Day Pass

Today we got a day pass for Bobbi so she could come home for a bit and then go to the Christmas party that the Bulgarian community here in the Twin Cities puts on every year.

It was really nice to have her HOME. Dad took Owen and Leah down for the morning during her therapy sessions, and then they all came back together for the afternoon before we left for the party. Sorry some of the photos are not so great - my phone apparently has a scratch on part of the lens, and it catches the light in funny ways sometimes and the photos just don't turn out...

 Petting the cats was an important part of being home.

Doesn't she look *great* sitting on the edge of her bed like that?? She didn't used to be able to do that this solidly. Even neater is that she got herself from lying down to this sitting position by herself.

A truly unexpected bonus of adopting Bogomila has been our exposure to another culture - not only with the foods and language that she adds to our immediate household, but also through the other Bulgarian families who live around us that we have met because of her. The photos, again, are lousy [ding-ding-ding!!! If Mom waits long enough to post, she'll find that someone was taking nicer photos that night, and since I'm part of the "Bulgarians of Minnesota" facebook group, I've got something nicer to share!!!], but here are Leah and Rinnah doing traditional Bulgarian dancing with other children from the Sunday afternoon Bulgarian school to start off the Christmas party.

 And some of us mingling/waiting around for the potluck food to be set out.

 It's a big crowd!!

And I wish we had photos of the food. Because, although some of the stuff is just typical potluck fare, plenty of it is good Bulgarian food - what a treat!!! And going through the line with Bobbi means I know which traditional foods I should try, even if I can't recognize them.

Santa and Snow White visited, with presents for everyone. We've never done the whole "Santa" thing with our kids - I'd rather not invest time in convincing them of the reality of someone/thing that I know full well to be untrue. The thought of having to someday explain why I was misleading them has never appealed, so even here our kids know that the guy dressed up as Santa will give them the presents Mom wrapped earlier that day. I've learned that the Bulgarian alphabet is a beautiful thing if you want your unusual last name pronounced correctly. Purely phonetical, I can write "Глеви" on each package and know that the name will be read perfectly. No "Gluey" here!!

It's an interesting night to be where the main program is all in a foreign language, but everyone there (except for some of the oldest generation) speak great English as well, and I figure it's a good taste of what it was like for Bobbi when she first came home and couldn't understand more than an isolated word or two of what was going on around her.

Half an hour drive back home, Matt helped me carry people into the house, and then he and Bobbi were back to Gillette in time for her bath, and Leah and I got everyone tucked into bed.