Hamner's Adoption Blog

Court Day- Grace in Practice ZG slept great. The music stopped at 10:30pm. Carla and I slept great too.   Carla dressed ZG in a pink and white dress with a white head band. We all looked so nice dressed up together for court.   The front desk called our room at 8am to let us know that the van had arrived. The family was all there.   We learned that the biological father was, for all intents and purposes, detained at the hospital overnight to ensure he would be in court.   The orphanage director has many great relationships in the community and the Doctor of the clinic was not an exception. He ensured the director that the “tricky man” would be ready for court.   From inside the van poured out the biological mother and JAJA, a camera man, the orphanage director, and Patrick the driver.   Carla very Gracefully handed ZG to her biological mother and we took some nice photos with ZG and her “family” and then some with all of us.   These will be very important to ZG when she is older a

We are using a dial up modem. Yes they still exist! I hope to post again tonight. We love all you guys! Our New Roommate The music never stops! The party did not end as we had hoped until after 12am! Needless to say we were ticked off.   We did manage to fall asleep and wake up to our alarm at about 9am.   It was a good night’s sleep and we enjoyed our rest.   We were scheduled to be picked up by our driver at 10am, but that quickly changed and he arrived with the orphanage director at about 10:30am.   She informed us that ZG’s nanny was very upset and we needed to take ZG to see her as a consideration.   Her seventeen year old son was in grave condition at a local hospital and the director wanted to brighten her spirits. In the last post I said that I enjoyed driving through the busy congested streets; well I lied! Always beware the “Jam”. This is what the locals called the traffic.   It is so hard to get anywhere. The roads are similar to driving down Main Avenue in Northpor

As I mentioned in the first post prior to signing off, travel day was already underway.   We arrived in Atlanta and our 58 minute layover disappeared into the loading process of boarding an International Flight.   We went straight from one plane and walked two gates down, scanned our tickets, and sat right back down for an 8 hour flight to Amsterdam.   We lost Thursday night because when we arrived in Amsterdam, after the softest landing ever might I add, it was 9am local time.   Carla was hungry, so I made a McDonalds run.   We scarfed it down and got in line one hour prior to take off to go through security again. Coincidentally, we were in line with two guys from Alabama who were going to Uganda on a mission trip. Alabama is representing in East Africa right now!   We really do live in a small world.   The flight from Amsterdam to Entebbe was interesting because Carla was approached by a nice lady who overheard us talking to our fellow Alabamians.   She specifically heard the

Ours lives have already been changed since starting the process of International Adoption almost two years ago, but the reality of traveling 8,800 miles and living in another country for a month is currently consuming all of our available brain matter.  After thousands of pieces of paper, background checks, and countless forms, we are just hours away from departing on the most exciting trip of our, to this point, meaningless lives.  Lessons of self-sacrifice, patience, and perseverance will spring up before we even touch down in Entebbe on Friday night. Whenever we think about how much we Love Zari Grace we become energized and optimistic of the road that lies ahead of us while staying in Uganda. Our incompleteness as a family is quickly beginning to be filled. But first we must PACK! Carla has decided that she and Zari should have one outfit and pair of shoes for each of Alabama's National Championships. ROLL TIDE ROLL! That leaves me with the side pocket of a small backpack