Adopting Anya

"Asherah Poles"!

2009-08-20T06:08:00.002-06:00

Anya has made SOME progress in age appropriate behavior, not a lot. It is a daily battle/discussion to get her to recognize this and be able to incorporate it into her growth patterns. We played a Monopoly game 2 nights ago and her behavior was nothing short of that of a toddler, within hours she was 16 again. I think that, according to her needs (albeit, selfish) at the time, she acts a certain age to advance her agenda. It's a good thing I never do/did that!! It is especially highlighted when you have your own kids around acting, for the most part, age appropriate or, at times, more mature than some stupid adult in the house. I'm in the process of reading through the Bible in a year. This will be the 2nd or 3rd time. Currently I'm about 5 weeks behind ("I just couldn't find the time, blah, blah, blah, wah, wah, wah..!!!), the OT is dripping with references to "Idol Worship" and all the forms that takes. Everything from actual wooden, iron, metal or stone objects or conditions of the heart and attitudes towards the Lord. All throughout I& II Kings and repeated throughout I & II Chronicles there are literally dozens, if not hundreds of references to "Asherah Poles", etc...For years I have struggled with seeing this in other people as well as myself and am being increasingly alarmed at what form our own personal idols take. It's nothing short of discouraging and embarrassing, especially from a personal stand-point. I have a lot to say about this, but right now, 1st day of school and I'm riding my bike to work so I can further destroy my already cartilage free knees. One more thing: I'm going to go under 190lbs. for the 1st time in a year, since Ukraine. I came home from there weighing about 225lbs-way too much "Verinky" and chocolate. That's all I did in that stupid place; walk to eat, eat to walk...also, customers are NOT always right (whoever came up with that is just ignorant to human nature), customers ARE always SELFISH, and I've just about had it with them. They see my uniform as a free pass to complain and subordinate! "Shut up and sign, already!!

ARRGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!

2009-08-18T21:34:00.003-06:00

As mentioned earlier; I've thought about starting a new blog just to say it how it REALLY is! I think I'm going to call it, "HAR DON: The Male Perspective". Although, after getting a water bottle thrown at me a little over an hour a ago after making what, at the time, was the obvious "male" thing to say, I'm not sure Aimee would agree. But I'm right-I'm the King! I have the official Ukrainian Scepter from Kiev to prove it; thanks to our exchange student, Sofiya. Scepter=King............right...............that's right. Maybe some day I'll blog about all the various food items I've had on my head at one point or another. Anya and I had a real, "heart-to-heart" tonight about acting 16 and not 5. She really struggles with that. Orphanage rearing really doesn't allow a child to mature as they should. She's paranoid to make a decision-that'll change. Oh, and Felix: the $969.oo/month award my "ex" received is also, not enough. The family courts are an absolute joke. Judges and Magistrates have almost no ability to exercise common sense, justice, fairness or any other sound judgement, especially in the family courts, and this stems from the same government that wants to run our health care-YIKES! If you really want to feel the "pain" of government involvement, take the frustration and annoyance you experience at the local DMV or other government run entity or program and transfer that to waiting in a doctor's office when you feel like hell or need care right now-some things are so obvious I cannot tolerate people who hide stupid, irrational, self-serving positions or opinions under a glaze of whats best for those less fortunate, like people who won't work because they're too busy making love to their "X-BOX" all day long, etc...I've actually seen my "ex" scare away fire breathing dragons. Anya made the "C" volleyball team at her school. Totally cool. The last time she really played volleyball I think the ball exploded on the concrete play ground at the orphanage in Mariupol, next thing we knew, Russia invaded Georgia and S. Ossettia! :) Could Bill Maher be any more of an idiot? He's exactly the "...mocker.." described throughout Proverbs. By the way; that's a book in the Bible. For those Christians who don't really have a clue that God meant it when He said we should read it every day but, "Ohhhh, I just can't find the time..." (shut the hell up!!!), it's near the middle of the Bible, not far from I & II Opinions and I, II & III Excuses. I deliver packages for "THEE" largest delivery company in the world: for those of you too lazy to use your signal-KNOCK IT OFF! Put the phone down, get the XXXLarge Slurpee out of your face and the stupid dog off your lap and drive like yours or someone else's life depended on it, because it does. And is it just me or should mini-vans come with a life-time supply of Prozac? Later...

Starting back up.

