Finding Bio parents...trip to Ukraine Part 3

There is so much to share... I am not sure if people will even like to read all the detailes. In one way all the things we did for two first weeks in Ukraine, are really boring... but on the other hand, we did so much!

Finding Bio Parents...Trip to Ukraine Part 1    Finding Bio Parents...trip to Ukraine Part 2


Two days before this land...I had no idea where we would sleep, stay or who will great us at the airport! Which way should we head, and once we are in Kiev, what should be our next step!

I knew the language, so I thought...we will figure out once we are in Kiev....once we land I will get on the internet, and will find a hotel, exchange some money, and the buy a SIM card for a phone...
I thought, that in a day or  two we will figure out how we can get to Vinnitsa...

The last we heard, DJ's father was seen in Vinnitskaya oblast, so we knew that we had to get to Vinnitsa, and then find a driver, or get a bus to take us to that little village (3 hours away from

I know, maybe I am not the most responsible parent...but we made it this far with all of our kids, so I will say that I am kind of responsible...sometimes :) I felt safe doing it this way...

But...God had a plan!

One day before our trip, our oldest daughter insisted that I contact one of the ladies in Ukraine, her name is Helen. This lady lives in Kiev, and she works with kids, and orphanages. She is the one who helped our daughter find a family few years ago. Then this is the same lady that we talked, and we found our oldest thought her too! Anyway, our daughter told me" I already told Helen that you will be in Ukraine" and " Helen, told me that you need to contact her, and she will help you with anything you need" This was a blessing!

On one hand, I didn't want to bother anyone, and didn't want to ask for help, but it was a relief that we would have at least some kind of a plan... So I did contact Helen, about 24 hours before our trip!
She told me that she will help!
At the time she was not even in Ukraine, she was in America (business trip).

In about 30 minutes after I contacted her...I been told that two people will meet us at the airport, and will help us with anything we need, also she asked me what do we want to do next? Go to Vinnitsa the same day, or next day! She told us that they will find a place for us to stay if we need to stay in Kiev (no charge), or will help us to get to Vinnitsa...

I like to get everything done as soon as possible, so I told her that if there is a possibility, we would like to go to Vinnitsa the same day (Vinnitsa is about 3 hours from Kiev)

.............

August 10, 2018

We were scheduled to be in Kiev at 4:45, came at 5:15, not too bad, do to being late at Frankfurt! 

People from Mission Emanuel , two ladies and a driver came to the airport! Olenka, Marina and Pasha (the driver)
We were greeted by totally strangers with love and warmth! They took us to eat, to the train station, gave us a phone to use in Ukraine, and a new SIMs card. Took us to exchange some $, and also the train ticket was already purchased by them!

In about 3 hours after we landed , by 8:30 pm, we were on our way to Vinnitsa!!! God took care of everything! Used His people, and blessed us in every step during our journey!

We were greeted by Pastor Oleg in Vinitsya, and he took us to the Center, where we stayed. This center is a part of Mission Emanuel.

All the people who we met, we never saw them before but they treated us like someone they knew, and like someone who is related to them!

When we tried to thank them, gave them some $, we been told: "Helen told us to greet you! Take care of you! and Help you with anything you need! " "We need nothing in return"! "Thank God"!

So thankful for Helen, for her connections :) and all the people who are willing to serve anyone, even strangers like us!



***We been so tired...didn't take many pictures!

Landing in Kiev

In the train, it was actually a nice (more expensive), kind of like Business Class train! 

DJ got himself a burger at the McDonals.  (Kiev). I was not hungry...

The trained had outlets, and we are trying to figure out how it works. :)

At the Center... DJ's bed

My bed..

To be continue....

Finding Bio parents...trip to Ukraine Part 2

On the August 8th, we came to the airport, got on the plane, left our gate...and there was a mechanical problem!

We got back to the gate, and were advised to wait in the line to see if they can change our flight for later.

Fast forward...8 hours later, we are driving home, and have a flight scheduled for next morning, August 9th :)

Kids were super happy to have me back the same day :)

Anyway, we finally were able to fly out of Sacramento on August 9th.
Our flight was, Sacramento-San Francisco, San Francisco - Frankfurt, Frankfurt- Kiev!

We had longer layovers in San Francisco and Frankfurt, and I slept through most of them :)
Danilka was himself, didn't show any signs of nervousness, barely slept, and only got more tired on the last plane...

Around 5 pm (Kiev Time), we landed in Kiev...

The food was good... no complains :) I was too sleepy, ate just tiny bits, and the rest was eaten by my son :) 

Landing in Kiev! 

To be continue...

Surgery #2 (ear)

On Wednesday our oldest had another surgery, 6/20/18.

