A Family of 5

Wednesday, August 29

Our last day making 2 round trips to his home village, picking him up and then taking him back again.

We walked to the mall across the street to ride the train and buy some groceries for lunch.

In the evening we had our last dinner as a family of 4. Tomorrow we will go to the court house to become his legal guardians and formally begin the adoption process!

An interesting find - cucumber flavored Sprite 

Thursday, August 30

We met with the social worker at the office. The building was a 5 minute walk from our apartment. The woman was very kind and had already typed up most of the needed information. She printed it, our facilitator translated the documents for us, and we checked to make sure everything was accurate. We will return on October 1 - God-willing - to finalize in this district, then we will head to Budapest to finish at the American Embassy.

Today was also naming day. We changed his Hungarian first name from Tamas to Tomas and gave him the second name James after my Dad and Angel's brother (Diego is James in Spanish). 

We walked to go get a coffee while everything was signed and finalized.

We then went to go pick up Tomas from his foster family's home. His foster mom had gifts for all of us and a bag of personal items for Tomas. It was emotional, but we stayed strong for him. I snapped a few final pictures and we headed back to Kaposvar for our first evening as a family of 5.

Friday, August 31

Kaposvar is a small city, and we have often seen the same people around town. Yesterday evening on our way to the park, we saw our hotel manager. We chatted a bit - she speaks English and lived in Texas for awhile - and finally she asked, what are you doing here? We explained that we are here to adopt Tomas. She was so kind, supportive, and sincerely happy for us. She promised the kids cookies at breakfast tomorrow and delivered on her promise. Caleb, especially, was pumped!

After playing on the playground and trampoline awhile we visited a few shops. I wanted to get some items for our home to honor Tomas's birth country. When we walked to the mall on Wednesday, I noticed a cute, little flower shop selling wreaths and decided to return today.

I loved the colors in this one and that it had Hungarian writing. Of course when we bought it I had no idea what it said. So when we returned, we translated it. It reads "I have been waiting for you."