Boldog Apák napja!

That's "Happy Father's Day" in Hungarian....at least that's what Google tells me.
Daddy's first Father's Day with a double dose of tiny love!

We made him cards, and Princess handed him the envelope saying "Apa" to him for the first time ever. Today she started calling us Anya and Apa :)

Monkey discovered the cross-stitching kit...and couldn't put it down. Don't tell anyone though...he's not convinced that it's not too "girly" to be caught doing. He made this coaster for Daddy.

Still working at building trust...she always says "nem" at first when daddy tries to get her to do something, like shoulder rides during our walks...but he'll pick her up and make her giggle and do it anyway. Each day she gets a little more open and trusting. Monkey is a GREAT help - when he does it first she sees that it's OK and wants to do it then.

 We took daddy on a special trip to Tesco to get some ground meat, since it's the only place we can find that here. Right next to the chicken hearts and chicken livers. Mmmmmm. We get the ground stuff...still not sure if it's pork, turkey, chicken, beef, or what - it tastes different than what we're used to. 

But it's GOOD! I made him some big 'ole greasy cheeseburgers for dinner. With cheese rolls from Tesco. Next time we're getting the bacon rolls. Tesco is where it's at, I tell you.

Then we took him out for an Irish coffee and he goofed around with the kiddos some more.

Then finished off the day with more swimming lessons. She swims across the entire deep end by herself now!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, Apa!

Breakthroughs & Breakers

Breakthrough....
BEFORE: Princess would ONLY go in the shallow (1 foot) pool outside, and not even sit down in the water.
AFTER: I got her in the deep end, with her water wings on (holding on for dear life on my shoulders at first). And by the time we were done, she was jumping into the deep end by herself, and swimming across the deep end with the help of water wings. She kept repeating "Tudok...Tudok" (I can do it). So proud of her!!

Breakers
We not only blew the electrical breaker today and blew the power out in several places across the building, but apparently we have a water breaker of some sort, and the cold water went out first, then the hot water went. That was after the maintenance guy had already been here to change a light bulb.

This time he didn't come in his speedo though, so it was actually a pleasant visit.

Funny inside joke: he only knows the word "moment" and will sometimes come back 4 hours later after he says that...so now we refer to a long wait as a Hungarian Moment.

Happy Anniversary!

Tonight after dinner when I was skimming over Facebook I saw the Satterfield's post about their anniversary being today. We have the same anniversary, and it made me realize what day it is - our 11th wedding anniversary! The days are really blurring together here...with no schedule or work, so we didn't even think about it. Thanks, Jeremy! And happy anniversary to you guys :)

We put the kids to bed after finishing the movie Tangled, eating homemade eggplant parmesan and deviled eggs (which Princess insisted on helping me with. She seemed fascinated by peeling the shells off the eggs, 'popping' the yolks out, and 'frosting' the eggs with yolk from a ziplock bag. I think she has been working in a restaurant all these years - she peeled the eggs better and faster than I did, no joke), and singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow to them. I know they aren't going to sleep tonight, as for the past 45 minutes we have heard 'tee hee' giggling and whispering...and when we go out to check on them they are mysteriously "asleep", only to hear giggling once we shut the door to our bedroom again. Oh well...they are bonding so I don't care.  Let the 'tee hee's continue.

The two of us took some chocolate wine out on the deck - from our secret deck entrance. Today we figured out that the window in our bedroom is actually a second door to the deck. Score! Now we can sneak out at night without disturbing the tee hee-ers. It's a hidden part of the patio covered by tall piney looking trees, just big enough for the green plastic chairs that are stacked back there. Our little oasis at night, lit up by the pool lights, after a hard day of sitting in the sauna, swimming in the pool, taking the free bus around town, not having any responsibilities except bonding with kiddos...what a great way to spend an anniversary!!

Interesting fact that only I'm nerdy enough to think is cool: It's our 11th anniversary. In Roman numerals that's 2. First anniversary with 2 kids. Get it!?   ha ha.

Here we are at the bus station today. I walked there this morning (5 min walk) and whipped out my Hungarian translation book to the lady at the counter and pointed to the sentence that said "How often does the bus leave the station?" and said "Tesco?" She smiled her "you idiot tourist" amused look, and wrote down "12:00, 1:00, 2:00..." with an arrow to "Tesco", then "12:30, 1:30, 2:30... " with an arrow the other way. Then circled a number 4, and pointed to the #4 stop. She must have done this before for other idiot tourists. We loaded up our Dillons bags and headed to Tesco for some groceries...and something to do.