2009-08-17T11:58:00.003-06:00

I'm doing this mostly for me! I have a "saved" post from Super Bowl Sunday that I started and never finished, mostly because once I get going it's hard for me to stop and I get exhausted from typing. But WAAAAYYY too much has happened and continues to happen to not "Blog" about it anymore-not that anyone will read this because as stated: it's mostly for me to put down in writing all the non-sense that goes on in the adoption process and even more that happens when you get home. Our lives really are nothing short of chaos, and with all the relational, political, religious and manipulative horseshi_ that goes on, I can't keep it in any more; it's therapy! Among the adoption of Anya, we've had two foreign exchange students: a 16 year old girl from Germany, Laura who was great and presently, a wonderful 16 year old girl from western Ukraine who Anya is thoroughly enjoying, Sofiya. We've had Eriko, a 16 year old girl from Japan for three weeks and Pauline, a 16 year old girl from France for a month! As stated: CHAOS!!!! Some, like myself, may call it an addiction of hospitality that my lovely wife, Aimee, has. Did I mention Aimee is HOT, HOT, HOT!!! It's like living with a centerfold-I love it! If any one is reading this for the first time, you may be offended or will be in shock that I will write and say some of the things I do. I believe it is the only way to express myself: everyone, especially men, think these thoughts but find, maybe a more delicate way of expressing them. I believe in the, "Truth In Advertising" principal. It may become prudent of me to start my own "Blog" page, so as not to taint the adoption process or publicly humiliate my wife. This will probably happen as I have so many "real" thoughts on marriage, adoption, parenting, manhood (especially manhood and being a christian). The last intense conversation I had with a confrontational non-believer ended with, "...you're f___ing with the wrong christian..."! I rarely, if ever default to that sort of banter, but at the moment it may have been the only discourse this moron understood. One thing about me: I have raging testoserone and love the Lord, sometimes the two blend in a less than desirable outcome. Adoption, whether locally or globally, I believe it is THEE single most relationally exhausting and rewarding activity a christian can become involved in. Nothing is closer to the heart of God because it is exactly what he does for us and has woven his plan through history (which, by the way, is NOT billions, millions or even tens of thousands of years in the making-it is closer to 9-11 thousand, the other numbers are pure scientific crap, laying the foundation for numerous inaccurate, unsupported scientific and philosophical positions). Anya just rammed through the front door after her 1st day of volleyball tryouts. I believe she is trying to make it appear as though she just walked across Siberia, barefoot in the winter-give me a break! People: you want "drama" in your life? Give birth to a teen-age female from Ukraine. Oh, and the wife just started doing day care again. There are two 11 month olds downstairs in high chairs throwing some sort of ravioli all over the place; mostly their hair. Good thing Anya, Sofiya and our 13 year old, Haley are downstairs to clean up. Oh, and there is a 16 year old girl from Germany in our other 16 year old girls bedroom who is going home to Germany after 2 weeks because she hates it here-she leaves later this week, in the meantime, she gets to stay with us because the always lovely Aimee is also a coordinator for exchange students-she placed this one. They have to stay with the coordinator until their flight home. Wow!! There is so much to write about. I told Aimee yesterday that I appreciated her providing me with a constant source of material to poke fun at. Did I mention she's HOT?!!! Did you know that when you do "spell check" on foul language it not only doesn't recognize it, it won't allow you to "add" it to your dictionary-that is really irritating!! Later...

"Snuggle" !$#%$^%&

2009-07-07T15:13:00.000-06:00

Felix-"SILENCE!!! I Keel you!!

It's about time!!!

2009-01-07T20:45:00.007-07:00

At the airport getting Laura

Girls on Christmas morning

I've received numerous requests and "jabs" to post again. It's hard to get started doing this because I have so much to say that once I get started, I really start "ranting and raving" about a myriad of things, like: oh, I don't know, like maybe if I see the always lovely Anya "Storm Troopering" around the house, almost putting her feet through floor, yelling and dramatizing beyond belief, that maybe I'll just have to take a Ukrainian Voodoo doll and completely and totally bludgeon it beyond recognition!! She looked so nice in that going-away party dress back in Mariupol...what a magical moment, now, not so much. Oh, and did I mention that teen-age Ukrainian girls know everything about everything even more than American teen-age girls!!! and there's four of them running around the house. It gets better: we have a lovely 16 year old female German foreign exchange student with us for the next five months, so now, we have potentially, a re-enactment of WWII when it comes to shower time or use of the ONE bathroom for all four of them. This blows...more later. Did I mention that I totally hate the words; "cuddle" and "snuggle"? I almost fell down the stairs tonight from over-load when I was being yelled at in Russian while listening to Laura speaking German on Skype and another one singing opera on the main level. I could literally feel my vertigo failing me, it was only my cat-like reflexes that prevented me from immanent doom. By the way, I have the best friends in the world with the Roge's, Barrett's, Houghtons, Volfs, Stoez's, Weston's, Carlson's, etc. (and others I'm totally offending by not mentioning) right here in town. Last thing: if you've been to Ukraine, rent the movie, "Everything Is Illuminated", it takes place in Ukraine, it's a bit strange, but you'll get a kick out of it. Really, the last thing: my wife is STUNNING-thank you, Lord!! :)

Another update ....

