 15+ years so am really looking forward to meeting one anothers spouse and children. I'll certainly posts some more pictures either later today or tomorrow in Anchorage.

Goodbye to Ethiopia

We are wrapping up our time here in Ethiopia. It is Thursday afternoon, the sun is shining and all of our paperwork for Max is in order. We received his Ethiopian passport and his US entry visa yesterday. We are going to the airport in about 3 hours. The return trip is the same- Addis to Rome, to DC, to Seattle, to Anchorage. This has been a wonderful experience for all of us. We will cherish our time here and forever be grateful to WACAP for facilitating the process that brought us to the other side of the world to bring our son home. Specifically our thanks to Megan and Teklu, you two are fantastic. Next time you here from us we will be stateside.

Travis with his oldest son

The picture was taken in the New Flower Guest house. Austin has been simply terrific. He has been so helpful with everything. We've taken some great walks, played soccer in the courtyard and had some really good conversations. He's great with Max and as always pals around with Anna. Austin really gets it at his age. He understands what he has and really wants to serve others. He will no doubt be an excellent influence in Max's life.

Life in Addis Ababa

These are some pictures I've taken over the past several days in and around Addis. The guy with the camera is filming a wedding procession. They say this is a common practice. I don't think this guy properly understands the ramifications of the driver hitting the brakes at 60 km/hr when you're not strapped down. The picture of the guy pushing the trailer is a local garbage man. This is how they collect the trash in town. These guys are all over, sometimes one, sometimes two pushing the cart. The other picture is of a shoe shine "stand". These are on about every corner. The cost to have an excellent shine is 1 birr, which is 10 cents USD.

Goodbye to WACAP house

For starters, my apologies for very few posts over the past few days. The connectivity has been very poor. Yesterday, 12/16, the WACAP home had a little ceremony for us to visit one last time with the staff. It was a very nice traditional coffee ceremony followed by pictures with the staff. This is an amazing group of people. They truly care for and love these children. Many of the staff cried when we were leaving. There will no doubt be a special place in heaven for these kind people, and we will be forever grateful for the care they gave Max for 4 months of his life.

Shell Ethiopia

I mentioned in a previous post that we saw people lined up at a Shell station on foot. The fuel stations all have a kerosene pump that people purchase fuel for cooking. They walk to the station carrying their cans. This line is very short. The line we saw the other day had over 100 people in it. The other photo is across the street from Shell. It is quite common to see goats, donkeys and other livestock walking by the road and in the road. There are numerous Shell stations here in Addis Ababa, many have an armed guard standing by the kerosene pump.

[Travis says he has been having trouble with the dial-up internet at the place they are staying, so is now posting from an internet cafe but it is still really slow - hopes to have more posts soon - Melody]

US Embassy

Today our agency brought Max to be with us fulltime. He arrived about 2:00PM and then we went to the US Embassy to apply for his entry visa. We had an interview at 3:00PM and were approved for the visa. We'll pick up the visa on Wednesday morning and at that point we are 100% done with all required paperwork in Ethiopia to bring Max home to Alaska. It is really nice having him with us now. We gave him a bath and he sat on Rebecca's lap during dinner. He's really coming to life and giving us lots of smiles. Anna simply can't get enough of him. Austin left the room at the first sign of a dirty diaper. This picture is of Rebecca and Max on the way to the embassy.

Life in Ethiopia

This picture was taken on December 13 on our drive south of Addis Ababa. It appears to be a woman and her son. The reality of life here in Ethiopia is overwhelming at times. Days like this really put our life in America in perspective. The fact the Dow Jones has dropped 6000 points in the past year seems totally irrelevant.

WACAP House

Here is a picture of Max with one of his caregivers at WACAP house. WACAP house is a transition home that our agency (WACAP) runs that allows them to take children from an orphanage once they are placed with a family and bring them to a better environment to wait for their new families to arrive. Max has been at WACAP house for over 2 months now. The caregiver to child ratio is excellent. They currently have about 12 children and plenty of help to give the children a great deal of attention. The facility is very safe and clean. We feel very fortunate that Max has been in their care.

December 13 - Addis

Another great day in the capital city. Max was really active today and we enjoyed a great time with him. We got pictures of him and his caregivers. We wanted a picture of him in his crib but he let us know immediately what a bad idea that was. We will not see him tomorrow (Sunday) and will then pick him up Monday, 12/15, and bring him to the guest house to stay with us until we leave on Thursday. After we left the WACAP house we drove about 50 Km south of Addis to visit a lake. This drive had everything. Cars, trucks, donkeys, cows, cats, people, people and more people. My favorite site was of a Shell station. There were no cars at the pumps, but about 100 people were lined up (on foot ) filling jugs with fuel. Interesting to say the least. We had a nice Ethiopian meal at a lake with another family that is adopting an 18 month old. Very nice scenery, sunshine and 80 degrees. Rebecca and I are now headed for a massage followed by dinner, without kids. The guest home we are staying at will watch after them while we are out.

