We're often asked what's going on with the adoption in the midst of the pandemic. The short answer is: not much. Both the US and Bulgaria have shut down many procedures, understandably.

Bulgaria is starting to open up, slowly. Their courts have opened, and our paperwork is in, waiting for a court date. When we pass court, they will legally be our children, but we still can't pick them up until both countries' borders open.

In the meantime, we're all okay! We get to Skype with them once a week for about an hour, and they are squirmy and funny and adorable. We all muddle through with broken English and Bulgarian (they're in English lessons, and I'm in Bulgarian lessons), and it works. Even in partial languages, they have a great sense of humor, and we laugh a lot. T had her twelfth birthday in March, and E's ninth birthday is coming up in June. N's birthday will be in the fall.

We're taking this time to work on getting the house ready. The kids have all requested specific colors for their bedroom walls, so we're repainting and slowly accumulating other things to be ready for them. We're putting off buying the extra, bigger car until we know when we'll be going to get them. We'll also wait to buy them clothes for here until we know what their sizes will be when they come home (my, how kids grow!).

Money-wise, our next agency fee will be $8,800, due when we pass court. The Gift of Adoption Foundation has generously awarded us $6,000 toward that (wow, THANK YOU!), so we have $2,800 left to pay, plus about $7,000 to cover the cost of the pickup trip. We are continuing to squirrel away what we can each month, and I am still running my Patreon subscriber fundraiser (www.patreon.com/alijshaw). Little by little, we'll get there!

Thanks again for being on this journey with us. We certainly could not do it alone.

Love,

Ali & Tim