Celebrating Judah, Ethiopian style

This weekend was full of culture for the Nix fam~Ethiopian culture that is.....something we should be doing more of here in our "little Ethiopian city" known to others as DC :-)

Friday evening we headed across town to Dukem~one of DC's most highly recommended Ethiopian restaurants. We had so much fun celebrating Judah there, and walking into the restaurant took me back to Ethiopia immediately~mostly because of the aroma. They sat us right by the bar with no high chair, which we thought was a little weird with a 2 year-old, but we just went with it. Judah didn't seem to mind :-)

My dear friend Amy was in town visiting us this weekend. You may have heard me mention her before ;-)  It was so special that she got to celebrate "Judah Day" with us, as she was among the first to meet him two years ago. This pic of Amy and Jeff was taken by Judah with no editing done by me...not too bad, buddy!

While stuffing ourselves with way too much wot and injera (see below), Judah opened his gift.

As you can see, he was super excited about his new books.

And later, he became even more excited. This is the look on his face when he heard us say, "cupcake time!"

Dig in! (literally :-)

It's safe to say that he liked it!

Coincidentally, when cleaning out some shelves this week I stumbled upon some loose printed pictures from our time in Ethiopia exactly two years ago. So I made a little picture book for Judah. He loved looking through it but got a little upset when he saw just Mommy and Daddy on the plane getting ready to take-off for Ethiopia. He asked, "Where's Judah?" and "Judah go?"

You're right, buddy...hard to imagine life without you in it. Here are some sweet pics of all THREE of us :-)

Two days later, a nearby suburb of DC hosted its Second Annual Ethiopian Festival. We went with our dear friends the Schicks and their sweet Gabriel....more Ethiopian food, friends, and of course music and dancing. I could not believe how many Ethiopians were there. It's as if we were back in Addis...especially when the emcee was speaking only in Amharic, cracking jokes that we could not understand!  Here is a snapshot from my iPhone...you can sort of grasp the magnitude.

As usual, Judah and Gabriel had a ball together. Here they are being silly in front of the Ethiopian food truck .

And topping the night off with a little dancing of course. I know you are jealous of J's mad dancing skills and his air guitar :-)

What a great weekend to be blessed by celebrations with dear friends and sweet reminders of our time in Ethiopia. Two years later, we still can't believe the amazing gift we received there.

Grateful.

Ethiopia is not yet done with us. Whether it is another child or just visiting and serving, we can't wait to see what it has in store for us next.