Hardest moment of the day: Princess woke up crying for the first time, and Monkey woke us up by bringing her into our room. We gave her lots of hugs and cuddles, and called Rita right away. She confirmed that there was no tummy ache, no headache, no nightmares, and she was not scared. So all we could do was love on her, and try to make her giggle. We are getting good at that...and after about 5 min it was all over - smiles the rest of the day.

Funniest moment of the day: At Tesco, I picked up some Nutella spread (there is no peanut butter here, so that's the closest thing) and asked Princess "Eez Leek?" (do you like?) and immediately she perked up, tilting her head and lifting one eyebrow, pointing BOTH of her fingers to the Nutella like The Fonz and asked "Etz chokite?" (is it chocolate!?). I nodded yes, and she matter of factly stated "EEGAN" (yes!) and trotted off muttering 'chokite...chokite...chokite' to herself. We might need to re-enact that one just to get a picture. 

Cutest moment of the day: Monkey said to me later "My heart hurts right now because I can't tell her that I love her to the moon and the stars, I want her to know so bad." I said she feels it.

Coolest thing that happened: Our friends who are here also adopting brought their 4 girls home to the apartment for the first time today! We got to see them briefly at the pool and see what beautiful bundles of energy they are. So happy for them! Praying for sanity for them as well...now they have 8 kids with them here. I shall now call her SuperMom, along with a little bow on one knee when I see her.

The Hungarian Baths

Apparently the town we are in is a resort area that attracts a lot of tourists from around Europe. We haven't seen any other "Amerikoi" who speak "Angolul" like we do...except for the other family who is here adopting through our same agency, staying at the same apartment as us (which is too cool!). But we hear a lot of different languages, mostly Magyar though.

Most everything around here is translated into about 9 different languages - Magyar, Polish, German, Russian, Romanian, Czech, Slovak, Ukraine, and English (British). The menus at restaurants have different sections for each, the signs are translated into a few different languages, the websites have different pages for each. We always look for the flag of England for the English section.

Some of the signs, and store and product names are already in English, which is pretty handy. It seems like if you were native to this area, you would inherently learn at least 3 or 4 different languages just from being around so many people speaking different tongues all the time.

We planned on one splurge day trip during our stay - so Thursday we spent the day at one of the Hungarian Thermal Baths, or gyógyfürdő (which sounds like "yeuj-fue-du). There are 450 of these natural thermal bath houses in Hungary, as geographically there are about 1500 natural springs bubbling up from the ground! The spa culture here dates back about 2,000 years...but I think the speedos are a relatively new wardrobe addition.

We chose the "Aqua Palace" to spend the day, as it was mostly indoor and had a lot of kid friendly areas. It had 8 different baths to choose from, all as warm as a hot tub.

Periodically different sorts of jets, lazy river currents, fountains, and bubbles would turn on. Our favorite was the bottom one shown, with the iceberg decor. It had a strong current that took you around a loop, and at another time a huge whirlpool section that was so strong you couldn't swim through it. We had lunch in the cafeteria (you can't get a hot dog or cheeseburger at the snack bar here...it was homemade goulash, spaghetti, stew over gnocci. Tasted like someone's gramma made it...yum!!)

Princess didn't want to put on the water wings at first...until I showed her that by holding them under my armpits I could float. I let her just hold them under her arms at first, then she figured out why we wanted to put them on her arms. She wore them the entire time after that. She was also pretty clingy, since she can't swim she held on to either me or daddy, or sometimes Monkey would let her hold onto his shoulders and walk her around. I tried to get her to kick her legs out behind her, and she did it a few times. Then I got her to lay on her back and put her head in, finally at the end she put her ears under and floated for about 10 seconds at a time. We saw progress!

Monkey is quite the swimmer, as you can see his feet were above the water more than his head was most of the day. While I liked to see the scenery above the water, he liked to explore the tiles below.

We never did get to play chess in the water with old men. That was Monkey's dream when we were planning our trip here - the whole reason we got him excited about the trip. Maybe next time. Or maybe we'll get grampa to play a game in the hottub at the Y when we get back? Ha.

5 hours and 11,000 Forints ($50) later, we walked home...wishing we all had white fluffy bathrobes and flip flops like all the other people walking around. All over the streets, people walking around in bathrobes...unless they don't have a bathrobe they just wear a speedo and a tshirt. I'm resisting the urge to post those pics!

What's in a name??

