Today Alina celebrated her 21st birthday. This time eight years ago we were meeting her for the first time. I remember being nervous that she would not want to leave the only home she knew. Unlike Ellie, Alina was being raised in a place where she was well cared for and loved. The orphanage was more like a foster family. There were three homes on several hundreds of acres. In each home lived a full time caregiver along with 8 children of multiple ages. It was set up to resemble a family. In addition to the caregiver, there was a regular cook, an after school tutor, and the whole property was a working therapeutic farm. She grew up spending holidays and weekends with the orphanage director's mother and sister at their home. She was blessed to be loved and cared for for those many years.
She was friendly from the start and we were thrilled to have time to spend with her and ask questions of the orphanage director. She had several photo albums of pictures that had been taken of her over the years and was excited to show each one to us.
Over the years Alina has pretty much stayed the same as she was the day we met. She is still the young girl wanting to impress everyone she meets. She loves hugs, watching movies, dance parties, and is easy going. We are so blessed to have her in our lives.
Happy 21st Birthday Alina Grace! We love you!!
We were blessed with some good weather on Saturday so we were able to take some birthday pictures of Alina and Ellie.
We went to some local falls and had a little walk and then took birthday Pictures of our two beautiful 21 year old daughters
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