Happy New Year

Last night it was hard to go to sleep for several reasons, we are very close to Independence Square and the music is very loud. I was finishing packing, washing a few clothes, talking to relatives and way too excited to sleep. Well by time I was finished with everything it was midnight and the fireworks started. We were so close to them it sounded like cannons going off and the sky was lit up. Mother and I got up and went to the front of our apartment and we could see the fireworks from the window. It was really neat to celebrate the new year like that.

Fortunately the boys slept all night. Well we are packing up everything including the computer to get ready for our translator to pick us up at about 9:20. By tonight we will be home. Yea!!!!!!!

Happy New Year to all our wonderful friends who have been praying for us.

Pre-Paring to Take Off

We spent yesterday trying to kill time and keep the boys busy. I went to the market to get enough food to last us until Thursday morning. Though I knew we would still need a couple of things like bread and water. At about 11:00am we walked to the post office to get some stamps for Jacob, then down to the underground mall. On the way to the mall there are several vendors selling various things from T-shirts, music CDs, key chains, passport holders etc. One lady was selling children’s books. We were able to get three good books and one of them had English and Russian describing house, transportation etc. Mother found a Ukrainian music CD. At the mall we went to the bookstore and Mother bought a couple of books to give to Alex for Christmas and his birthday. There was a newsstand near there and she also got a USA Today. She could finally read a paper. Jacob loves hot chocolate and they have vending machines in many places around town. We also had a hard time to know which item on the machine was hot chocolate. Well Alex got the gist of what we wanted and was very helpful to get Jacob’s hot chocolate and one for himself. Mother and I stopped at coffee shop and got an American coffee with cream. Love that stuff. I have been trying to finish up getting our translator a thank you gift but with the boys it has been hard. So my sweet Mother said she would watch the boys while I went out. It was nice to be able to get around quickly without as many distractions. We are counting down.

I had promise Jacob we would go back to the park today but I wanted to show Mother the nice department store that I had found. So we walked down the street to the store and then sent Mother back to the apartment and we went to the park. The park still had a lot of snow and Jacob of course was having a good time. Then just 10 minutes later Alex says he needs a toilet. Well finding a toilet is not easy. We started walking around one block in hopes to find one so we could go back to the park. Well that did pan out. So, I told Jacob that we would have to go back to the Square. We go to the underground mall to the WC. The WC cost 2Hryvnia. I then got the boys a drink and we headed back to the apartment. Hopefully they felt a little tired. We went back out at about 4:30, when it was dark to take pictures of all the lights. There was also a large stage that had been built in the last couple of days. It was pretty cold in the 20’s and after about an hour we went back to the apartment. I had bought some sparklers and after we had supper I took the boys right outside our apartment to light them. Well I wish everyone a Happy New Year. Our new year is starting on a good note by us coming home and with a new little boy. Our plane leaves at 12:10pm tomorrow. We are counting the hours now.

Mission Accomplished!

Today was a good day. We have been looking forward to going to the Embassy for the past several days. I woke up too early because I was wound up knowing we would be getting Alexander’s visa today. It is the last of the paper chase that we will have to do. I got the boys up a little after seven because Ira wanted us ready to leave by 8:40am. We quickly ate breakfast and finished getting ready. Ira wanted to make sure we had our ducks in a row and for them to move quickly. So she sent the Babushka and Jacob to the Embassy with another translator to turn in our remaining paper work, and then the Embassy could start on the visa. While Alex, Ira and myself went to the Medical Center to get his physical. Ira could not find a taxi that would be inexpensive for as long as we would need, so she rented a mini suburban and asked her husband to drive us around. This was very nice of him to take off work to help us. The Medical Center is staffed with Ukrainian people who work for the Embassy. Normally the hall way is filled with many people to get their physical, so they can get their visa to go to America. This is done for any Ukrainians or adoptive families. We found out that immigration visas were not being processed until middle January and only adoptive families were being issued visas. That is why the hall was fairly empty. There were some Ukrainians just getting their physicals today. After awhile five other adoptive families came in. It was really nice to hear other Americans talking. The doctor was very nice and it only took about 15 minutes. They prepared their report and then we had to wait till the cashier got in. We waited for over an hour then come to find out she was having computer trouble. She showed up with the computer and Ira made sure I was first in line. We then ran to the car because we had to get to the Embassy, which were a few miles away, before 12:00pm. We did make in time. I have been wondering what the Embassy would look like. I expected an flag waving in front of a large building. But that wasn’t the case. There was a sign in Ukrainian and English but not a huge sign. There were several security guards around as well. We walked into an unimpressive building. Maybe there is a reason for that. There were two buildings. The first building was the security check. No electronic devices were allowed beyond that point. We showed our passports and then were wand scan all around. Jacob and Alex thought that was cool. Then we walked outside and across a short distance to another building. In the building there were two sets of thick glass security doors with another security guard. We felt like we were in a vault. The Embassy workers were behind glass windows like the drive thru at a bank. I had to fill out a couple more papers. The lady said that the interviews with the consulate would be at 2:00pm. I had two hungry and wiggly boys and I knew we needed to eat soon and we had about 1 1/2 hours till 2:00pm. Ira’s husband said there was a McDonalds close by and that sound good for the boys. We were back at the Embassy by 2:00 pm. The consulate was there and talked to all of the adoptive parents at one time. Then he said he would do individual interviews. The interview lasted all of five minutes. He said we would get the visa in about 20 minutes. Boy those minutes flew by. They were calling my name and we had the visa by 3:30 p.m. Woo Hoo!!! What a relief it was. It took us a while to get back to the apartment because of all the traffic. It was as bad as Atlanta traffic. Well -that is all for now as and my grandmother “Mama Love” would always tease me and say that is a pretty deep subject.

Snow, Snow, Snow

December 27, Saturday

I have found the time to go to the market is early in the morning. There isn’t near as many people as about 11:00 till evening. We also don’t go anywhere after dark. It is also easy as I know most of you know that shopping alone is much faster than with children. So I have been taking off early in the morning to get our daily market things and I am back to the apartment fairly quickly. I wanted to look around more of the square today, and I promised Jacob we would go up the park we had been before, so we bundled up especially the Babushka (Grandma)(spell?) and set off. The park is close to our first apartment here in Kiev but it is a good walking distance. It is also an uphill grade the last three blocks. So the Babushka had to go slow because of the snow and sore foot. She has been a real trooper with this whole ordeal and then even braves the freezing 20 degree cold, cold weather just so the boys could go to a park. On the way to the park we stopped into the post office. It is the largest post office I have even been in. There were numerous windows with clerks. They sell calendars and cards along with postage. I have wanted to get a calendar of Ukraine scenery and we found one with landscapes which is very nice. The boys played and played in the snow for about an hour until the Babushka was half frozen and then we left. On the way down the Babushka slipped and fell. She was behind me and the boys, when I heard this Oh, Aimee. Well I felt my heart go up to my throat, when I turned around to see her on the ground. A very nice man stopped to help her up along with me. Luckily she was fine with no injury. Hopefully she will not have a bruise. We managed to find some more souvenirs to take home in the underground walk ways and then went to McDonalds for a late lunch. We were all pretty tired, well the adults were. We were hoping all the activity would wear out two boys but it only lasted for a little while. I had brought macaroni cheese packets to make Jacob’s favorite thing in the world macaroni and cheese, so I made macaroni and cheese with the last package. Alexander didn’t like it but that isn’t a big surprise. We had a pretty good day.

