Welcome to the 2006 edition of TheHofs Abroad

This page is the place we will be blogging when we travel to Ukraine in late March 2006 for our second adoption and will contain updates on the events of our journies to Prague and Ukraine. Please stop back in March and follow along.

Mar 11, 2006

As we prepare for our second attempt at our second adoption, we wanted to bring you all up to speed on some things. It is very likely that we will have to make two trips to Ukraine to complete our adoption because of a mandatory 10 day wait period after the court date. The plan is for both of us to come home, and then just Dana will return to get the child(ren) after the allotted time. While it will be very hard to leave our new family in Ukraine, it will allow us time to buy necessary clothing for the trip home, prepare the house a bit more etc. The second trip should be no more than a week in length as the hard part will be over, it is just more paperwork on the return trip.

Kyle will be with some good friends in Montana while we are in Ukraine. He is excited about having a brother. He recently met a baby at church named Kyle, and now wants a baby brother named Kyle. We tried to explain that we don’t know how old he will be, but no matter what the age, we are pretty sure his name won’t be Kyle. His response “we’ll see”.

Mar 24, 2006

	We made it to Prague and also were able to once again meet up with Andrea and John, who joined us for our weekend in the Czech Republic from England. Both flights were fairly uneventful with the exception of the landing process into Amsterdam. All the cabin side lights began randomly flashing and you could hear the "call" button going off all over the place, then Rob had some water dripping on his head. We aren't sure if that has to do with the mechanics strike still going on at NWA, but it made for a more lively landing.
	The picture of the DC-10 is more for Kyle's benefit, he is an airplane nut and he will want to see our airplane and know what kind it was etc.
	Today we walked miles we are sure. We brought the pedometer and forgot to use it today. We walked down to Old Town, saw the St. Charles Bridge and viewed the castle from the bridge. Tomorrow we will head back to the castle for the inside tour. Prague is a pretty city. Much more Eastern Europe still then we both expected, but still very much up to date. We ate an authentic Czech restaurant for dinner, service was kind of like in Ukraine -sometimes the food just comes out when it is ready and that may or may not correspond with when everyone else at the table is eating.
	This is a picture of Prague Castle from the St. Charles bridge.
	The latest rumor is that the NAC (National Adoption Center) will be closing for the month of April. We aren't sure how this will impact us at this point, we are still going to show up to our appointment on Monday and we will see how much we can get done before the month ends. Please join us in prayer about this. We are both feeling pretty good about the upcoming trip and our anxiety level isn't as high as it was in September. We are doing our part, what God does with His part is up to Him and we are OK with that. Today we saw a little boy "helping" his mom pull the suitcase at the airport and that made us miss Kyle pretty bad. We just try to stay focused on the task at hand, and remember that he is probably having a great time in Montana.

Mar 25, 2006

We are happy to report we are over our jetlag once again. However this time we had an experiment going, although not intentional at the start. A few days before travel Dana caught a bug that turned her stomach into a springboard instead of an asset to the digestive system. She really wasn't confident about eating and hungry until right before we flew, so she didn't participate in the diet at all. Rob was a good engineer and treated it like a good science experiment, holding himself to the 700 calories on fasting days. However we are both here, had a great nights sleep last night and feel well adjusted today. The only other factor for us to everyone else is we have nearly eliminated caffeine from our diet, so that could be a factor.

We only logged 2.2 miles walking today, but our feet would argue that on hilly cobblestone we should get 'double mileage' or something, as it felt a lot longer than that. We toured the castle, which was HUGE. We cannot get over how crowded it is here. Our Lonely planet book said there would be crowds, but we assumed it wouldn't be that bad in the off season. If anything could prepare us for the Ukraine subway crowds, it was definitely trying to get into the Cathedral today, we felt like cattle in a shoot. The best word we could come up with today was "picturesque" about this area. I find myself wanting to just take pictures of all the buildings, but I know that once printed it just looks like a bunch of buildings and isn't the same as being here. Tonight we plan to go try and find some live jazz to listen to, then tomorrow back to the airport to Ukraine. I wish we could take the king size bed and bedding from this Marriott with us, but it sure has been a nice vacation for 2 days.

Once again a big THANK YOU to John and Andrea for burning vacation time to spend the weekend with us. It is always nice to tour somewhere with some friends. We will post some more picutres before we leave the fast internet in Prague.

March 26, 2006

Well we made it to Kiev. Sorry we never posted more pictures from Prague, we sat up late talking with Andrea and John and then forgot we lost an hour due to time change, so the morning was shorter than we thought.

Last night Rob went out hiking and looking for a geocache, but couldn't find it - he basically ran out of daylight but is convinced he was within 80 feet of it. We sent our travel bugs back to England with Andrea to find a home there.

Our flight was about 30 min late getting in. There is just a cultural difference about the understanding of waiting till the plane is at the gate before you get up. We were parked in between the active runways waiting for a plane to land and tons of people starting opening overhead bins, turning on their cell phones etc. The stewards came out and tried to get everyone to sit down, it was quiet comical really. People did sit down, but they wouldn't turn off their phones. Just a humorous tidbit.

Passport control was good, then we went to customs, the lady asked where we were coming from (Dana assumed that was the question), Dana said Prague. The customs lady said, "Russia", Dana said "Prague" - she rolled her eyes and said, "ticket please", very annoyed. We got out our tickets, and she said, "from Prague", Dana agreed and said "Prague". Then after several exchanges of the word "Prague", she stamped our stuff and let us through.

