Sometimes you just gotta laugh...

Our trip to Ethiopia was incredibly stressful. We seemed to have one problem after another that we had to deal with. However, in the midst of all of that stress...sometimes you just gotta laugh. Here's a few moments we'd like to share and have a good laugh about it (believe me, I wasn't laughing then...only now looking back).

Sometimes you just gotta laugh when...

-in the middle of the biggest blizzard of the decade (the night before you are to fly out) your snow blower "pull-start" cord breaks and you are left to shovel and shovel and shovel

-your flight is one of only three to leave your airport (because of the blizzard) and yet they still lose your luggage (and I mean ALL of your clothes are gone...and you've got ten days still to go)

-you finally get into your hotel room in Ethiopia late, with little to no sleep for two days, only to be awoken by a Muslim mosque chanting VERY LOUD for hours on end early the next morning

-if the mosque didn't keep you up at night, then the packs (and I do mean "packs") of wild dogs fighting all night would

-the next day you go to a shopping "mall" (because you've been in the same clothes now for days and you're pretty tired of it) only to be told by a sales clerk in choppy English that "we have no clothes to fit you" just by looking at you

-you realize over the next few days that all of the pictures you are taking during the trip will later look like all the same day...due to you still wearing the same clothes

-the shared computer in the lobby of the hotel has a "dial-up" connection and you become ecstatic when you get one e-mail through

-driving on the streets in Ethiopia is much like driving in the worst traffic on the planet...with no rules...and you realize that you just might not make it out alive

-near the end of your week there the laundry service in the hotel has taken pity upon you and brings your one outfit up to your room after it has been cleaned

-the day you are to leave you call to confirm your airline reservation only to learn that it has been cancelled and you are stuck in the country (thank goodness for emergency numbers)

-after you finally leave Ethiopia you land in Istanbul and have to go through 6 different passport and immigration checks which by this time petrify you enough that you debate you will never leave the United States again (if you ever make it back...)

-you land in Chicago to a plane that skids sideways on the runway...why am I not surprised after this whole week

-you miss the last flight and have to spend the night in Chicago...oh, to be so close to home

-you make it home with the most wonderful bundle of joy who for the entire trip was the biggest trooper and never did complain

This was our "labor" to bring him into our family. Oh what a story to tell him when he's older...