Celebrating Heritage

 Through the wonders of social media we were able to meet up with some of our friends from Kazakhstan while we were at Disneyland. We met Mike and Nancy who were in Kazakhstan adopting their beautiful daughter Gabby the same time we were there adopting Luke. Luke is a couple months older then Gabby so they were in the same group at the baby house. We spent hours together during our bonding time with the kids. Which was almost exactly 6 years ago to the day we saw them here. 

As it turns out Gabby shares Luke's absolute love of Lego's. And it just so happens there is a Lego store in Downtown Disney. The perfect place for the kids to get to know each other again being kids. They each built a race car to compete in "the big race".

 How cute are their faces?

 I'm pretty sure the kids could have spent hours together playing.

We all went to lunch together and the kids each ordered cheese pizza. Which they immediately agreed was cool because they all ordered the same thing. It was very nice for us to catch up with Mike and Nancy. We are so glad they were able to meet us. Luke still talks about how happy he is that he got to see a Kazakh friend again. 

Kolby's school put together a "International heritage" night. They called and asked if we would do a table for Guatemala knowing that's where Kolby is from. We happily agreed and said we would also do a Kazakhstan table. 

We got together everything we had brought back from both countries. I printed out coloring pages and maps of both countries. For Guatemala I ordered 100 little "worry dolls" to give out. 

They gave each child a "passport" with all the countries flags that they could get stamped at each table they visited. 

Kolby and I sat at the Guatemala table. 

 Luke and Dewey sat at the Kazakhstan table.

It was so much fun! We ran out of everything we brought and know that we need to brings a lot more next year. Both boys had fun talking about the countries they were born in. It was wonderful to see the pride they both have for their heritage. And what a unique opportunity for all the kids to get to know a little bit about the world.