December 28, Sunday

I decided this morning to get onto a translation website to let Alex know what about our Church service. I explained that we were going to have Church services and he needed to be quiet. Mother prepared the Lord’s Supper and I had found a sermon by Don Truex from Temple Terrace. We sang Jesus Loves Me, Jesus Loves the Little Children in hopes that the tune might be familiar to Alex. Jacob has been great about helping with the service as well. After our worship service I went to the market for a few things, one thing is that we are a lot closer to the market than we ever have been. We all went out for our daily excursion. The Babushka wanted a couple of souvenirs that she had seen a couple of days ago and we needed to exchange some more money. When we got to the big Christmas tree there were many kinds of things to do. There were little miniature cars for kids to ride, ponies and horses to ride, Santa’s and trinkets to buy. I let the boys pick out one trinket each. The wind has picked up and we are feeling the cold so we head back to the apartment. We had to have another unique Ukrainian experience to apartment living. The door handle of the bathroom door was getting very loose. I told everyone yesterday not to close the door all the way, because the handle may come off the door. Well today Alex wanted to see his mini light trinket that he had just got, in the dark. Well he closes all the doors in the hall including the bathroom door. A little while later I go to check on them to find the door close. I try to open it but the handle on both sides of the door come off. So here we are with no way to open the door. I try several things to jimmy the lock but it just was working. I call our apartment manager and he says he is very busy and will send the cleaning lady with some tools. From the time I first call him, plus other conversations in between time to the time the cleaning lady comes it has been two hours. Mother eyes are starting to fill up. The cleaning lady brought another man to help her. He took about 10 minutes to remove the handle and we were greatly r-e-l-i-e-v-e-d. The Babushka was of course first in line followed by me. Mother and I fix a ham, bean and potato soup for supper. We are relaxing till bed time. Tomorrow Alex and I will go to the Medical Center of the Embassy for his physical checkup, while Mother and Jacob go to the Embassy to take all the documents along with Alex’s Ukrainian passport. They will have to wait till we are done at the Medical Center and then we will meet up with them. Mother and I are excited to be doing something productive and to know we are very close to coming home.

Yea! Yea! Here Comes the Passport!

We received the wonderful news today, at 7:30pm, the passport is being picked up tomorrow by our wonderful translator Ira. In fact Ira is already on her way down to Kherson, so that she can be at the Kherson office by 8:00am tomorrow. This is definitely a wonderful ending to our day. I have kept reminding Mother earlier today that we may only have a few more hours before we would know something about the passport. She said don't wish the day away and she is right. We have had a good day. We went out today at about 11:00 to look around more of Independence Square. I wanted to get a small toy for the boys and a couple of other things, plus we need to get the wiggles out of the boys. We had more snow last night and today and the scenery is still very pretty. It has been a little bit of a battle to get the boys to bed. I will have to keep working on it.

Thank you for all of your prayers on our behalf.

I have put more pictures on picture link.

Christmas Day

Well it is hard to believe that Christmas is here and to see so much snow. Jacob does not remember when he was 4 yr old that it snow quite a bit and we played and played in the snow. He did get to play in the snow last winter but it was only about 2-4 inches and had melted by the next day. So, to walk outside and see lots of snow it too much for any two boys to handle. Where Alexander was born in Kherson I believe they don’t get as much snow as here in Kiev. The scenery was very beautiful with just the snow and then to see the three story Christmas tree plus other trees decorated was really nice. The boys really had a good time in the snow but we were hoping to go to restaurant after we had taken several pictures but they ended up getting pretty wet and cold. There were several men dressed up as Santa and we had one picture taken with Santa. After we had been playing outside for an hour Jacob realized how cold he was and we went to change in to dry clothes before we went to eat. Fortunate our apartment is not far from the restaurant. Mother ordered us an American espresso coffee and I could have just had three of those and been very happy. We haven’t had a good cup of coffee in several weeks. The boys each got a very large chocolate shake. Jacob said Mom can I have a chocolate shake but I know you will say no. I said it is Christmas and you can have what you want. Our food was ok but we are still waiting to get home to prepare our big homecoming feast. We were pretty tired, I mean Mother and I, by the time we settled in back at the apartment. We are trying to keep the boys entertained but it is a challenge. We do have a nice apartment but it is small for two wiggly boys. Over all we had a nice day but are still counting the days until we can return home. We hope we will know something on Saturday but it may be Monday about the elusive passport. We hope everyone had a wonderful day with their families and may the Lord bless you.

Hello Again, Kiev

Tuesday, December 23 - Wednesday, December 24

When I got this morning it was hard to believe that by the end of today we will be on a train to Kiev. I feel like it has taken us three months instead of six weeks to get to this point. I know that Ira will be coming back to the apartment to pick up her brief case sometime this morning but we are not sure when. I also want to have things packed up as quickly as possible. Ira came by after 9’Oclock to get her things. She had already been to the Tax I.D. office and passport office. She said be ready to go get Alex in a couple of hours. We also need a few things from the market, so Jacob and I rush to there and back. Ira calls around 11:00am and says she will pick me in 10 minutes. We head thru a lot of back streets trying to find a different notary than the one we used before. Ira wants to cover all bases and wants another document notarized just in case. We also need another translation of my passport and Ira calls some to help us with that. She has made many, many friends while she has been here. We pick up some coffee and chocolates as a thank you and then go to the Huge flea market to find boots for Alex. We want to make a good impression on all the boarding school staff. Ukrainians always wear boots in the winter and they keep their children very warm when they go outside. After this we rush back to the apartment to pick up all the clothes for Alex as well as Jacob. Alex is so proud of his clothes. He is just strutting around showing everyone his new clothes. We go to his teacher and show them and say da sviDAniya, Goodbye. Then to go see the board school director, who is also very happy and proud of Alex. He gives Alex many good words of well wishes for his new life in America. We head back to the apartment but Ira of course has more things to do before we leave and she goes with our driver. I manage to get everything in our big duffle bag and the extra bag I brought just in case. Ira comes in around 5:00 and gets on the phone to complete all the loose ends. The apartment manager calls and asks if the cleaning lady could come by and start cleaning at 7:00pm because of tenets coming the next day. The cleaning lady did a great job the last time, she took over two hours to clean and I sure tonight will be no different. Ira calls our faithful driver to pick us up at 7:45pm and I get all our stuff downstairs and into the taxi. Mother, Alex, Jacob and me are in the backseat of this small car, luckily we do not have to go far. We will miss our wonderful, faithful driver. The train is very nice, we each have a two bunk compartment. We are cooler than the other train but it is still very bumpy, jerky ride to Kiev. Mother and I do get some sleep and the boys do fairly well too. They were very excited to have their own compartment, we just had to get them to sleep, which they did around 10:30pm. After awhile I see about a foot of snow on the ground, it will be interesting to see how much snow Kiev has when we get there. We arrive in Kiev about 9:30 and manage to get down the steep stairs of the train, through the stairs and escalator of the station with our luggage. Ira has ordered two taxis to take us to our apartment. It is interesting to see all of the streets and Christmas decorations. I am trying to recognize stores to try to get my bearings since we were here last. Our apartment is very nice two bedrooms with a sleeping fold out couch. We have an oven and washing machine that has English words Yea!. After we settle for a bit we head first to the bank to exchange money and then to MCDONALDS Yea! Says Jacob. This is Alex’s first cheeseburger and he gives it the thumbs up. An McDonald’s employee comes We also get a few things at the market and back to our apartment up two flights of stairs and no elevator. Poor Grandma. We are relaxing for the rest of the day and trying to keep two boys entertained. We do have many more channels on TV and one of them Cartoons. At least Mother and I can watch CNN to get some news in English. Well we have made it another step closer to coming home. Ira is very hopeful to get the passport on Saturday, Dec. 27. This would wonderful, so that we could get to the Embassy on Monday to do the physical for Alex. We will just have to see if it will be the 27th or 29th. We have booked our plane tickets for January 1st. We have gone ahead because the seats are filling up and are completely booked on Jan. 3,4 and 5. We pray that all goes smoothly.

