And now, back to T

T's tiny fingers - tight, motionless. I figure this is a safe photo to share because there are no immediately identifying features, and it's important to me that you get to see a little bit of this tiny girl. It's important that you see her because she is really there. B is going to come home, and maybe be a little tentative at first, but she's going to find her way rather quickly. Those of you who know Krassimir know that although he is very delayed (how many of you who know him in person ever think of him as the 12-year-old boy he actually is?) he still has his way of finding his place. He will shake hands with people in church, or, vain little man that he is ;), run his fingers through his hair if he hears someone talking about how good he looks. If he's down on the floor playing, he will head right for whatever it is he wants, if he wants something he's not getting, he'll find a way to let you know he's upset, even if he can't tell you what it is.

T is silent. It would be very easy to never look at her, never think of her, never notice that she even exists. She spends most of her time sleeping silently, and when she does wake up she does no really move, doesn't make a sound - we heard her cry out once while she was being moved. Her whole little body is stiff, and stiff in what looks like an uncomfortable position - her head is tipped slightly back, her arms cross slightly across her chest, her legs are bent and pulled back, her feet are taut, and pulled up toward her knees. And there she lies. It's unclear when she does open her eyes if she is able to look at us or not, but unclear as it is, there seemed to be a number of times when she was looking at us, if we were in her field of view. Many sounds do not disturb her at all, but she does appear to be able to hear. At one point Gloria made a sudden squeak, and there was a perfect startle reflex from T. Gloria's shriek, unlike something like a door slamming, is something that would be heard not felt, so we're choosing to believe she does hear, which is in alignment with the medical information we've been given.

On at least two of our four visits with her I found myself pushing back trepidation as we walked down the path and up the steps to the door of her orphanage. What are we getting into?? Both times, all of those fears fled as she was wheeled into our room. She is so frail, so helpless, so unable to respond and react to her world, and yet...so very real and so very alive.

I wrote about this earlier this week in an email to my parents, but the week before we flew to Bulgaria, I just "happened" to be reading something written by a doctor who was referencing some of Sigmund Freud's work. In his estimation, the mind can be understood as three distinct parts - the id, the ego, and the superego. The ego is what we equate with reason, and the superego with morality, while the id is the more primal part of our brain which, from an evolutionary standpoint, is the remains of our "animal" ancestry. The id is mostly, or completely unconscious to the "higher" parts of our brain, but is still responsible for many parts of why we are the way we are. Where this intersects with T is in relation to a case study of a young man whose cerebral cortex (the location of the higher reasoning parts of the brain) was completely destroyed in an accident, leaving him only with the functioning of the brain stem keeping his body alive...and the basic nature of the id. Although most of his time was spent in pain and anger - all the negative primal emotions that Freud discusses, there were times when his mother would visit him and stroke his head that he would be calm and almost serene. The conclusion was that although the most primary part of our brains are mostly a swirling mass of what we would consider negative emotions (which sounds to me like the Psalms, "Surely I was sinful even from the time my mother conceived me"!), there is, in the very basic core of what keeps us alive, also a part of the human mind that has the capacity to receive love. This also aligns very well with what I understand about humanity, as creatures that are not the product of an evolutionary process, but a unique creation by God and in the image of God.

If that capacity to love and be loved is part of the most basic part of our brain that keeps us alive, that means to me that even T, as damaged as her little brain was at her birth, and from years of neglect after her birth, still has the core human capacity to understand what it is to be loved. I can not think it was an accident that those ideas were brought freshly to my attention a matter of days before we met little T.

Someone asked me if there were any things about T that would be a deciding factor about whether or not we would bring her home. My underlying thought has always been that if she will know the difference of the love of a family, we will take her. It's hard to tell from outward expressions what she knows or is able to know. But I DO know that the first day we were there was apparently very stressful to her, as evidenced by the frequent seizures she was experiencing, and that the following visits were not. Both Matt and I would like to take our chances that she noticed something familiar about our subsequent visits that made them less stressful for her, meaning that somehow, somewhere, she is aware of what's going on around her. I also know from my experience with Krassi and Reuben, that people with limited abilities often have receptive abilities that far outweigh their expressive abilities; I have no reason to believe it's any different with T. We may not be able to *see* her responses to us in any obvious way, but that doesn't mean she isn't responding internally.