In our translators (V's) words, our apartment is miserable. It is on the left bank for those who know what that means. He couldn't find anything in Kiev as apparently there is an exhibition in town tomorrow and everything is booked. We don't know that it is completely miserable, but wouldn't call it great. There isn't a phone line in the place, so the fact that we brought the laptop won't allow us to have Internet in the apartment, but at least we can type our stuff before we go down and sit in the smoky room. Our bed is more like a pillow top box spring kind of thing, but it will do. We have hot water, so all is not lost.

It was very nice and sunny at 10.7 km on the flight over here, but it is pretty cloudy, but not very cold. Tonight we plan to go find some pizza for dinner. Tomorrow our appointment is at 1030am. The is some uncertainty about what will happen in the next few weeks with the NAC closing for April. It's a bit unnerving, but it is not our deal, it's God's, so we'll see how things work out. Please join us in prayer that God will make a way through this mess. We will try and post again after our appointment and let you know where we stand. Thanks so much for your prayers.

March 27, 2006

We have a referral!

Today was the appointment at the NAC. When we arrived there were not very many families in the wait. There was a couple from St. Louis who brought their 3 yr old girl with them. They were hoping for a younger brother. Although the little girl was fairly good, it concreted to us we made the right decision not to bring Kyle. (Who really wants to carry the child up all those steps?). We were taken into the director’s office with the St. Louis couple. They explained the current situation at the NAC that things are coming to a new authority in May. We had to write and then sign a statement saying we understand that new law. Kind of silly, but whatever. Then the director basically said this is our last shot, and if we don’t find a child today, that it was over and she didn’t want to see us again. OK with us, the feeling was kind of mutual. When we left the St. Louis couple was still looking, we gave them our cell phone number in hopes to hook up later.

After a bit more wait, we got to go into the office, we had Oksana again as the psychologist. The first file that she showed us was of a boy who just became available and we are happy to report we are headed to Khearson (I apologize if I am spelling that wrong). His birthday is July 99, so we finally got rid of all the fall birthdays! His name is Nikoli, which for those of you that don’t know that was on our VERY short list of agreed upon boys names, so we took that as a sign. God is faithful. We can’t get our referral paperwork till after 3 tomorrow, so we won’t be leaving for region till after then, most likely on the overnight train. We tried to see if we can fly to avoid the hot box all night, but apparently you can’t get there from here via plane – oh well. I was hoping to get to see more of Ukraine as this is basically right next door to where Kyle is from, although technically a different region.

One more night in the apartment that is less than desirable. The best way to describe the water pressure in the shower was the amount you could get out of a Dixie cup if you poured it out. I am sure Rob wants to cut holes in the footboard like you see in old cartoons to let his feet out, we are convinced the bed is only about 5 ½ feet long. Neither one of us slept very well last night, don’t know if it was the hard as rock boxspring (aka mattress) or just the stress of the looming appointment. Either way we are feeling pretty good to at least be out of the gate.

March 28, 2006

Today was just hang out and wait day. We are getting more comfortable with the metro and have logged several miles on the feet again today. The apartment has apparently run out of water, so it must be time to leave. We always say if you think of this as camping, then it isn’t that bad. That statement still holds true but with no running water, it makes it more like backpacking.

We picked up our referral from the NAC today – they made us sign this thing that says we understand that there will be no payment to anyone and that adoption in Ukraine requires no payment...ya ok, whatever you want to believe, we can sign your form.

We had a great lunch today at this buffet place, very typical Ukrainian. V had us try some “pancakes with cheese and raisins”. Sometimes translation is a bit confusing, as this was a fantastic dessert, I can’t remember what it is called, but it starts with a B and sounds like (Ba linky). It was yummy, I am sure we will have some more of this before we leave.

Tonight we leave on the bus at 1030, the inspector of the orphanage is expecting us in the a.m., so we should get to meet Nikolai in the morning sometime.

Things we love: verlinky (Ravioli with potatoes or meat and cream cheese sauce), great juices, being in our sons’ country

Things we miss: Kyle, a good nights sleep, personal space when in public.

March 28, 2006 AGAIN!

	Well we promised some more pictures of Prague and we'll throw in some others as well. We are currently waiting out the time that we can get on the bus for a 10 hour journey to Kherson. V says the buses are nice, so it should be comfortable. We'll update more when we get there.
	This is our bedroom and a picture of the luxurious concrete matress.
	This is the famed scooby do hallway at the NAC. It is called the Scooby Do hallway because people come in and out of these doors at an alarming rate. The doors are constantly opening and closing as people move about from room to room, just like on the cartoon.
	This is the door to the NAC. We realized that we had never taken our picture in front of the NAC in the 3 times that we've been here. This is after our successful appointment.
	This is in Kiev across from the bus station. V was inside buying our tickets, so we decided to snap some pictures. Rob works for Caterpillar, so it was exciting to see Cat machines at work in and around Kiev.
	Back to pictures of Prague. This is a view from the St. Charles bridge. It was just a nice view of the river and row houses.
	This is another picture near the St. Charles bridge. It was neat to see the river flowing under the buildings.
	Prague is very big in the puppet category. Something that we didn't realize until we went there. This was on the St. Charles bridge. He was just one of many performers which included jazz bands, acordianists, and various other musicians. St. Charles bridge is where many of the local artists sell photos and paintings of Prague to the many tourists in this area.
	Our friends Andrea and John walking on the St. Charles bridge with the Prague Castle in the background. John said that he would be in only 1 picture a day, so I tried to make this one a good one!
	This is a street scene from Old Town Prague.
	Dana and Andrea walking down the streets of Old Town Prague.