Goodbye Kherson

Monday, December 22

Ira came a little after 8:30 to pick me up, then we picked up Alexander from the boarding school and then to the Tax I.D. office. Ira went into the Tax office, while we waited in the car. After a little while she came back to get me to sign the ledger, but first we had to make a copy of my passport. There was a office supply across the street from the Tax office. We are almost running from one place to the other to get back to the nice lady at the Tax office. There are two guards that you have to pass and I show my passport, they give me the head nod and we go down the hall to the office. Ira fills out a paper, I sign the ledger and in about 15 minutes we are done. The nice lady is going to send the info to Kiev today. Yea! Two down two to go. We rush back to the taxi and off to the passport office. Alex and Ira go in and I wait in the car with our driver. Ira rushes out to get me and we rush back in. Alex is waiting in the office. This takes a little while, we have another problem with Alex’s middle name not being the same as the Tax I.D. office, finally Alex’s picture is taken and I sign the ledger. Ira tells me to go to the car with Alex and she is trying to find out about the Registration office. When she gets to the car she says we need to go back to the tax office to fix the problem with the name and after awhile she is back. She suggest for Alex to go the apartment with me, while she pursues the document chase. Alex again very excited to be with us and in our small apartment. Jacob and him play, they watch cartoons, eat lunch, and play with the PSP. We had a good time. Alex is very interested in the computer but doesn’t know what to do. We are going to have fun when we get home to show him how it all works. Ira calls around 4:00pm and says that we had told the boarding school that Alex would be spending the night there. So she sent the taxi to pick us up. Jacob and I take Alex back to the boarding school and then are taken back to our little abode.
Ira comes back to the apartment by 6:00pm and we find out that she has been fairly successful. The registration document will be ready tomorrow and then she will take it to the passport office. The passport office with hopefully send it off to Kiev by Wednesday. This will give them two days to work on it and then send it back here to Kherson. We have been in Kherson for Four weeks and we are getting to leave tomorrow night Yea!. We are very happy to have a change of scenery. We are hoping that the passport will be ready by December 29th and we then could plan to come home on January 1st. This is still a great unknown. Maybe tomorrow Ira can find out more

Happy Alexander

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Alarm clock goes off at 7:00am, so that I am ready by 8:30am to go with Ira to the passport office. We hope that they are open. Ira found out that there is police holiday, like our memorial day, (Ukrainians have many special holidays) and the passport works with the police dept. We also need Alexander to take a picture at the passport office. Our faithful driver picks us up at 8:30am, we then go and pick up Alexander, then to the passport office. And of course they are closed. Ira asked what do you propose to do. I say I don’t know, she says we could go back to the apartment until 1:00pm, at this time is Alexander’s lunch time. So we go back to apartment and surprise Jacob and Mother. Alex is very excited. Jacob shows him games on the computer, Alex plays with the PSP, we give him another dinosaur egg and have him try on his new shoes. The shoes fit. Yea! We also show him his new coat and clothes. Ira is trying to think what she can do to help get the documents finished. She says she would like to try to see if the Registration office is open, which I say of course, go and please try. She and Alex leave a little after 11:00am. She is going to drop Alex off at the boarding school and then see if the Registration office is open. After they leave Jacob and I go to the market and I also want to find something for Mother’s cough. I write down in Russian cough drops and cough syrup on a card. I show this to the pharmacy person and she gives me a couple of things, there isn’t any English on the packages but I hope it helps Mother. Ira came back later that afternoon to say that the Registration office is closed. Another translator that Ira works with has a mother here in Kherson. This lady has been sick and Ira wanted to go visit her and her grandbaby. Ira ended up spending the night. I sure she had a better bed to sleep on than the one here in our apartment. We have been without radiator heat all day and you can tell a difference with using just one electric heater in one room, but we are managing all right.

Sunday, December 21

We have snow on the ground and it seems to be heavier than the last snow. It still is not very much. We were able to listen to John Weaver’s sermon on Thanksgiving this morning for our worship service. Ira arrived back around noon and we mention that we have been informed by our travel agent that we need to pick a date. We had originally picked December 22nd because the airline required that we pick a return date. We knew that it would have to be changed, so Ira says it will take a week to get the Ukrainian passport, and the best guess for travel would be January 3rd. We will see what unfolds tomorrow and hopefully have good news. Ira books an apartment in Kiev, because of the holidays many people are traveling to Kiev. She books it for December 24. We are also concerned about getting train tickets. They have been also in short supply. Ira and I decide to go to the train station to see if they have tickets for December 23rd. We take a trolley bus to the train station and we are fortunate that they have 5 tickets available. We need go the market to buy some more chocolates and coffee to give to the various officials that Ira will talk to tomorrow. Ira eats supper with us but the lady she spent the night with really wants her to come back. So, sweet Ira goes to visit her again

Documents, Documents, Documents

Friday, December 19th

St. Nickolas Day

Jacob and I didn’t get out of bed as early as we should have. It was almost 9:00am and Ira had already left. We finally got ourselves together at about 11:00am and headed out. We needed to get money exchanged and go to the market. I have also been thinking about the boy’s clothes. If we are going to have more than a few days with Alexander before we go home, I believe we will need a few more things. So we also are going to the toy store where they have clothing. I am sure if we went to the flea market we could find something cheaper but it is just easier for us at the toy store. We go to the bank nearest our apartment and they shake their head that they are not exchanging money. We are not sure why. We go to another bank and get another no. We are perplexed at what is happening. We notice that the Hryvnia has gone down from over 8.00 to 7.00 to $1 US dollar. We then try another larger bank and there is a mob of people in there. I told Mother that this is not safe, because of the amount of money we were exchanging. We are afraid that we will have to give up but we really need to exchange money. We are almost completely out of Hryvnia. So as we are walking to the toy store there is another bank and we go in to find they are exchanging money. There are some people in line but not near as many as the other bank. It does take us a little while but we finally get the money exchanged. We believe that the banks have run out of Hryvnia. (We found out later that last night the Hryvnia had almost reached 10.00 to $1.00. This is very serious for the Ukrainian economy. Prices have gone up drastically on many things.) We are not far from the toy store and once we get there we find two shirts, a pair of pants and some socks. Then to the market for a few things and back to the apartment. Mother has been feeling pretty bad with her cold. She has been coughing quite a bit and shouldn’t have gone out. Plus her heel is still in a lot of pain from the spur. We are wondering what Ira is having to go thru to get the rest of the documents that we need.

At about 2:30pm I get a call from her that she needs me to sign a document. She is sending the driver to pick me up. I quickly get ready and go downstairs to wait for the driver. He shows up in about 10 minutes and takes me to Ira. She is at one of the two birth certificate offices that we have to deal with because of two different regions of where Alexander has been born and lived. I still do not understand all of this. You might say we need a notarized document to make another notarized document ok. The amount of paper work that has to done is mind boggling. It seems overly complicated. Ira looks very tired and exhausted from the day. She hasn’t had anything to eat either. She informs me that of another document that is missing. It is the registration document showing that the child is born in Ukraine. This is filled out at the same time of the child’s birth. Alexander’s mother never did this. Ira said she has never had this problem with the missing registration document. More on this later. The birth certificate office that I meet up with Ira has a very nice lady to work with and she is able to get the birth certificate done about an hour later. We are in a time crunch to get back to the other birth certificate office, where Ira has already been. This “other” B.C. office has a very mean and unwilling boss lady, who has called Ira many names and accused her of terrible things. We finally receive the “first” B.C. and run to the taxi. He drives like he is in Atlanta to the “other” B.C. office. Once we get there Ira and the unwilling boss lady start having many words. Ira has been told that they only work on Tuesday for birth certificates. Ira also knows that they are getting ready to covert the paper files on the computer and will be closed starting Monday through the middle of January. The unwilling boss lady does not know that Ira knows this. Ira knows that we have to have this B.C. today or it will take several more weeks to finish all of the paper work. Then this boss lady calls her director, who is already done working for the day, and has Ira talk to her. This director says what do you want, you need to make an appointment, and Ira tells her that she didn’t call her but that the “boss lady” did. The director says what do you want, so Ira tells her what we need. The director then talks to the “boss lady” and things go better after that. The “boss lady” also says it is St. Nicolas Day and Christmas time and that chocolates and etc would be appreciated. So Ira gets money from me and goes buys chocolates and things for the ladies. During this whole time I am sitting out in this large foyer without heat. These ladies are in this one room off of the foyer with heat. So after all of the drama they prepare the B.C. We are there for over an hour. The “boss lady” comes to me, with a big smile and motions for me to come into another room and there is a wedding chapel, which is very nice. It is strange for people to be so two faced. Then just a little while later Ira motions for me to come into the office. I am not sure what I am doing but then they motion for me to sign in the ledger book, they give the B.C. to Ira and off we go. It is of course getting late. Ira ask if we could go get something to eat and suggest the Café Angelina. Our driver, who had picked up his son while we were at the last B.C. office has to pick up his wife first then takes us to the Café, his family is going home. We have a nice supper, talk a lot. Ira calls different taxi for us to go back to the apartment. It has been a very long day for us- mostly for Ira.

City of Kherson

We had a very nice but cold tour of the city of Kherson. Our faithful taxi driver pickup us up a little after 2:00pm and off we went. We went by a park that had amusement rides that appear to be there all year round. We then went to the Dnieper River that runs through Ukraine, through Kherson into the Black Sea. Kherson is the home of a major ship-building industry. There was a large statute of a woman on a very tall pedestal. I don’t know what the name of it was. We got to see ships going to the Black Sea. He then took us where there was a large tank up on a pillar with a dedication plaque on the front with year of 1969. We could see front this point the woman on the statute down by the water. There was a long brick sidewalk down to this statute. Across the street from the tank statute was the main entrance to the park that Richard, Jacob and I had walked around a couple of weeks ago.

