A Great Date!

We had a GREAT day today.  First, we left at 7am and chased papers for a few hours.  We got home about 10am and grabbed a couple of French pasteries for a snack.  We rested at the apartment until about 1pm and then went to visit at the orphanage.  Our facilitator gave us the option of visiting while he did some work that we didn't have to be there for (4 hours!) or waiting until after those meetings and visiting late in the evening.  We chose option A and were dropped at the orphanage to fend for ourselves from about 1:30 until 6pm!  YIKES! 



I was stumped about the middle section, but finally figured out this sweet note from Lera... "My family about hundred SUPER."  Could she possibly be any sweeter!?  :o)

 Before leaving the apartment, I had butterflies in my stomach.  Knowing that we had four hours with no translator made me nervous.  It's amazing how much this feels like dating someone you REALLY like!  Eugene reminded me that I am turning 40 this summer, and should be old enough to know that the secret is to just relax and be yourself.  Deep breaths!

In short, we had an awesome day of visiting.  We made great progress in learning how to communicate, and it is not scary anymore.  It's even pretty fun.  Classes had ended so, at Vitalik's prompting, we all went to his classroom - the four of us, plus several droogs (friends).   Over the course of a few hours, we had lots of fun with many many kids coming and going.  Any time that one of Eugene's gadgets is being used for a game or photos, literally, as many kids as can crowd around the screen do so.  At one point, we had maybe 8 kids watching Lera play "Angry Birds" on the IPad, and on the other side of the room, Vitalik and 3 others watching a movie clip on the iTouch - this was so funny.  Eugene managed to find in his little bag of tricks, 2 sets of earphones (each kid got one ear piece) AND a splitter... so 4 ears = 4 kids watching and listening... on a screen the size of a cel phone!

Both Lera and Vitalik and various friends tried hard to teach me a crazy card game called "fool" that makes no sense at all as far as I can tell (Ya ne ponemayou! - I don't understand!)  All of the kids were impressed with my shuffling abilities, so at least I had that going for me. ;-)  At the end of our visit, we asked our facilitator about the game, and he quickly said, "Oh, you will not understand it... American people can not understand that game.  I can try to explain it to you but I have never had an American family that could learn it."  Eugene is online now trying to figure it out!  Just in case, Vitalik said that tomorrow he will bring his Uno cards... we KNOW how that game is played! ;-)

I think the highlight of the day for me may have been Vitalik saying, "You speak Russian good!"  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but I was thrilled! :o)  I told him, "Thank you.  You speak English good." (which, while gramatically lacking, is very true!) ;-)  While we waited in the lobby for our facilitator to return, Lera spent a bit of time lost in the H.S. Musical video via the iTouch and Vitalik and I compared flexibility tricks.  Turns out we can both do the splits.  


This is a poster that Vitalik and his classmate did about saying no to drugs and alcohol and cigarettes.  He did the boy half and she did the girl half.  He pointed to the picture and said, in English, "I do, in my classroom...You like?"  I said, "It's Awesome!" and he said, "Thank you."

I should mention that reports from home are glowing as well.  Words cannot express our thankfulness at how our family and friends are pulling together and not just getting by, but having a really special time together while we are here getting to know our newest kids and letting them get to know us. 

By the way, we had a major setback with our adoption today - not a show-stopper (thank you, God!), but it will add at least a week to the process.  It turns out when the parental rights were terminated years ago, there were mistakes in the document and so our facilitator spent all day working on having it redone.  It is in the works but may add TWO WEEKS to the process.  We will know more in a couple of days and decide then what to do.  If it delays our court date by a ton of time, we will go home and return for court.  However, after some discussions, we realized that going home takes about 40 hours one way (train and plane).  When you add in a day or so of buffer on the return trip to ensure that we wouldn't miss our court date due to a delayed flight, it is looking likely that we will stay and visit and play.  We will figure it out around the end of this week.

It's so amazing though because we don't even care!  I mean of course we care, but we are on cloud nine after a great day of visiting... we know it will all be okay - God will handle it!