Life at home with T is going to be both challenging and yet very simple. As our translator laughed one night, B's going to be a whole lot tougher to parent than T is! T is going to need regular, consistent care every single day for the rest of her life, diaper changes, bathing, tube feedings 6 times per day, three hours apart, therapies, etc. But I promise you she's never going to talk back to us or try to run away! We will find her a nice, cozy place to spend her days, talking with her during the moments when she wakes up (which I'm hoping will become more frequent and longer lasting!), and just simply being aware of her when she sleeps. Our biggest question right now is how well she will tolerate being moved and going out. Right now, those sorts of transitions are very difficult for her. Will they always be that way? Maybe. We will likely, if that is the case, need the regular help of a caregiver to stay with her at home while we're at church on Sunday mornings, for example. But we're also hopeful that with proper equipment we may be able to take her out on simple outings like that. And although those outings may not make much of a difference to her, we believe it's important that she be seen - that she be no longer hidden away because of her disability, but that others would know that she is a valuable part of our family.

B(B)G [by Matt]

We like the fact that B's name (since she chose to keep her first name) has the initial BG which are the initials of her birth country. After discussing three options for middle names with her at one of our earlier visits, we checked in with her today to find out if she like any of them or if we needed to start over. She was very decisive and had chosen one that means "strong". It also starts with "B", so now her initials will be BBG. Like with her first name, we will wait until everything is finalized before sharing her middle name (unless we make a mistake like we did last night!)

We had two visits with B today and had a nice time learning a bit more about some of her likes and dislikes and also having her ask us some more questions. For instance, she wanted to know if the Twin Cities had any sky scrapers. We have no idea what prompted that question, but it was neat to be able to tell her that yes they do and then to be able to come back after lunch with some skyline views of the two cities to show her.

One of the things that is very clear is that she can not even comprehend what the possibilities are for her when she comes home. In Bulgaria, her future is very limited and as such, her outlook on the future is very limited and as a result of that, she also lacks motivation. However, as we talk with her and our translator and the child protection officer talks with her, I think she may be beginning to get a glimpse of what is possible...a very small glimpse. Today on the topic of learning English, she essentially said that she had some materials and some exposure to it, but there was really no reason for her to learn it. She said that now that she will be coming to America she will be more motivated to learn. In reality, there are really only two things that seem to be of concern to her about coming to America. One is that she will not know the language and the other is that she wants to be sure she can continue to talk to and possibly visit her friend who was adopted and now lives in Virginia. Other than that, she seems like this is an adventure that she wants to tackle.

In our afternoon visit today, we spent a little bit of time playing Colorku (Sudoku with colors) on the iPad with her. We had a lot of fun with it because she was trying to use some English and we were trying to use some Bulgarian as we tried to figure out which colors went where. We can most certainly say that she has her colors down in English a lot better than we have our colors down in Bulgarian. I get the sense that she knows a bit of English and that as she gets more comfortable we will see more of it come out. Her ability to communicate in Bulgarian seems to be perfect, which bodes well for her being able to pick up English. As our translator said, it will be much easier for her to learn English than for us to learn Bulgarian. 

We also had a chance to FaceTime with the kids at home today when we met with B. Even though the group home does not have WIFI, our translator was able to set up her iPhone as a hot spot that we could connect our iPad to in order to talk with our kids. Crazy. Each of our kids was able to tell B something or ask her a question and she helped them learn how to say "my name is____" in Bulgarian. B decided that she would save her questions for the kids until she was home with them. That seems to be a response of hers to a number of things...basically she is coming and it will get sorted out down the road.