Our daughter's name is Ibolya (EE-bowl-yah). In Magyar (Hungarian) it is a beautiful name that means "Violet". In Latin it means "Flower". Since you can trust everything you read on Google, people with the name Ibolya "...have a deep inner need for quiet, and a desire to understand and analyze the world they live in, and to learn the deeper truths." which actually sounds a lot like her.

In America however...it makes you think of the Ebola Virus when you hear it said. Admit it, you thought that too. So we are going to change her name.

The name we landed on, which I've mentioned before, is Gianna (jee-AHN-ah). In Italian it means "God is Gracious". For the past 6 years as we've been contemplating adoption and journeying to where we are now, that pretty much sums up the journey. God has been gracious in providing for this impossible task, and is providing a smooth transition even now. (Interesting fact: one of our facilitators told us that he sees a big difference in adoptions in Christian families versus non-believers...said they go MUCH smoother when God is involved. Imagine that!)

But um...she's 7 and she knows her name. She may even love her name. Should we really do that? One encouraging thing is that almost every other family we know that has adopted older children (we have been blessed to have about 6 of them placed in our path) has changed their adopted kids' names. In fact, they say that the kids want to change their names. Like they associate a new name with a new life with a new family, and a new beginning. Our daughter doesn't talk all that much, so it's really hard to tell with her. But the name of a virus just won't do, so it's just gonna happen.

We've been calling her "Gianna Ibolya" every time we call her name. Which is a lot, because it's two of the twenty words we know. Sometimes we'll just call "Gianna" and she answers to it. Our translator has explained to her that she is getting a new special name...don't know if it's really sunk in yet though. It doesn't seem to bother her, but she doesn't seem over the moon about it either. Anyways, we will be keeping her original name as her middle name so that it will always be a part of her.

If you happen to know some great way to get a child to recognize and fall in love with her new name - please leave a comment! Inquiring minds want to know.

Note: She really likes being called "hercegnő" (HAIRDTZ-egg-noo) which means princess. The boy proved himself to be a real live monkey today at the park on the jungle gym. So hitherto and henceforth (in a thick British accent) I shall refer to the chillens as Princess and Monkey.

School started today

We are homeschoolers...so we wanted to introduce this concept to her right away. Our school is in session year-round, and well, we are just always learning!

Today we had school for the first time with her. I have NO clue what she knows already, and what she doesn't - so let's just call today our Placement Test day. We sang the alphabet song a few times (I brought a CD with kid songs, and that was one of them) as a family, pointing along with the alphabet I wrote down. Then I practiced writing the letters with her. Her letters are the pink ones. Then we did colors - she made the colored circle and I labeled them as she repeated the name.

Then for numbers we all played Diego Chutes and Ladders. She got pretty good at the English numbers.

Then we had quiet reading time for 30 minutes...just to see how that would go. I mimed "book" and "shhh" and she got out her coloring book and we all sat at the table quietly the whole time. Until Daddy rang the doorbell when he got home from the gym, and we all literally jumped out of our chairs because it was so loud.

We also jumped in the pool for the first time. Placement Test for home swimming lessons. She likes being in the water, but is a little afraid of it and obviously can't swim. How handy that we have a pool right outside our door for 29 more days! She liked the hot tub better than the pool, it still isn't QUITE warm enough to be in the pool too long.  She kept copying the boy when he went under water, and sticking her face in. He loves being under water with these silly goggles.

She continues to be the organization princess...today she organized the individual red and white pieces in the battleship game, and covered the whole 'ocean' with a pattern before evenly distributing the leftover pieces on each side of the container. (!)

She made her bed without even me mentioning it this morning (which inspired the boy to do it to...MWAH HA HA....this is working out perfectly!)

She cleans and organizes wherever she goes...I'm still convinced she's the cutest thing ever. She is still warming up to daddy's abundant affection though. He's holding back quite a bit, as she shies away a little when he gets to 'tickly' and 'huggy'...but today she let him carry her on his shoulders on the way home from the park (recess). 

He got to put her to bed tonight...and he's asleep next to her right now, after he sang to her and cuddled with her they fell asleep. He's LOVIN this, and he is completely wrapped around her finger.

GRAMPA JOHN note: She LOVES ketchup, so she fits in perfectly with the Froelich clan. She eats it plain if there is any left over on her plate, then she licks the plate clean. I'll email a picture to you.

It's "GOTCHA" Day!