Off we go and see a church and we way and the taxi driver immediately stops for us to get out and take more pictures. We were only able to see one church, though from postcards that we have gotten we know that there are many more churches here. He motion if we wanted more churches or what else. Mom had brought one of the postcards that we had gotten at the market and showed him the statute of the ship. He nodded and took us around that. Boy was it huge. We first saw the water and Jacob and I stuck our finger in to say we had touched the Black Sea or a least part of it. The wind coming off the water was very cold. Mom said it was a high of 27 degrees but it felt like below 20 degrees. We still were very happy that we got see what we did. We probably could have used more than an hour but we were going to the boarding school at 3:00pm.

When we walked into Alexander’s dormitory it was very quiet. One lady started talking and trying to explain something. Another couple of ladies were reorganizing the alcove where we play with Alex. So we go and sit around the desk in the TV room. Well we think that nap time should be over by 4:00pm but still no sound of any children. We then realize that all the children must be gone on a field trip of some kind. When we leave at our normal time of 4:30 and go by the cafeteria there aren’t any children there either. They must have gone to a special program or concert.

Tomorrow is St. Nicholas day here in the Ukraine. This is the day that children receive gifts instead of Christmas. The Ukrainian’s celebrate January 7th as Christmas but do not exchange gifts. They do start celebrating from December 24th through January 7th. We did see on a tour a large Christmas tree being set up, so I know things are becoming festive around here. So we came home a little sad because we did not see Alex. We know that Ira will be here in the morning and it will be very busy tomorrow, mostly for her.

Shopping Adventure

After breakfast we set off to the Toy Store and then the market. The toy store is about 5 blocks past the market. We found another dinosaur egg for Alexander and a puzzle for our entertainment. I had checked out and mother was getting a domino set, when the electricity went out. While Jacob and I were waiting on Mother we checked out the upstairs and lo and behold what do we find but shoes and clothes. I wish we had already explored the upstairs before now but it is just great to be able to find what you are really looking for. I told Jacob to go downstairs and tell Grandma to come upstairs. We previously had Alex try on Jacob’s shoes to see if they would fit and they were a little big but would be ok. So we knew if they were long enough they should fit Alex. A very helpful clerk helped us even though there was the language problem. We found a pair of shoes, which ended up only being about $16 US and then she helped us with a coat. Now we knew that was going to be the big expense. We found a very nice coat, with lots of pockets for about $90 US. Then I asked about underwear. How do you say under garments in Ukrainian? Well we got our meaning across and found what we were looking for. There were several people in line with us and of course the computer/cash register was not working because the electricity was still off. And we did not have enough Hryvnia (Ukrainian money) to pay for the shoes, coat and underwear. The shoes were 156 Hryvnia, underwear 10 Hryvnia and the coat was 756 Hryvnia. (The exchange rate is 8.20 Hryvnia to $1.00) Well between Mother and I we had a little over 400 Hryvnia and even though they took Visa, there was no electricity. So we asked them to hold the coat and I would come back. Then to the market to pick up some things, oh I have been meaning to mention that they have a whole isle with just chocolate on it. Ukrainians love chocolate. Then back to the apartment dropped off Mother and our purchases. Jacob and I got our US money and potty break and then headed back down the stairs. We exchanged our money. The Hryvnia keeps going up. I know that is good for us but bad for the Ukrainians. We were able to walk fast since Mother wasn’t with us. I wanted to check out another store only to find that their electricity was off as well. It looked like an appliance store. Then we headed over to the toy store, to find their electricity was back on and purchased the coat. When we got outside I asked Jacob if he wanted to do anything else, he said he wanted to go look at the flea market, which was very close. We said we would look just in the front part, so we would not get lost. Jacob found a pretty scarf for Grandma. We look for a few more minutes then head apartment home. I took a different way and found some other people selling cross stitch tablecloths, shirts and dollies and few other craft things. I told Jacob we needed to bring Grandma back to show her. Well by now Jacob is getting very tired and very cold. I quit looking and walk quickly back to our apartment.

When we got back it was already 2:00pm and little time to do school. Had lunch and read a bit. Our visit with Alex (his pet name is Sasha) went well. He was excited with the new dinosaur egg and played with that a lot. He is still responding well to learning new words. I had written down in Russian that we were going to bring him clothes and shoes in a few days and take him to America. I don’t know if he got all of the meaning but I think he got the most of it. It seems that the hour and half is flying by now and we had to leave. Jacob is anxious to be able to play with him all day. When we got outside to go to the taxi you definitely tell the temperature had dropped. Back in the apartment is cool and I am thankful we have an electric heater as well as the radiators. After supper I started our new puzzle, Mother started listening to Sense and Sensibility on my ipod and cross stitched, and Jacob watched a Star Wars movie. Just a few more days. You can tell I am wanting to come home. I hope I haven’t been to boring. I am very thankful for all of your prayers.

FYI - Be sure to check out Mother's blog. She will really keep up to date if I haven't. Also I have added more pictures to photo link.

Good News on Homestudy

Richard went yesterday to the Immigration office USCIS. He had already been up there once at got the run around that it would take five days. When he got home he called our congressman and was immediately helped. He had to fax them a permission statement on our behalf and they emailed him a special appointment wavier. He had to have our originial homestudy and our ammended homestudy. He meet with Susan from our adoption agency and got the ammended homestudy and he already had the originial. So yesterday morning he went in to the USCIS and did not have any problems. YEA! They said in three days, by Thursday, the US Embassy here in Ukraine should have our ammended homestudy. That is one thing that we do not have to worry about. We just have to tackle, I mean our hardworking translaltor Ira, the new birth certificate, new Ukrainian passport and tax i.d. number. We will keep you posted when we know something. Tomorrow we are going to take a tour of Kherson, with our faithful taxi driver and take pictures. This is a small city and should only take an hour. Thats all for now.

Also check out the pictures link. I have download more pictures.

Little Snow and Cold, Cold Weekend

Saturday

After breakfast we headed to the market. I had seen a backpack at one of the downstairs vendors, this is below the market. There was a red and gray backpack with soccer player on it. I thought that would be appropriate for Alexander to put things we had brought him as well some clothes. Mom and I found some unusual ornaments as well. We then bought our food items at the market and headed home. Ira thought it best not to go to the Boarding School, so we stayed. Also because it is so cold. We made beef stew for supper and watched a movie, worked on a puzzle, Mom knitted on a baby blanket and read book. We are definitely counting the days until Ira comes on Thursday. We have asked her to take us to the Flea Market to get shoes and a coat.

Sunday

Mom is usually the first one up and this morning was no exception. Jacob and me we a little later in getting ourselves out of bed. After breakfast we started our bible study and worship services. It is times like this when we really miss the singing and fellowship with our brothers and sisters at Embry Hills. We had a quiet day inside, though about 2:00pm it started to snow. It wasn’t a heavy snow but by 3:30pm you could see a good dusting of snow on the ground. Ira called to see how we were doing and to let us know that the cleaning lady was coming tomorrow. We will need to get up and be ready because we do not know what time she will get here. This has been long and quiet day.

Monday

Mom has been nursing the sniffles for the past few days. I keep after her to take Echinacea. She is taking it but I feel she should take it several times a day. I have been very careful about taking care of ourselves. The minute one of us has a runny nose or tickle in their throat I say Echinacea alert. We have had enough left over’s that we were able to avoid going to the market, though tomorrow we will have to get some milk. We straighten up for the cleaning lady and by 12:00pm she was here. She really did a good job. She spent over 2 hours cleaning this small apartment. The manager came by with new sheets and towels as well. Our visit with Alexander went well today. We had gotten a dragon egg transformer from the toy store and he really liked it. He was saying no, oh no, asked about shoes and gloves. It appears that he is already trying to learn English. We will keep trying with things that he is familiar even with the PSP. We have finished the train puzzle, mother has finished the baby blanket that she started back when we were in first in Kiev and almost finished all our books. Tomorrow Jacob and I are going back to the toy store to get another puzzle for us and dinosaur egg for Alexander.