Welcome Max

At about 11:00am on December 12 we finally met our son Maddox (Max) David Purvis. What an amazing experience. He is simply beautiful. He was happy to be held by each of us and then fell asleep in Rebecca's arms. They held a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony for us. You haven't lived until you've had coffee the way they make it here. With many kisses we said good-bye to Max for the day and visited the Ethiopian National Museum as well as a lion park. Addis Ababa is truly a place where the past and present meet. Extreme beauty, extreme poverty. It's a magical place that has such great need. We are all feeling the effects of traveling to the other side of the planet. Here's hoping for a good night sleep.

We Made It!!!

After more than 35 hours in transit we arrived to Addis Ababa at 9 :00pm local time on Thursday eve. Backing up a day, the open seating in DC was pretty interesting. They assigned everyone a seat as the crowd pushed its way to the boarding door, and then once you got on the plane the seat assignment didn't matter. Every man for himself. We ended up fine and had a nice flight. Take off was about 1-1/2 hours delayed. Flight to Rome was uneventful and we landed for fuel, nobody could get off the plane. We took off again and Austin and I enjoyed some beautiful views of the Sahara desert out the window once we were over Africa. This is a memory I will cherish for a long time. We landed in Addis and found the airport and people to be very nice. We applied for a visitors visa (no issues) and cleared immigration with no problem. Our bags made it and we left baggage to find a mass of people out of the doors. Our agency had representatives there to meet us and were quickly loaded in a van and taken to our guest house, about 5 minutes from the airport. We are staying at the New Flower Guest House in Addis Ababa. The lady who runs it is named Helen. She is 60 years old and primarily hosts adoptive families. She told me one of her greatest pleasures in life is watching families fall in love with their Ethiopian children, right in front of her eyes. That will be us in a few hours. Helen has two helpers here at the house, Malifia (she is about 16) and Caleb (he is 19). Malifia made Anna and I an amazing pasta last night when we got in, Rebecca and Austin went right to bed. Our room is huge and just push a button and they are there immediately to help. We are now up this morning and having tea and breakfast. The sun is shining, sky is blue, and the temperature is about 65 at the moment. Will be over 80 by mid day. Our agency host, Ado Teklu, is picking us up at 10:00am to go meet Max. Ado Teklu is the man who represented us in court to finalize the adoption. We found out last night when we arrived that the Ethiopian government has outlawed blogging so our good friend Melody Peters is taking e:mails from me and posting them to our blog. Thanks a million Melody!!! Hope to have pictures to all of you soon.

Washington Dulles Airport

We are now in Washington.  We arrived at 3:00pm local time and depart at 8:30pm on Ethiopian Airlines.  Austin took this picture of our plane.  We had to get boarding passes at the gate and the computers crashed before we got to the counter. It looks like their going to have "Open Seating".  We've always wanted to board a Boeing 767 with 250 people, first come first serve.  This will no doubt be interesting.   We'll stop in Rome for the plane to refuel (we can't get off) and then we're on to Addis Ababa.  We arrive to Addis at 8:30pm Thursday local time.  

Leaving Tonight

T-Minus 10 hours and counting.  Austin turned 11 years old today so Rebecca and I had lunch with him at school. One kid said, "Seriously Austin, you get to go to Africa for your birthday?".  Not quite the reason, but Austin isn't complaining about the timing.  I'm picking the kids up from school in about an hour and then dropping Moose off at the kennel.  I'd prefer to drop him at the pound but quite certain Anna would have something to say about that.  I'm hoping to post an update once we get to Washington DC tomorrow afternoon.  The next family photo you see will be plus Max, minus Moose.  Keep us in your prayers.

6 Months Old - Max David

This picture was taken a few weeks ago in Addis Ababa. We are flying out tomorrow night (12/9/08) at midnight. The trip will take about 35 hours in total. Our route: Anchorage, Seattle, Washington DC, Rome, Addis Ababa!!! We are scheduled to arrive in Ethiopia on Thursday evening, local time.

Kids

3 kids and counting.  Austin turns 11 the day before we leave for Africa, Anna is 7 and Max is 6 months.

Paris in the fall

Here's a few snapshots of Paris a few weeks ago.  We spent a week there with our good friends from Anchorage, Curtis & Jody Smith.

Getting Ready

T-minus 11 days and counting.  We depart Alaska at 1:30 AM on December 10 for Ethiopia.