Coming home tonight felt so much like coming home after a super date in the early stages of the romance that will change your life forever.  Eugene and I were exhausted and happy and just reliving the whole thing.  I even got to call my sister and give her the glowy debrief, telling her every detail of the day that I could remember, while Eugene listened and chimed in.  We are having the exhillerating privilege of falling in love with our newest kids.  What a great blessing to be living through this miracle!

A Nice Day, but a Terrible Dinner!

Another nice day.  Looked at pictures, played and visited.  Vitalik is WEARING Eugene out!  That kid will play sports all day and not run out of energy!  This adoption may turn out to be a good get-in-shape plan for Eugene!  We won't be visiting them tomorrow - chasing papers all day so maybe Eugene's old tired body can get a rest. :o)

Last night's dinner was a bit of an adventure.  There are a lot of types of pasta here any varieties of frozen tortalini.  We buy the frozen stuff not really knowing what will be in the middle of the pasta since we can't read the lables.  The real kicker is that anything we consider normal pasta sauce is very hard to find.  Yesterday we brought home some sauce that looked promising.  Our goal was to have tortalini (sp?) and red sauce plus canned corn.  Well, we are not good boyscouts and don't really know how to safely use the very basic handheld can opener tool that is provided here.  As Eugene man-handled the can of corn, we both were quite nervous that he might slice off a finger or something and we both decided that we are finished with canned goods for this trip unless they have the easy-pop top. :o)  Still, we managed to get the corn out without a major injury.  We boiled the mystery pasta, and the next challenge was opening the jar of sauce.  The lid was one we are totally unfamiliar with and had no idea how to open it.  When Eugene finally pried it open, it (of course) splattered all over the floor and chair, but we persevered.  Next came the big (though not totally unexpected) problem.  This was a jar of SALSA!  ARGH!  We both laughed and decided that pasta goes with corn, sort of, so we poured it all together for a scrumptious meal... well, not so much... but we ate it and laughed till we cried and decided we're finished with pasta sauce too.  Thankfully, our facilitator went to the market with us today and helped me choose some italian pasta sauce, so now we are good to go for next time. :o)  As for tonight, we bought some precooked chicken and enjoyed it with some left-over bread.  Not necessarily a well-balanced meal, but it was easy! :o)

MMM MMM!  There are left-overs in the fridge, but we're gonna have to be pretty hungry to eat them!

This is funny!  I just tried to check my spelling on this post - which I usually don't do, but it was irritating me that I didn't know how to spell tortalini.  Anyway, the spell checker in this region is obviously in Russian (duh!), and it highlighted every word.  Oh well! :o)

A Good Day

Today was a really good day.  It was Saturday, so there was not much going on.  We visited the orphanage from about 10:30-12:30am.  It was a sunny and not-so-cold day, so we played outside for the entire time we were there.  Our handler left us there alone with the kids for almost the entire time.  Amazingly, it wasn't all that hard to communicate using our few russian words and their few english words plus good old hand motions.  It helped a lot being outdoors.  We gave them some candy, which they shared with us and many friends.  They were happy to show us some of the grounds.  Vitalik pointed out some landscaping he had helped with, and showed us an old abandoned castle on the grounds.  Lera and I climbed on monkey bars and slid down firemen's poles.  Eugene and Vitalik played a game of pick-up basketball with several other kids, and when Eugene tried to show Vitalik the "porper shooting form," telling him, "practice," Vitalik returned the favor, showing Eugene how to make a two-handed throw-up and saying, "practice."  :o)   Lera and I spent a lot of time with her friends, eating twizzlers, looking at pictures and listening to music on Eugene's IPad.  It was a good day, and we are expecting to go back again tomorrow for more fun. :o)

No News Today

As I write an update tonight, I am reminded of the radio news headline on the local station in my hometown (Franklin, KY - population 8,000).  I remember that one afternoon during my high school years, the announcer began the newscast saying, "The Franklin City Council met last night and conducted no business... this story and others coming up after these messages..."   So it is with this blog post.  Nothing really happened today.  If you would like to hear more, keep reading.  :o) 

In a nutshell, our facilitator spent all day running around and getting things done, calling us every few hours to say, "Wait just a couple of more hours."   :o)  We were picked up for a brief errand around 10am and went to a local notary (notaries here are more like paralegals, and are called, "Notarious!") to show our passports and sign our names to a couple of legal documents written in Russian (or perhaps Ukrainian - who knows).  I think it was our application to adopt the kids.  In any case, we signed and printed our names, and Eugene worried hours later that he may have misspelled his middle name - it is interesting how when you are under such pressure, even the little things take a lot of energy.

