Still in Europe, but not as cold.

Believing in the process that it is good to learn lessons the hard way should not apply to the people who think that.  Upon arrival at the Brussel's Airport Saturday afternoon, we were informed that we require birth certificates for the kids in order to enter South Africa.  Our stop in Ethiopia is only a stop over enroute to South Africa. After about 90 minutes of discussion at the desk, while Cindy had Larisa on FaceTime in Canada, who was with Jacquie, who was talking to Bev to get our birth certificates out of our house and send us a photo, which all happened in about 20 minutes.  Amazing friends! We were still not permitted to board the plane.  Not only do we need a birth certificate, we need the new abridged versions.  South Africa has been having an issue with illegal adoptions, and the new abridged birth certificates have the names of the parents on them as well.  We then quickly scrambled for some accommodation and by 8 pm were back in our same neighborhood with our previous host.  Then started the process of figuring out how to get new birth certificates processed and to us in as short of a time frame as possible.
Two Tom Hanks' movies come to mind, first Apollo 13 "Men, we have lost the moon."  or in our case Ethiopia.  The second is Castaway, and the hope that FedEx can deliver anywhere in the world quickly.  They can, and Darrell found out 24 hour service for the envelop is about $1000.  A couple of days declines the price significantly.  But for now we have a waiting game as our flight was on a Saturday night and we now have to wait until Monday morning to get the process of these birth certificates underway.  To make things a touch more complicated, we need to get Luke's birth certificate from Saskatchewan, and the other two from Manitoba.  Even little issues about finding a location that the birth certificates can be sent to.  We have accommodation for a couple to nights, but then will have to move as our current location is booked later this week.  We are learning quickly, the hard way.  Life is still good.  We are all healthy, have great accommodation, and great family and friends to help us navigate our issue.