Poncho Time...oops I mean Our Disney Vacation 2009

As you can tell YES we had a "Family Vacation" at the most Magical Place on Earth...Walt Disney World :) And of course it rained and rained and rained some more! Oh did I mention that it rained? LOL!!! But we made the most of it and donned our ponchos and played in the rain at the Mouse's House :)

This was a triple-fold present, this according to Ron, it was my Graduation present and the boys celebration of their "Gotcha Days". Their "Gotcha Days" are a day apart, well 5 years and a day apart but still pretty amazing!!!

Enjoy the photos :)

Happy Belated Mother's Day 2009 :)

SO sorry I have not been keeping up my blog! We have been SUPER-DUPER busy here in the Grabowski Household! Here's what we have been up to since our last post:

Happy Belated Easter (to those who celebrate) :) We geared the boys up for a wonderful Easter by taking them to not 1 but 2 Easter Egg Hunts the weekend before Easter! Our Easter was GREAT!!! The night before we dyed Easter Egg, the boys woke up to their Easter Baskets that were filled with Easter Candy, we had an Easter Egg Hunt (I will say that the Easter Bunny wised up this year and bought plastic eggs for the hunt, Thanks Hun for suggesting this b/c apparently the Easter Bunny forgot about what a 2 year old actually does with real Easter eggs!)...LOL :) We celebrated Easter in true Grabowski tradition with not eating once that day but we ate two Easter Celebrations at two separate houses :) We ate Breakfast at Babci and Dzydzyia (Ron's Mom and Dad, Babci and Dzydzyia is Polish for Grandma and Grandpa) and then we ate dinner later that evening at my Aunt's house. It was such an eventful day :) Luke truly enjoyed his chocolate bunny :) What shocked us all was that Ryan actually ate candy this year!!!

We had our 2nd post-placement report, can you believe that it has been close to a year since our court date? Amazing how time flies when you are having fun! Our Social Worker was SO impressed with Luke!!! I have to say we are too!!!

We celebrated Mother's Day yesterday :) I say we (meaning...Ron, Ryan, Luke and myself) b/c who would want to celebrate this holiday alone? Now, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with celebrating this holiday alone, such as I have a friend who has 5 children and every Mother's Day she celebrates this holiday alone, tells me it's her ONLY saving grace, but we celebrated our Mother's Day together. Ron and I were reminiscing about last year b/c we actually spent Mother's Day in a plane on our way to Russia to see Luke, have our day in court and became a family for the second time in our lives. So, YES, yesterday was an emotional day, at least for me :) Not to mention this week will be as well!!! Ron and I realized that Luke's and Ryan's court dates our 5 years apart, not exactly they are separated by 1 day...Ryan's court date 5/16/03 and Luke's court date 5/15/08 :) Pretty amazing, huh? Anyway, HAPPY MOTHER"S DAY to ALL :) Who would have thought that I would be a Mommy to not 1 but 2 WONDERFUL boys?!

Also, at the end of this week I FINALLY graduate from Rowan University!!! I tell everyone that I should have several different doctorates, in several different areas of study at this point...HAHA! I graduate on Friday, May 15, 2009, and we will be celebrating Luke's very FIRST "GOTCHA DAY"!!! Then, on Saturday, May 16, 2009, we will not only be celebrating Ryan's 6th "GOTCHA DAY" but as a graduation present my terrific hubby decided to surprise me with a vacation to Disney!!! I couldn't believe him!!! He was planning on telling at my graduation on Friday but I guess he forgot that I'm usually the one who gets the mail and that's how I found out we were going to Disney :) Too cute!!! That's Ron for you :)

Love & HUGS,

Jenny, Ron, Ryan & Lukie

Novruz Celebration!!!

Happy Novruz!!! Or Happy Spring :) We celebrated Novruz (pronounced "Nov-ruz meaning "New Day") today with the Azerbaijan Society of America, at the Orion Palace in Brooklyn, NY. It truly was a terrific cultural experience for the whole family, especially Ryan :) This was our third Novruz Celebration with the Azerbaijan Society of America in NY and as usual the food and the entertainment were spectacular!

We have always celebrated spring with Azerbaijan in mind (since the arrival of our oldest son, Ryan), and we have tried many, many times to grow Samani - a plate of wheat grass or lentil grass. Every year we try to grow Samani and I'm sad to report every year nothing grows or it only grows a quarter of an inch :/ Here is a website, from Azerbaijan International Magazine, that describes how to grow Samani, perhaps you will have better luck than us :/

http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai144_folder/144_articles/144_novruz_samani.html.

Also, for those who are interested, here is another website from Azerbaijan International Magazine, that describes what Novruz means and a Celebration that would not die...

http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/22_folder/22_articles/22_noruz.html. And here is another website, from Azerbaijan International Magazine, Celebrating Novruz Photo Essay - Readers Capture the Spirit of Novruz...

http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai111_folder/111_articles/111_photos_novruz.html.

Finally, another website, http://www.turkishny.com/en/local-news/4664-amerika-azerbaycanlilar-dernegi-uyeleri-nevruzda-bulustu.html this is in Turkish but if you look close enough at the very first photo you can see Ron and I sitting at the table in the background. I thought this was hysterical, I told Ron we made the news in Turkey/Azerbaijan...LOL :)

As I'm sure you have noticed the photos of our Novruz Celebration 2009, also I've included a video of Azerbaijani dancers-simply beautiful!!!

Love & HUGS,

Jenny, Ron, Ryan & Lukie :)

PS-On a side note-Ryan is doing much, much better from his stay in the hospital earlier in the week :) Thank-You ALL for your prayers and loving thoughts! We weren't too sure if we would be able to attend the Novruz Celebration, but Thank-Goodness we were able to!

Remembering as if it were yesterday...

One Year Ago today it was "International Woman's Day" and we were leaving Russia after seeing, meeting, and accepting our referral. It truly was a bitter sweet day, because on the one hand you have a sense of relief, that you have accomplished another task to bring you closer to realizing your dream...the dream of adopting this baby boy. On the other hand, you have to leave this precious baby boy back in Russia and honestly unless you have been through it, it truly is the most agonizing thing we have ever been through in our entire lives! Metaphorically, I tell everyone it's the same as having your heart ripped out and literally left in Russia and/or Azerbaijan. And I do say that YES it is that horrible of an experience!

Our facilitator, Irina, told us that we would return soon enough and you know we believed her :) You may think that these are just merely "words" she tells every PAP but Irina is extremely sincere in her demeanor and I, for one, and still do to this day, believed her because she was absolutely CORRECT!

Because it was "International Women's Day," which is extremely similar to the U.S. version of Mother's Day (which incidentally we traveled for our court date in May 2008 and it fell directly on Mother's Day, we did spend this day in an airplane and we truly did not celebrate it but Lukie is SO worth it!), so Ron went to our hotel's flower shop, at the Hyundai Hotel, and bought Irina flowers, because she deserves them and in our minds a lot more! Before Irina took us to the airport, we made a pit stop at Lukie's baby hospital to give our Goodbyes. I'm not so sure this was such a wonderful idea?! I SO wanted to scoop up our baby boy and bring him home with us, who cares that he didn't have the proper paper work, after all I was a Mommy in agony, surely the Russian Gov. would understand!? I just kept repeating to Luke "we will be back," I think this was more for me than him :/

Here are some photos of just how much Lukie has changed from that very first week back in March 2008 to now :)

Love & HUGS,

Jenny, Ron, Ryan & Lukie :)