March 29, 2006

Where do we start for today? Today for us really started last night when we got on the bus at 10:30 last night. It was a nice German tour bus, high backed seats etc. Once rolling, they turned on the TV's to a Ukrainian version of MTV and very loud at that. We thought for sure we were in for the longest night of our lives. They stopped at midnight to let those who wanted one take a smoke break (big bonus that the bus was no smoking). After everyone got back in they turned the lights off and the TV's off, that was nice. We must have made 3-4 smoke break stops throughout the night- the other highlight is near as we could tell we were traveling at about 30mph. If you have been here, you can see why this was so perplexing to us. We figure they just time it to make the trip takes all night, whether it really needed to or not. Then about 3am we started to hit some rough road- I mean ROUGH road. It felt like we were driving off a curb, you know when a bus rocks back and forth? Well then it would start rocking so much that the driver would have to slam on the brakes to keep us all upright. V stated later that he thought the bus was going to rattle to pieces. All that to say our catnaps on the bus, were very short lived. I think we all managed to take 5-6 15min naps each.

We rolled into town at 830am, headed to the inspector's office, she said we could go straight to the orphanage… big bonus for us. Once at the orphanage we waited about an hour to see the director, all of us trying not to fall asleep waiting. Then the big moment and we meet Nikolai. He was so nervous, we felt so bad for him. His hands were sweating and they had him draw a picture for us. They said he likes to do puzzles, and other mind games and that he is very tender. Cliff notes is we are now trying to chase paperwork around town to bring him home. He was very sweet and said that last night he had a dream that he was going to have guests today. That is one thing we had prayed for, that he would know it was OK to be with us and he would have confirmation of that. He was very excited at the prospect of being adopted and obviously had been thinking about it. We asked him if he was OK to go to America, he didn't know where that was, and when we said he had to go on an airplane to get there, his head cranked around and he was pretty excited about that aspect, he really wants to go on a plane.

We went to lunch nearby (luggage and belongings are still at the orphanage as we haven't found an apartment yet). Then off to the Notary's office where we had to wait almost 2 hours. We all do fine until we sit, and their office was warm, we will try and post a picture of V asleep in the chair later. Then off to the inspector's office again. She started out VERY cold, but it turns out she knows Nikolai and sounded genuinely concerned about his future. She new his mother and grandmother and his story, it was touching really for an official to seem so interested in one of the hundreds of kids in the system. Short story is he was in a home, parents died, lived with grandma, then she died as well, and has been in the orphanage since Dec 04. She also told us the judge is thinking about taking a vacation. We don't know if at this point that will be a problem, if we can get assigned a new judge or how this will play out.

We also found out that the NAC is officially closing and moving to their new location. This is the unknown part of the news. We think it actually will be good news for us, but we aren't holding our breath. The old NAC system has to complete our adoption process, we will not be transferred to the new system which isn't in existence yet. That is the good news. The bad news is we are unsure how motivated or helpful they will be to finish our process since they are essentially out of business. We will see.

Now we are to the part we hate - everyday is hurry up and wait. V is currently still trying to find us a place to live for a while. He went to look at an apartment this afternoon, but it wasn't furnished…not really what we are looking for. So it is 630 at night as I type this and we are still hanging out at the orphanage - it has been a long day and we hope to find a bed soon. Additional note on the afternoon. We had a second visit with Nikolai this afternoon and he came running and gave Dana a big hug. He was genuinely more relaxed and we had a more fun time together, it was also just us and earlier the psychologist was watching. We will be in touch, we haven't found the internet phone card things, so everything is still going through café's, not the end of the world, just not as convenient. We also heard that another American family arrived today, we are hoping to hook up with them soon for someone to hang out with.

March 30, 2006

	We have a home! V's 25 phone calls paid off yesterday. He found a place within walking distance of the orphanage, a great market and pizza place. We haven't tried the pizza yet, but the week is still young. It is 3 bedroom, has a huge kitchen, although not very well equipped, we are working on that. It has hot water from 6 a.m to 10pm and the best thing is we have CABLE INTERNET in the place. That's right, high speed right here at home. That is a great thing. We are charged by the Mbyte and don't really know how much it is costing so our pictures will be a little smaller for the time being. Last night we all got a good nights sleep, there are some things money can't buy…. The owners of the apartment are very nice, gave us a whole bunch of eggs from their chickens as well as a few added dishes. We bought a sponge and some napkins today at the market. Dana also forgot some tweezers, and we found some of those as well, so she won't come home with a Burt (from Sesame Street) eyebrow.
	We went to the orphanage this morning. The director doesn't want to give us the papers we need from her until she sees that "a relationship has been established". We aren't sure what will satisfy that requirement, but we will keep showing up during our visiting hours and see what we can do. We did get more papers for the inspector today, she seems to be easy going, we aren't sure what that will cost us later, but it is nice to have one official moving forward. Alright well I won't babble too much today since I know most of you came back to the site today to see some pictures so here ya go!
	Please allow me to introduce the newest member of our family, Nikolai Jacob. As we have mentioned earlier, he is very smart, kind, mostly quiet, and doesn't like being the center of attention (A lot like his new father!)
	We have played with blocks a lot. He builds things that are symmetrical in both shape and color and is comfortable taking the lead when deciding what to build.
	This is one of our creations, it's either a house or a castle, take your pick.
	After playing with every toy in the place, there was a glass cabinet in the room that resembled a display case at a toy store. Nikolai kind of gestured to the case as if to say "Can we play with those?". Not knowing what the rules were regarding the case, we only took out a few toys at a time and placed them neatly back in.
	This is the results of a very long day yesterday and the lack of sleep the night before on the bumpy bus. We were waiting in the Notary's office and all having a hard time staying awake.
	The picture above is the before picture and this one is the after. It's amazing what a good nights rest can do.
	Now we will switch to more photos from Kiev. This is one of the many long, I mean LONG, escalators going down to the "metro" (aka subway). While we were taking a ride, they were playing this "desparado" music that made us picture riding on a horse across the desert. It was just very fitting and made us smile.
	I've titled this photo, "Living on the Edge". There were several people in and around this guy that were ice fishing, so not only are they treading on thin ice, they are also drilling holes in it. It's a lot like the game Ice Breakers if you have ever played it.
	I couldn't pass up this photo opportunity. This should be made into one of those motivational "Successories" posters titled "Resourceful". What do you do when you have live wires on a construction site that need covering and you have just finished your 20oz beer? This was just another humorous siting that made us laugh and thought we would share.