Afterward, when I asked our facilitator if he had our passports, he smiled and said that he had sold them. :o)  Then he told us that, in honesty, American passports don't bring what they used to now that they have made it more difficult to rip out the photo and replace it.  He said that they used to bring $20,000 on the black market, and explained that once when a client had his passport stolen, the passport number had to be registered so that it could be essentially blacklisted around the world.  After so many years of helping families through the adoption process, it is amazing to think of the stories this guy could tell if he had the time. :o)

After the one hour errand of signing our names, we were dropped back at the apartment and had a nice walk (the weather was sunny and not too cold) to a nearby market for a few supplies and the nearby French Bakery (thanks to Judy P for that recommendation!)  Back at the apartment, we had a good lunch and rested a bit.  For the entire afternoon until 5:30 or so, we thought we'd be going to the orphanage soon to visit, so we sat and waited - me feeling pretty relaxed and eugene worrying about what might be going wrong while we waited. :o)  Ultimately we didn't get to visit the kids today, but their social worker was notified so that she could explain to them that we will visit tomorrow morning.  We were sorry to not visit today (especially because I had on such a cute outfit!) but we appreciated the fact that today (the last biz day of the week) was a good day for the facilitator to run around and make things happen - I will always be happy to sit at home while he goes out and gets things done.  We expect to go tomorrow morning to visit the kids and hand out the gifts families have sent for them!

Meanwhile, we wait.  We study a little Russian, play a little scrabble on Eugene's ipad (I creamed him tonight, by the way), we rest, and we try not to worry.

We did a little more exploring before dark.  The area we are in feels pretty safe and very decent with lots of shops and restaurants.  This reminds me of a funny story.  Last night, Eugene walked a little after dark with our handler to get something we needed from his nearby apartment.  While walking down the sidewalk at maybe 6:30pm, Eugene said to him, "This is a pretty safe area isn't it?" to which he replied, "Yes, just keep walking straight ahead."  We both laughed a lot about this when he told me today!  This is what the locals seem to do, and I guess it works for them.

The reports from home are that the boys are doing just great with Harmony (korean grandma) and Aunt Tracy.  In fact, it seems that (with the help of other family and good friends) these two ladies are running a very efficient home in our absence.  The kids are watching less TV, practicing more piano, playing more games, visiting Grandmother's house, having a great time... and somehow, the ladies are having time to sit and drink lots of tea!  We are so glad they are all doing so well!  Of course, it helps a lot to know that the boys are doing so well while we are away.  Not only are they surviving, they are having a rich experience and enjoying great bonding time with their extended family!  They have been enjoying the last week of their winter track-out.  School begins for them on Monday, so it will be interesting to see how everyone adjusts to that schedule. 

So I guess this concludes my "no news" update.  This has been Shelly reporting Live from Simferopol, Ukraine.  The local time is 7:28pm.  Good Evening!  :o)

Me Radi Tebya Videt!!

The past 24 hours have been quite an adventure!  We were fortunate to get first class tickets for the 15 hour train ride, so instead of just enduring the experience, we sort of almost enjoyed it.  Last night, before we went to sleep, our handler came into our cabin (is that what it's called?) and relaxed and visited with us for awhile - it was nice to get to talk with him in a situation that was not official.  The train pulled into the station at 11am, and we were off again - new city, new driver, same story.  Sit in the back seat, don't ask questions, try to relax, and roll with it.  