Just like on previous visits, B could not get enough of Gloria. It has been really nice having Gloria along with us (even if it means we don't sleep quite as well at night or get to walk the city as much) because she helps to transition over some of the awkward moments of silence. B does not have a lot of questions for us and when you ask her questions, the answers are not typically very lengthy, so it is keeping us on our toes to be trying to generate topics of conversation.

We have one last visit with her on Wednesday morning and then we head back to Sofia.

One last fun note. Back at home, people have commented that they think B and Leah have a similar smile. Today, B shared that she had been sharing the photo book that Andrea's mom put together for B and that her friends also commented to her that they thought Leah had a similar smile to B. Kind of a neat connection.

Architecture nerd alert

Which means, if you don't care about buildings and stuff, you can skip reading this post. ;)

Matt was teasing me a bit ago, saying, "I've married my Dad!" Who else would go to Europe and take a photo of the toilet? Well, I guess there could be far worse fates than being compared to my father-in-law!!

But, really, this photo is less about the toilet, and more about the toilet clearances. (And the tile.) Did you know that in the U.S. we're required to have 15" from any wall to the center line of a toilet? Well, this tiny little space in the hotel we're staying in here in B's town is only 5" wider than the distance from my elbow to the tip of my finger (which is a measurement I should know, but I don't.) There's not a lot of space there! But it works!

And the tile, too. I get the feeling driving around that Bulgarians really enjoy their tile. There are numerous roadside vendors with large displays of tile right in Sofia, and it's used in a variety of places. The little bathroom here has six different types of tile on the walls, and then a seventh on the floor! But it's all used in very decorative ways.

The little alcove that the toilet's in has this interesting inter-meshing of light and dark tile on the end wall. The darker tile on the right continues onto the side wall of the shower, while the lighter tile on the left changes to a slightly darker light shade on the wall that the sink/vanity is on.

Here at the mirror above the sink you can see that lighter tile on the right, followed by a border tile that's even prettier in real life because there are a variety of textures in it, and then the very dark tiles, with two wood-grain striped tiles one above the other that you can just see at the top of this photo. You can also see me and Gloria, and Matt out in the room proper.;)

This hotel that we're currently staying in is a newer building, covered with bright blue corrugated sheet metal. Our translator laughed when she pulled up to it. "It looks like a barn!" In a country where most of the construction is concrete or tile with stucco, a corrugated metal building does look more agricultural than it would to our American eye!

The hotel that we stayed at in T's city was really quite marvelous. It was not the same high rise in the center of town that we stayed at when we were here three years ago visiting Krassimir for the first time. This one is a tiny little thing a little way out (but still walkable) and located on what I can't tell if it's a real street or just an alleyway.

From the front it doesn't look like much, though there are a few hints at its unusual interior.

This shows how its sandwiched between two houses. Both of these houses have amazing gardens, and, like many of the houses that we saw, have trellises covered in grapevines that at this time of year are covered with many large clusters of beautiful grapes. This particular house also has a big enough yard for a few small fruit trees in the front.

The hotel is called the "Gallery Hotel" and is, indeed, decorated as an art gallery, with every wall of every room - hallways - sleeping rooms - lined with different paintings and sculpture. The reception lobby for the hotel is not, as you might expect, in the glass room fronting the street, but rather up the limestone steps on the left side of the building.

You can't quite tell in the photos, but the whole building is painted a pale lavender!

What was particularly striking to me, though, were the paintings on the windows in the lobby, not only on the main level, but on every level up on the central stair.

Standing on the first landing, looking down into the lobby. You can see the large windows in the lobby painted up with an image of a woman in an exuberantly flowing gown, and also the first level landing above with the smaller window there leading out to a roof deck.

Here I'm standing up one more half-landing, looking down at the window with the roof deck (the smaller pane on the right opens for you to climb out - there's a little table and chair out there), and up to the level that our room was on. I love how the glass railing reflects the colors of the painted windows.

