Breakfast, Tea, & Coffee at Manaka Coffee
This morning started early as we wanted to get to Manaka Coffee to try it out before going to meet up with our daughter. It was a great coffee shop with a lovely tea selection. (Ha!) Brian also had coffee. We had a great breakfast of flap jacks, eggs Benedict, and steel-cut oats. After a few “friendly waves” (what we call it when Brian accidentally hits the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal—which is on the opposite side of the steering wheel), we made it to the care home.
Our first stop of the day was to the flat to show our daughter her dress for adooption finalization at court (which is happening Thursday morning for all of you who like to pray for us). We showed it to her and she loved it. She said she felt like a princess. I’ve had that dress since we were matched with her—over two years ago!
After she approved the dress, we needed shoes, so we headed to Woolworths. I let her pick out shoes and she picked out tennis shoes. I suggested we get those and pick out some dress shoes for court. Then I took her over to the girls clothes and let her walk around and pick out anything that she liked. She picked out a pink sweatpants and zipper sweatshirt combo because pink is her favorite color. She seemed overwhelmed, so I suggested a few more things that she approved.
We then met Tisetso and Brian at a place for lunch. It’s the same restaurant where we had our sixth anniversary dinner back in 2016! It was delicious and our daughter was able to get her favorite meal—macaroni and cheese. Tisetso showed off his new purchase: a pair of low-top dark green tennis shoes, which he is adding to his “collection”. While we waited for our lunch, I taught our daughter how to play tic-tac-toe. It was so much fun playing with her and seeing her confidence rise with each game. She even beat me fairly a couple of times! Once we had finished lunch, we picked out cake for one of the house mamas whose birthday is tomorrow. We hope she likes rainbow velvet (our daughter’s choice).
The garden where our daughter has undoubtedly spent many hours.
We headed to our daughter’s previous care home facility in the organization (she had just been moved to a new home six weeks ago). Today was hard, as it was a lot of good-byes to house mamas and many of the friends and peers that she loves. One of the teachers at the preschool started to tear up and said, “We are so happy, but it’s so hard.” There were a few moments like that, but most everyone said good-bye with joy for our daughter and were happy to meet us.
After we had said many good-byes, our daughter indicated she was ready to return to her (current) home. When we got there, we assembled the older kids and introduced them to three American candies—Dots, Pez, and Pop Rocks. The kids all agreed the grape Pez tasted like medicine and they all loved (and were sufficiently weirded out by) the Pop Rocks. After the sugar had been consumed, we headed upstairs to play some games and decorate some cards for the house mama’s birthday tomorrow. The girls especially loved the idea of having cards to give to her. We then said good-bye to our daughter for the night and promised to be back the next morning.
CARB CITY!
We had to head back to the mall for some supplies and additional groceries. We made a mistake and went to the grocery store hungry. We ended up coming home with a lot of carbs (insert eye roll here for knowing better). We left the carbs at home and went to The Codfather across the street for dinner. Tisetso still would not try a Cape gooseberry. Maybe next time.
One huge thing we all received today was a hug from our daughter / sister. When we went to say good-bye, we offered to give her a high five (a common thing we offer to kids in case they are uncomfortable with physical affection), and she said no, then hugged us all in turn. It was really beautiful and unexpected. We hope and pray for more victories and milestones like that in the coming days as we show up and do what we promised to do.