It is impossible to do justice to this experience.  If we tried to be in control, we would not last a day.  We have become really good at just sitting, not asking any questions, and just doing what we are told.  It is such a treat to look out the window, try to sound out the signs we see (all in the cyrillic alphabet, which makes an awesome secret code, by the way).  Many of the words, once we sound them out, are recognizable in english.  things like super-market, theater, cafe, coffee, internet, etc.  None of these LOOK like english words, but if you can break the code, they SOUND like english!  good fun!  As an interesting footnote, the words "Strip Club" are always in English for some reason.  Go Figure.

All the while, we have the pleasure of listening to the handler talk w/ the driver in the front seat.  Just two relaxed russian-speaking men having a pleasant conversation at their office (which happens to be the front seat of the car we are being driven around in).  Driving is definitely a specialized skill in these cities.  These guys take their cars places that i would be so sure they would not fit!  And there is a constant game of "chicken" with other drivers, and pedestrians.  Oh, and have I mentioned that none of the seatbelts work?!  But alas, we are rolling with it!!  :o)  We are often told to wait in the car without explanation.  There are just so many complicated steps to this process, and honestly, I think we've become really comfortable with not knowing.  It's kind of a relief to just trust these guys to do their jobs and to concentrate on our part - being the submissive, non-russian-speaking adoptive parents who just sit there and look pretty and every now and then answer a few questions or sign our names.

We had to wait a long time at the inspector's office, and it was pretty intimidating.  lots of people speaking russian.  i think we were the only people in the building wearing blue jeans!  When we finally got to meet the inspector, she was stern and seemed to run a tight ship, but she was polite to us and we tried to be meek and not make too much (but just enough) eye contact.  she asked us to tell her a little bit about ourselves - how long we have been married (eugene got it wrong, saying 19 instead of 18, but i decided not to correct him)  :o)   she wanted to know about our jobs and whether we had any children.  when i told her we had three little boys, her eyes got big and she looked at us like we were insane.  "Three boys and you want to adopt two more children!?"  she asked how the three boys felt about the adoption and we told her, "very excited."  she kind of made faces that indicated, "oh boy!" and then gave us the referral and wished us luck.  WHEW!  we were glad to have that finished! 

after a very good bowl of some sort of lamb noodle soup at a tartar restaurant (with lots of fresh garlic!), we drove out to the orphanage, feeling a little smelly, but very excited.  while we waited in the lobby for our handler to talk to the director, vitalik just strolled (totally accidentally) through the lobby... and we were all like, 'woah!  hi!  happy! etc.etc.'  after a lot of big hugs and pats on the backs, i put my hand on his shoulder, looked into his eyes, and recited the line i had been rehearsing over and over in my head, "me ra-di te-byah videt" -- we are very glad to see you.  he smiled, nodded, and said some appropriate response, which i, of course, did not understand!  it was all very exciting. we said things like "how are you - good - awesome. etc" then he left us for a minute, saying in english, "2 minutes" and while he was gone, we were called into the director's office.  she talked with us a little bit and then called both lera and vitalik in.  lots of hugs and happies and just really cool moments... but with so few words... very strange and very special and very crazy.  we had spent so much time anticipating this moment, it was kind of a relief to have it really here!  intense!  :o)

there was a lot of just sitting and waiting and exchanging a few words here and there.  eugene practiced counting in russian, which was fun, because of course, it's so easy for Lera and Vitalik, who were happy to help teach him.  He also tried out a video game vitalik was playing on a cel phone he had borrowed from a friend.  Finally, the director gave our handler a key to a classroom upstairs where we could visit... so we all went up 2 flights of stairs, lera insisted on carrying my backpack, and vitalik carried eugene's very heavy one. 