2008-12-23T12:03:00.003-07:00

Jasmine, Aimee, Anya, Luda, Clair & Haley Ice Skating I have not been updating very often. I really figured not very many were interested but I guess I was wrong as I have had several requests for updates. For instance we have some new friends at church Roger and Carol who are still considering adoption from Ukraine and they really want to know what life is like once the kids get home and real life sets in. I know there are also some who want Matt to update, because he is so much more entertaining in his writing than I am, I have put in the request to him, so maybe he will also write soon UPS Christmas season is almost over, Yeah! and he should have more time soon. So for those of you that have asked and want to know here goes: In five days it will be two months since we came home. We are still trying to figure out how to parent a child who has no idea how to be parented in a normal sense of the term. This is not an easy task, most days I am completely worn out by the end of the day. It is not easy for Anya either, one of her favorite phrases is "I'm Tired" this means she is not physically tired, but tired of just trying to live and keep up with her emotions. Her past experience with parents has been so highly dysfunctional that she really has no clue what normal looks like. Everyday normal relationships are just odd to her, she often reacts like a fish out of water and has no idea what to do with herself. She fully expects me to be angry at her for everything and hit her when I am angry. Of course this is not what happens, and it actually makes her uncomfortable for it not to happen. So at times she tries really hard to make me angry, and insists that I am angry and hate her despite repeated reassurances that I am Not angry and do not hate her and indeed do Love her! But "we are making progress", and thanks to this being one of the favorite phrases of our wonderful therapist, Anya now has learned this phrase also. She can at time recognize when she has done something well, and different and she will tell me : "That's Progress". I love it when ever anything positive comes out of her mouth, we are working on changing her general negative attitude to a more positive outlook on life. This is hard for her, she has very low self image and has very little confidence in herself or this concept of family. Saturday we spent the day with her friend Luda who has been so wonderful in helping Anya with this adjustment period and reassuring her that yes, these strange things these strange parents are doing for you is "Normal". Luda is 16 and has been home for over 2 and a half years now, she was adopted from Ukraine also when she was 14. So Anya trusts Luda more than she does Matt or I, because she knows that Luda has been in her shoes and has been successful in learning to live in an American family. So Saturday we picked up Luda and she came along with Anya, Matt, Myself, Jasmine, Haley and Haley's Friend Clair and we spent the day shopping at Flat Irons Mall and Ice Skating at the Promenade in Westminster. Matt did not skate for fear of injuring the ankle again, so he took the photo above from behind the glass, sorry it is kind hard to see from the glare. Anyway Anya has only skated twice, first time was with Luda just before Thanksgiving. Despite the fact that Anya can barely skate, she insists that she can jump in the air and do a little twist, She can NOT! Anya spent more time falling than she did skating. She is determined I will give her that, but not too smart, if you fall and it hurts, Stop doing it! Anyway it was fun and we had a lot of laughs. Anya is full of bruises on the knees, elbows, arms, back. She hit the ice with every part of her body except, Thank God, the head. Anya loves Chinese food, most of all Panda Express Orange Chicken. So we had to eat there when we were at the mall Saturday. I had a funny conversation with Anya on another day when we had gone to Panda Express to get some food. She made this observation, that reminded me of how immature she really is, and again made me so thankful that we did adopt her before she aged out of the system, at times we think she is about 10 years old emotionally. Anyhow it was very busy this night and she says to me" Lots of people like Chinese Food" I replied "yes, it is popular here". Anya replies "Lots of people need work here". "Yes they do", is my response. Anya then tells me "Mom I will work at Panda when I am adult". I had to laugh out loud. And then of course follow this up with the whole conversation about going to high school, going to college, having many more choices in life, bla, bla, bla. She has no idea that working at a fast food chain is not the first choice for people here in America. Anya has so much to learn and so many skills to acquire before she is ready to be able to take care of herself, thank God she is not having to do this and God gave her a family to help her, she would be so vulnerable in the real world. Back to Saturday with Luda. At the end of the evening as we are driving Luda home, there is a very serious and intense conversation taking place in the back seat, in Russian of course. As to which I only understand a few choice phrases, I hear Anya saying over and over " I don't want to" When we arrive at Luda's she asks to speak to me for a minute to tell me something for Anya. Turns out the I don't want to was in response to Luda encouraging her to tell me this herself, but Anya did agree to let Luda speak on her behalf to me. Anya has been crying herself to sleep at night. This I knew, but as to why she never could or would tell. Luda explains that Anya is convinced that she is a difficult child, and that we will not be able to keep her and that she will be placed into a "home" for these difficult children very soon. She has heard of these "homes" from other orphans, and she just knows that is what will happen. You see with all her past losses and abandonment she just has no concept of parents, and family life and love. It is so sad. I of course again assure Anya that this is Not going to happen, and we hug. She cries for a brief moment, then pushes away and tells me, "I fine" "No Mom" "I fine". Time is the only thing that can heal this I am afraid, time and being consistent in our reactions to her. She has to test this, and she does, and it has become the new phase to me over the past few days. "You hate me, I difficult, maybe you mistake in adopting me, I go to home" I have read it takes about two years for kids who have had multiple placements and losses to really adjust. Luda is a shining light of hope for me. She is doing so well, motivated and setting and reaching all of her goals. I am so thankful that Anya has her to turn to someone who not only speaks her language and has similar experiences, but is a teenager herself who shares the same normal teenage girl drama and fears that make up part of Anya's issues. Anya is very immature and when she gets over stimulated and excited, she gets very silly and obnoxious, and at times down right annoying in her mannerisms. Luda is very patient, loving and clam with her. Even in public places like the Mall, she never acts too cool to be Anya's Friend. I really appreciate that, because it is rare for teenagers to be this way. Thank you Barbara for sharing her with us, you have done a great job with her. I am trying to think of what else has happened since I last wrote. There has been so much. I guess English classes at School and Soccer. Anya has been, up until this week attending ESL English and Literature classes at her high school for a few hours a day. She is doing so great. Anya just adores her teacher Mrs. Moody. She loves going to school, and tells me all the kids are very nice to her. She has made a few friends in the English class. She emails with these girls and showed me their pictures on her camera which she took to school with her one day. Most of the kids in her class are from Mexico, and there are two from Cambodia. But Mrs. Moody made her feel very welcomed, she got a Ukrainian flag for the class room, Russian /English dictionaries, and made a poster all about life in Ukraine to display on the wall. We had a meeting with Mrs. Moody and the head of ESL dept Linda last week to get Anya's schedule for January and she showed Anya all around the school where all her new classes will be. Mrs Moody really gets Anya and told her if she ever feels scared or lost during her day that she can come and find her. She also gave Anya a valuable tool, a little notebook to carry with her to the other classes. It has sections labeled Thoughts ,Questions and new words . She explained to Anya that if she is in class and has things she thinks about or is confused or scared about or does not understand to write them in her notebook in Russian or English then to ask her or me for help later. She told her also if she has things to say, but can not say them because the teacher is talking or kids are working and it is time to be quiet, then she also can write them in her notebook. I am so thankful that this teacher is so in touch with her students, and goes out of her way to meet their special needs. Anya does about 90% of her homework by herself, then comes to me when she needs help with the rest of it. I am very proud of her English and how much she is learning already from these classes. Before the break Anya had a test in the English class, and got an 84% after just two weeks of classes. Matt and I told her that was wonderful and that we were very proud of her. Anya choose to focus on the questions that she did wrong, and called herself stupid. Again it is going to take time for her to be OK with herself. We enrolled Anya in Soccer. It is a spring sport at her school, so she will not officially start the practices for the school team until February. For now she goes once per week on Wednesday evenings for two hours to practice/scrimmage games at the school. This is a off season thing that is co-ed and taught by the girls soccer coach. The first night was rough, she told me she hated it and would never go back. But she did go back and many of the girls remembered her name and were very nice to welcome her, this made Anya happy. And the coaches were very encouraging and made it very clear to Anya it is just for fun and not to be afraid to make mistakes. Anya is now over the intimidation of playing with boys and so many new faces. Last week she very proudly showed me her bruised knee and told me she pushed the boy down and got the ball! I knew she had it in her! I am looking forward to January when she starts school full time and February when she will also start daily soccer practices. The more "normal" kids stuff she can do the better. It is hard for Anya to have free time, and to have to figure out what to do with that time on her own. I know I have read over and over in the adoption books about the importance of structure, and believe me it is so true! I really take for granted with my kids being old enough to entertain them selves, and I forget at times Anya has no clue how to do this. I figured out that I literally had to write her a list of things that she can do when she is bored, so she has a reference to consult when she finds herself with time to fill. It is kind of like parenting a toddler again, having to give them ideas and choices or else they are all over the place and into everything they should not be into. So one day I sat down and wrote this list with very basic things such as read a book, ride your bike, Play a video game, practice soccer. It went on and I ended up with about 40 simple things that are normal for girls her age to do when they are bored. and she uses this list often, it may sound very silly to you that have not been in this situation, but she really needed it. It keeps her from pouting, and whining, and wallowing in self pity and attempting to irritate me or her papa to the point where we have to make her stop, so this would give her a reason to be angry. This had become one of her favorite things to do when she would get bored, so she could storm off to her room and be mad, I think because she did not know what else to do. So now when I sense this starting to happen and her going down this path, I can say Anya you seem bored, go look at the list and choose something to do. 8 out of 10 times this works, and she ends up doing something she enjoys rather than making up reasons to argue with me and be mad. All the girls have been very excited about Christmas. Jasmine who's one of hers love language is gift giving, showed Anya the ropes. They have spent lots of time shopping for everyone, and Anya is so excited to give the gifts. Matt and I both have already had a few pre-Christmas gifts because she just could not wait anymore. They made gingerbread men the other night, and this was a first for Anya. She loved it. It was just like watching a small child, all goofy and silly, and messy frosting and sprinkles everywhere. This is what Matt & I refer to as "happy Bubbles" all of our girls have a way of expressing the "happy bubbles" those moments when they forget that they are teenagers, and too cool to have fun doing kids things, and they let the guard down and the "happy bubbles" flow. Taylor's are my favorite, she busts out in a sort of yodeling/opera voice and sings silly tunes while skipping thru the kitchen. Her "happy Bubbles moments are rare lately, because she has gotten way too cool, and at the moments is so cool that she won't even come to visit. We hope that one day she will let go of all her anger and need to grow up so fast and just be a kid before she not a kid anymore, but that is a whole other blog. Trusting God will work it out. As for Anya's "happy Bubbles" We now refer to hers as "Ukrainian Happy Bubbles" because they often do include some Ukrainian words, mixed with English words, and lots of over the top loud laughing at herself. These are the times that we strive for, when Anya feels secure enough to let her guard down allow her self to have fun and be a kid . I can only imagine how little of these times she had when she was really a small child. We are working hard to build up happy memories for her. Anya has not had many good memories from her childhood, in one of our "Anya therapy conversations" ( these are not in therapy, but at home, in front of the computer, with the help of the google translator when needed, when Anya opens up and shares with me parts of her past and who she is for real, these normally include tears from both her and I and a few times of Anya exiting the room to go slam her bedroom, then returning to hug me, and they last for one or two hours, and we both are exhausted afterward) she shared with me that the only happy memory she has of her mother was once when she was 6 mom made her a birthday cake. Other than that she remembers, mom working, sleeping, drinking until she slept, or mom yelling at her, hitting her, or throwing something at her. My goal is to help her in the next few years have more fun, and have stories of fun things she did as a child to share with her own children one day. I think I have rambled on long enough. I am sure we will have many stories to share after the first Christmas with her. I hope all of you have a great time with your families celebrating our saviours birth. One of us will update again after that.