Bracing ourselves for a difficult day...even the boy said over breakfast "I ain't ready for this." (Who's his English teacher anyway!? Oh wait, that's me...) Dad had a good reply - "we ain't ready for it either, but we weren't ready when you came along either! We'll all figure it out together, remember God's in control so we don't have to worry."   wise old man, he is.

We met the foster parents and our girl in the office, and we were taken to a room with some toys in it.

The foster mother quickly handed over a small bag of last minute belongings (we got the big suitcase yesterday), gave us all a kiss on each cheek and walked out of the room with red eyes. All I could say was "Keu-sen-em Say-pen" (thank you very much) while holding her hand. She was handing over her baby to me, never to see her again. I almost lost it AGAIN...but I held in the tears again. If she could go without crying, then so could I.

Sweet girl was just very quiet and reserved, not wanting to respond to much...sad but not crying. Of course daddy brought her out of her shell in no time, making her laugh with wooden blocks. Who can do that!? What a gift he has for connecting with people. It still amazes me.

Then we drove to another office to meet with another lady, and sign the paperwork to officially become her temporary guardians for the next 30 days. This was a longer meeting, in a room with absolutely no toys in it. Enter: Nintendo DS. This is what the original intent of the DS was, back in the day - to entertain kiddos when they are stuck in a room with nothing else to do (the only time we use it). Sweet girl was happy to draw and doodle with us on a piece of printer paper, and in honor of Grampa John I made a couple of mazes which she had no idea what to do with...until I traced the path a couple of times, and then she figured it out and started solving them! Grampa John will be proud, and now she's ready for his mazes. We listened to the Hungarian laws and the Hague treaty rules translated, and signed a bunch of stuff written in Hungarian...that Rita translated for us.

DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!............We are a family of 4! I have some really cute pictures of the four of us, but I can't post them. Imagine how cute we all look.  :)  Here we are asking for directions when we got lost after lunch. Oops. Look at big brother making sure little sis is taken care of. They are inseparable, it's almost too cute to handle.

After lunch, and another trip to Tesco to get a fleece blanket for each of the kids and a swimsuit for sweet girl, we came back to our apartment and showed her around our "temporary" home. Of course our translator Rita helped us out with this. Did I mention how great she is? We couldn't ask for a better translator/facilitator...she's becoming a good friend. Then she left us. Alone. How do you say "let's put on your pj's" and "it's time for a shower" again? Yikes....get out the book again.

Pause, and think what sweet girl must be thinking. Did these people kidnap me? Am I having a sleepover with my new friend (the boy)? When do I go back home? Why are they always smiling at me so much? I want some chocolate milk but I have no idea how to ask for it. I want "fud-jie" (ice cream). When do I go home?  I like Hello Kitty.

I wish I could read minds. That's the super-power I always wanted to have. I'd take that over being invisible or flying any day.

Turns out I don't have to. Miming actually works amazingly well. The kids played with the scooter, water guns, bubbles, and we went in the hot tub, ate dinner on the patio, played a board game, did a puzzle, colored, played with cards, read a book, and went out to eat like it was nuthin. Cute bonus: she apparently LOVES to clean and organize. I watched her take all of her stuff out, and go through all of our stuff asking "A-neem?" which I'm guessing means "mine?" to figure out what was hers. Then she organized all of 'her' stuff several different ways, consolidated containers, threw away all the trash, and organized everything into 'her' cabinet. Then she started cleaning up the boy's toys. Which - get this - inspired HIM to start organizing everything of his. I was in sorting and lining-up heaven. And more amazingly, when we got home and it was time for THE FIRST SHOWER, and going to bed. Surely we are going to have problems now....right? She's only had baths.

I did a mock demo of what to do in the shower (yes, I felt really silly), but it seems like she totally trusts me because she looked up at me with that sweet face and got right in and just stared at me smiling the ENTIRE time I was reaching in through the open shower door (I should have changed out of my jeans first, because I ended up pretty soaked) shampooing her hair and soaping her. She is so CUTE!  The whole time I'm repeating English words to help her learn, which makes me feel extra silly, but hopefully it will work. "Wash! ....Wash! ....Wash!"  ...then "Dry! ...Dry! ...Dry!" ...then for teeth "Brush! ...Brush! ...Brush!" ....and "PJ's! ...PJ's! ...PJ's!" ...you get the picture.

We're a little smitten with her, and we did a lot of extra cuddling and singing at bed time, because she just behaves so well and just sits there smiling at us so sweetly. I'd be singing and tickling her arms, and whenever I would look over to her eyes her smile would get really big and her eyes would sparkle.