Once in the classroom, we got out some photos - they really liked eugene's ipad which lets them scroll through photos with the slide of a finger across the screen.  we had to leave again to go (without the kids) to the director's office to meet with the medical representative - she had a little booklet for each of them, telling about various tests, screenings, what vaccinations may be needed before entering the u.s.  and any medical issues that they are aware of.  all of the reports state that they are happy, lovely, polite, wonderful kids.  after finishing her report, the medical lady said, with a tear in her eye, "If you take these children, you will not be sorry."   the social worker who is close with lera and vitalik chimed in a few times with affirmations about them and definitely looked like this was an emotional moment for her as well.  the director also said some very affirming words - clearly these kids have been really loved by the staff here - we are so thankful!  it was really special to get to be the family that was finally coming for them.  we truly are the fortunate ones in this situation!

We went back to visit for a few more minutes, we all said, "Da Zavtra!"  which means "See you tomorrow"... We asked them, "Happy?" and they both answered in the affirmative with a big thumbs up.  It was a good experience, and I'm happy to say that I didn't break down and cry like a  baby!

Our handler has a LOT of work to do and we are just letting him take care of it and tell us when it's time for us to do something.  There were several additional stops on the way home.  He no longer even tells us to wait in the car.  We just know that unless he tells us to "get out" we stay. :o)  There was some crazy driving to get us back to the inspector's office just 1 minute before it closed.  I mean really crazy driving!  We only knew what was going on because when the driver was left alone with us, he laughed and explained in russian that he had only 5 minutes to get here.  We all laughed and cheered and said, "Mala Dyets!"  Good Job!  It is really fun talking with the drivers when the translator is not around, because they know almost no English, but are kind and friendly.

So here we are in Simferopol.  A new apartment - much less cluttered than the one we had in Kyiv.  Eugene has already gone out on foot to the nearest little market, bringing home the odd assortment of bread, cheese, mango juice, and dill pickles.   We are so thankful to have made it to this point in our adventure, and are filled with hope and joy as we go to bed tonight.

Midnight train to Crimea

We relaxed a lot today. At 4PM we went to the SDA office to pick up our referral. After about an hour wait we were able to sit down with the SDA representative. In less than 5 minutes we received our paperwork and a smile from her.

Now we are spending our last hour in Kyiv packing up and getting ready to be picked up again at 7PM...boarding a midnight train to Crimea. It's actually an 8PM train, but you get the drift :-). I think it will take 15 hrs to travel.

We've had a decent day today - the jet-lag is wearing off. We are excited to get to the region where the kids are.

We just keep putting one foot in front of the other...

Successful SDA Appointment

We had our SDA (State Dept of Adoption) appointment in Kyiv today to get our referral to visit Vitalik and Lera in their orphanage.  It seems that it went well.  We were really surprisingly nervous - as we waited to talk to the lady, I thought my heart would beat right out of my chest... and this was supposed to be one of the easy parts!  She asked us a few simple questions and was nice.  She told us what they knew about our kids.  They have been on the adoption registry since 2007.  Lera has impaired vision (this was no surprise, as the pics of her reading our letters seemed to show her holding the page very close to her face).   It was sad to think that she has needed glasses at least since 2007.  Won't it be interesting for her to get glasses and actually be able to see!  After learning a few additional facts, we were asked if we wanted to proceed with the referral.   YES!  We will pick up the referral late in the day tomorrow, and then will take the next train to Simferopol (15 hours - tickets were not available, but we are told they are working on it).

This whole thing is just so interesting.  If we were in America, we would expect to have a list of steps in the process all laid out, with various contengencies at each step.  We would expect to discuss all possibilities, and speculate and plan and think think think.  This would just be our natural way of approaching something so big and complicated and important.

The culture here is very different, and seems to dictate that we don't think ahead more than one step at the most.  We are to trust our handler implicitly and ask very few questions.  We are getting along with him just perfectly, and are literally trusting him with our lives.  It is a real exercise in letting go - and letting go - and letting go.   I think we are doing well so far, although we are both exhausted mentally and physically - a combination of jet lag and stress I imagine.  We really do not know what to expect, but we are just going to continue this journey and try not to worry!

So now we continue waiting.  Our crazy little apartment has come to feel pretty comfortable.  We are getting used to the unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells.  I think our agenda for the rest of the day includes a nap and maybe a dvd movie and/or scrabble game.  We are both just trying not to think too much, and to just keep breathing.