Anya's Christmas wish list

2008-11-29T15:49:00.002-07:00

Sisters: Taylor, Haley, Anya & Jasmine

Anya has been home 1 month as of yesterday. She has grown a lot in the past two weeks. Life with her sisters is one of her favorite things. She get pretty sad for a day or two when it is time for them to leave for their week at their other parents home. We have been very blessed that they all like each other so much, this can often be rare with teenage girls. The picture above was from Jasmine's 15th birthday last Friday. We had dinner at Red Robin, then Matt and I dropped them all off at the movies, along with Jasmine's friend Lauren to see Jasmine's favorite book series that is now a movie, Twilight. This was another first for Anya her first movie and experience away from Mom and Dad. She did great.

Anya had her first sleep over away from home this last week too. She spent the entire day with Luda they went Ice skating and then Anya slept over, it was on Wednesday. So Thursday morning (Thanksgiving) Luda and Anya spent a few hours making us some traditional Ukrainian salads to contribute to our Thanksgiving meal. She was very proud of her cooking when she brought it home Thursday morning she gave it to me and told me "she can cook" with a big smile. I love to hear her say "I can" do anything! It is one of the things we have been working hard on, no more "I can't" but rather "I can" or "I'll try".

Matt and I also made home made verinky, and borscht for Thanksgiving. It was nice to have our traditional American foods, and also to add some Ukrainian dishes to the feast this year. Anya did very well on Thanksgiving meeting lots of new family and trying new foods. I was worried it might be a little overwhelming for her.

Anya has been responding very well to her therapy sessions and is making lots of progress. She is mostly happier, and when she is not she is making use of our "feelings chart" that has different faces and names of the feelings in Russian and English. This hangs in our kitchen and is one of our tools for therapy to help Anya identify her feelings and talk about them before they result in negative actions.

I asked our girls for a Christmas wish list and Anya worked very hard on hers. She had her sisters help make sure that the Google translator was accurate enough that Matt and I would be able to understand her letter to us. I am going to type in her letter below, as it is the biggest proof we have had so far that she is adjusting and a great reassurance and reminder of why we went to such pain staking lengths, invested so much time, and traveled so far from home for so long to complete her adoption. I share this for any of you that are about to embark on this journey, those of you who are in the middle of it, or for those of you that may be just considering the adoption of an older child. I hope this will persuade you, encourage you, and remind you that YES it is WORTH IT!! Anya's letter:

My Favorite parents,

I wanted to inform you of a piece of bad news. I hope you are not angry, but happy.