March 31, 2006

What a day!

Today started off we went to the orphanage for visiting hours. We were waiting and Nikolai's groupa walked by on their way to music class, he didn't even see us as they walked through a door in front of us. Anyway we asked if we could watch and when we walked in and sat down - he beamed! You know those kids that waive from stage at school events? Well that would have been him if he could have. They did this little dance number and then sat down to sing. It was really sweet, when he was listening to the teacher he was doing good. Then he would look over at us, smile and lose his place and get his name called out. We got to watch for about 5-10min, and then he got taken out to get his haircut. Then we went back to waiting. We did get to play a little bit after his haircut and that was nice. We bought a coloring book, and he only colored in that for a minute, he would much rather just draw freehanded. Of course we know we are the parents who think their kids are the smartest, but we think he is a really good at drawing. Then the good news, the director gave us the needed papers we have been waiting for, so off to the inspector for more papers, which with a little help from Ben Franklin we were able to get turned around TODAY. So that means that V is on the overnight bus (train was sold out again) Sunday night to go back to Kiev to get more papers from the NAC. The NAC is officially closed come Monday, so we aren't sure how that will go. BUT assuming we live in a vacuum (In Rob's engineering classes they often made certain assumptions to make the problems easier i.e. you could assume that a horse is a sphere), our tentative court date is next Friday! Then to finish it up, we both come home, and Dana and a friend come back in 10 days to complete the process. So that is the truncated version of where we are at in the process.

We did some shopping today, we splurged the $6 and bought a pillow. We also bought our landlady a spatula. It is our annual donation to the betterment of Ukraine, we will just buy one every time we come we figure. We also bought the orphanage a digital camera. Either that or we bought one for the employee gift exchange at Christmas time, we aren't sure, but it is irrelevant really. The orphanage is very well kept and the children have nice desks etc, so we like to think that our donations are used appropriately. Side note, earlier I had asked the group if you can get camera batteries in country. We went to several camera shops today and most of them sold batteries. Whether you could find the exact one you need would be a different story, but they did have Duracell camera batteries, for about $10. Also in our shopping adventure, we were just looking at a table of goods, Dana picked up some batteries (no-name brand), she was just looking at them, the lady says, "these are not good batteries". Perhaps she should reconsider her career in sales…

We also have some fun restaurant menu translations to give you all a chuckle. There will be a line in Ukrainian, with the English translation underneath. For example: "Pancakes with funguses" - we assume they meant mushrooms "Surprise from Germany" - Dana said Rob should order this, but he wasn't quite up for a surprise dinner, he really just wanted a burger and fries The best for last… "Language under mayonnaise". Even V got a chuckle out of this, I don't even remember what it was for, but V thought it was really funny, as did we. Translation is just funny, I mean V describing the yummy dessert as pancakes with cheese is accurate, but we weren't thinking crepes with a smooth ricotta/cream cheese type filling. Either way, this is Dana's new favorite thing to order. We also had "pancakes with bananas" and are still searching for a place that fills them with apples.

We are probably going to get out of town and see the Black Sea this weekend. We are still trying to work out some transportation details, but we will never be this close and we would like to see more of Ukraine than the orphanage, the apartment and the market in between. V, our translator, legal advisor and travel agent is working on the details. We don't know what the arrangements are, so we probably won't have an update until Monday our time.

Can someone from RCC make sure Susan P. is reading this? I know she doesn't read email much and her online time is limited, so if someone can just make sure they are in the loop, thanks.

We also got Nikolai's passport picture today. The director let us take him out of the orphanage by ourselves to get the picture taken. He told us he had never been outside of the orphanage before, so that was a treat. We bought him an apple from the market, which he devoured on our walk. It was interesting to watch the boys play at playtime. They have no TV, no video games, and no advertisements and yet they still turned sticks into guns and blew things up. Amazing that boys have that universal commonality.

We will post more pictures and updates on Sunday evening after we return from our weekend getaway.

Nikolai and Rob in front of the orphanage at the playground. He's got beautiful eyes doesn't he?

April 1, 2006

The Hand of God

"I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonders." Psalm 9:1

Well as it turned out, we won't have the opportunity to travel further south to visit the Black Sea. The trains were all booked (any train passenger-car salespeople in the audience, Ukraine needs your assistance), which seems to be the norm and the only bus we could get left at 2am, so we decided to take it easy and let our bodies rest because next week will prove to be a busy one.

Now that we have some downtime, we would like to take the opportunity to give credit where credit is due and to give God the glory for all He has done for us in the past few months. We have clearly seen the hand of God at work in this adoption process, which reinforced to us that our Heavenly Father is very much in to adoptions and that we are exactly where He wants us to be. Enjoy!