She already had one surgery back in February on her right ear, eardrum reconstructive surgery, and it didn't work. Last time doctor used premade material for an eardrums This time doctor used a different material, a muscle from her jaw, and doctor tried to fix her left ear.

We are praying it will work, and she will get a normal hearing.

She been half deaf since she was a small child, and she doesn't even know what is like to have a normal hearing.

Our beautiful daughter deserves to be happy, and be healthy!

We are praying that her hearing will be normal, and she can enjoy her life more!

One week in May 2018

Today is Sunday...tomorrow is a new week...

This week will be almost like any other weeks, except... we will complete one more adoption, adoption of our sweet daughter! RG will be officially Mironyuk :)

Anyway, this post is not about her adoption, it is about a week ahead of us!


Monday-

8:30 am we all have to go to court, to finally adopt our girl :) (details later)

11:30 am- school counselor meeting about IG

1:00 pm-meeting with school specialist about AG

2pm Lunch together as a family in one of the buffets, celebrating adoption day of our daughter!

Tuesday

 our last, official day of school! We will still have our regular school day, which includes:


9:00 am Speech Dimcho
9:00 am speech Denny
9:00  am piano lesson Elliana
9:45 am piano lesson Rose


11:00 am Ilianna special ed tutoring/class at the library
11:15 am I have a meeting with Educational Specialist
12 :00 pm Denny special ed tutoring/class at the library
1:00 pm Ilianna special ed tutoring/class at the library

2:00 pm Dimcho special ed tutoring/class at the library
3:00 pm Daniel J special ed tutoring/class at the library
4:00 pm Dimcho special ed tutoring/class at the library

Wednesday

9:30 am Piano
10:15 Piano
9:00- 9:50 am -school counselor meeting about AG
10:00- 10:50 am -school counselor meeting about RA
11:00- 12:30 pm -school counselor meeting about DJ and DA

1:00 pm-2:00 pm- AG, DJ , RA, DA, EE, SN, DN, DD, EE have Gymnastics

3:00 SN doctor appointment
3:15  DA doctor appointment
3:30  EE doctor appointment


6:40 pm Awana for youngest 5, and the rest of the kids would go to church for other things.


Thursday

9 am Speech DD
8:30 pm-Guitar lesson DA

Friday

12 pm Phone appointment RA (specialist)

Plus, homeschooling, helping each child, and cooking :)

IG is working, and not driving yet. I do take her to work most days (she works 4-5-6 days a week). Some of her coworkers will bring her back, which is a huge blessing, only sometimes we have to go to get her.

This is what I have on my calendar... Most of our weeks looks the same :) We also had tutoring for each child, one hour each week, so if I would post this schedule few weeks back, you would see 10 hours of tutoring :)

RG is driving now, and I use to take her to school each morning, and would pick her up after school. It is a huge relief that she is driving, and taking her everywhere (school, job and activities). Also, when she is home, she will take IG to work, or older kids to church.

Older kids have to be in church few times a week for practices, and etc. and this is my job to take them :)


*** I am posting this just to remember....I know that some day our kids will be out of the house and I will have no one to drive, take care of  and cook for! I am trying to enjoy this time, and actually do get very emotional thinking that someday all of this will be GONE!

Surgery #1

One of the girls, our oldest,  came to us with missing eardrums(big holes in her eardrums), plus a little bone behind an eardrum was partially gone.

It took us sometime to get things settled, and get her an insurance.

We saw two different doctors. First doctor said that it cannot be repaired do to how bad it was damaged. The doctor told us that this surgery needed to be done long, long time ago, and that we lost a lot of time by waiting. :( I asked him to refer us to a different doctor, for a second opinion.

About a week later we saw a different doctor, and this doctor told us that there is a chance, and he was willing to try it...  He said that they will try to use all the materials they have, but he might need to get a piece of her jaw bone to repair missing, little bone in her ear, and might need to use a muscle from her jaw to repair her eardrum.

We were excited to finally schedule her a surgery!  She had her first surgery on February 7, 2018, on her right ear.
Surgery went well, it took them about 1 hour and a half from start to finish. We will see a doctor in first week of March, and will know more how it went and whats in the future. She still can't hear well, hoping for some improvement.

Recovery was hard, but she is so strong, she was in pain but tried hard to be in a positive mood.

She couldn't eat, was dizzy, in pain and didn't really leave her bed for at least 4 days.
I am so happy that it's over, and now is is back to her normal, happy self.

February 2018 Update

I don't even know where to start...It's been a long time since I did any updates or shared any news here or on our blog!