Observations of Boarding School Life

This is what I have seen and maybe not accurate. The older children at the boarding school (children less than 16) have been tilling up the soil around trees on different areas of the school yard. Some areas look to be 1/3 of acre. They are using a shovel or bent rake. It has taken them about 3 days, after school to do just one section. Other age children are also responsible for sweeping all the leaves up off all the grass as well as the sidewalks. They use an old fashion corn broom to sweep the leaves on to a sheet and deposit them elsewhere. We have just seen what it is like just for late fall early winter time. All the children are on a strict schedule. From breakfast, snack, school, nap time, play time, and bed time. The children have their own locker area (w/o locks) where they keep their coats, mittens, hats & personal belongings. The children have one towel on their personal peg in the bathroom. If a child visits his parents whose home is very undesirable and unclean, when the child gets back to the boarding school he/she will get a buzz hair cut to prevent spread of any suspected lice. The children only have a couple of outfits to wear; it even seems that they share most of their clothing, which has been handed down one too many times. These children do not have a choice when and what they will do. These children do seem happy and smile a lot. The caretakers all seem very caring though keep them well under control. The buildings are warm and though not fancy are comfortable (at least what we have seen). There are a lot of renovations being done on the outside of the buildings that we see as we pass by. The children that are about 6 yrs old have been very entertaining. Today seemed to be the highlight. These children’s living area is right off the alcove that we play with Alexander. We say high to them as the pass by and they are very interested in us. They perform for us, talking very animated and love the attention we give them. I told mother today if we had a movie camera we could be on America Funniest home videos. When the little ones came back in from playing outside one of the more exuberant girls came up to me to feel her cold cheeks. I felt her cheek and went burr. Then a couple more wanted me to so the same thing. Then the teacher came and shooed them back into their room and she closed the door their stood a little boy that had been hiding behind the door. We motion for him to go. He looked like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. We just laughed!

Richard is Home

Richard plane arrived last night around 9:30pm but he said that it was a miserable trip. The flight from Kiev to Atlanta was 100% filled and Delta even turned away some people. He counted 16 kids under three years old in his section of coach and 10 ½ of the 11 hours of flight had at least 1 of the children screaming. Needless to say he was pretty worn out by the time he got to New York. Then on top of this when the plane landed they did not have an open airside for the plane to disembark. The plane sat on the tarmac for over 35 minutes before the airport decided to have the plane park where it was and to send out a bus for the passengers. Well they only sent out one bus and it could not fit everyone on board. So the remaining 1/3 of passengers were waiting another 25 minutes for the bus to come back. While they waited the power went out on the plane and only the security lights were on. Finally they were able to get on the bus and unload to customs. Once he got thru all of the customs and duty part he made a bee line to Burger King. A hamburger never tasted so good he said. He was fortunate because of all the delays that he did not miss his connecting flight like some people did. He boarded the flight from JFK and it left the gate right on time only to sit on the tarmac for 25 minutes before taking off. The pilot made up the time in the air and arrived on time in Atlanta. Nanette was planning on picking him but do to her eye surgery that she had that morning she was not available. Nanette had three tears in her retina and it was starting to detach, so of course she had to have surgery as soon as possible. I called sweet Donna B. She and David Lee came to Richard’s rescue and pick him up at the airport. Richard is doing well today.

We have found out that our updated homestudy that I sent before we left Atlanta was never received by USCIS. Our old homestudy only showed that we were approved for a child up to 5 years old. We have to have the homestudy reflect at least the age of the child that we are adopting or older. If this is not correct the child will not be able to get US passport. Richard called our adoption agency and then the local USCIS office. The USCIS told him that it could take up to 5 – 7 days to process the documents. Well this would be a problem for us. He then called our congressman and got immediate help. Richard is going down to USCIS office on Monday and hand delivering the original homestudy and amended homestudy. Once that is done it goes to New Hampshire (I believe homeland security office) then they will cable the US Embassy here in Ukraine. With the congressman’s help this should be done by Thursday of next week. Our prayer is that the Lord may continue to give us patience, strength, perseverance and a God like attitude over the next two weeks to face our new challenges.
Thank you Donna and David Lee for picking up Richard.

Waiting and Routine

We are back in the routine again and waiting game. Richard got to Kiev ok and then ran around to get the paper work done with the Embassy and a power of attorney, so that I can sign for him to do the rest of the paper chase. Our energizer bunny, translator Ira got him an apartment off of Independence Square for a good price. He said he slept well even though he left the noise maker here with us. He really misses his fan back home. He had a free day today, he went back to the Coffee House that we had eaten at while we were all there. He said that he found out how to get scrambled eggs. You order an omelet and they bring scrambled eggs. I guess that makes sense. He is leaving his apartment at 8:45am to have plenty of time to get to the airport and to go thru security. It hit me harder than I expected yesterday with Richard leaving. I was really missing him and feeling like when will it be our turn. After a good night’s sleep things are looking better. We are visiting Alexander everyday at 3:00pm to 4:30pm. It seems the last few times that we have visited it is nap time for the children. Today they were stirring and we finally saw Alexander. He meet us in the little visiting room. It seems we are getting closer everyday even though there is a language barrier. We also need to buy him clothes. He will not be able to take any of the clothes or shoes that he is wearing. I measured him yesterday and drew a outline of his foot, in hopes of buying him some clothes at large market that Ira told us about. Well we struck out today to find the place. We did find the right street, which was not far from the market that we have been shopping at. The street also has the Toy Store, which we have been as well. Further down the street, where the streams of people are coming and going is this huge, huge flea market, with numerous venders. They were selling everything there from vegetables, shoes, Christmas decorations, plumbing supplies and anything else you could think of. It was also a maze and we soon found ourselves turned around and could not find a way back the way we came. We did find slippers for Alexander but could not find his size pants or coats. I am sure that they have his size clothes but we did not know where to look and since we do not speak Ukrainian or Russian we couldn’t ask. Clothes are expensive here. We saw a boy’s sweater that would cost us $100. I am thinking that maybe Alexander can get by with some of Jacob ‘s clothes until we get back to Georgia. We do need to find some shoes though. We are going to try again and I hope that we can get some help from our translator when she comes back next Thursday. Well after being turned around many times, because there are many entrances into the flea market area, we decided to get a taxi. Luckily Mother had Ira write down our apartment address on a card. Well that was all we needed and off we go into the taxi. By the time that we get down to the second street I knew where we were and maybe, just maybe we would have been alright. But Mother has a heel spur now and is not doing well with a lot of walking. This was the most walking that she has done for the last few weeks, so I knew we need to get her back home quickly. So our adventure continues and we count the days until Friday, the 19th. Ira is coming back Thursday morning to get a head start on the paper chase.
Thank you for all words of encouragement.

Oh, Happy Day!!!

