Gotcha Day! – In Pictures

Leaving the orphanage 1:

Leaving the orphanage 2:

The best of the gotcha day orphanage videos:

Hello Black Sea. Goodbye!

Hello Black Sea and goodbye!

Monday breakfast: ready for the big escape!

Tamera’s breakfast – very good – I was very very hungry!

Going into the orphanage:

Dmitry in the reception area:

Our son – his tears: (was a happier reunion for Brian!)

In his new clothes. Happier now that he is not being held by the big scary American:

Donny wasn’t too sure about the car at first.

Ahhhhhhh – that’s better! (Took a 1-hr. nap)

Lunch on the way to the hotel… looks yummy! Pork and onion kabob and flat bread. Now my (Tamera’s) stomach is upset. Hmmm…. Only chicken soup for me the rest of the trip? We will see in the morning.

A nice big hotel room now!

Mama and sisters overjoyed at the reunion!

I love this picture!!!!

Bath time for our little guy. For the other families adopting from the same orphanage as us. He is small, but appears healthy. I forgot to mention earlier… he has been on some sort of medication that sounds like “Crayon”. They say it was to help his appetite.

I LOVE HIM IN THESE JAMMIES! I have held these jammies empty for too long. Now look at him go! He is crawling much better than in June!

Isn’t this a beautiful picture of love?

Fast asleep:

And I’ve saved my favorite for last… a father looking at his son in love… and two guys hanging out. (See Jordan’s foot on his knee?)

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Sunrise over the Black Sea

From Tamera:
Good morning from Bulgaria! What a sight – the Black Sea at sunrise can talk your breathe away. Earlier Brian and were praying over the day on our balcony in the early sunrise. Wow! Misty eyes and much comfort from God.

Good morning from Bulgaria – This is the view from our room of the Black Sea. It is beautiful! God is amazing!

View of the Black Sea from the lobby of our hotel.

And on another note:
WiFi is in the lobby of the hotel – it is 7am and they pick now to buff the floors. Very, very noisy!! I guess they don’t expect people to be in the lobby at 7am. Hmm… (Also – no lights were turned on in the lobby. I, Rachel skyped with Brian in the dark until the sun rose!)

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Jordan watch – day 2

Pictures added below!

By Brian: I do feel better tonight than I did this afternoon. Going to get up a little bit early to be at the orphanage about 8 to get Jordan! I am excited about that. Can’t wait to wrap him in that turtle blanket.

Mom and Dmitri talked most of the way from Sofia to Varna about Bulgarian history and world issues. It was interesting to hear from Dmitri. But I was mostly just trying to doze. The country side is much browner and barer this time. It’s cold and dry. We see vendors selling onions by the road. Guess it ain’t cherry season no more.

We met with Nina tonight for a short visit. I wanted to stay longer but it was getting late. Misha and Theo came up to see us. They were shy but still just as boisterous as ever. Nina was very sweet, serving us tea, asking about Rachel and Jordan. She gave us a huge bag of nuts and what look like plum pits. As we left she gave mom a long hug and prayed over her. It was special. I wish we could give them more… they have been such an encouragement to us, showing us God’s love and the Bulgarian hospitality.

From Tami: What do you do when you are visiting the lady who let your son and daughter-in-law stay in her house months ago – she and you hug like best friends and she starts praying for you in Bulgarian. Wow! Cry? Say amen with her? Pray for her too but quietly because you are listening to her words that you don’t understand but you know are from the heart? Yes! What an amazing lady. Pray many blessings on Nina, her husband and 2 beautiful children. Thank you Brian and Rachel for allowing me to go on this amazing trip. Tomorrow, we pick up Jordan and drive the 7 hours back to Sofia.

Back to Brian:
Tomorrow is the big day! It is so weird to be adopting. Unlike getting pregnant and carrying a child, where Rachel would do most of the hard stuff, and where we don’t necessarily know what day we meet the baby, in this case we met Jordan 6 months ago, we know we get him tomorrow, and a lot the responsibility for the first week will be on me! It is quite daunting. I’m so glad mom is here to help.

Speaking of which she a better photo blogger than me so you may have to wait for Rachel to steal her pictures before seeing what we did today.

Added from Rachel: Pictures taken from Tamera’s facebook and posted here too! We missed talking with Brian here this morning as we were in church when he made it back to the hotel for Skype time. 🙁 Hoping to catch him tonight as he’s getting ready to go pick up Jordan! Oh, that DOES excite me! Girls and I are doing good at home. The times when Brian’s usually gone anyway are ok… the times when he’s usually here are the hardest. Driving home from church. Going to bed at night. Rolling over to the warm side of the bed, but it’s cold. But the girls have been good, we have been healthy and friends have been amazing. One day at a time!