• About a month before we traveled, some people gave us some money to aid in the costs of this adoption. The adoption process is sometimes a lonely process where you run into a lot of people that are less than encouraging. It just totally lifted our spirits to have someone come along side us and say that they believe in what we are doing. It confirmed to us that what we were doing was God's will for us.
• When we were trying to find a place for Kyle to stay while we were away, we were blown away with the number of people who were willing to take Kyle for possibly a whole month. Some people we knew very well and some people we didn't, but it was just another sign to us that God was blessing us for following Him.
• Two weeks before we traveled, we encountered something that appeared to be an impossible obstacle that would have caused serious problems. We noticed that we were getting dangerously close to the expiration of our approval from the INS (now USCIS). Without this approval, Nikolai would not be able to get a Visa to enter the USA. Dana called the adoption unit in the Chicago office just to ask if there was a way to extend the expiration date by a week or so. Through the conversation the Chicago office learned that we had moved to another state that wasn't in their jurisdiction. When Dana told her that we were traveling in two weeks the agent said, "Don't even go to Ukraine!". After making several phone calls, we learned that if you move into a new jurisdiction that you have to start the process all over again, which usually takes several months to complete. The Chicago office also told us that we would have to get fingerprinted again because they couldn't transfer it to the MN office. We were totally blown away by this, it wasn't like we moved to another country, we just moved two states away. We had updated our homestudy and met the new state's requirements, so what was the big deal. We decided that we had to do everything in our power and then pray that God could do the rest. So we started the process over with the MN office and were put in touch with an angel of a lady who was able to transfer our fingerprints and who was able to give us the approval the day before we left. Jesus is bigger than the INS and bigger than any problem that seems impossible. If you are following Him, He will make a way!
• We had had two appointments (one successful and one unsuccessful) at the National Adoption Center (NAC) prior to this trip that had lasted for greater than 3 hours a piece. It is grueling and emotionally exhausting to look at the photos in the books at the NAC looking for your child. With each page you turn, you feel like you are giving that child a death sentence. We were begging and pleading with Jesus that we would not have to endure another such appointment. We just wanted it to be clear who our child was. Jesus answered our prayers and as you already know, we found Nikolai quickly.
• Before we traveled, we were praying that our child would know that we were coming to get them and that they would have a peace in their heart and wouldn't be fearful. One of the first things that Nikolai said was that he had a dream the night before that he had guests come and visit him.
• Dana's mom was praying late at night on the day of our appointment and she sent us an email to say that she didn't understand it, but the child has something to do with the letter "M". She didn't know if it was his name or something else. Well after our appointment, we got her email and thought Nikolai starts with N, so she was close in what she was hearing from God. However, when we were at the notary's office, I noticed that Nikolai's name was spelled differently on one of the documents and V told us that Nikolai in Russian starts with an N, but in Ukrainian it starts with an M!

Yesterday, we were able to get all the paperwork that we needed for the NAC completed. We didn't think that we would have that until Monday at the earliest. So V will be off to the NAC on Sunday night (overnight bus, poor guy, he's such a trooper and a blessing) and we will see what happens next. Whatever happens in the weeks and months ahead we know that God is in control and whatever problems arise, He is bigger and will make a way through the impossible. We just need to keep marching on…

April 2, 2006

Lotsa Pictures!

This weekend was a turning point in the "vacation" to the "let's just get home" frame of mind. We had a completely lazy Saturday. It's ironic that so many Saturdays we just want to be able to sleep in and do nothing, but the truth is, once here and having had that, I would much rather have Kyle waking us up at 630 asking us what we are doing today. Don't get me wrong, we would love it if he slept in till 730 or 8, but if it is 630 or an empty house, we would take the 630.

We did the laundry on Saturday night. There is nothing like making me appreciate our 1970's gold washer and dryer like doing laundry by hand. We were going to pay for someone else to do it, but really we have nothing else to do, so it seemed silly to pay someone else.

We also are newly hooked on the West Wing. We had never watched the show, as TV is usually way low on our list of things to do at home. We bought the first 2 years on DVD from eBay before our trip (which is where it will return), but we have been watching episodes like crazy. I must say this is the way to watch a series… no commercials, pause when you want, watch the "next week" just minutes later etc. Later in the week we will probably have a movie swap with our friends from Jersey. They are proceeding with their adoption, although they are a few days behind us in paperwork.

Today (Sunday) we opted for an adventure because V went out of town to visit a friend (He asks us if that was OK and we were fine with that. He's always just a phone call away). We decided to walk downtown. It took us an hour and a half, but it was a nice day, and we needed to "earn" our desserts we knew we would be having later. We are really enjoying the "full fat" version of everything, since we buy the reduced stuff at home. Everything is just yummy, but I know the only way we could continue to eat it everyday is to walk a long ways to get it.

We had our visit with Nikolai this afternoon. He came running to see us and is definitely drawn to Rob. They don't get much interaction with men and Rob does a much better job of swinging him like and airplane, so that is fine. He had the option to play outside with us and his groupa or just play inside with us, and he chose the inside. He is trying English, but he gets embarrassed to try it with just us, but with V he will try it more. We will probably be seeking advise from those of you who have adopted older children on how to best help them learn English. We also bought a new soccer ball for the orphanage, but today it was just his ball since we were playing inside. He also played with the digital camera some and got to color with some new markers we bought.

