We've arrived in Kigali

Sorry there's been no update since Tuesday night, but we've been on the road (or more accurately, in the air) since then. On Wednesday morning, we flew from ABQ to Houston. After a 4+ hour layover, we boarded a huge plane and traveled almost 15 hours to Dubai. FYI, we flew on Emirates Airlines, and it was very nice...seemed to have more leg room than usual, an incredible entertainment system (movies/tv shows on demand, video games, etc.), helpful staff, good food...can highly recommend it. We arrived in Dubai and spent the night at the Millineum Airport Hotel. Since Silas slept most of the flight to Dubai and we arrived at 7:45PM local, after sleeping a few hours that night he woke up wide awake at 3:30 AM. I was also very awake, so we went downstairs for a late night snack and then hired a cab to take us to see the Burj Dubai, which is the tallest building in the world. Even at night, it was an impressive sight. After returning to our room and showering, we joined Shelly for breakfast and then we headed to the Dubai airport, where we met the Watsons, a couple from California who are also adopting from Rwanda and are in our travel group. They're adopting a 9-month old boy who will be their 1st child, and his parents are accompanying them on the trip...very nice people, all 4 of them. A 5-hour flight to Nairobi, a 2-hour layover, and then a 90-minute flight to Kigali, and suddenly (seems strange to say that after 23.5 flight hours to get here) we're in Rwanda.

Rwanda is beautiful. Lush green, lots of hills, huge skies (like New Mexico)...absolutely beautiful. After clearing customs and collecting our bags, we met our POA. After checking into our hotel, we joined her for dinner and lots of questions and conversations. "N" is such a great person, and we learned so much by asking her questions and listening to her explain about life in Rwanda, adoption in Rwanda, etc.

We're now back in our hotel room. The travel has exhausted all of us (especially Silas, but he's handled it very well).

At approximately 9AM local time tomorrow morning (midnight MST tonight), we'll meet Samuel and Savanna for the 1st time. Our POA described Samuel as shy, and Savanna as feisty and very talkative...should be amazing. We'll try to post pics as soon as we can (possibly short video clips, although Internet speeds are pretty slow)...we'll actually take the kids from the orphanage back to our hotel tomorrow before returning them to the orphanage by 5PM. 3 more families arrive after lunch, and 3 more after dinner. Good night!