I think we should take my Bulgarian flag.

My son recently graduated from high school, and we decided to have his graduation party in Minnesota where all of our family lives (we live in Virginia).  Everything we needed for the party needed to be transported, so we had to be very organized and creative in our planning.

I spent hours going through pictures trying to find ones to display on the photo boards.  J put them together.  My husband spent hours some time going through pictures to create a slideshow before J took that task over on our drive to Minnesota.  There is plenty of time to do that when you drive 1400 miles.

The challenge we had for the photo boards which were displayed in chronological order (like a timeline for my son who is passionate about history) was how to handle the first 4 years of his life.  My son is very open about the fact that he was adopted from Bulgaria at the age of 4. Although he is very open about that fact, he doesn’t want to make any connection to Bulgaria. “That is in the past.  I live here.  I am American.”

We talked about the fact that he can’t ignore the first 4 years of his life.  We discussed ways to display that time.  We had a header for the far left side of the board, “Bulgaria”, and it listed the dates from his birth until his Gotcha Day.  We included a few pictures because that is all we had. He gave us the okay on the pictures we used.  We also included a map of Bulgaria showing where he lived and a map of Europe showing where Bulgaria is located.

The day before we left, this was a quick conversation that we had:

S:  "I think we should take my Bulgarian flag for the party.”

Me (astonished):  “I think that is a great idea!”

This was huge!  He even knew exactly where it was in his room which was also a big deal.

The Bulgarian flag stood next to his Bulgarian passport near the left side of the boards.  The far right side of the boards shows all the places he has been.  The pictures in between tell his story up to this point.  

It was so fun to hear everyone’s recollections at the party as they looked at the pictures. “Do you remember when….?”  

First day of PreK

Graduation

You will find me on the couch with chocolate enjoying life.