And here is the window on our level.

Again, these are not true stained glass - just something drawn onto the interior surface of the glass, but the scale and translucence, and the color and texture is really wonderful. Sometime the tint is even, in some of the places it's swirled, and sometimes actually has ridges and lines in it.

On our last morning, when I was taking these photos, I went up one more half-flight of stairs to make sure I didn't miss any of the windows, and was surprised to see that our floor was actually the highest floor with rooms on it! This flight up stairs goes up only to this last landing, which has access to another roof deck, but nothing more than that.

This photo of Matt and Gloria up on the uppermost floor illustrates something else that's not exactly code-compliant with the way we're used to things. As Matt walked up the stairs to look out, bonk! he hit his head on the ceiling, it slopes up slightly as the stairs go up, but doesn't go up as fast as the stairs do, so the ceiling eventually topped out at under 6 feet!! He had to duck to look out, and it would have been even worse trying to get out onto the deck, as you notice the threshold for the door is about a foot off the ground! It seems funny to us to go to the expense of a stair and all that for something you can't really use much, but at the same time, it really adds to the sense of spaciousness and lightness of the whole stair area.

And, as I mentioned, it wasn't just the windows that made this place an art gallery. The walls were lined with paintings and drawings, all nicely framed. Here is a sampling of my favorites.

This is a stylized version of dancers in traditional Bulgarian dress.

This landscape to me captures the same quality as the hotel as a whole - big, bold blocks of color, and (though harder to see in this photo), elements of tiny, precisely detailed patterns.

Breakfast was served at this hotel, not like a restaurant or a buffet, but we told them each night what time we wanted to eat, and in the morning we would go down to this room (here's a sample of the murals on the wall) and the lady working in the kitchen would bring out a pre-made (but freshly made) plate of whatever they were serving that morning.

On B? or T?

We've realized that traveling with a baby leaves a lot less time for blogging than we had on our last adoption trip! Gloria's been an amazing traveler, but she's definitely feeling the impact of everything being different, and is VERY clingy. Yes, she's a mommy's girl anyway, but here we can't put her down at all. I think she figures if she doesn't let go of one of us she's bound to get back where things are familiar!! That means, though, that every time we're back in the hotel room, our thoughts are on getting her down for a nap, or deciding which one of us gets a bit of time on the computer while the other holds her. Even now, I'm typing on one of the bed, and Daddy's trying to pull Gloria off my knee from the other side!

Walking back to our hotel (in blue on the left) after our Monday morning visit with B.

I'm torn, as my title suggests, about if I should use this bit of time to share more of our thoughts about and impressions of T, as promised at the end of the last post, or if we should shift back to our time with B, since I don't think we've shared any of that yet.

Well, B it is. As we mentioned earlier, we were able to have one visit with B on Friday morning on our way through the mountains to T's city. We were glad to get a chance to meet her and have her meet us, and give her a brief introduction to our family, and then give her a weekend to process and think about any questions she had for us before seeing us again. Although she is shy, she also has a sense of humor, and definitely (and this came out more this morning on our second visit with her) a sense of adventure! We were told, as we walked in that first morning, that she was excited to meet us, and you could see it in her face, too, as we came around the corner and saw her sitting there waiting for us.

She lives in a beautiful, newly built, group home. The country as a whole is working on moving children out of the older orphanage system of caring for children who are wards of the state toward more "family" type homes, and her home definitely reflects this. There are three buildings on the property - two larger multi-story ones (but still bright and pleasant feeling from the outside) and her single-story building. The three circle around a courtyard with a mix of pathways, greenery, and play areas. It feels welcoming, and like it would be a nice place to live.

My favorite part about our Friday morning visit was when she learned that Matt (and I) did most of the work building the addition to our home a few years ago. She laughed and said that was good, since she likes jumping on her bed, so if it needs to be fixed, it's good to know Matt's handy and will be able to take care of it! With the translator gap in between, we're still not sure if she really *does* like bouncing on her bed, or if she was just teasing - either way, it was neat to see her at ease enough to either make jokes (funny ones at that!) or make a confession like that!

