Tuesday

Today was another relaxed day.  It's also John's birthday!  We hope we can celebrate a little bit better after we return home (I did fry up some eggs for breakfast!).  :)  Right now, we are packing up our things and anxiously awaiting being home!  Delyana, one of our translators, will be picking us up around 4:45 AM tomorrow (March 2) and taking us to the airport.  Our plane is scheduled to take off at 7:00 AM.  From Sofia, we fly to Munich, and fly from Munich to Chicago.  Twenty-some hours later we plan to land in Minneapolis around 6:30 PM on March 2 (we'll have lost 8 hours). I'm not sure I'm ready for this, but here we go!

Victoria is still doing well. I gave her a bath again this morning.  Contrary to what we read in the information about her, she LOVES her baths.  (I think they showered the children in the orphanage and just called them baths.)  She actually took the cup I used to wash her hair and splashed herself in the face over and over again - to my surprise!  She laughed and laughed!

The communication barrier, we've been finding out, has actually not been as big of a deal as we expected.  Thank the Lord!  Thanks for your prayers about that!  I think it helps that we are still used to anticipating needs and reading expressions of our young children at home.  We have learned a few Bulgarian words that have been helpful to us, but over all we've been able to communicate the basics fairly clearly.  This seems to be enough for Victoria for now.  She doesn't seem to get as frustrated with communication as we thought she might.  However, we are very anxious for her to learn more English so that we can explain more to her than just "do this" and "do that".

We were finally able to get Skype to work for us on our last day here and were able to talk to Jocylin and Cherith with Victoria.  Victoria was pretty shy, Jocylin was vivacious, and Cherith was pouting (I don't think she liked seeing Daddy and Mommy and not being with them), but it was so nice to see our two little girls at home again (we've been missing them terribly).  I think they also enjoyed seeing Victoria - especially Jocylin! 

I don't have a lot for pictures today, but I hope to post more of them soon after we get home!  See you back in MN!