*Most of us were down with a horrible flu for few weeks, at the end we all survived :)

*We are still homeschooling 10 out of 11

*Kids are in grades: 2nd, 4th, 4th, 7th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th

* four kids still taking piano lessons

*two kids are in speech

*ten kids taking gymnastics

*one child takes guitar lessons

*one of the girls just had a surgery, and still recovering

*we have a court scheduled to obtain a legal guardianship for one of the girls

*we started an adoption of our oldest, she is 19, and hopefully will adopt her by summer

*house is almost done, just few little touch-ups and hopefully I will have time to make a video or take a lot of pictures to share it with you

*two oldest girls are working

*Sergey teaching and preparing our oldest for a driving test, and hopefully she will get her Drivers Licence by this summer

Plus there are birthdays, doctor appointments, work, and a lot more going on....Our life is not boring!

***Recent trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium

RG-6 months home

This beautiful young lady joined our family almost 6 month ago! She was 18 when she came to us.

To be honest with you, we thought that we will not make it, and her stay with us will be very short. She came with a lot of trauma, hurt and trust issues!

We are blessed to know God and to believe in HIM, we are thankful that He gave us His eyes! We saw a beautiful, happy, honest, respectful child under all those layers of hate, hurt, and pain! She was like a wild animal when she came to us! She was in survival mode, and her goal was to survive no matter what! She could rely only on herself! She didn’t trust anyone, and we were no one to her!

There are two reasons why I am not sharing everything we went through:

 #1-This is her story to tell, and if someday she wants to share it, it is up to her!

#2-If I share how hard it was for us to love her, and accept her, and how we survived… I will have to share everything what she went through in her life, everything that is still a mystery to us, everything that made her the way she was 6 months ago and today!
The way she was or is, it is not her fault! Life, trauma, not caring adults, made her!She learned to not trust anyone, and hurt everyone who love her! She learned to not attach and to not show emotions!

If it was a hard time for us to accept her, and learn to love her, can you imagine how hard it was for her to trust us, and love us after what she went through?
After her traumatized life as an abandoned child, after spending years, years in the orphanage?!
After all those years, and everything that had happen to her, today she is making progress! She is trying! She is healing!

We are still having issues! We are still working on things, but with God, and His help, with love we can make a difference!

We are thankful to you my dear daughter, thankful for not giving up!

 For not giving up on adults!

For not giving up on family!

For not giving up on your life!

Today, you are still fighting “monsters” from your past, but you are strong, and I and dad know that you can do this! We will do our best to help you with anything you need and we will be there for you! 

Just remember, you are loved!
You are a daughter!
You are a sister!
You have a whole "gang" behind you! Yes, it is not easy to learn to live as a family, and it is not always easy to learn to love, get along with your siblings, but believe me, it is a blessing to have a family! All of us learning to something everyday, and we all have issues to work on! 

We believe in this beautiful lady! 

Please stay the way you are while you dance through this life! We love you! 

Coming back-Update 9-14-17

Everyone who follows us on Facebook know that we went through a lot this summer. We did a huge addition to our existing house. 

Our house "grew" from 800 sq.f to 2300 sq.f. From 2 bedrooms and 1 bath, to 6 bedrooms and 4 bath! We started our construction end of April 2017, and end of August it was done! It took only 4 months! We still need to remodel our exciting two bedrooms and one bath house, and hopefully it will not take too long!

We are so enjoying  our "new" house! Kids are enjoying all the space they have now!

We are so thankful for everything we have! We are so blessed and thankful for people who been next to us, for everyone who helped in any way they could! God Bless you! 

A gift of adoption!

A gift of adoption! How powerful is it? Sometimes we don't even realize that what we do, it is huge, especially in a spiritual world! Adoptive parents, God picked us, He chose us for least of these! One of our daughters always thanks us for adopting her! Every time she gets a chance, or some free time she makes a card for us, thanking us for adopting her! The other day she came up to me and said: " Mom, thank you for adopting me! Thank you for saving me and bringing me here! If not this family, I would never know Jesus! I would not be saved! "
 She brought tears to my eyes!

Most of the time we don't even think this deep, but it is so important! Not everyone can adopt, but if you can please don't wait! There are so many children around the world alone, with out families! Those kids need families, they need moms and dads, they need love, they need Jesus in their life! Adopt and make a difference in someones life!

Don't let paperwork and finances scare you, we did it, and it's not that scary :) Blessings!

Dimcho on the rope swing!

This little dude came a long, long way! He came to us when he was 5. He couldn't walk for a long distance, couldn't dress himself, and was very weak.

Today he is doing much better, and he is much stronger! Loves to run, loves to be outdoor, and just enjoying his life!

Here he is!

School is here....