She has a close friend who she's known/grown up with for as long as she can remember who was adopted and moved to the (southern) United States last December. They still stay in touch via Skype. That makes me happy, and again, shows something about the kind of care she's getting - it seems like they are very happy to help her maintain those important connections, and we assume they'll do the same when she comes home and wants to stay in touch with her current room mate.

We got to talk briefly about names when we saw her on Friday, and she likes her name and would like to keep it (and we still can't share it!) but knowing that was the direction we were going, we were able to do our *own* homework over the weekend and come back this morning with three options for middle names for her. It's kind of exciting wondering which one she is going to choose!

Gloria gave B a special treat on Friday, and a bit today, too - she let her hold her!! Any of you who know Gloria know that she's a very happy baby, but also that if Mom's in the room, she's not happy with anyone other than mom holding her. Not so with B! Gloria sat happily on B's lap for quite a while on Friday, and a little bit today, too. B is very anxious to hold her, but also a bit nervous because she hasn't held a little baby like Gloria before! It was delightful to have Gloria be so content to be on her lap!!

She has shared with us her favorite colors (blue, black, and gray), and her favorite pastime - watching TV! (anyone reading who knows us know we're not a TV watching family. But one of the interesting things about adopting an older child who is nearly on her way to being an independent adult is that we have an interesting "dance" ahead of us as we decide which things about the way we do things are not going to change, and which we will be flexible about. Thankfully our children at home are already learning that different children have different privileges and responsibilities, and that life in our house is not a one-size-fits-all deal. Because B will have her own room, it will be fairly easy to give her the option to watch some things in her bedroom. Our hope, though, is that being part of a family (and a rather interesting one at that! When people ask us what it's like having so many children, Matt and I both are quick to say that our life is never boring!) will give her other things to be part of and to be interested in, and perhaps television will decrease in importance in her life in a natural way without us having to put any boundaries on it.

This afternoon we all went out for a walk to the city center, which is just a few blocks away. The town that B lives in has a population of just under 10,000 people, so not really a "small" town, but definitely not a big city like Sofia or T's city. Matt got the job of pushing her wheelchair. Although she apparently can do some moving independently, in her words, "she's not very good at steering." Looking at her chair, I'm not terribly surprised. I'm *really* excited when she comes home to see what she could do in a chair that was fitted properly to her. The streets and sidewalks here are much more navigable than the ones in Sofia. There were a number of ups and downs over curbs, and some interesting ramps that Matt navigated backwards to avoid tipping her out of her chair ;) but overall, it wasn't too bad getting her around. We got to walk through the big hotel in the center of town (at B's request), and stopped to get slices of cake at a little patio eatery before going back. Much fun.

Gloria trying out the swings at a little play area near the city center.

Gloria is STILL not so much into solid foods - I've never had an 8 month old baby who was so happy just drinking milk! But when we got our travel dates we decided not to push it too much at home, figuring it's easier to not have to have something along for her, but since we're here, we're giving her the chance to try a few things here and there. She did pretty well with my polenta last night, and is here making faces at the creamy filling in Matt's cake. She didn't think that was too bad!

All of our visits with B are attended by a representative from Child Protection Services who has to write a report on each visit about our interactions together. Here you can see her tickling Gloria's feet. Traveling with a baby is a good idea - baby talk is a pretty universal language, and it makes for a nice connection point and ice breaker. There aren't too many people who don't like squeezing pudgy baby parts!!

There's plenty more I could say, and more I still want to share about our visits with T, but for the moment, I think this will do, because it's now solidly into the morning for all of you back in the States, and I'm guessing you wouldn't mind an update!!

Short update

oh, how I hate typing on the iPad!!! But we're having trouble getting the laptop connected to the wireless in the hotel room, so the iPad is the way we have to go.