Our new addition,

Alexander Phillip Counts

Mother and I got up at 7:00am, so I could shower and be ready on time. Richard had a harder time getting himself together this morning. He said that he kept going over in head what he would say to the Judge at our court hearing today. Well we (Richard, Ira and Aimee) are all ready to leave about 20 minutes after 9:00am and head down to our faithful taxi driver. Our appointment is at 10:00am. The Judge’s court room is very close and in fact we could have walked but Ira had to drop us off and then go and pick up the Lawyer and Inspector. The court building looks like many of these other buildings. It is not new and probably was built in the 1950’s, at least it appears that way. I would have never guessed that this was a court house if I wasn’t shown. It has not been renovated in a long time. The foyer is small and there are security guards there but they are not asking us to have our bags put through a scanner like back home. There are over 7 floors to this building and one small elevator. The elevator will only hold so much weight. There were a group of ladies in front of us waiting to getting on the elevator but when it was their turn a couple of them had to get off because there was too much weight. When finally got on the elevator which did not ride smoothly. I felt a couple of times that it would get stuck or drop us. We get off the elevator to a long narrow hall, filled with lots people waiting to see some official person. There is a long bench down the narrow hall. I wonder where we are going to stand or sit but Ira takes us past the first group of people to where there is a door in front of the bench. There is room for Richard and I to sit and wait till she gets back with the Lawyer and Inspector. By the time she returns it is about 10:00 but the Inspector has not arrived. The Inspector is a very busy woman, she has a whole jurisdiction to service, so she is running late, but we are very grateful to have our court hearing today. The Inspector arrives about a quarter past 10 and goes into the Judge’s chamber. Then just a few minutes later they ask us to come in. It is a big relief that we do not have to go into a court room and we can just be in the Judge’s chamber. (A side note Ira has also asked the Judge, which she agreed that Alexander did not have to come to court. The Director of the Board School statement would be sufficient. The Director had brought Alexander into his office along with his teaches and caregivers and had asked Alexander several questions to make sure that he wanted to be adopted.) The Judge ask us a few questions like, do we want to adopt Alexander, did the visitation with Alexander go well, who we are, what do we do for a living, have we been informed of the child’s health, do we have a house and how many rooms. Then the Judge started reading the documents pertaining to Alexander and that his name would be changed to Alexander Phillip Counts. The prosecution said they did not have any questions and agreed for the adoption. There is complete agreement and we are pronounced parents to Alexander. I start to cry, the Inspector and Ira hug us and we head out to the hall way. It has been such a long time to get to this moment, that the joy and relief have over whelmed me. This meeting took all of 20 minutes. Yea!!! We walk down the 6 flight of stairs to our faithful taxi driver and head over to the boarding school for Ira to draw up more documents to get the new passport and birth certificate started. This takes about an hour and Richard and I wait in the taxi. Ira is concerned about the new rules the SDA is requesting now and wants the doctor at the hospital to make another report. So off we go to the hospital, and in a small town it is not very far. We are very fortunate that Alexander was born here in Kherson and not in another town. If that been the case we would have to travel there and the process would take longer because of the travel for us and Ira. Ira and the lawyer go into the hospital, Richard and I wait in the taxi. They were gone about 30 minutes, then we need to find a office supply store. They do not have yellow pages here, so we are on a hunt for the office store. The first two attempts are not successful, then taxi driver gets on the phone to ask a friend, and wala he finds it. Ira and I go into buy copy paper for the school, to replace what she has used. Ira has to go back to see the Inspector and well as couple things, so the taxi driver drops Richard and I off to the apartment. We are happy, excited and relieved that this process is winding down. Richard is now headed back to Kiev on the overnight train and well stay a couple of nights there. He will need to go the US Embassy on Tuesday and he flies out on Thursday. We need your prayers that our process for Alexander’s passport, birth certificate and tax i.d. number will be done speedily, so we come home before December 31st. Maybe by Christmas. I know that the previous post said that we might be leaving on the 18th but that is not the case. We have to wait until the 10 days are up to get the new passport, birth certificate and tax i.d. number. This could take up to a week. We are hoping that this is done as quickly as possible. Especailly before the New Year when Ukraine starts their holiday celebration and close their offices for a week. Of course we would like to be home by Christmas but we will have to see. So now we three are here to wait out the 10 days and will visit Alexander everyday. May the Lord give us patience over these next few days and bless all of you.

Easy Going Saturday

It is hard to believe we have been here 26 days. It seems that we have been here for a lot longer. I know that we have less than 3 weeks before we get home but it still feels very far away. I am keeping myself busy, between Jacob’s school work, going to the market, fixing our food and the most dreaded -the washing clothes. I know I am missing a step on the washing machine that came from Italy but have not figured it out. The washing machine does take about 2 hours to run. It leaks and fortunately the bathroom where the machine is has a tiled floor. The spin cycle if there is one does not seem to work very well. When the machine finally stops the clothes are still very wet and there is water in the bottom of the washer. I then play the switching game. I start out by having the clothes or sheets drip there excess water on the balcony with the clothes line. The balcony has two windows that open to the outside. But we have had very few windy days. I have found that if we open other windows in the apartment it does create a cross breeze to help with the ventilation on the balcony. After the clothes have stopped dripping I then start putting them on the radiators. We have three radiators that I can put clothes on. I then start checking them about every hour and flip, rotate or exchange clothes on them. I definitely miss my washer and dryer at home. Some of the apartments have clothes lines hanging outside their windows, where they can get more breeze and dry things faster. There is also a clothes line on the grounds behind our apartments but I don’t know if they belong to someone in particular plus there seems to be a lot of dirt blowing around which I would not want our clothes to have. On the other hand I am finding that our clothes smell musty because they have been wet so long. Well enough of the saga of the washing of the clothes.

The picture above is the main door to our four flights of stairs apartment builiding. The bottom picture is our apartment building. Our apartment is the one with the rug hanging out.

Our court date is this coming Monday at 10:00am. Horray!!!! Then the 10 day waiting period starts. It will end on the 18th. We should be taking the overnight train to Kiev on the 18th. Our facilitator Gregory says they are going to try very hard to get us home before Christmas. We are praying that this can be done.
Our translator said that it would be better for us not to visit our new boy today or tomorrow. This is because his mother has been to visit and our translator does not want us to have a run it with her. Or cause any problems between our new boy and his mother. We have had a good day today. Jacob got his school work done quickly, and then we walk to a nearby park, which is more like a huge walking garden type park. It was very peaceful and relaxing. We say several families, grandparents or mothers walking with their small children. They were not in a hurry like you would see on the street. They were there just to have a place for their children to play and relax. We did not see many children older than 5, which I don’t understand, unless they are in a board school. After our walk we picked up mother from our apartment, exchanged some more money then went to a pizza place that has pretty good pizza. We came back the apartment and I started rotating the laundry and getting Richard ready to leave on Monday. We finished our day with a round of Hand and Foot. Our facilitator will be here in the morning around 10:00am. It late here around 11:30pm. Well I better get to bed.

Things still going well

When we came into the living quarters today, where we normally come, the children where making these cone shape Santa Clauses. They were very detailed for kids this age. The teachers seem to really take pride in the children's acitivities. There is a wonderful winter collage that the children have made together. It looks like the background was painted first, then the children cut out snowmen, trees, houses, snowflakes etc. I want to get a good picture of it before we leave. This picture to the right is another really neat picture. I am not sure when this was made. Our new boy seemed subdue today but not sure why. Maybe there is something in the air, since the rest of us are too. He could be missing our translator, who has been in Kiev for the past few days. I know that his teaches have told him what is going on but our translator and him have become close over the past few days. We are hoping that his mother, who still comes to visit him occasionally, will not cause him any problems. We did run into the mother, well sort of run into the other day. She was sitting in a corner of one of the rooms as we walked by. The children's caretaker was ushering us quickly into the room we play with our new boy and not until our translator told us later did we know that it was her. She d0es not have any parental rights because they have been taken away. Once the parental rights have been taken away they can't be reinstated. We hope that our time with him over the next few weeks will increase our bond with him and his trust in us. I also wanted to show you our translator Ira. She could be the president of Ukraine or negoiate a peace treaty for a country. She will ask anyone and I believe if she had to the president of Ukraine for help with our paper work. We definitely could not have accomplished everything that has been done without her.

I have also posted new photos.

Hope to have good news about our appointment tomorrow. Till tomorrow.

Life in Kherson

We have gotten into a routine here in Kherson. We get up and eat breakfast, and then Jacob starts on his school work. We have about realized that we will need to go to the market almost every day. This is not bad, because it gives us a chance to get out. We do plan out our meals for eat day but we also do not want to buy too much because we have to carry it back to our apartment, up four flights of stairs. One of the things we run out of the fastest is beverages. Richard loves Cola Light, which is similar to Diet Coke, and since he is a diabetic it is working out for him. Since it gets dark here by 4:30pm we don’t want to be going to the market after dark. This city is a port off the Black Sea and there are all kinds of people, such as sailors here. Our translator told us not to venture out after dark. We all want to be on the computer to email (mother is the email queen), blog, play a game, make phone calls, etc. So we are trying to work out different times of the day to get on the computer. Our translator has gone back to Kiev to submit documents to the SDA. She should be back here in Kherson by Saturday or Sunday. She made arrangements for a taxi driver to pick us up every day at 3:00pm and takes to the boarding school. Then at 4:30 he comes back and takes us to our apartment. Our new boy is always excited to see us. We usually bring him some candy, puzzles, coloring books, toy etc. We end up playing with the PSP most of the time. Our translator said that this is all very new to him and to let him experience it for now. After we get back to our apartment we fix supper, like last night we had chicken spaghetti, peas, bread, and hot tea (our designated drink for each meal). After supper one of us is back on the computer (which is hardly left alone), we read, watch a movie or play cards (uno or hand & foot). Mother has brought her knitting and has about completed half of a baby blanket. Then to bed we go to start another day.