Either she's the sweetest little thing ever, or she's some evil maniac who's REALLY good at fooling us, and she's plotting some elaborate scheme to take all of our ice cream. I'm pretty sure she's the sweetest thing ever. And I'll give her all of my ice cream any day.

Day 6: The LAST day...

It's the last day to visit the foster home.
It's the last day we are a family of three.

To break the ice today, I make little animal hand puppets in the car. This provided entertainment for the next several hours!

We visited the chocolate and wine festival in Nyireghaza today. Kids got to dip a wafer roll in the chocolate fountain...we had chocolate on chins, foreheads, arms...it was great.

I got a picture of the foster parents so I can put it in our girl's Lifebook when we get back. They are such sweet people, and have been so hospitable to us the whole time. They have been taking care of our little girl her whole life, and I can imagine that this is very hard for them to let her go. We went through the suitcase that we had left there the day before, and checked off the list of clothes (a week's worth) that she was giving us, since the government had purchased them we had to sign off that we were receiving them. I gave the foster mother a gift of chocolates and a card that I had a note translated on, and some Kansas memorobilia. I hugged her and she kissed me on both cheeks, and I ALMOST lost it, but somehow I held it together.

Tonight we walked around the block and went out to eat at a new restaurant we found to celebrate our last day as a family of three, and then watched Cars 2 while cuddling on the couch. I'm kind of mourning this, I think....we have such a close family and have so many little traditions and routines...and I know everything is about to change. But I know we'll build new traditions and just build a new kind of normal - and I can't wait for our new addition!

Day 5: Learning together...

She was happy to see us and eager to come with us today! We were dropped off in a marvelous park with walking paths, flowers, a lake with a bridge to an island, and little gazebos scattered around. We found a zip-line in the playground, and it seemed like she had never seen it before. She went from completely afraid of it and unable to do it, to doing it all by herself and brushing us off saying something like "et tehdu"...which we are guessing means "I can do it!" She did the same thing with a big long slide - acting afraid at first, but trying little by little with our help, until she was doing it "et tehdu". I take this as a good sign, that she is willing to try new things, and she learns fast! The same thing happened with this water fountain where the stream shoots over your head. Eventually with my coaxing she went through it a few times.

BONUS: we each got a kiss on the cheek from our little girl when we dropped her off in the afternoon! First kiss :)

Avery also had a good lesson in Hungarian, trying to play with some neighbor girls for the first time after we got home for the evening. It was our entertainment for the night watching them trying to figure out who was "it", and watching them teach each other how to count to 10 for Hide n Seek. He made such an effort to talk to them, and bring them a cup of water when he thought they were saying they were thirsty, and bringing his toys outside to play with.

We had our own little crash course when the repair guy came to fix the shower...and we had to mime the whole thing. The only word he knew in Angolul was "moment", and amazingly he used it in at least 3 different contexts. Ha!

By the way - we got WIFI today at the apartment!! Whoop!! YouTube and Facebook, here I come!

Day 3 & 4: The First of the Firsts

Try this: pick only 8 phrases and write them down. Go through your entire day ONLY speaking those phrases. Everything else you have to mime. Here's our choices of Magyar phrases that we know, with phonetic pronunciation, that we have to go through the entire day with.

1. Yes! "Ee gen"
2. No! "Nem"
3. Hello & goodbye "See ya"
4. Do you like? "Tet seek"
5. Pretty. "Chee nosh"
6. Please "Key air lek"
7. Thank you "Koo sih nem"
8. Good! "Yo"

Try to ask how much something costs, to tell someone to 'come back here!', or tell them 'pick only one', and to tell them you had a great day with them using only these words. Yes, we have a little Hungarian translation book, but when you are in the instant of needing to say something there is no time to sit and flip through a book. I do have a piece of paper with a list of other phrases for quick reference, these are just the ones we have memorized. Thank goodness soon we can start teaching English instead. She already knows 'stop', 'go', 'yes', 'no', 'left' and 'right'...and a little 'mommy' and 'daddy', and can say 'cookie' (which is the most important kid word, of course).
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On Day 3 & 4 we got to take her away from her foster home for a day trip. We took her to the mall (which I think was her first time - because the hand dryers and the escalators were REALLY fun for her) and Tesco the first day.

Look really close at this picture. This is the really adorable thing that is happening here...see the kids holding hands? The boy is just smitten with our new little girl, and tells me over his shoulder "I really like her" and "Isn't she great?" and "mommy, I think I love my new sister. she's sweet".  Awww! He gives her hugs and pats her head, and leads her around by the hand whenever we are out. She likes him a lot too, and copies whatever he does.