I am sorry but I have nothing that I want for Christmas. Why?

Because everything that I wanted, I already have and I have you and dad to thank for it. I have no wish for Christmas because my gift for my whole life is you guys, my family.

Three months ago the only thing I wanted was to see you at the orphanage.

And now I can not believe the fact that this Christmas I will be with you!

It's like a fairy tale with a happy end. And 1 year ago you wrote me that we will be together....and now I am with you!

This is the very best Christmas present from the Lord!

And I thank him for that! At this time I am with you and I do not

need all the things from stores or in my room, because I have a family

that loves me and is ready at anytime to come to my rescue. Once I

told my self I would never have parents!

But it seems that I was wrong and that

is good! Because I am happy with you!

so this is my destiny to be with you! I took

the fear when I flew over here because I did not imagine my life here.

And when I was here I learned that i was afraid of something.

Today I have been here for 1 month I think it was a good choice and I am happy.

I had a lot of bad and good thoughts at the same time. but now I realize that was only a thought not reality. The real reality is where we are all together.

You, Dad, Haley, Taylor and Jasmine. A lot of times I wanted to share with you my problems but as soon as I was going to

do that, inside I couldn't. I once talked with my mother, maybe because if this I seriously talked about something to someone about my former life. I don't know why I am not

able to talk to my former mother and so now I seriously disclose my soul to you and dad. Well, that is all!!!

Your Daughter, Anya

I know some of her letter is a bit confusing and lost in translation issues, but the point is she is thankful for her family more than anything else in her whole world. And she is trying to communicate about all her conflicting feelings of loss and change and deep inside she wants to be a real daughter to us, and we are so thankful for that. Adoption of older, unwanted children who feel unworthy of parents and love is the single most important, life changing decision you will ever make. And it is hard, very very hard at times, but Yes it is worth it!

I am posting some more pictures of her last few weeks here, including some from her welcome home party. I regret that I was not able to get a photo of every one of our guest that showed up to welcome Anya, because there were so many of you, over 100. THANK YOU ALL so much for making this such a memorable day for Anya. She truly felt special and loved.

Home just over two weeks now...

