Major Restaurant

We had heard from several people about a second Ethiopian restaurant in Indianapolis, Major Restaurant. Major is the last name of the owner. (Note to fans of the movie "A Christmas Story" -- when Mark and I hear the name Major Restaurant, we also hear the voice of the Dad from the movie dramatically saying "it's a major award" when he's notified that he's won the "frageelay" leg lamp -- but I digress ...)

On Sunday, Mark and I traveled down to Indy to meet our friends Brian and Deanna for lunch at Major Restaurant. It's definitely off the beaten path but not too difficult to find because it's near the intersection of I-465 and US 40. But we were glad to have directions with us. It's a little bit bigger and brighter than Abyssinia. And the food was wonderful!! Here's a photo of our platter -- a sample meal with three meat dishes, six different vegetable dishes and tons of injera.



After we finished eating our meal, our server asked us if we wanted to have some coffee. She roasted the coffee beans in the back but brought them to us when they were still sizzling hot so that we could smell them roasting. Then she placed the coffee beans on this mat to cool before she ground them to make the coffee.


Then she returned with a full coffee service, including popcorn and incense for us to burn. It all smelled wonderful! The coffee was very smooth though we think it had the strength of espresso. Thankfully, it was served in tiny cups. We had a great time catching up with Brian and Deanna and it was so fun to find another Ethiopian restaurant in Indy.

Happy Birthday, Mark!

So I mentioned in our last post that we spent part of Mark's birthday at an informational meeting with our adoption agency. But we did way more than that! It was a fun day.

I took the day off from work so that we could go to Indy to meet with our adoption agency. Mark is usually off on Mondays because his studio is closed. We decided to plan a couple of fun things to celebrate ...


First, we went to the Indianapolis Zoo! It was a beautiful day, even kind of warm for late September. The good thing about going to the zoo on a Monday -- it wasn't crowded. The not-so-good thing about going to the zoo on a Monday -- a number of the animals were "off exhibit" so that the zoo could work on repairs, cleaning, etc. It was like the animals were recovering from a weekend hang-over! We really enjoyed the giraffes ... we got there at feeding time and they were very fun to watch.

We also enjoyed the meerkats, polar bear, elephants and snakes (Mark yes, Wendi no).

We had packed a picnic lunch and enjoyed it outside of the zoo before heading to our meeting with our adoption agency. Our meeting went really well ... we feel really confident in our agency and look forward to working with them! We found out that we are the 13th family to be working with them to adopt from Ethiopia.

After our meeting, we made a visit to Trader Joe's. They have some great sauces and other treats that we just can't get in Lafayette. We also stopped at Whole Foods (formerly known as Wild Oats). We love browsing the aisles for exotic foods.

Next, we ventured to the west side of Indy to find an Ethiopian restaurant that Mark found online. He had been talking about it for nearly two weeks and how excited he was to go there! We pulled up, started walking to the door and then we saw that it was closed on Mondays. (it didn't say that on the website!)

Not to be deterred in his quest to find a new kind of food to try, we walked two doors down, past a Mexican restaurant to Machu Picchu, a Peruvian restaurant! Mark enjoyed his seafood ceviche and was a happy birthday camper. :)

We are looking forward to returning to Indy soon and dining at Abyssinia, the Ethiopian restaurant. (It's on West 38th Street near Georgetown Road on the north side of the street if anyone is interested!) We ended Mark's birthday celebration with dinner at McGraw's here in Lafayette with our good friends, Chris and Brian, on Saturday night. Mark wore his new argyle sweater vest. :) We have a running joke that I was supposed to marry a pastor who wears argyle sweater vests ... long story!

Adoption Process

We thought it might be helpful to tell you a bit about the process of adopting.

We first contacted our agency in Indianapolis back in August. We had to complete a preliminary application. In the preliminary application, you designate the countries you are interested in being considered for. We chose several and the agency advised us that we were a good match with Ethiopia. We didn't know very much about Ethiopia so we did a little research, went to the library and the more we read, the more it seemed like a good fit for us.

The next step was to attend an informational meeting. We had about a month to wait so we asked if there was anything we could do in the meantime. The agency recommended three books that we are required to read, an online course through the Hague, and sent us additional paperwork for our formal application, including a lengthy biography project for each of us to write. We completed our paperwork and biographies and submitted them at our informational meeting. That was on Monday, September 22, Mark's birthday. (more on Mark's birthday in my next post)

We received an e-mail the very next day telling us that our formal application was approved! We are very excited to be moving ahead. We have been assigned an adoption specialist. She and her husband adopted a little boy from Ethiopia earlier this year. We are so glad to be working with her and look forward to learning from her first-hand experience. She's already shared a number of resources with us, including the fact that there are about 4,000 Ethiopians living in the Indy area, along with Ethiopian churches, restaurants and shops. Our network is growing already!

She also told us that there is a group who gets together somewhat regularly in Indy -- families who have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia. We have also found a similar group here in Lafayette.

Anyhow, back to the process ... we start our home study on October 20. We will meet with our adoption specialist four times and then she will write a recommendation for us. Basically, she gets to know us and writes a report about us as a way of 'presenting' us to the Ethiopian government to be considered for adoption. We will use our biographies as a starting place for our conversations. (for all of my pastor friends, it sounds a lot like pre-marital counseling!)

We have alot of paperwork to continue working on in the meantime. The home study takes about two months to complete. We will be working on two sets of documents: one for our agency and one for our dossier. The dossier is what is sent to Ethiopia. It is first authenticated by the US government and then sent to Ethiopia to be translated into Amharic, the language of Ethiopia. Our agency has a staff member in country who will walk the paperwork through the process there. He is also the person who will match our child to us, called a referral. When that happens, we will receive a phone call from our adoption specialist who will send us pictures and information about our child via e-mail. We will have the opportunity to review the info. before accepting the referral. We then respond with a 'yes!' and send a document back to Ethiopia that says so. At that time, a court date is set and the adoption will happen even before we arrive in country.

Next, we will wait for our invitation to travel. We will spend about one week in Ethiopia to meet our child, complete the immigration paperwork, and then travel back home with our new son/daughter. It usually takes about 2-4 months after receiving a referral before you are invited to travel.

So, that is a quick synopsis of how the intercountry adoption process works! As we said, it is very early in the process for us. Our hope is to have our paperwork completed and our dossier submitted sometime around the first of January. We think that is realistic but we won't know for sure until we are further along in the process.

Keep checking back for updates ... we'll do our best to keep our blog current.

Here we go!

Yep, we've made the leap into blogdom. I've been lurking on a number of blogs of families who are adopting from Ethiopia. Now that we've gone public with our plan to adopt, it seems like a good time to start our blog to record our adoption journey and keep our friends & family updated. We have been assigned an adoption specialist and will begin our home study in just a few weeks. It's very exciting, humbling and overwhelming to think about -- so many emotions and so much to look forward to. Every now and then I just have to stop and think, 'wow! we are going to be parents!' It feels amazing to say that and I get a little smile on my face when I think about it.

Well, this note will be short. I'm not very technologically inclined and it has taken me far too long to figure out how to set-up this blog tonight. I'll write more later this weekend; maybe post some more photos and outline what is to come as we journey towards Ethiopia. For now, good night! WAA