Our Apartment
Our apartment is fairly nice. We have two bedrooms, kitchenette, living area, balcony to hang our laundry and bathroom. We have windows in everyone room that open up. Our bathroom is one of the nicest we have had since we have been here. It has a toilet(that does not run all the time), a bath tub with sprayer (so we can stand up and shower), a large water tank (in case the water is cut off by the government) and our new addition a washing machine (directions in sysmbols). The men brought the washing machine yesterday and today the plumbers came to hook it up. We had to hand wash things for the last few days. There are radiators in every room except the bathroom, which really keep the apartment warm. They are also wonderful drying machines Ha. You can put a damp shirt or pants on the radiators and in 3 to 4 hours they are dry. We have put things on the clothes line on the balcony but they have been drying very fast. The hot water we have is not just hot it is like have one of those hot water dispensers on your sink for hot drinks. Mother and I believe it is almost boiling when it comes thru the faucet. I have scalded myself several times and maybe I will learn eventually. There are two front doors to the apartment. They both have two different types of keys that I have not seen before but at least we feel safe. There is also a metal door to enter the building that has another type of key, but since every time we are going or coming it seems to open. There are numerous dogs and cats here in Kherson. Most of the dogs are friendly, I believe because they hope they will get a hand out from someone. We have seen a couple of people feeding them. The dogs are out during the day and the cats come out at night. You can hear the cats at night howling and some dogs barking. This morning we had the windows open and you could hear the roosters crowing.

People
Most people are walking or riding a bus. New cars and even used cars are just too expensive. A used car would cost them $30,000. So you see people walking to the market, shopping etc. The Ukrainian people also like things to be clean. There are always people sweeping the sidewalks with these short corn brooms. They even sweep the leaves with theses brooms. They don’t use a mop but a thin towel or cloth wrapped on the end of an upside down T. Then they take the towel off the staff and dunk in the pail of soap water ring it out and put it back on the staff and continue to mop. When we go to the boarding school it seems there are more people cleaning and taking care of the place than you would see back home. Also there seems to so many workers in the market, in the shops or where you go to shop ready and willing to help you. It seems that we always have to wait in line back home because of the cut backs of workers. Most of the older women always are wearing a skirt or dresses, while the younger women are wearing slacks or jeans. There are many people selling fruit, food, or flowers on the sidewalks.
Well that is all for now. We are praying that our wonderful translator can get us an appointment with the judge on Monday, so we can start counting the days to come home.

Thank so much for the emails of support. It really means a lot to hear from you back home.

Time Table

All of the following is a big IF assuming there are no hitches or complications.

Monday, December 8th - Court date here in Kherson
Richard will go from Kherson to Kiev on the 10:00pm overnight train

Ten Day waiting period starts

Tuesday, December 9th - Richard goes to US Embassy to sign papers
Richard stays overnight in Kiev

Wednesday, December 10th - Richard flies home to Georgia – arrives 9:30pm

Thursday, December 18th - Ten Day Waiting period ends
Will need to have new birth certificate and tax number
This may take up to a week

Aimee, Judy, Jacob and new son to go home on:

Thursday, December 25th
or
Friday, December 26th

Our big hurdles are the court date, after the court date to obtain new birth certificate,

new passport with tax i.d. We pray that things continue to go well.

We are still approixmately four weeks away for the process to be completed.

Visiting Our New Addition

Saturday, November 29, Kherson

I slept in Richard and Jacob’s room last night because Jacob was having tummy troubles. I gave him a couple of Children’s Pepto-Bismol the night before but he said that his tummy still hurt. In the past if he said that his tummy was hurting he would end up throwing up some time in the night. Well he was ok all night. I woke up very early around 6:00am and could not go back to sleep. I finally got up around 6:30 and went next door and woke up mother. I knew she wouldn’t mind, since a lot of the time she gets up. We needed to be ready by 10:00am for Ira, so a little after 8:00am we went to the café downstairs. The menu has 4 different breakfasts, ranging from fried eggs w/ham to fish w/bread. All of the food that we have gotten at the café has come with carrots w/vinegarette and pickles. Our breakfast came with a salad of chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, black olives and mushrooms along with eggs sunny side up and ham pieces. Mother does not like anything that is not cooked thoroughly, burnt, or scalding hot. Needless to say she did not enjoy her food. They do have very good hot tea. We have been drinking hot tea for almost every meal. Sometimes Mother and I have only have tea and toast for a meal. Well head back up to our room to await Ira it was almost 11:00am before she is knocking on our door ready to go. We quickly packed up the bags and headed to the lobby. The kind hotel manager let us keep our bags in another room until we found an apartment. We have to travel in two taxis, because of the new the fines if there are too many people in one taxi, to the boarding school. We go to the same room that is in our boys’ living quarters. We loves to play with the PSP and the digital camera. He went around taking pictures of the other kids in his dorm area. Ira had left to do some paper work and to find us an apartment. She came back around 12:30pm and says she has found two possible apartments. They are in the middle of Kherson and close to the school though we will need to take a taxi to the school and back. It is also close to the main street where there are shops and a market. We first go to the Notary’s office to have another document prepared, and signed. Then we go to the apartment that has heat. (Evidently the city is having trouble with their heating) . The apartment is on the fourth floor with no elevator. We will definitely get our exercise. We move our stuff in and settled a bit before we all went back out except Mother. Ira found a toy store we bought a 7-1 game and a small police Lego kit. Well you would have thought it was Christmas when the boy saw all things. He did not know what to do first. I even had brought crayons and a coloring book. He played with one thing for a few minutes and then went to the next thing. Still his favorite thing is the PSP. I am beginning to think that it was a bad idea to bring it to the school at all. Richard finished the Lego kit and Ira helped teach the boy tick-tack-toe. The PSP was played the most. I hope that over the next few days we can play the checkers or chess that we got him. We stayed for about an hour and a half then left back to the apartment. Ira took me and mother to the market, which was very big. We got some things to last a couple of days. When we got back to the apartment, Richard and Jacob were watching a Harry Potter movie in Russian on TV. It was definitely interesting. Ira we back to the friend to get her suitcase and ended up staying with them for the night. Mother and I pulled out the couch and sort of made it up with what we had. It is plenty wide enough for two people though the heat was not working very well and we did not have enough blankets. But we did fine.

Sunday, November 30, Kherson

Mother wakes first and I finally wake up after a fairly good night. I wanted to get ready and have our worship services, so that we would be ready to go to the boarding school at 12:30pm per Ira. We were able to have a good breakfast of scramble eggs (yea for mother) and toast. We had another good service and listen to Ken Weliever’s 3rd sermon on the 23 Psalm. Ira came around 12:30pm and she had to do some paper work before we left to go to the school. The children at the school go to church on Sunday mornings and then have lunch, so we wanted to wait until they got back before we went over. Mother stayed at the apartment and the rest us go over to the school. Mother had brought a teddy bear for our new child, our boy seemed to really like it. Though the PSP was still the main focus of his attention. We did go outside to the playground for a little while. It was good to see Jacob and the boy interact. Jacob was very happy to run and play with him. We said our goodbyes and came back to the apartment. I fixed some mac n cheese, hot dogs, apples, tomatoes and hot tea. We all enjoyed our semi-american dinner. Ira had to go out for a while to work on those papers and came back after dinner. We definitely have a hard working translator that is not afraid to ask anyone to help us move our paper work along faster. She has had the school Director working on Saturday, and is hoping to get the judge give us a early court date. We will see tomorrow how our time table will be. It maybe after Christmas but before the end of the year when we get home. Well everyone has gone to bed and I guess I need to as well. Please keep us in your prayers.