2008-11-13T08:50:00.005-07:00

We have been home just over two weeks now and so much has happened. I have wanted to update for some time now but have never found the time or energy to do so. Anya I have decided is very much like a newborn. A 5 foot 6 inch, 135 pound, bilingual new born. She is soo needy! And demanding of all of our attention. Very jealous of the computer time. Today she is at school all day with our daughter Jasmine, who is attending the same High School Anya will attend beginning in January. She is doing what they call a "shadow day" where she follows Jasmine all over thru her day just to observe and become more comfortable with the whole idea of the school. So I am thrilled to have some alone time!! Oh yes and my wonderful husband Matt, started back to work on Monday, so I am truly alone for the first time in 2 months. No more 24/7 Matt!! Not that I don't love him and enjoy my time with him but enough is enough already. Thank you God for healing his ankle!! Back to Anya and the update. She has become increasingly angry and difficult. She is very anxious about school and overwhelmed by the size of the place. She is afraid of all the newness. Her English is pretty good, much better than we expected but she is still afraid that she will not understand her teachers and they will not understand her. All this anxiety came to a head on last Sunday night. We had scheduled a meeting for Tuesday at the school to have her English comprehension tested, and just thinking of that sent her into a big fit. This ended up in her digressing into all Ukrainian/Russian words and screaming at me because I don't understand her. I had to get firm and tell her to go away from me if she was going to keep yelling at me. I told her no Russian, give me a little English and I would listen, or else go away! She did not handle this perceived rejection from me very well, and she stormed off to her room and of course slammed the door. We get the door slams a lot! So I continued on making dinner and a while later Haley went up to tell Anya it was time for dinner and she got yelled at too, sorry Haley! Anya came down to dinner but did not stay long enough to eat. She ended up back in her room after another Russian screaming fit. After about an hour had passed she came down to me again, now in the middle of cleaning up dinner dishes, and she showed me her arm. Anya had taken Scissors and cut about 29 slashes into her self. And she wanted me to react in a panic, I was fairly calm thank you very much. I told her that was a bad choice and if she chooses to hurt herself then I do not want to see and I will not be around it. She was shocked, her plan did not work. Then she tried to convince me it was funny, that did not work. None of this was getting her the reaction she had hoped for, not from me and not from Papa. The rest of the evening I was secretly furious at her but did not let her see it. She then turned to her favorite game of feel sorry for me. The rest of the night she followed me around and repeatedly told me how bad, stupid, and unloved she is but all along she sat very close practically forcing me to touch her. I know she is hurting and trying desperately to communicate her needs. but I refuse to give her that type of negative attention. The next day we started therapy. Anya did some hard work, I am very proud of her making this type of effort. She talked a bit about her abuse from her mom, and the anger she has at her dad for giving her up and at her grandma for dying and leaving her alone with her mother. She gave some specific details about severe abuse that landed her in the hospital, and it was soo hard for me not to cry. Anya gets really upset when I cry, and I do not want these sessions to become about me, but continue to be about her healing and grieving. Our therapist thinks Anya is safe and not truly suicidal but truly angry and hurting which we knew, but it feels good to hear it from the professional. Anya has not cut herself again as far as I know, hopefully that was an isolated incident. We believe she assumed if she acted out enough she would avoid having to go to school. She now knows that can't work. We have decided after having her tested to enroll her in the ESL program and ease her into it a little bit at a time. The staff at her school have been wonderful and understanding of her needs. Anya will do two of the shadow days before Thanksgiving break week, then begin English classes one period a day four days per week. Then we will have two week Christmas break and she will begin a full schedule as a freshman January 5th, that is the beginning of the second semester so it works out nicely. Anya will be taking 2 beginning English classes and one Literacy class designed for kids whom English is not their first language. She will also take what is referred to as PLATO Lab Math. This a program designed to help kids get the basic concepts of math if they have missed it along the way. It is done on the computer which Anya likes, and done at an individual pace. She will take PE everyday to help her by providing movement and a break from sitting all day, besides Anya loves almost all sports. Jasmine will be in PE with her and also in her Art class and lunch period. We have designed it this way so Anya gets some contact with someone familiar thru out her day. Jasmine has been a great sister to Anya, all of the girls have really. They are putting up with a lot of Anya's outbursts, and so much attention going towards Anya, and yet they are still willing to love her, play with her, and help her when ever she wants and needs it. We are so blessed to have such great kids. Thank you Haley, Jasmine and Taylor so much!!! Anya's last class will be Keyboarding, she choose this one because she likes computers, but does not know how to type well. I think it will be fairly easy to understand for her, mostly visual rather than verbal. I am really looking forward to Anya beginning school, it will keep her focused on something other than self pitty and hopefully boost her confidence. Anya has been to the dentist twice now, and returns next Wednesday to fill four more cavities. She did really good the first time just cleaning and x-rays. Yesterday was a long hard appointment, but again her understanding of verbal English was such a blessing, it really helped with her fear level. She had to have 6 cavities done on the right side top and bottom. Two of the cavities were really deep all the way to the nerve ending, but stoped just short of that so she was not having much pain from it. It took about an hour and a half to complete. Anya was tired and sore all the rest of the day, so she watched cartoons and lied on the coach most of the afternoon and evening. It was a nice change to have quiet Anya, but sad she was hurting. Anya will also go to the orthodontist on Wednesday to get a consult about the replacement of her front top tooth, it was knocked out in 2004 as a result of abuse by her mother. The tooth next to it has shifted over into it's slot and we may end up having to extract one that is pretty bad further back to allow room for the teeth to move and a false one to be eventually placed. Matt and I are thrilled about the possibility of having four girls in braces or some type of ortho treatment all at once!! Jasmine is in full braces for about a year now, Haley is scheduled to begin in January, Taylor who had braces in 3-5th grades, yet refused to wear her retainer during 6th grade, now has teeth that have shifted again and is looking at more time in braces. And now Anya, no idea how we will afford this, hoping the orthodontist will take pity and give us at least a small break or discount. Halloween with Anya was very interesting. She did NOT want to dress up or go Trick or Treating, but at one point she and I did wear witch hats while giving out candy. The other girls went Trick or treating with Friends and or were at their other parents for the week, Haley is the only one who stopped by our neighborhood, so I could take a picture. Matt, Anya & I sat on the front porch and roasted hot dogs and brats on the outdoor fireplace while giving out candy. We also roasted the little smoked sausages and put them on toothpicks to give out to the trick or treaters, and the parents who were with them. Anya now thinks this is how it is done, so we have started a tradition that will have to continue. She got very good at saying "Sausage or Candy, or both" oh and "Happy Halloween" all which was done in a scary witch voice followed by some really "scary" phrases in Russian, which normally set the kids running from the yard. Towards the end of the night we added our Ukrainian candy to the bowl, cause we were running low. We had a group of high school kids come by and take this candy, one kid stopped and recognized it as Russian candy. Turns out he and his family are Russians, immigrated here about 15 years ago when he was 3. His name is Anton and he lives here in Longmont. He and Anya spoke for a while in Russian and exchanged phone numbers. We are glad she met a friend but a little worried about him being male and two to three years older than her. We have since ran into the problem of her inviting him over with out our knowledge (because we can;t understand the phone conversations) and he shows up at the worst times and we have to ask him to leave. She has not figured out the concept of asking parents for permission, and family time. This happened one day when Jessica Carlson and Luba(who was adopted from Anya's orphanage last November) showed up to visit and welcome her home. Luba is 9 now. She loves Anya very much. Anya was rather upset after they left because Luba is no longer speaking Russian. Luba has decided she does not want to keep her Russian, Anya very much wants to and is afraid if she learns English and speaks it too much she will forget. Anyway it was very good to see Jessica and Luba and meet the new baby Rylee. She is adorable. (pictures of them are on the picasa site) I found out thru this experience of playing on the floor with Rylee that Anya would not handle me watching babies well at all. I am reassured of my decision to stop doing day care for the babies, was the right thing to do, even though I miss that a lot. Anya was upset with me giving attention to the baby and came down onto the floor with us and laid on my lab and told me SHE was MY baby! and then "no I not baby, but teenager" "Your teenager baby" and I agreed she is just like I said my teenage infant. Anya has talked to Kolya Hickman once on the phone.( he is another boy who came home from her orphanage over the summer, they also live here in Denver) She was happy that Kolya was speaking Russian to her. He has decided I am told to "Keep" his Russian. Wendy says he has a boy his age who is Russian and they get together often to play, I think that is great. Anya got to have lunch with Luda Weaver, Barbara daughter(16 adopted from Ukraine at 14) the first week we were home. This was soo good for her. She really loves the comfort of speaking to friends in her native language. I hope her and Luda become close friends. They live real close to us only about 20 minutes. We also introduced her to Leah, a girl who works at our King Soopers, she has been waiting to meet Anya for over a year. She too was adopted at age 14, she is now 18 but has kept the Russian language. We have had a little time with the Barrett's Johnny and Twyla and their two little ones of course still speak Russian. Anya really likes both Mari and Misha, but Misha is still a little shy of Anya. He won't talk to her much, but hoping that will change as we see them more. We had lunch with other good friends Richard and Cindy Houghton who adopted Adam last August from Ukraine. He is 6. Adam speaks mostly English now, and claims not to remember any Russian. I was told later that when the kids were down stairs playing games away from us parents, that Adam did in fact remember, understand and speak some Russian to Anya. That is very interesting to me. I just wonder what that is all about? And of course Nastiya Fields who came home on Saturday, Yeah!! They have talked once on the phone since then. Brian and Tami Fields were the couple that were in Mariupol with us and we all have become very close, Ukraine has a great way of bonding people. Not only did Matt and I bond with Brian and Tami, but Anya and Nastiya together because they were both going thru the adoption process together and they spent so much time during the Visits together, I hope we remain good friends/family for a very long time.