We had our first family shopping trip at Tesco (I always want to follow that with "where the pets go!"...thinking Petco.) This place is awesome - it has little strip mall including thrift stores inside the store! I got a used pair of pants for $7 (since I mistakenly packed for summer and only brought shorts), exchanged cash, bought minutes on our T-Mobile phone, bought a capuccino from a machine (80 cents, and it was pretty good! Check out the "Automatikus Kave" machine below), bought groceries, toys, and some pastries all in one store. Love it!  Little girl loved to push the cart and help out...and try to put WAY too many toys in the cart. We used "nem" a lot on this trip.

Today we took her to the zoo. Today was different though. She wasn't quite as eager to come with us...and cried when we finally just had to carry her to the car. :(  I could see it in her eyes that she finally 'got it' that we were going to be her forever family for the first time, and it scared her a little to think of such a big change. Our translator explained to her that we want to love her forever, that we have a room at home just for her, new clothes just for her, and we wanted so much to have fun with her that day....and she just stared off without saying anything with little tears coming down her cheeks. 

We shamelessly bribed her with her favorite treat, and promised to buy her 2 "Turorudi" candies if she came with us. Everyone in the car got a few, except me since one gave me a migraine the first day. They are refrigerated chocolate covered lemon cream cheese....mmm.

 

Once we got to the zoo, we were all a happy family for the day. The kids were so adorable getting along so well. Besides a serious case of the "gimmies", she is a very polite and well behaved little girl. My heart is full, and God is good! AND I got to feed a llama, could this day get any better!? 

OH....yes it can! After we dropped her off for the evening we stopped the car (yes, I made them stop the car so I could get out) because I saw a little boy walking his goats. On a leash. Down the sidewalk. We all went and asked if we could take pictures, and made the little boy feel like a celebrity for a day. He said the little ones were 3 week old babies, so soft!! I'm sure he thought we were all crazy.

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I'm so impressed with the plan they have orchestrated for us during these visits. It's all in the best interest of the child...to 'ween' her onto us as parents, and I really see how everyone cares so much for the kids in the system here. First just a one hour meeting, then a 4 hour meeting at her foster home, then a series of day trips. This weekend we are going to bring her back to our apartment for a visit, then take her back to the foster home. We take an empty suitcase for her tomorrow, and pick it up Sunday full of clothes and toys that she gets to take with her (good thing, cuz guess what? I only packed shorts!) On Monday we all meet at the Guardianship office for one last goodbye from the foster parents, and to sign the paperwork to officially be her guardians...and Monday night she comes to live with us! 30 days later, we go to Budapest and make her a Harrington officially.

Thank you for praying...this is a challenge beyond what we've ever undertaken before, and a delicate situation for one little heart, as well as all the people who have cared for her. We need God's help for wisdom and patience, and for her heart to be excited and filled with hope without any fear.

Day 2: The Boy, The Dog, and The Cookie

This morning after some scrambled eggs and toast, we visited the Ministry office again to meet the Director over the adoption program. They are very interested in our feelings about the adoption, if we are excited, and if we still want to go through with it. They seem to love all our questions (and we always ask A LOT of them...) and that we are so interested in knowing everything we can about our little girl's history. One day I know she'll ask us a lot of questions, so this is our only chance to ask them! We are finding out a lot about why she was just put up for adoption recently, and why a lot of other kids get stuck in the system.

We pull up to a house about seven or eight, and we yell to the cabby - oh, oops. Sorry. Who was humming the Fresh Prince tune just then? Ha. Well, we were met at the gate this time by our little one, smiling and happy to see us for Day #2. Hugs are still a little awkward, but we squeeze one in anyway and say "Szia!" to her. I have matured over the past 24 hours, and have graduated to "Jo napot kivanok" for the adults. Don't really know what it means, just know it's a better greeting than just "Hi!" and they seemed to appreciate it.

The foster mother and father brought in a little table and put out a huge spread of sandwiches, cookies, juice, coffee, and carbonated water (still haven't gotten used to that). She is so hospitable, it really touches my heart. I know this must be hard for her since she's taken care of our little one since birth. We really owe her a lot! Dad sat with Rita and the foster mother and asked tons of questions today...and we found out that she's been keeping a diary since she was a baby! She is going to have it translated and give it to us when we leave, so we have stories to tell. We'll also get a bunch of baby pictures and pictures throughout her whole life, and medical records. What a blessing!