	This is Kyle after a day in the park with his friend Fiona. We miss him terribly, but know he is having a fun time with his friend. They apparently are running each other ragged, which is good.
	Here are our friends from Jersey. We met them for lunch downtown. It was a bit scary since we picked a café where you had to order off the board, but "pizza" in Ukraine is pronounced just like "pizza" in the US, so all was not lost.
	This is one of the treats that are worth the walk. It is a giant cinnamon roll and has apples and little nuts wrapped in it, then the whole thing is covered in chocolate! Our rule, no label, no calories!
	View of the orphanage, playground in foreground, Dana on the other side.
	This is the dog that tried to eat me. Apparently when I walked to take the above picture, I wondered into the mass population of stray dogs territory - they all came and let me know their displeasure, this guy was completely unhappy and wanted a piece of my jeans.
	These next few pictures are a plug for the orphans we are leaving behind. There are orphans all over the world, not just in Kherson Ukraine, but these are a few that we encountered.
	Nikolai with his treasured matchbox car on the playground with V in the foreground
	Nikolai's groupa getting ready to go outside
	Nikolai with Rob's backpack - it wasn't very heavy this day, but we both could see the advantage of adopting an older child
	Again, Nikolai wanting to emulate Rob, puts his sunglasses on
	Front of the orphanage, no we don't know what the signs say
	View of the play room
	Standing in the same spot as above, turning 180degrees. Bedroom viewed through doorway. This is where "school" is and also where they eat.
	Another picture of the play area, we never anticipate his toys to look this well organized at home!
	Here is the "bedroom" there are 11 beds in this room. Again this is a plug.

April 3, 2006

Another day with not a lot to do. V went to the NAC and it looks like they are going to complete paperwork for those of us in country, so that is the good news. We are still uncertain about how fast they are going to do that. We are hopeful for a court date on Friday, not certain enough to secure our plane tickets home, but we are hopeful.

We went to see Nikolai this morning, it was about 55-60 degrees out and they had everyone bundled with heavy coats and stocking hats, this we will never understand. Nikolai got a little talking to by one of the caregivers for pushing it up over the tops of his ears, even though his head was sweating. This is the hard part, because we really aren't the parent yet to be able to let him take his coat off while he is running around outside…. just kind of frustrating. Visits are good, but we are just ready to be done now. He did count to 5 today in English, which impressed us, as we had only counted 1 or 2 times the other day. He also was showing off to his friends a bit, by calling the ball a "ball" in English.

We were able to talk to Kyle today, which was great, but made us want to get out of here today. He is so funny about "Ukraine", we call it U-kraine, like normal, but then he personalizes and calls it "my-kraine". Kind of like your ball my ball I guess.

Tonight our big adventure was to find all things necessary to try and make spaghetti. Noodles in the market are just sold in bulk, however much you want. Unfortunately we don't know how much about 2 inches of spaghetti weighs, so we ended up with WAY too much, but it was still only $.60. We also found some jarred tomato substance, we thought to be tomato sauce, ended up paste. We got some of the best looking fresh tomatoes though! The fresh basil was the surprise, either it is a different breed of basil or something. It looks like basil but didn't taste like it. It wasn't the best spaghetti we have ever had by a long shot, but it was decent.

Our mystery dessert this evening was a bomb - it had BBQ flavor in the middle of the vanilla ice cream. Very strange… Oh well, ya win some you lose some.

We can't think of anything we wish we would have brought yet, but the best thing we did bring that we didn't have previously was mp3 music. We "ripped" some of our favorite CD's and then put them on Rob's PDA. It's like a little mobile juke box, it's great, and we don't have to store all the CD's and we can just "shuffle" the music.

Things we like: being able to get fabulous produce and fresh baked bread right down the street everyday; sunshine; being able to sleep in

Things we miss: Kyle, recliners, decent coffee mugs - this is a product of our apartment not Ukraine in general, they have "real" mugs, just not in our place, we are stuck with "tea party" cups.

April 5, 2006

DAY OUT!

We didn't post yesterday, as quite frankly, nothing really happened. Our day started with us running out of hot water, not the way to start the day. V talked to the director of the orphanage, and apparently this whole section of the city is out, and it might be fall before it is up again…nice to hear, thus confirming our decision to leave for the 10 day wait.

Last night we went over to dinner with our friends from Jersey and also met up with a couple from Ireland who are adopting a little boy from Nikolai's groupa. It is great to get together with other families. For those of you who think you have been in this awhile, the couple from Ireland started this process in 2003 - Ugh.

Funny restaurant menu translations for you. There was an appetizer called "cheese cushions" and a salad with "nut coals", we declined to sample either.

Today was a good day other than us having to boil water for a bath this morning. We went to see if we could take Nikolai shoe shopping. The director said we could take him, as long as we had him back by 6pm! Wow the whole day out and about. We bought some new shoes and a few shirts and a NHL Panthers baseball hat, this was his "find" of the day. We went to lunch, but surprisingly he said he didn't want anything to eat. He had his eye on a Fanta, so we let him have that. We have to right it off to being excited as we are in disbelief that he wasn't really hungry.

As we came back to our apartment, which admittedly looks like we are in the ghetto - V told Nikolai this is where we live, he was less than impressed and you could tell he was pretty disappointed as it didn't match the pictures we had shown him and let's not forget we are walking distance from the orphanage. Not exactly where you think your "happily ever after home will be". Live here yes, but only temporarily.

Later we went back to the market, we had wanted to try these fry bread creation things, but you have to tell the lady what you want through a window, and since we didn't even know what they are, we couldn't order them without V. So this afternoon, we went and had some, Nikolai's stomach finally kicked in and he had 2 and then a banana. It was like fry bread, with "meat" and onions. Good "carnival" type food, all it was missing was a stick.