Anya has two weeks of lots of new people. She has meet and spent some time with most of our extended families which at times is over stimulating for her, and wears her out being introduced to everyone and all the cousins are overwhelming to her at times, but I think it is good to do a little at a time before the holidays hit. So our first two weeks has been a big mixture of good times, bad times, and lots of emotions, but over all it is good. We know it was the right thing to do and Anya is meant to be a part of this family. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but it is worth it and all the reward that is too come in her growing into a successful person will make all these trials seem minor one day.

Got to end now meeting Twyla for lunch to enjoy "my time" away from the ever present Anya. Posted some more pictures of her time home so far. I hope to write again later.

Power Of Attorney, bad info. and Idol worship!!

2008-11-01T08:07:00.004-06:00

October 28th, 2008

The Swiss Alps are amazing from 35,000 feet. They appear as jagged edged, dark ice-bergs in a sea of clouds. It’s a lot for those like me who do not fly much. I can never get enough of sitting in a window seat and just staring out. This time, however, that seat is occupied by Anya who left her country for good about two hours ago. She didn’t cry, didn’t talk much; it was rather solemn. I can only wonder what that must feel like. When I left for Ukraine five weeks ago, I knew I had to endure the loss of language for a short period of time. Anya is now faced with the anxiety and loss permanently. She said goodbye to Sergei this morning about 7AM, our driver for most of our stay in Kiev; he was awesome. He NEVER stops talking, knows the city’s history, is proud of Ukraine, and is nothing short of professional. He will forever be the last person from her home country whom she would speak with her native tongue before she boarded the flight to take her to her new home. When we lifted off she left her resident soil. I think it caused me more sadness than her as it is doing so as I write this. I can only hope that I do not dismiss that loss and provide the support and empathy she will need to transition; we’ll see. We got to spend our last day in Kiev going to the US Embassy again. We were told early on that Anya was party to civil action involving her mother. Her mother “illegally” sold an apartment/flat that was Anya’s property as well. The orphanage has to have “Power Of Attorney” to represent her now that she can no longer personally attend the hearings, which she has been doing. We composed and signed the necessary paperwork last Monday in Mariupol for the Ukraine Social Services to allow the orphanage this power (it is overseen and approved by them). Monday we were informed that the court hearing had been set for next week! We were told this would not occur for quite some time and would have time once in the states to compose this letter, have it reviewed and submit it at a later date. In typical Ukrainian fashion, everything changed last minute and they had to have it before we left the country-thanks for that! 9AM; US Embassy for an hour having them help us compose and submit the “Power Of Attorney” and get notarized there. Then off to the Ukraine Ministry Of Foreign Affairs for two hours of fun and games. At this point in the process I’ve had it up to my eye-balls with Ukraine lines and the non-stop pushing to the front mentality. I make myself as big as possible and dig-in!! No one is getting in front of me. I was immovable, made it obvious and didn’t mind responding in broken Russian, fluent English. They are actually irritated that I was ahead of them and I won’t let them by-too bad! This loss of patience manifested itself Sunday night in a taxi ride home from St. Michaels. Earlier, the ride to this area (around Independence Square) cost me $6.00USD (three times the cost of similar rides in Mariupol). This moron tried to charge me $15.00! Doesn’t sound like much, I know, but I’ve had it! A rapid fire exchange in Russian/English developed and fast. I gave him $10.00 (more like wadded it up and threw it in his lap), told him a few things, as only one can when not from the country AND, the frosting on the cake….SLAMMED THE DOOR! Remember, they hate that! While we were still at this office, the, “…language superiority” subordinating reared its ugly head in a manner that finally had me turning to Anya and making it very clear she was waiting outside. She was stunned that I actually thought that, as an adult who didn’t speak the language, I felt as though I could manage this without her snotty sneers, document snatching and loud, obnoxious comments. She wheeled around as if to say, “You poor, inept, bumbling, language-challenged, idiot; you will come running for me to save you”. Nope! 10 minutes later I had composed all the right paperwork, in Russian, had it paid for and submitted, receipt in hand and walking out the door. Dad (at this point) =76; 15 year old Ukrainian female=0! We then spent the next four hours going to THEE biggest monastery, “The Kyiv-Pechorek Historical Preserve” and the Military monuments that are about one kilometer away. If you go nowhere else in Kyiv, go to these two places first; they are absolutely incredible. St. Michaels, St. Sophia’s and St. Andrews would be next on my list. The military monument is very moving and full of every type of weaponry imaginable.

We went back to the Ministry Of Foreign Affairs where, once again, I make my stand in the “line” to pick up the equivalent of an apostiled document. 45 minutes later I’m out. It would turn out to be the last prolonged wait in a line for this process.

November 1st, 2008

Although I had the above paragraphs composed on our flight over France last Tuesday, they are a part of this post for good reason. As I drew near to the end of the last paragraph, I paused for a moment and, for whatever reason it hit me that Aimee and I had completely misinformed those who wanted or needed to know of our actual return date! All the flight information was correct-we had simply failed to remember we gain nine hours! We are about ½ way across France. I turned to Aimee to inform her. In that moment, I knew that I was about to start a wave of panic that held the potential of reaching monumental status in our history of “panic-stricken” moments (and we have had more in 6 years of marriage than most people have in a life-time!!). It came out, though; “We told everyone the wrong date”. With the ticket as a visual, I thoughtfully, lovingly, quietly and correctly explained. Aimee has, without doubt, the most amazingly large, beautiful, almond shaped eyes I have ever personally seen-they got bigger, and I watched the realization of my insight become reality!