Good Day but Busy Day

I hope that you have been reading my mother's blog because she is a much better writer than me. I believe she has also talked about our warm and pleasant journey from Kiev to Kherson, if you haven't you need to. Let's just say that we have wonderful public transportation in the US. I would also recommend traveling by car if you can. We were up and going early this morning to head over to the boarding school before classes started at 8:30am. All four of us head into the foyer of the school and meet with the Assistant Director. Ira and the Assistant Dir. talk for several minutes when it becomes evident that she does not have all the documents that Ira will need. Ira asked us to stay at the boarding school while she went on a mission to get all the documents she is going to need. Unfortunately the child's mother had lost his birth certificate. We have a firm but sweet translator, who is not going to let things stand in her way, if she can help it. Our new little boy appears in the foyer of the school, to take us to his sleeping quarters. Ira explains to him what to do and off she goes on the quest of the missing documents. Our new boy is able to miss the first part of his school. His favorite movie is Harry Potter. He has seen all of four movies that have come out. I have brought a color explosion package that when you mark on the paper with the special marker different colors appear. Jacob, our little boy and I draw pictures and watch Harry Potter movie. He is always smiling. After about an hour and half he gets up, puts his shoes and coat on and says (we assume) that he has to go back to school. I did not know what to do, I thought we were going to stay in that room till Ira got back. So, I call her and her to talk to our little boy. She explain to me that he has to go back to school and the cleaning lady is needing to clean the room we were in. So, we head back to the foyer to wait on Ira. We waited over an hour and half but did not mind because we knew how hard Ira was working. Once Ira arrived she takes us to the Notary. A notary in Ukraine is an very important official. Her office was very elaborate, and she had two assistants. We waited while they finished preparing the special documents, which have special seals and then all three of us sign the documents in front of the Notary. While we waited on the special documents, Ira had to make copies, she even got a taxi to take her to a place that had a copies. Boy, she is dedicated. After the signing of the documents we head back to the hotel and leave Ira at the school to work on the documents. We will be going back tomorrow to visit with our new little boy.

Wed-Thurs-Day for Thanksgiving!

Wed & Thurs.
Sorry , This is late in being posted. We have not been able to access the internet since about 10 a.m. Thursday.
When we got off the train Wed. about 10:30 am we dropped Mom and Jacob and luggage off at the hotel which was right next to the train in depot in Kherson. We had to climb upstairs to the hotel as it is above the shops. No elevators – 20 steps – they do not know what handicap accessible is here it appears.
5 min. later we were back out the door in a taxi – Richard, Irina (Era) and myself headed towards the Inspectors office. The Inspector is a person who has a lot of authority in a region. It is similar to what a judge would have. We waited in the taxi for over an hour while Era went inside and talked to the Inspector lady. The Inspector wanted to see Richard and I and talk to us to find out why we wanted to adopt. Then she put her seal on the document that allowed us to go to the boarding school. When we got there the assistant director met us and talked to us and told us that they knew we were coming and was hoping we would have been there earlier as the director wanted to talk to us himself. He had to go to another town for some business and would not be back till after 3 p.m. We said our good byes and said we would be back after 3. We took another taxi back to the hotel –picked up Mother and Jacob and had lunch in the café below the hotel.
We had to wait till after 3:30 before Era got the call that the director was back at the boarding school and got into another taxi to the boarding school which only took us 10 min. to get there. The director was a very nice man. He wanted to know why we wanted to adopt. He believes children should be part of families and is very happy that we wanted to adopt. He wanted us to speak to the lawyer for the school, and also with the lady doctor. The boy has been very healthy since he has been at the boarding school. They then brought in his teacher and everyone said how nice, kind, loving, good student that this boy is.
By Ukraine law no pictures are allowed to be posted or name given until they are legally adopted. The teacher then b brought in the boy a very nice looking boy. The director and all of us talked for a few min. to the boy and then the director said Era, Richard and myself could go with the boy to a classroom to talk. We talked and talked and the boy mentioned about his mother and a father but we know that he does not know who his father is. We do not know who this man is. The boy said his father comes to visit him. The boy is not sure if he wants to be adopted. His Teacher came in after awhile to sit with us, and I think to make the boy more comfortable. The time came for their supper to be served, so we said our goodbyes get in another taxi and came back to the hotel. Era said we needed up early Thurs a.m. to be at the boarding school at 8:30 so we may see the boy before his classes begin. We all were really tired after a long day, got baths and went to bed by 10 p.m. A bed not moving or bumping felt really good and we slept great!


Thursday- Thanksgiving Day
We got up at 6:30 this a.m. out of our nice comfy beds that Mother and I especially appreciate after sleeping on couches for two weeks. Mother and I went down to the market to look for something for breakfast as the café would not open in time. They have a lot of nice cakes and some pastries, milk, sausage, juice. We got a few pastries some OJ and drinks and took them back to our room to eat. We, including Jacob met Era after 8:30 as she was on the phone making arrangements for our visit. We got to boarding school about 8:45. We had to wait in the secretary’s office of the director and come to find out the Inspector was already there and was taking everyone to task because she hadn’t received any proper documents from anyone to visit the boy. This took awhile to get sorted out as she was speaking to everyone who had oversight of the child about this lapse in regulations. Then the next we knew the boy appeared –all smiles in his school uniform. We had taken him a squishy ball, and glow in the dark sticks and showed him how to use the glow in the dark sticks. We were with him, in the secretary’s office, for about 20 min when he had to go back to class. He gave all of us hugs and left. We still did not know if he was willing to be adopted. The Ukrainian law says once you are 6 yr old you have to be present when final adoption proceedings are held before the judge and the judge will ask the child if they want to be adopted. If they do not want to be adopted – they can say no and the adoption will not go through. We were told we could come back at 3p.m. to see the boy. So we took another taxi back to the hotel. It was about 10:30 a.m. The taxi only cost 12UK or $2 US. We went upstairs to get Mother and talk for a bit then went to have lunch at the café downstairs. Era had found an acquaintance that she could stay with tonight, so we would not have to pay for her another night at the hotel. She as well as Gregory is always thinking of how to save us money. She picked up her suitcase that she had left in our room and went to her acquaintance. We rested and try to start emailing. We have been trying all afternoon and evening and have not had any success with the internet.
Era came back and got Richard, Jacob and I about 2:55 p.m. and off we go in another taxi. We went into the foyer of the school to wait for the boy to come out. This evidently was nap time for him. While we are waiting we meet another girl and an American family. The family has known this girl for 1 ½ yr and wanted to adopt her. She has wanted to be adopted as well, but there have been a lot of complications with it and now she is too old to be adopted. They are working on getting a student visa for her as well as adopting another child in another city. The girl is also showing her wonderful needlework and she ended up giving one she had done of a bird. She was just beaming when the family was there and is so excited about having a family and her joy was totally overflowing. A little while the boy comes thru the front door in his regular clothes to show us where he sleeps and plays. This is in another bldg. and there is also a little room that we can sit and talk with him – just he, Richard, Jacob, Era and I. Our translator, Era starts to talk to him trying get him comfortable with her and us. During her long conversation with him she tells him that his mother no longer wants him and her parental rights have been taken away. His life will be here at the boarding school, he will have no other life than here at the boarding school. After a little while of talking and he and Jacob playing with a doodle board the little boy says he would like to be adopted and live in America. He is concerned about his mother and this other man who has taken care of him before he came to the boarding school. He does not want to hurt their feelings about leaving. So I suggested to him that we could write letters and send pictures and presents back to them. To let them know how he is doing. So that was just what he needed and it was at that point he said yes he wanted to be adopted. We then pulled out Jacob’s PSP and it took the little boy about 2 min. to figure out how to work it.Jacob was very excited this whole time waiting to see what the boy would say. Jacob wrote on the doodle board “I now have a brother” and he kept saying “go brother, go brother” while they were playing the game.
His mother had lost his birth certificate and this is the beginning of all the paperwork that has to be done before we can go in front of a judge and get back to Kiev. Era is looking or an apt. for us to move into hopefully by tomorrow to save money and to be able to cook things that Jacob likes as well as us. Era has already started to mountains of paper work involved. It is more complicated when a child is in a boarding school rather than an orphanage. Orphanages are for children up to 6 and once they are 6 they go to boarding school. Basically all the same just a different terminology for the age of the child. This boarding school is one of the nicest that Era has been to. Some boarding schools are very poor and the children may only get a new pair of socks and underwear twice a year and only get chocolate on special occasions like birthdays, Christmas etc. Their diet would also be limited on how much food they could have. The children at this school have access to all of the modern movies, video games, candy, etc. They have a very nice lunch room, bedrooms, which have several beds in each room, modern classrooms, basketball area, soccer field, etc. Everyone from the Director to the cleaning lady in the foyers has been very nice. We will send pictures after we see the judge and get the official adoption decree. We are still hopeful of getting home before Christmas.
Thank you very much for your prayers and support. The Lord has truly blessed our family.