Home Study - Part I

Thank you for your prayers. Our home study was uneventful.  I suppose that's good news, really. We met with our social worker and did the first half of our interview together, Rob did his individual interview and then we broke for lunch. Afterward, she talked with Ben a little, but didn't ask too many questions. She mostly observed the two boys together. They were quite cute though. I'm a little bias. Ben had spent the night with the Gerlachs the night before so he and Evan hadn't seen each other all night. Ben kept laying down on the floor and wanting Evan to sit on him. They were giggling and giggling. See...that IS cute.

Afterward, I did my interview and we made arrangements for her to come back in two weeks to finish our interview together. That's the fun one...where we get to talk about our parenting styles, our marriage and how Rob is the disciplinarian and I never pick up after myself.

After that we should be done. Until then, we have a few things on our list. We need to finish our will and have our children checked out so the Dr. can sign a form saying they don't have any communicable diseases. Sounds pleasant enough.

Speaking of the Gerlachs...as part of our home study, Bulgaria requires that we have an evacuation route posted in our little girl's room. Don't even get me started about how ridiculous this is. About how it would be impossible for a 3 year old to even read an evacuation route or about how we sleep on the same level. Alas, we add it to the growing list of hoops we jump to bring her home.

We are blessed with great friends. Our friends the Gerlachs moved to SD a couple months ago, but we in town for work. They spent the night at our house last Sunday so they got in on some of the cleaning on Monday. (Thanks guys!) As part of their payment for staying with us, Aleycia was charged with the task of doing our evacuation map. After spending way, way, WAY too much time thinking about how a 3 year old Bulgarian would exit our house in an emergency, she came up with the plan to color code the rooms. Like Aleycia said, "if a child can understand anything, it's color."

Here is the result of her work. Isn't it pretty AND functional?

Our social worker is coming back the first week in March to do the last interview, but she says that within the next month the first draft will be ready to go to our agency. Then there is a game of back and forth until the home study is written exactly how the Bulgarian government will want it. We hear our agency is one of the most picky, but if that means that the process will be easier later when our paperwork is in Bulgaria, we are all for it.

Thank you for your prayers. Seriously. You are moving mountains and we can feel it every step of the way.