The time passed so quickly - we ate up a good 4 hours just hanging out together in her room, and we talked her into taking us outside in the yard for a little bit. I asked her "Szeretsz szinezni?" which means 'do you want to color?' and her and I colored a bunch. I brought her a new Lisa Frank coloring book, some markers, and a pad of construction paper. She was really messy at first, but after watching me color some flowers really delicately she started to do it really slowly and started copying me and staying in the lines. She's very particular about keeping things organized, I learned! Don't take more than one marker out at a time, she'll make sure the last one is put back.

Surprise of the day: She REALLY TALKS! We were told that she hardly ever talks and needs speech therapy, but since we met her she has been talking up a storm, seemingly complete sentences. She gets a kick out of teaching us new words and listening to us butcher the pronunciation. She laughs A LOT, she seems really happy...maybe she's just laughing AT us, but that's ok. :)  Everyone is completely surprised at how much she's opened up to us. Dad said it best "My God is a big God, and when he orchestrates something He does it exactly right".

Some of you have asked about the boy, and how he's handling all this. I'm so impressed with his maturity during all this - every time we have to sit in a boring adult meeting he just sits patiently and waits...and he has been excited right along with us every time we see her, or talk about her. He's taking the whole 'big brother' thing very seriously...we've talked about how that's the job God has given him right now, and he's really taken it to heart. The kids get along great and seem to really enjoy each other's company.

The rules: I can't show her face until paperwork is finalized...so we'll see how creative I can be with the pictures.

The Dog: I think the dog's name is "Holey"...and he kept climbing through the back of the swing and licking me, and escaping off his leash. He had a mustache. And bangs! So in order to have a place to go back and remember her dog, here is Holey.

 

I absolutely love their garden and I want to frame this picture - isn't it lovely? It smelled so fragrant...but watch out, the bees are as big as mice, no joke.

And The Cookie: As we were swinging in the front yard I kept showing her my cookie and saying "cookie", and finally she started calling it a cookie when people asked what it was. She also said 'bed', and 'oos' for shoes. First goal - teach her how to say "sh". I think she'll catch on to "Angolul" (English) just fine!

Interesting fact - people in Hungary don't call their country 'Hungary'. Who knew?! Probably everyone but me. But they call it Magyarorser (I probably butchered that too), and the language is Magyar.

 

Today is the day!!!

We were picked up by our entourage this morning bright and early, to pile into the van and drive about an hour to the town where our little girl lives. I feel like I'm cramming for a test in the back seat as I skim down the list of phrases that I had Rita translate for me (well, she re-translated it for me, after we realized how bad of a job Google translate did. For "have you been on an airplane before?" it translated it into "have you ever been strapped onto the nose of an airplane (like suicide)?" Yikes. Can you imagine how scary it would have been if we would have asked our little girl that!)  So we only use Google translate for one word phrases now.

I want to remember how to say hi, and 'you are very pretty'. It's "Szia" (See-ya) and "Nagyon czisnos vagy" (Na-jone cis-noshe vaij). Also 'yes' and 'no' will come in handy, "igen" and "nem". We get to visit her for only about an hour, or hour and a half today.

First we have to go to the government agency to meet the social worker, and so she can ask us some questions about how we are feeling about this whole thing, and allowed us to ask some questions. Then we bring her with us in the van, and we are off to the smaller town.

We pull up into the neighborhood (similar to the one pictured) and we park outside of the gate, and the foster mother we recognize from the video greets us at the gate with yet another social worker. There are now 8 adults walking into the house, all for one little girl. It's amazing how much time, paperwork, money, effort and coordination has gone into making this one moment happen.

We walk into a cute little house with a large flower garden out front, and follow the foster mother into the other room where she brings our little girl to us, saying something in Magyar (Hungarian) while holding her hand. She comes out to see these 8 adults all looking at her, and looks a little shy and stays close to the foster mother. How overwhelming that must have been for her! We all sit together so they can explain that we are a family. At this point I believe she thinks we are just visiting her, and they haven't told her for sure that we are going to be her new mom and dad...although I did here the word mom, "anya" and dad "apa" a couple of times, so I think they are preparing her.