Pictures from Tamera’s facebook along with captions:

Down the street from the hotel in Sofia:

First meal in Bulgaria. Chicken sandwich with french fries, cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, yogurt sauce, and chicken pieces. We both only ate about half. It was good.

The market where we got water. .69 levs. In the airport a water less than half that size was 3.00 levs!
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View from hotel in Sofia:

Yummy tomato (with breakfast):

Happy to be eating! Blood sugar was 113 this morning! Yeah!!!!

Brian’s breakfast – scrambled eggs, tomato, bacon?, grapefruit, pastry that tasted like french toast, and bread and honey. Yum! (breakfast served by Budapest Hotel in Sofia)

Tamera’s breakfast – Scrambled eggs, mushrooms, bacon?, ham & cheese, yogurt sauce, crescent and peach jam (whole peaches), butter and milk. Great breakfast. Ate it all – so hungry!

In the van on the way to Varna from Sofia. Taxi in Sofia. (Can you read it? It’s pronounced taksi!)

The country side is beautiful – brown though. I saw sheep with their sheep herder, a horse and cart with 2 people on the cart, and cows with a cow herder?.
Sorry – these are through the window in a moving van.
It was so cold that there was a hard frost on the tops of the hill/mountains. (hills to us, considered a mountain range there)

We went through several tunnels on the way to Varna.

There were several small towns/villages along the way… think we saw a lake and a resort. (this is just a piece of countryside)

Shopska salad and cheese wrapped bacon for Lunch at Happy Bar and Grill:

Hotel room in Varna. (I’m sure this was a welcome sight!)

Still the hotel room in Varna. Won’t take a picture of the bathroom this time. It pretty much looks like the other one.

Brian is tired, I think. Dinner – Brian had chicken soup. See my cute Pepsi bottle? (Yes, I would agree that that is a tired Brian face. Hope you both slept really good and feel encouraged, excited and joyful today!)

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Brief Update

From Brian when he woke up on his Sunday morning:

We slept until 7. That means I was asleep for 14 hours and mom for 15. We just went down for breakfast and it was pretty good. Dmitri picks us up in about 30 minutes. We’re going to Varna! I think I’ll be able to sleep in the car too. I feel like the mono is kicking my butt this morning. Slept forever and still really tired. Pray it gets better.

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Second post of the day – Back at the ranch

If you are just tuning in – please scroll down just past this post to see Brian’s first post from Bulgaria!!!!

I downloaded pictures from my phone to share a picture with Brian… but there were quite a few, so decided to do a blog post.

Maggie on the way home from getting an immunization… she wasn’t too worried about her shot, because she just wanted to play with the bandaid. Gross!

The girls a few weeks ago before Maggie was potty trained… sitting on the futon and watching out the window for Papa to get home. We’ll be doing this in our hearts until he’s home!

That was a big carrot (from our garden):

Britton – you crack me up!

Abba Roy holding his new baby girl. Although the quality of the picture leaves lots to be desired, I thought his expression to Ellie was precious. (Not sure how he’s going to feel about me using the word precious to describe him… haha):

What do you do with bored kids at a hospital while they’re taking turns visiting their new baby sister? Play glove guitar, of course!

I graduated to being able to drive the Swart van in the Swartmobile. Then I went home and slept for a week.

A few weeks ago making the now-familiar trip to Salem to get an apostille:

THAT is a big apple!!!!

Hooray for organic apple seconds for $.25/lb!!!! I dried a third, sauced a third and sold a third to my friend.

I love my new giant 20 qt. stock pot. Made a lot of applesauce all at once!

So now to the pictures that I took for Brian. I rearranged our bedroom to fit a pack n play in there. I know it’s early, but I wanted to get it ready for Jordan. Hopefully he’ll sleep great in his crib in the girls’ room, but this is the backup plan. (the backup to that is that we have a futon in the living room for B and me) Ummm…. so yeah – the room’s a little cramped. It would be just right if we didn’t have the recliner in there too. But I want the recliner in the house somewhere and there just isn’t room anywhere else. (maybe he will let me rock him and sleep with him at night to help with bonding?)

Better view of the easy chair. Anybody want to suggest a way to rearrange? (and the wardrobe does not move)

Jordan’s new digs… can’t wait to have all my kids home!

And why not show the rest of the house – I”m on a roll, right?

Nothing like sharing your kitchen with the world to make you realize how much you want to declutter!

My great accomplishment – I mowed the lawn and dumped all the leaves. It was a lot of bags!

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