When you grandmother calls you on Skype and suggests that you start "journaling" about your trip you don't ignore her. But this is 2013 so I suppose blogging is the new version of journaling. And the great news is that now Gram can read my "journal" and I know she will! My grandma -- mother of 5 boys, 13 grandkids, 26 great-grandkids -- is amazing! I mean really, how many people of my generation are getting Skype calls from their grandma, she's my hero!
So what is it that Gram thinks I should be journaling about? I think most anyone who is reading this blog will already know, it's our crazy summer adventure to Europe! I say crazy because really, what sane people take 4 young children to visit two foreign countries where they don't speak the language and don't know anyone? We do! And that's not totally true, we will be staying with family for 5 of the 22 days that we are there, and I have been studying Russian like crazy (I've got "Hi, my name is Jill" mastered!). So where and why are we going?
This journey began 9 years ago when we adopted our amazing son, Jax. Do you recognize this sweet boy? The little one I mean, though his daddy is very sweet too :) This is Jax the week we met him, October 2004.
When we brought Jax home from Ukraine we knew that we would take him back there someday to visit and experience first hand the beautiful country where he was born. Now jump forward four happy years later to fall 2008 when two new members entered our family...
This is Katya on the day we meet her, also in Ukraine, just before her 3rd birthday. Then 2 months after she came home we traveled to the beach to celebrate the marriage of Carrie (the beauty in the white dress, my sister and best friend) and Erwan.
So here we are today, a happy family of SIX and ready to head to Europe to visit Erwan's family in France and then off to Ukraine to enjoy the very special birth country of Jax and Katya. It's a vacation/cultural journey/adventure and so much more.
And just so there's no confusion about how we got to six (for anyone new to our story)...here are our other two precious little boys: Ethan born in 2007 and Cullen born in 2010.
So Carrie had been asking us to go to France with them and we had been waiting for the right time to go back to Ukraine so why not combine the two trips... I mean once you are in Europe why not do it all, right?!? I could give you 10 reasons why now, but it sounded totally logical 6 months ago when we booked our plane tickets! Why the 8 different flights weren't enough of a clue to make me think "this is crazy!" I'll probably never be able to explain -- that's right 8: 2 to France, 2 to Ukraine, 2 back to France, 2 back to the US. But despite the crazy we are so excited!!! So I will try to keep anyone who wants to keep reading (if you made it this far I guess you might) updated on the journey, it is sure to be an adventure with lots of stories to tell along the way.
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