Bringing Ivan Home - Days 1 and 2

Our family of four arrived home from Bulgaria on Thursday, July 23rd.  I will write the blog posts covering our trip as I am able to.

The three of us left Indianapolis on Saturday, July 11th to begin our journey to bring Ivan home from Bulgaria.  Our friend Ron took us to the airport.  We were able to get checked in and grab a quick lunch before our flight left.  All of our flights were on time.  The 90 minute layovers in each airport were more than enough time to get to the next gate.  We flew through Newark and Vienna before arriving in Sofia at 12:40pm local time on Sunday.  Nikolas did very well on the flights.  He colored on the first flight, watched Shaun the Sheep multiple times on the second flight and played a game on the third flight.  Austrian Airlines is great about giving the kids little toys and games (and gummy airplanes!) to entertain them. We also think they have the best airline food.

After going through customs and picking up our bags, our driver took us to the apartment where we would be staying for the first part of our trip.  We booked the Kyoto apartment through Sara Tours and were very pleased with it.  The location was fabulous!  It was just one block from Vitosha Blvd. and very close to our NGO's office.

We unpacked and relaxed for a bit before heading out for a quick dinner.  We wanted something quick so we stopped at McDonald's.  We never eat at McDonald's in the US, but the quality of food is a little better in Europe.  After dinner we picked up a few groceries and went back to our apartment. We went to sleep quickly because we needed to be up and ready to meet our driver at 9:00am the next morning to make the drive to Kocherinovo.        

Bulgarian Adoptive Families Reunion

Last weekend was the annual Bulgarian Adoption Families Reunion in Cincinnati, OH.  Our whole family looks forward to the reunion every year.  It's always such a fun weekend.  This year was no different. 

We started our adventure with a trip to Jungle Jim's to pick up some goodies.  We arrived at the campground a little before 3:00pm and unloaded the car.  We immediately found some friends and started socializing.  After waiting out a very heavy rain shower, my friend Stephanie and I headed to a bakery to pick up a couple of birthday cakes.  It was quite a trip considering neither of us knew the area.  The bakery smelled great and the cakes were beautiful.  It was tough to resist buying some cookies for the ride back to the campground.

On Friday evening we enjoyed some nachos for dinner followed by a performance by the International Folk Dancers of Cincinnati.  We finished the evening with cake and ice cream to celebrate a birthday.

After breakfast on Saturday morning the younger kids took a trip over to Parky's Farm.  Nikolas loved the petting zoo, especially the chickens.  They also had a very neat play barn that the kids enjoyed. 

On Saturday afternoon we had a bungy operator come to the park.  Nikolas was very brave and gave it a try.  He's scared of a lot of things, so allowing them to get him strapped in was a big accomplishment.  It was great watching the kids fly through the air.  Most of them really enjoyed it.

The traditional Saturday night potluck was also a success.  We also had another birthday to celebrate that evening.  There were brief periods of rain throughout the day and it was very chilly, but we all managed to have a great time!

After breakfast on Sunday morning we all packed up and said our goodbyes.  We love this coming to this event each year.  It really feels more like a family reunion than an adoption reunion.  We've all known each other for quite a while and have become such a close knit group.  It's great spending time with parents who truly understand our family, and Nikolas loves playing with his friends who share the same background and culture.  

Here are a few pictures of our fun weekend!

Nikolas and Christo at Parky's Farm

Nikolas and Sofie

Christo, Nikolas and Alexander - These three get along so well together.

Nikolas on the Bungy

  

Introducing...

Our court hearing went well on June 8th and we are now officially the parents of Ivan Lukas VanRoekel.  We are so excited to welcome this amazing little boy into our family!!  And it looks like I'll be spending another birthday in Bulgaria. :)

  

Six Batches of Burritos!!

Our weekday evenings are very busy.  We both work full-time and Nikolas is at school all day.  He has therapy sessions two evenings each week that leaves us getting home very late.  We're all tired at the end of the day, and when little brother comes home, we'll have even less time to prepare meals during the week.  We don't like having to turn to fast food on those busy nights, so I've started exploring freezer meals a bit.

I made four different freezer meals a couple of weeks ago and three of them were very successful. Nikolas enjoyed them so much that he ate three servings of the chicken, broccoli and rice casserole! We also really liked a burrito dish that I made using shredded beef and green enchilada sauce. I made another batch of them this evening and they turned out great.  In about 90 minutes I was able to make five freezer meals plus one batch for dinner tonight.

I started off by putting a 2.5 pound pot roast in the crock pot this morning and letting it cook on low all day. Bonus was that the house smelled great all afternoon.  Once it was done I pulled it out and shredded the beef. It was really tender and moist, and it had a nice flavor!

I mixed some of the beef, some shredded cheddar cheese, some green enchilada sauce and some Tastefully Simple Fiesta Seasoning together for the filling.  For a couple of batches I also added some refried beans to give us some more variety.  I also cooked up some ground beef and made two pans of ground beef, bean and cheese burritos.  

I stuffed them and rolled them in large burrito shells with the ends tucked in so the filling doesn't spill out when they are cooked.  I placed them in a pan with a thin layer of the green enchilada sauce on the bottom and covered them with a little more enchilada sauce and shredded cheddar.  I also used a little bit of mozzarella cheese on a couple of the dishes. 

When I was finished I had five pans of burritos plus a pan for tonight's dinner.  I labeled the lids and Jason hauled them all out to the freezer.  

I'm planning to try some of the freezer meal ideas that are in my Tastefully Simple catalog next.  I'll be sure to share our family's favorite recipes in case anyone else wants to prepare them for their family!   

Making Progress!

We've been working hard to collect the final documents that we need for court.  Everything is apostilled and ready to go except for two documents from our home study agency that should be arriving this week.  Once we receive the last two documents (our home study update and a letter from our social worker stating that she will complete our post-placement reports), I'll make another trip downtown to have them apostilled.  Then everything will be sent to our lawyer in Bulgaria via our agency in Washington.  

Things are moving along in Bulgaria, too.  We were informed that we received our Article 5 letter on April 6th.  For those who are not familiar with the adoption process, a visa application to a Consular Officer at the U.S. Embassy was filed for little brother.  The Consular Officer reviewed his information and evaluated him for possible visa ineligibilities.  Once the Consular Office determined that he appears to be eligible to immigrate to the United States, he/she notified Bulgaria's adoption authority and issued the Article 5 letter.  Once we receive a final signature from the MOJ, our case will be sent to court and we will be assigned a judge and a court date.  (For Nikolas' adoption, our case was sent to court 6 weeks after we received our Article 5 and our court date was scheduled for two weeks later.)

We also met our Brittany's Hope fundraising goal and will be awarded a $4000 grant to help with our final adoption and travel expenses.  Thank you so much to everyone who helped us by donating to Brittany's Hope.  We have estimated that just the airfare for our family will cost approximately $6500-$7000, so this grant will help so much!   
We're hoping to be able to bring him home in July but we'll have a better idea of our time frame once we receive our court date.  For now we're just getting things around the house prepared for his arrival!