This and that

Yet another hair-style for Abby-girl. Teresa arranged it with silly-bands which unfortunately did not survive Abby's jerking them all out the next morning.



Me taking a picture of Abby being examined by the nurse at her initial visit with our pediatrician on July 26. Abby seemed to understand "doctor" and was very cooperative though I felt bad because I couldn't explain to her what was going to happen. She was pointing at her eyes so I wonder if she thought this was when she was going to get glasses as had been discussed before we left Bulgaria. She really seemed to feel comfortable with our doctor and stood right beside him. Then she started to say "No, America." "Yes, Pavlikeni." She hasn't been talking like this at all recently so I wondered if she was remembering her medical visit there in Sofia immediately prior to getting her visa. There the medical visit meant she was leaving Bulgaria, so maybe she thought this medical visit meant she was leaving America????


Every two years Kevin's family holds a reunion and the weekend of July 22-24 was the appointed time. We did NOT go for the huge potluck dinner. That would have been way too much for Abby (besides Kevin was working) By the time we got out to Nat-Soo-Pah there were only about 4 family-members' campers still out there. This made for a very low-key family time.

Here's Kevin in the motor home getting ready to pull away from our house, June 23.
Here are the kids relaxing inside. Abby was quite intrigued with the idea of a house on wheels complete with fridge, beds and potty.
Getting the little kids buckled in for the ride.
Chow time at the park.
Our motor home in line with the others.
Eating again??!! Actually we were done with the food and Kevin was leading our family devotions on Sunday morning, July 24.

Behind the row of bushes in the background is a big mineral pool, naturally heated. We had so much fun in there but I didn't take my phone/camera in that area since I didn't want to lose it or get it wet. Caleb and Steven are little fishies in their life jackets. Abby was very, very nervous at first. She had a life jacket on which was good and bad--the good is obvious, the bad was that it kept trying to make her float and she just couldn't get her feet steady on the bottom of the pool. So she stayed in the arms of either Kevin, myself or Scheri the whole time. She was pretty proud of herself when she got up the courage to hold her face in the water. She also enjoyed Ring Around the Rosie. I was totally shocked when Scheri somehow convinced her to go down the water slide!! The first time down she wasn't on a mat and went really slowly so I was able to catch her right at the slide's edge. The rest of the times she was sailing down on a mat so I had to stand back from the slide a bit to keep from getting bowled over. She wasn't real happy with me letting her splash into the water but she kept going again. The last time, however, the mat kind of went over her face and that scared her. She wouldn't go down anymore--not even for Scheri. We were out there for hours. In the spa she even sat on my lap. That was wonderful. She got a taste of hot dogs cooked over a campfire--she ate it!! And peach cobbler cooked in a dutch oven. Believe me everyone slept very well. (The girls actually slept outside in their sleeping bags by our camper.)
This picture is taken in our own back yard fire pit on July 25. Caleb was pretending to roast hot dogs. He cracked me up because,not only was his imagination great, but he had his feet in a pillowcase!! (No, I do not grasp the connection between the pretend cooking and the pillowcase. Smile.)
Steven joins in on the fun.


Scheri teaching Abby the English alphabet. For my friends who have no experience with the Cyrillic alphabet used by Bulgaria, there are SEVERAL letters that look the same as our letters but make totally different sounds. There are also several letters that look totally different in cursive. For instance, Abby's name in Bulgaria is Stefka. The letter that makes our "S" sound looks like a "C" In cursive, the letter that makes the "t" sound, looks like our lower-case "m." The letter that makes the "f" sound is not in our alphabet at all. I truly LOVED trying to sound out the signs in Bulgaria. Of course, I didn't usually know what the word meant once I got it figured out but sometimes I did--like in McDonalds where many of the words on the menu are transliterated straight from English.
We re-arranged the shelves in the dining room so Abby has shelves for her own toys and special things. We moved all the books (and the bookcase) from the girls' room plus Caleb and Steven's books to the living room. Slowly but surely we're figuring out where to put everything.Abby's clothes drawers all child-decorated with numerous stickers.