I know many of you are waiting to hear about B, but since we've spent most of our time with T so far, that's where I will put my energy now. We've had two visits with her: one yesterday and one today. Yesterday's visit included many seizures. As we'd been led to expect from her file, the seizures are plentiful, but, how do I say it, minimal. She does not stop breathing during her seizures. We saw a number of ones where her whole body goes rigid, but her breathing is not impacted, and they're short - counted in seconds, not minutes.

When she opens her eyes, you can see how beautifully golden-brown they are. I've never seen eyes quite that color! All of her features are very delicate, and her hands, though always in little fists, are beautiful.

At both B's and T's, we had to signs statements saying we will not publish publicly any of the photos that we've taken with the girls until the proceedings are finalized, which I know is not what many of you have been hoping for!

This morning during our visit with T she was much more peaceful, with hardly any of the tonic seizures we saw yesterday. We're hopeful for her sake that this is a more typical state for her, and that yesterday the seizures were worse because of meeting us for the first time - different voices, different sounds, different touches. We were also encouraged to hear her cry out a bit when she was moved at one point, showing us that she definitely responds to external stimuli. If she cries when she doesn't like something, it's that much more likely that some of her other responses were really positive responses.

Off to our afternoon visit with T. More later...

We made it [by Matt]

Andrea and I and Gloria are all safely in Sofia. Gloria did great on the plane trips...no crying at all...even for Gloria, she still kind of amazed us and lots of other people. After a two hour delay in Paris, we made it to Sofia in time for supper and a lovely walk through the Roman ruins and some of the other major streets in downtown Sofia prior to getting back to our hotel room to try to finally get some sleep. It is pretty neat how it feels "familiar" to be here.

Tomorrow morning we leave early to head to the city for B is for our first visit with B. We still have no idea if she knows we are coming or not. She may already know or she might not find out until tomorrow morning shortly before we get there. We won't know until we get to ask her!

After that morning visit, we will drive to T's city and spend the time with her on Friday and Saturday before returning to B's city and getting to visit with her Sunday afternoon and then Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday morning before returning to Sofia to fly home very early Thursday morning.

Countdown!

Soon after we woke up this morning an email came in:

Travel Dates!

Yup. We are set to travel in...can you believe it?...Seven days!!!

Next Wednesday we fly out, due to arrive in Bulgaria on Thursday, and meet T on Friday, and B the next Sunday!

Nothing, nothing, nothing, and then BOOM! here we go!

State Fair

Apparently we can't get away from the Fair. We decided last year we weren't going to take everyone - it's a lot of work, and just getting in is a lot of money for a big family, particularly when a number of the participants can't really fully enjoy it. So I just took the three who would miss it most (Owen, Leah and Rinnah), and told them we'd be satisfied with the county fair for 2016.

Except, their 4H club's "Share the Fun" club-wide Peter Pan skit won Champion (of two, but still - apparently our club and one or two others were SO good in years past that other clubs just kind of gave up!) which qualifies them to perform the skit at the State Fair.

So off to the Great Minnesota Get Together we went. We were grateful for other 4H families who helped Owen and Leah get there early so we could come later with Reuben and Krassimir and the rest of the family. After meeting up with the kids at the 4H building, we managed to hike over to the Giant Slide, which we were all able to navigate in two shifts: first, I took Evania and Leah took Rinnah while Daddy and the boys watched and held Gloria, and then Daddy took Krassi and Owen took Reuben while the girls and I held Gloria.

Gloria will have to wait for another year to go on the Giant Slide.

Krassimir's always into slides - the bigger the better.

But Reuben was the happiest of all! He couldn't stop talking about it the whole rest of the day. "Dow[n]! Wow! Wheee! Buuuuh [big]. Dew - dow[n]! Owuh, Owuh?" "Yes, Reuben - you went down the BIG slide with Owen!"

Love these two cookie monsters. (Owen's already dressed up as a lost boy. He was careful to stick his toe out of his old shoe.)

