Fun in the snow & haircut day

The boys enjoying the snow in front of the Bulgarian National Museum of History

Today is a free day for us. No requirements for meetings or paperwork. When we woke up it was snowing like crazy! What a treat for folks from Alabama. Our sweet friend Erin Pervis who is an MTW missionary in Bulgaria drove us around today. We dropped Tony and the boys at the National Museum of History. Notice the long walk to the building behind the boys in the picture above? Tony said they had a snowball fight the whole way up. The people in the museum must have thought they were crazy because they all were giving them strange looks when they entered. Guess they see so much snow here that it is a nuisance rather than fun.

Erin Pervis with us during the snow today

So glad to know Erin. She and her husband David along with their two children Clara and Josiah have been serving as missionaries in Bulgaria with MTW for some time. We met David 3 years ago at the missions conference at Trinity Presbyterian. We had already decided to adopt from Bulgaria when we had David stay with us. Having him stay with us during the conference was like an orientation on Bulgaria. We were able to stay with the Pervis' on our first visit to Bulgaria in September. They are awesome hosts!

Erin is amazing! She can translate, give tourism information and drive in the snow all at the same time! She has helped us understand what Anna is saying. We are learning a lot of key words and phrases from her like "bathroom" (#1 and #2), "I am hungry", etc.


Before we left Anna's orphanage in September the staff asked us if we wanted Anna's hair to grow out long or to keep the length and bangs cut. We asked them to allow her hair to grow out. How nice of them to even consider something like this. When we saw her we could tell that her hair had grown quite a bit since our first trip. Today we took her to get her trimmed a bit. We were able to get an appointment thanks to Erin who made the arrangements with a friend that is one of her English students.

After our appointment we went back to the museum to get Tony and the boys. They were still having fun in the snow! We grabbed some KFC for lunch. Anna is not a fan of fried chicken. As a soon-to-be citizen of Alabama she is going to have to work on that!

Only two more days and we are coming home. Tomorrow we go to the US Embassy to apply for Anna's Visa and do our exit interview. We return there on Friday afternoon to pick up her Visa. We fly out early Saturday morning and get back to Montgomery around 5:45 on Saturday afternoon. It will be a long day. Please pray for Anna on this trip - and for the passengers around us to be tolerant of a 5 year old taking her first flights.

Bedtime and naps are going much better! She is settling down much quicker. Thankfully they had a pack & play in the apartment. She likes this best for sleeping. She is not scared like the first night.

She loves the boys. She is already playing them - pitting one against the other for her affection. Some days she wants Gray to hold her the next day it's all Cleve.  She and Tony have renewed the bond they made in September. She likes for Tony to carry her everywhere we go - and he is glad to oblige. These men are like putty in her hand!

Look out Gray here comes a snowball!