There is so much going on in this little house! We had very busy summer and will try to post more about some of the things we did.

This is our second week of homeschooling. All kids are excited!
This year we decided to send kids to one day a week classes. They are so excited to go to the "real"school! They had their first day this week....

 Ilianna -10th , DJ-8th, RA-7th, DA-8th, EE-6th, SN-6th, DN-3rd, DD-3rd, and our baby Elliana-1st grade.

They all had a great day! 

Our vacation to Lake Tahoe June 2016

We were blessed by the same family that blesses us every year. This family opened their hearts, shared their house with us and our family was able to spent almost 10 days in South Lake Tahoe this summer.


It was an awesome family vacation! We did a lot of bike riding!

Below we I will post a lot of pictures, they are not in order...too much work :)

***Not too long ago, we got a second camera (very cheap one), and our kids share it, and do take some of the pictures....Love to see all the pictures that kids took....

Our little princess

Ilianna and Denny playing animal/card game

Girls in the kitchen

 One of the favorite games

 Dimcho is learning to ride a two wheel bike...he wasn't really in to it, and didn't want to work "hard" to learn it. So one day we just took off training wheels for some extra motivation :) Most of us took turns to teach him, and watch him...By the end of our trip...he did learned to ride a bike! It only took 2 years before training wheels were off...and once we took off training wheels he did learn in about 2 days! Proud of him!

Danik is an awesome brother! He was happy to help, and did spend the most time teaching him! 

All of us walking/riding to the local park

 A video of him! So proud of our son! 

Some wood for roasting marshmallows 

This cool dude, Samuel, is my sister's son! Love him ! All kids love to be around toddlers and babies! Especially Daniel A. he loves, loves to play with my sister's babies!

Sergey trying to keep fire going, and Danilka with Samuel

Finally, one of my kids enjoy reading :)

At the park..Ilianna and Samuel

Victoria and Elliana

 Sergey and Dimcho

Family photo

Playing games

Ilianna

 Goofy Elisey :) 

 The weather was perfect for some kite flying :)

She loves to joke, and be goofy

My three Bulgarians :) 

Just boys...different stories but both of them are so alike :)

At the park

Ilianna with Samuel

Our two princesses....

Playing soccer at the park

                                            My sister's youngest even played some soccer :)

Daniel A...                                                         My mom, my sister and some of the kids

Elisey                                      Elliana

Growing up way too fast...Danilka

Kids just riding around...It was safe to let them ride in the neighborhood.

Daniel A., love his smile...

Elisey

Love them...

Family picture by the lake...

My teenagers...left to right...13, 13 and 14 year olds

S'mores time...

First time eating s'mores...loved it :) 

More pictures by the lake...

He just fell...

Sisters

Bible study outside...

All the Ds, Danik, Dimcho, Danilka and Denny :)

and then they take off again

A little helper...this was his favorite thing to do

These two....it's fun to be around them...well, most of the time :) They love to play, and giggle and have fun together! 

Beach time...on our last day, before we headed home, we went to the beach....

Every evening we would burn a fire outside, and kids loved to hang out by the fire...

Cousins...

Bath time :)

More fun outside! 

Ilianna helping me in the kitchen

Rose and Dimcho                                Stanislav

Danik working hard to finish his card for Sergey

Daddy had to go back home after staying with us for few days...he came back on Friday to celebrate Father's Day and his birthday! 

New hats...cheap, healthy and crunchy :)

Danilka loves to help, here he is helping to peel vegtables for "Olivie" Salad. 

Boys helping with wood

Our youngest princess

Rose and Stas

Here, he already knows how to ride his bike, so proud of himself

Kids on the wheels...

Sergey leaving...kids running after him

Time with dad

This picture was taken on kids camera, Danilka, Rose and Denny

Playing more games

One of the favorite things to do at the park

Kids went for a ride, and took some pictures

More pictures by the lake...

                                             Danik and Stasik                                                   

Danilka

Rose                         Danik

Danilka                                      Rose

Sisters...

Two youngest 

So clean and beautiful, until a little crash....

We still fit at the table :) 

We did some school work too

I got some beautiful flowers from Sergey on his birthday :)

Just us...

 Sergey especially did a lot of bike riding with older kids. Sergey and older kids did a 6 mile bike ride one day. Here Sergey with all the kids on 2+ mile bike ride. 

One of the boys took this pictures of Elliana...

 Also one morning when my sister and mom came to visit us while we were in Lake Tahoe, me and Sergey went for a bike ride. We rode almost 6 miles, and it was awesome! It was one of the best dates we ever had....:) Thank you my love for all your hard work, and for making this trip so awesome...

Blessing...!