She finally led us (a little reluctantly) into her room because they were all asking her about Hello Kitty - which I think is one of her favorite toys. We sat with her on the floor of her room taking pictures and playing with toys, with Dad working his 'twinkle' magic (where he gets this little sneaky smile on his face and his eyes actually twinkle and you can't help but giggle and feel comfortable around him) for about an hour. The others left us alone as soon as they saw us start to interact with her, because they wanted her to bond with us, and not them. We couldn't speak a word of Magyar except yes and no, but somehow Dad had her laughing and giggling and smiling within about 2 minutes. And our little guy stepped right in and started playing with her...and what do you know? They both love playing with legos! It was a little bit magical, actually.

Here's the disclosure, and letdown for the day: We will not be able to post any pictures of her until the paperwork is finalized in July! Rules prohibit public posting of the children until it's 'official'. Sorry :(

Our little mini-comedian takes after his dad and is always making her laugh. One thing she thought was hilarious too was when Dad would try to build something with blocks, I would take it off and say "nem" (no)....over and over. She was so sweet and just listened to everyone talking, played with us, and laughed with us. The foster mother brought us all punch in fancy glasses on a tray, then a while later brought in a little coffee tray with miniature espresso sized cups of coffee. She brought us a stack of pictures from our little girl's past birthdays all the way since she was 2. I hope we get to take a few of those with us! I hear that she will be bringing about a week's worth of clothing with her, and any toys that she wants to take...so next Monday when we get to take her into our custody we'll bring a suitcase with us.

Then when we were in the middle of having a great time, they come in and say 'that's all for today, time to go'. We want to leave on a high note, so that she'll look forward to seeing us again tomorrow. Tomorrow we get to actually take her for about half a day to go get ice cream or something....and she smiled really big when they told her that. The social workers both told us that they were very surprised at how she opened up to us, and they have never seen her like that, so giggly and talkative...and they could tell that she really liked us, and that we would be able to do great things for her development. First visit - success!

We said "Szia!" and waved, and she gave each of us a hug and we started to walk out. But she scampers alongside us and puts her shoes on as fast as she can and comes right out after us, like she wanted to go with us or something. She followed us all the way out to the van and wanted to look inside. They tell her we will see her tomorrow and she waved and smiled to all of us. The hard part was driving away...

I could get used to this....

 We're really 'roughin' it here in Hungary. The weather is a perfect 21.11 degrees celsius (70F), we woke up at 11am just cuz we could...then ate breakfast and checked emails on the veranda (I've always wanted to say that!), rode the scooter around a few times, walked around to the front of the building to the little bar/cafe (which conveniently has a foosball table for Mr. Foosball himself) to get a Cappuccino for only 280 Forints (about $1.25).

 Here's the one "hardship" we are enduring, and poor, poor us for having to go through this. As you know we both work out at the gym about 6 days a week and lift weights...and as we were driving around yesterday to Tesco (like Wal-Mart, a grocery store, and a strip mall all in one) we found a gym! Imagine our excitement at finding a gym within running distance from our apartment! We could take turns and get our workouts in every day, and oh how perfect this is! Let's go in and buy a monthly membership! ....smiles and high-fives, and 'sweet!' can be heard under our breath as we walk up the stairs. What a great find!  ....wait, there's a sign on the door. Rita reads the Hungarian to us, it says "gone out of business as of June 1" (that was yesterday).   Yesterday?  Extreme Fitness fail.

Here's the funny part though. We looked it up online and translated their slogan. It said in big bold letters across the top of the webpage "The Place Where Large Be".   LOL.

Well if that's the worst thing we have to endure, so be it! I'll lift soup cans and hubby can lift me over his head for all I care. Let's go sit in the sauna.

*****TESCO TIP*******
Bring your own bags! They also have ALDI here, so I'm used to bringing my own bags and paying a coin to get a cart loose...but it seems most places are like that here. Good thing we brought a stash of Wal-Mart bags. Yeah, we're feelin pretty savvy now!  And I felt like a real high roller paying 25,000 Forints for groceries. Sounds like a lot! Cheaper than groceries back home for a full cart full though. The best part of the store was trying to tell the deli lady what we wanted. :)  Good 'ole Google translate gave us just the right words, and we walked out of there with exactly what we wanted. Score! Rita told us afterward though that instead of asking the lady to buy some meat, hubby told her "You are a turkey or a ham".   I thought I saw a little smile on the deli lady's face as she cut off that slab of meat.

Check out this luscious crusty Hungarian bread aisle. It doesn't even need a bag, because the crusty hard outside keeps it fresh. The boy can't get enough of this stuff! At least every 2 hours he asks me if he can have more bread. Costs less than a dollar for a huge 2 year-old baby sized loaf!

Tomorrow we get down to business - meet our daughter for the first time!