The Best News Comes From Disneyland

“To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here, age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America, with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”

Alright, you get it. We love Disneyland.  I'm sure you're ready to get back on track. This is an adoption blog for heavens sake! I promise, this is all going somewhere. 

Since we established that so much of our story started at Disneyland, let me add that so many big things happened in our life there. From getting good or bad news, to life events, Disneyland for us is more than just thrills, turkey legs, and long lines. 

Here are a few of the snapshot of our Disneyland memories:

March 20, 2010. Cory proposes in front of sleeping beauties castles.  He asks me "if you could wish for one thing, what would it be?" I of course respond with "a cat" right before he gets down on one knee.  Lets just say I got something better than a cat (and later still ended up with 3 of them).  We then call our families to tell them the news while waiting in line for The Matterhorn.

May 02, 2011.  While walking around in the park, we hear the news that Osama Bin Landen was killed.  I know, a weird thing to put here, but it's one of those things we'll always remember. 

February 2013.  Not only do I survive life with a dark brown pixie cut, I get to celebrate getting my dream job as a flight attendant with Skywest Airlines.  I fly home early for training, and my hair eventually grew. 

January 2014.  Just one year later, while we are walking to the park from our hotel, I get a phone call from Delta Air Lines recruiting that I've been selected to do a face to face interview with them. Moving to a mainline airline would mean better pay, international trips, and more flexibility in my chosen career.  I again have to cut the trip short a day and go home before everyone else.  I land the job, and get the career of a lifetime. 

August 2015.  We attendant our first D23 expo, and are in the room when Bob Iger announces that Disneyland and Disney World are getting Star Wars Lands.  I can't even describe the electricity of being in the room when something big like that is announced.  We are huge Star Wars fans, and are still counting down the days till 2019 when it opens. 

July 17, 2017. While riding Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, I feel my phone buzz. Minutes before this picture was taken I read the email stating that despite our small issues, Hungary will accept us as adoption prospects!

Yeah, you read that right. We finally have a little more progress into our adoption! We had been waiting to hear back from Hungary about adopting while on anti-depressants and they did not seem to want to get back to us. We had been patiently waiting for a response for almost a week, and when I finally got an email, I thought we would finally have some progress. Turns out all the email told us was that they were forwarding our question to the ministry of children, to really ensure it wasn't an issue.  We were told it'd be at least another week until we heard back from there.  This was the one thing standing between us, and finally starting this processes that could take us years. We had been told to expect it to take a weekend to hear from Hungary, and patience isn't something Gifford's are known for.  Lucky for us, this past weekend was the D23 Expo 2017.  

I LOVE going to D23. It's a crazy, exhausting, exciting, and informative weekend of all things Disney. Disney holds it every 2 years at the Anaheim Convention Center, and it's where they announce all of their new movies, TV shows, video games, theme park changes, and just about everything else.  There are signings, and panels with Disney Legends. It's pretty much a Disney fans dream come true.  We were able to do so much fun stuff, and above all we are able to see a lot of our friends that we don't get to see very often since we moved.  Sure, we had to wake up at 3am to wait in line to be in the standby for the live action panel that didn't start till 10:30am, but we're some of the only people in the world to have seen scenes from Avengers: Infinity War. All in all, the convention proved to be a great distraction. It was the first time in almost a month that I wasn't refreshing my email like a madwomen. It was exactly what I needed. 

On Monday after the convention, we decided to go to Disneyland for a half a day before driving home.  The first thing we did was run over to California Adventures to ride the new ride, Mission Breakout - The ride formally known as Tower of Terror.  I absolutely love the ride.  We had already ridden it our first day, and needed to do it again. Just as Tower of Terror was, the ride is a complete dead zone for cell coverage.  I wasn't expecting an answer till later in the week, so I wasn't worried.  As we were on the ride, catapulting to our doom, I felt my phone buzz.  I didn't think much of it, and so I didn't even bother to check it.  After going through the gift shop, (I'm a gift shop addict. It's not a problem, I could quit if I wanted to!) we went outside and I found the guy with the sign celebrating Disneyland's Birthday.  I chased him down, and when I pulled out my phone, I saw one sentence in an email that will change our life forever. “according to their (the ministry's) reply the family can apply to Hungary”.

Now that we know we can adopt, it's time for more waiting! I know that was the first of many hurdles to jump over, but it was the one we were facing to even get to the starting line. We have an appointment scheduled on the 26th with a home study group, and hopefully we can start that process soon.  Once our home study is done, we can submit our Dossier to Hungary to await a match for a referral for a child!