Tonight we take the overnight train to Kiev - we are going to the Embassy tomorrow to fill out some paperwork in advance, so Rob doesn't have to be here for the return. Then with God's grace, we will pick up our much-needed paperwork from the NAC to be able to have court on Friday. Then overnight train back to Khearson Thursday night. If we do have court on Friday, then we'll take the overnight train back to Kiev Friday night. Three nights in a row on a train - now that is a vacation!!

We took a big gamble and changed our return tickets to leave on Saturday. If we don't have court on Friday, then we will have to change them again, that is our gamble. We can't get all the way home on Saturday, but will make it as far as Prague. Apparently all flights out of Amsterdam (KLM hub) for the weekend are oversold, but we will try to beg to see if they will let us fly standby and take our chances. Aside from that, we have real seats on Monday, which puts us back in Minneapolis at 7pm Monday night. Then a 9-hour drive and we will be home, after a nights stay in MN of course.

	Nikolai with his new hat, while we wait for a taxi. Don't tell the director we let him take his coat and stocking cap off in the 60 degree day.
	Nikolai with his fry bread thing.
	So if you are in the wait, remember there are faces like these waiting for you. We know it is hard to keep the paperwork updated. But remember there are children at the other end of all that bureaucracy. This little girl is in the 3 or 4 yr old group at this orphanage.
	View from our apartment - there have been some great looking sunsets over there.
	Cooking toast the camping way. We don't have a toaster, so this is how we make our toast, using our new spatula over the open flame.

April 6, 2006

Last night we rode the overnight train to Kiev and visited the US Embassy to fill out the necessary paperwork because Rob won't be returning after the 10 wait period. While at the embassy, the agent said that Dana's passport was in poor shape and may not be sufficient to get her home. Her passport was showing signs of stress, but after showing it to several people at the embassy, the cover had completely detacted from the pages. We had them put more pages in, so now it looks rough, but is all intact. Hopefully it will work to get us home. We are going to see if we can get a same day passport while we are in MN.

V visited the NAC today and had to wait over an hour to enter the NAC because the director wasn't allowing anyone in. She's such a fun lady. But the wait was worth it because we now have the necessary paperwork for our court hearing, which is tomorrow (Friday) at 2pm. Yahoo! So barring any catastrophy, we will have court tomorrow in Kherson and then head back to Kiev for a 3pm departure to Prague. We will be "stuck" in Prague until Monday because the flights to the US are full. We should be able to have 1 more visit with Nikolai before leaving on the train again.

We should be able to give one more update tomorrow night before we board the train. If not, we'll post an update from Prague (we'll have much more free time there).

April 8, 2006

It's Official!!

Yesterday (Friday) was court, and a stark contrast to our court experience with Kyle. We arrived about 15min early and were immediately called into an office, where the female judge, inspector, prosecutor, the court reporter and someone else were all sitting around a desk – very informal. Within a few seconds, the judge asked us “Do you want to adopt the child?” and “Have you established a relationship with the child?” – end of story, adoption granted have a great day. That was it, 5 min and we were done. We waited outside for the Irish couple and our friends from Jersey to be declared parents and then we all went out to celebrate.

Thursday we went to Kiev and it was a great change of scenery. Just to see the big buildings, traffic, ride the metro again. Our advice to travelers is if you are coming to Kiev, you have to ride the metro, at least for one stop. Nothing will make you appreciate your personal space more. It is really quite comical. Anyway we also found some great pizza in the food court at the underground mall at independence square, then had some overpriced ice cream – great day in the big city.

Our last visit with Nikolai was a bit short, but good, he came running from a long way off when he saw us walking up the road. I am sure it will be hard on him to see the other families still visiting their kids (the other 2 couples are staying here, or at least part of them is). V is going to stay in Kherson for a few days to work on some paperwork, so he will go by and visit him and help him with his English a bit. He catches on remarkably fast, adding new words daily.

It is now Saturday morning here, we are in the Kiev train station killing some time before we go to the airport. Of the past 3 nights that we’ve spent on the train, last night was the worst. We aren’t sure if it was just a clunky car or what, but it was much noisier than the previous rides. It also had a lot more jerks and bounces and at one point Rob almost got sick. We could have just had a bad driver or something, who knows, but the hotel in Prague is sounding pretty good right now. We are here by ourselves today, we told V he didn’t have to ride it 2 more nights just to see us off. We have about 5 hours to kill and are currently trying to decide how adventurous we want to be.

We will for sure be home by Monday, but are hoping to get home on Sunday night. It will be quiet on this site for a while, but please check back here around the 18th to see if there are more updates. Thank you so much for all your prayers and support.

April 17, 2006

Dana and her traveling buddy Jen left today to return to Ukraine to finish the paperwork process and bring Nikolai home.

April 18, 2006

WHEW - we made it to Ukraine without incident, and got to take the overnight train to Kherson. Jen is in total culture shock, but having a fun time.

April 19, 2006

Upon arrival in Kherson, V went straight to work on the paperwork. He first went to get the court decree, where it was discovered the secretary didn't make the changes that he had requested 10 days ago, and made 9 copies of a decree that needed to be redone. Once that was fixed, the judge was not available for signing, so he had to go to her house to have her sign it. Meanwhile we went to the apartment, where, praise God, there was hot water!! We both took a quick shower, and then took a taxi to meet V downtown for paperwork. Our taxi driver took us to the wrong building, so we were using a few cell minutes to try and reconnect with V. That killed some precious time. We then had to go to the orphanage to get some things signed (Side note Rob, I had to forge your name). The director asked us to buy her some coffee, fine. We didn't get to see Nikolai at this point as we were in a hurry, but the director said he has been asking about us. Then off to chase more paperwork. As the day went on, I lost hope that we would get everything done today. At 6pm, I said to V, let's just give up and stay the night, but he was determined. We were not going to be able to make the 830 train, so we bought bus tickets then went to gather our things. V finally got the passport at about 730, and then we went to meet up at the orphanage. The entire section of the city was without power and it felt like a jailbreak. All the kids had gone to bed early due to the power outage. Nikolai was in PJ's and by flashlight we had to change clothes and run back to the apartment to gather our things. Having no power and therefore no elevator is not the time to have an apartment on the 6th floor! UGH made it to the bus about 9 for the 945 departure.

