In one week....

...we'll be in Budapest!

That's right! We (FINALLY) got the final approval on Tuesday and booked our tickets to Budapest!

We are meeting our kids in 8 DAYS!!! AHHH!!!!

So here's the rundown of what we'll be up to for the next few days/weeks.

Tuesday, May 13th, we fly from 
New Orleans>>Washington D.C.>>Brussels>>Budapest.

We will arrive on Wednesday and go 3.5 hours from the capital to Miskolc. This is where we will spend most of our time. We will stay in an apartment there. 

Thursday we wake up, visit with social workers, do some work at the court, and then meet our kids and their foster parents!

For the next 7-9 days, we will visit them at the foster home, as well as go to the park and ice cream shops for bonding time. 

At the end of 7-9 days, the children will come into our care and live at the apartment with us.  For the following 20-30 days, we just get to be together and learn about each other as a family. Yes, the translator leaves at this point and we get to test out our acting skills as we communicate with our kids and learn each others' language. A social worker will come by a few times to see how things are going. We will make trips to the embassy in Budapest to get important papers signed and printed. We'll have doctors' appointments as well. If everything goes smoothly, we expect to be back home at the end of June. 

All kinds of stuff can happen between now and then, and we need your prayers.

• Please begin praying for our bonding time and transitions as a family.
• Pray we can find creative ways to communicate and learn each other quickly. 
• Pray for energy on the long days and grace on the tough days. 
• Pray for all the official paperwork to go smoothly and be approved. 

Again we've been so blessed by the outpouring of love and encouragement we received from coworkers, friends and family. Just tonight a family donated a kids' play kitchen that they no longer needed. We also were given a booster seat for our youngest daughter. My (Kim) room moms got together and planned a surprise meeting to present me with one BIG Target card from my class. Then, my colleagues hosted a surprise gift card shower. They both were wonderful surprises!  

Beautiful canvas from the shower made by our sweet friend, 

Tori, and her daughter :)

We finished up the kids' rooms this week! It's been so much fun painting, putting together furniture, and picking the bedding for these rooms. Hope they like their new home ;)

The girls (ages 6 & 8) will share this room: 

Big brother will have his own room :)

Thanks for reading along and following us on the journey! We plan to keep this blog updated as we are in country, so subscribe at the top to get emails when we update or keep checking back!