The Fair's all about the food, right? That's what Gloria thought, too. But since she doesn't really do much more than dabble with the most basic of solid foods, she decided this Fair Alphabet Crown would have to do.

This is a still from the video I took of the skit. Owen's job was to help Reuben, a lost boy, navigate. Leah, in the brown, was also a Lost Boy as well as Nana the dog at the very beginning.

And Krassimir? Well, he was the crocodile! Check out the action on Smee (red/white) as he and Captain Hook tear off the stage when the crocodile comes on! The audience loved it, too, and you can see the smile on Krassi's face! He loves going fast and crazy, and his trusty stage-hand did just that.

At the end of the night, all of the participants in all of the skits climb up on the stage for final comments. I am so grateful for the kids in our club who take their job of unity as a club seriously.

What I wish I had a photo of, but don't (because, yes, I had my hands full!) was us *leaving* the Fair. It was about 8:30, so it's already getting dark, and here we were, contributing our part in getting all of the props home - we have the biggest vehicle, and were parked the closest (thank you, handicap hang tag!!), so we got the 8 foot tall pirate ship mast! What a sight we must have been with Matt, pirate ship mast in hand, leading the way with Owen, back-pack and root beer laden behind him, followed by me pushing Krassimir's wheelchair with Rinnah holding onto one of the handles, and carrying Gloria sleeping in the front pack while pulling the wagon full of food, costume, and diaper bags ... and Reuben and Evania, and Leah walking on one side or the other with her own backpack and a soft pretzal. Phew. What a night!

It's hard work, but it's good to get out. We're already making plans for next year - wonder what B will think of the Fair? (We're thinking T, unless she greatly surprises us, may prefer staying quietly at home with somebody! But we'll see - if she's at all the type that would be up for it, we might just go for it!)

We passed!

Nope - nothing on the adoption. Just wanted to clarify that!

THIS post is all about the west addition from way back in the olden days when I started this blog!! Remember? The Room in "Room for More" was a chronicle of the work on the addition we built on to our house to make room to bring Matt's mom into our home, and also ended up giving us plenty of room to bring Krassi home (and, though we had no idea at the time, also the room for B and T! Our original house, cute as it was, would have had a hard time fitting three wheelchairs, two standers, and a feeding chair (or two?) into it, especially if we also wanted to have room for twelve people...and three cats!)

Well, it's been pretty much forever since I've posted anything about the house addition. The last, I believe was back in April when Matt posted about passing our electrical inspection and getting ready to set up our final local inspection to close out the permit. Well, I think I forgot to post about that, but the news was while we did pass the electrical, we did NOT pass our general inspection! That came as a surprise to us. But as he walked up the stairs to Barb's rooms, he looked really closely at the windows...and refused to pass us - the windows were supposed to be tempered!!!

Sure enough, when you read through the code, yes, windows of that size within that distance of the stairs and that far off the floor are required to be tempered. Neither Matt nor our window supplier caught that when we put those windows in years ago.

So we were left with two options: replace the windows, or install a bar comparable to a handrail at handrail height across the windows.

We chose to replace the windows, which was NOT CHEAP, but we decided that overall, it was the right thing to do. Thankfully, we were able to just replace the sashes, and didn't need to do anything with the frames, since the glass is in the sash.

Four months later...

...voila! Tempered glass!!!

So yesterday, we finally passed our final inspection, and the addition is now finally (at least as far as the city goes), complete.

This is significant because we're hoping to pull a new permit soon to put in the egress window in our original basement for what will become Owen and Krassimir's bedroom so B can have their main level bedroom when she [someday] comes home!

Matt's hoping he can tweak things enough with the new header that he can use these two, nice 60" tall window sashes that we just happen to have around the house, and just have to buy new frames. It's the sash that's the expensive part, right? ;) (His original figuring was for 54" tall windows; we'll have to see if we can make the 60" ones work. If we can, that would be a nicely rounded out end to the story!)