Incredibly Grateful

Happy New Years Eve y'all! 

What a year 2017 has been! But I want to talk about the past month specifically. This month marks 12 years since Galyna and I met our parents for the very first time, thanks to Vinny (pictured above). Galyna and I came to visit during Christmas time in 2005 and moved to US in 2007. We came here for a visit and got super lucky that the family decided that they wanted to adopt us. I was truly lucky that they wanted to take me cause I was already 15 years old when we met, and usually no one wants older kids. And so 2017 marks 10 years since we became a family. 

While I was hanging out with Ira, Sveta and Vinny, I realized that I've known Vinny for 20 years now. I met him in 1997 when I was in 1st grade. He's been doing this for over 25 years and he's not stopping anytime soon. Vinny is the director of Frontier Horizon, a Virginia Beach, Va based humanitarian organization which brings kids from Ukraine, Nicaragua, and Kyrgyzstan to America and Canada on what are commonly referred to as "hosting" trips. If you're interested or need more information visit Frontier Horizon website. I've learned a few new things about Vinny while hanging out with him for almost 2 weeks. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York and was actually an actor, but he went on a mission trip to Nicaragua and it changed his life. And even though he's not married and doesn't have his own children, like I told him, he has A LOT of kids all over the place. He helped a lot of kids when no one else would and when I asked him how much longer he thinks he's gonna be able to do this he said, "I'll keep going until I can't." 

So I just want to say thank you Vinny for caring about children of Ukraine, Nicaragua, and Kyrgyzstan. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to give back this Christmas, it meant a lot and made this Christmas extra special. 

Happy New Years Eve everyone and I'll see y'all next year!