April 20, 2006

We didn't get much sleep on the bus. We got the medical exam done this morning, so that is one more thing off the list. We can't get a visa for the way home for Nikolai, so that will be a problem we need to overcome. The apartment we were supposed to check into at 7am was not available yet, and the landlady kept putting us off, but we hope to check in soon to be able to get another shower and a little nap. All things look good for a Saturday departure and a layover in AMS, still not sure what to do as it appears the Mercure is full and we can't get a Visa for Nikolai.

LATEST UPDATE: We decided to abandon the Netherlands visa idea and try to move our travel dates 1 day earlier. The home team back in the states contacted the Mercure hotel and secured a room (for about 150 euros less than what we found at the Sheraton) and then called NWA and was able to change the flights to leave on Friday. Once again, God has blessed us with a way through what seemed to be an impossible situation. He is awesome. So Dana, Jen, and Nikolai should be home on Saturday!

March 4, 2006

Well the time is certainly flying right on by - I can't believe May is almost over.

The days are starting to "flow" better. We had a bumpy start, but things are definitely getting pretty good. Most of the bumpy start was due to Kyle being mad that mom had been gone for almost a month, so that was understandable. There have been several really fun firsts for Nikolai - him and Kyle pull each other along in different ways. We were at the park and Kyle wanted to go barefoot, Nikolai saw it and decided to follow suit. We are sure that his feet have never seen daylight and as soon as they hit the grass, he had wiser thoughts and put his shoes back on. Kyle on the other hand has decided that he no longer will need a diaper during naptime since his brother doesn't wear diapers, so that is cool.

Nikolai has started school and is doing very well. It helps his language immensely. The other kids in his kindergarten class are very kind and genuinely want to help him along. It was a cool day for "Levi" when he became the first name Nikolai said in English to one of his friends. He really enjoys music. We told him once he learns his alphabet we will get him some piano lessons. School has just been 1/2 days and that seems to work well for everyone. We will be enrolling him in summer school to try and get him ready for the first grade this fall. His language is getting better and better each day and he is starting to talk more. It’s been a bit of a struggle to get him to talk instead of pointing and grunting. It also helps that his brother talks incessantly! He comprehension is very high, which is amazing for only hearing English for a few weeks.

Another great discovery was the water bottle, the kind that squirts. He watched Kyle get water out of it and no matter how far he tipped it up he couldn’t get water out. We showed him how by squirting some in his mouth which he thought was hilarious and promptly consumed most of the bottle, we are sure just for the joy of squirting something in your mouth.

He is starting to lose the wonderful trait (skill?) from the orphanage where every morning he would get up, get dressed and make his bed before coming out of his room. Just this week he decided to venture out in PJ's. He is also starting to get a bit more acclimatized. Kyle of course would never wear a coat unless there is a danger of frostbite. Nikolai sees this, but on most days still wears 2 shirts and a coat before going outside. He has discovered his sandals that we bought against his will and he will wear them with socks and every once in a while without. To his defense, it is South Dakota and hasn't been real warm yet.

The 2 together are developing a great brotherly love/hate relationship. They love to play together and also love to cry foul when they aren't getting their way. Quick story - as seen from the upstairs window - we had a late spring snow storm and there was a drift in the backyard for the boys to play in. Kyle lobbed a snowball in Nikolai's direction and it barely grazed his shoulder. In return Nikolai grabbed a HUGE snowball and tagged Kyle right in the chest. Kyle started to whine as Nikolai scrambled to get all the snow off his little brother, even trying to blow the shirt dry. Finally the crying got to a level that deserved a response so I appeared on the deck to see what the alarm was. Kyle cried foul, to which I asked if he threw a snowball at Nikolai... His response "Ok, mom, we are OK now". and they resumed play as if nothing had happened.

Nikolai isn't near the adventurous eater that Kyle was when he first came home or is now. He even turned his nose at a strawberry milkshake because he was unsure of it. Only when the statement came that if he didn't eat it we all would split it, did he try it and.... what do you know he likes it :) Kyle who is the best eating 3rd yr old a parent could ask for always will tell him to try things and gives him his favorite line he learned from preschool "you get what you get and don't have a fit". When eating he does still consume his food in orphanage style speed, but we are working on trying to assure him there is no rush. As the days progress he is expanding the list of food that he likes and is getting less fussy. It only took a couple of nights of watching Kyle eat his bedtime snack (ice cream) while he had to eat his dinner first.

Sorry we haven’t posted this sooner, but things are a bit busy as we are all making the adjustment.

	Nikolai riding his bike. We ended up buying a smaller bike because Nikolai fell off his bike a few times and then didn't want to ride it anymore. So, when he's ready he'll move to this bigger bike and Kyle will move up to Nikolai's current bike.
	Kyle and Nikolai, two dangerous Ninja fighters. They really do play well together (for the most part!).
	Nikolai's kindergarten class participated in a city-wide track meet. Nikolai ran the 100m and 200m races as well as the 400m relay and long jump. He did well and seemed to enjoy it.
	Pilots in training. This is Nikolai's first time in the airplane. We haven't flown it yet, but they had fun nontheless.