PANIC! We discussed what to do-and by that, I actually mean; Aimee decided what to do (some things are just better left as a “one-way” conversation). We would simply give as much notice possible via the “in-flight” phone. Who cares that it’s $11.00/minute, right? We would simply call two or three people who we knew could relay the information for us. We spent nearly 20 minutes trying to use the phone with no success. We asked the stewardess; she has no answers but will ask the captain, however, he’s busy announcing over the intercom that there is a medical emergency and if there is a medical professional on board, their assistance is required. Shamefully, my first thought; I have a call to make! It was actually my first, second and third thought (we ALL tend to be self-serving). Don’t give me any of that, “Oh, how could you?”, or, “I would never have had those thoughts-my first thought would have been for the person in distress!”-Shut up already! Human nature is exactly what it is-nature. We don’t “naturally” have the right thoughts immediately, or, perhaps, ever! We may eventually get there. By “eventually”, I mean; it can happen within seconds or even years. Were our thoughts immediately “righteous” and/or “pure”-we would have no need for a savior; we would be so unto ourselves. If you’re wondering about my statements, are disturbed by them or have never even pondered this, try actually reading what the Apostle Paul said about “human nature” in the book of Romans. I am by no stretch of the imagination a theologian or pretend to know things in detail or great depth, but I do actually read my bible and never cease to be amazed at those who prescribe to “Christianity” and couldn’t even begin to articulate one intelligent thought about this, or other subjects and would be humiliated if asked when it was the last time they opened up God’s Word and familiarized themselves with it. We have many more important things that occupy our minds and time.

Has anyone else noticed that we have entire cable channels devoted to the complete understanding, breakdown and analysis of NFL Football games, college football games, MLB games, NBA games, how to build motorcycles, home improvement, cooking, golf(which I hate the most and I like golfing!), history, music, and even entertainment TV that reports and breaks down entertainment events-it’s obscene!!!!!!!!!! This list goes on and on. Can you imagine a group of pastors or bible scholars with an ESPN type format? Picture, if you will, the shows that have segments where former NFL greats, now “analysts”, get on a miniature football field (in suits) and proceed to walk through the elements of a developing “football play”. I actually get embarrassed for these guys. In ridiculous, slow motion fashion, they play touch football for a few seconds, talking to each other and informing us. What's worse is that there are in fact, people out there who watch this stuff. Now, if you will, we have our ministerial team doing the same thing; only they get to act out things like; “The Fall of Satan”, The Creation”, play-by-play analysis of, “The Original Sin”…the list is endless! Who wouldn’t want to watch these guys, on a miniature set, build the ark, analyze the Pentecost, break down the altercation between Samson and Delilah, the talking donkey, and the Book Of Revelation-are you kidding me? Instead of “Monday Night Football”, we would have “Monday Night Plan Of Redemption”. My point (and this may be my #1 pet-peeve): I believe that our culture has strayed so incredibly far and has become so clever at “self-justification”, that our “Idol worship” has morphed into a form that is so subtle and so indiscriminate that we don’t have a clue that it rises to the same level as the blatant idol worship of the bible. I could go on and on about this, but this is an adoption blog, right?

We used a BlackBerry from a gentleman sitting across the aisle from us to compose an E-mail to those we could. He had overheard out plight and became involved. I don’t fly much, but there seems to be a lot of “overhearing” of things on airplanes. We sent this message as soon as we landed in Chicago. Aimee was able to compose a text-message and sent it out at the same time as well as making calls, but, of course, the phone’s battery was almost gone as was my laptop’s battery. We landed nearly 30 minutes early. Great!!! Wrong! The aforementioned medical emergency ended with an 80 year old woman passing away about 200 miles west of London. Because she was from Michigan, they kept flying. They made us sit on the plane while they tended to this issue. Here again, I have to tell you my first thought: let us off the plane first! Remember in Romans when Paul really hammers it home, “…that which I don’t want to do, I keep doing!”-that’s me! We needed that extra time to navigate through US Immigration, US Customs, recheck our baggage, get on the train shuttle all the way from terminal 5 to terminal 1, run through the concourse to the gate to attempt to get Anya on our flight. We made it by five minutes and were able to do so-no thanks to Swiss Air. Don’t they know I have a plane to catch? Aimee and Anya were able to persuade a couple people to change seats and sit together, I was relegated to aisle 43, seat E! That’s right, folks, the center seat in the center aisle! I think the Lord reached down and physically shut my eye lids so I would survive. I don’t recall the take off and woke when I felt the jarring of the wheels hit the runway at DIA. I had no idea they could fit that many people on an airline.

I’m going to post this now as my new 15 year old just came down the stairs like a herd of buffaloes and informed me that we need to go on another bike ride like yesterdays-it was 6 miles and 30 minutes of quality time for us. It’s 8:00AM and I’ve been up since 3:30AM. Former orphans DO NOT let you forget how important they are to you and demand your time, relentlessly. Do not take such a decision lightly-it will change/improve your life dramatically because you don’t have time to be self-absorbed; and I like being self-absorbed! There will be more, like: Halloween last night (handing out smoked sausages from our outdoor fireplace), the arrival at DIA, Anya seeing her room for the first time, roof repair, her sisters, bowling, and, my favorite subject: AIMEE!!!

Home!

2008-10-29T00:58:00.001-06:00

We're home. We're exhausted. More later.

Garrett's ARRIVE TONIGHT 10-28-08

2008-10-28T16:10:00.002-06:00

To all! We totally messed up!!!!! We forgot about the time change. We gain 9 hours! We arrive tonight, the 28th @ 811PM Anya arrives @ 930PM, same flight information. Please call or E-mail anyone you know who planned on coming. I realized what we had done about 1/2 way across France. Tried calling but the on-flight phone is not working and will not be available for remainder of flight. I'm composing this @ 200PM, our time-approximately 8AM Colorado time. We will send this E-mail to those we have E-mail addresses for and those who wanted to be there-we don't have access to all those e-mail addresses. If you know any of these people and how to get hold of them, PLEASE do so!!! As soon as we land in Chicago this E-mail will send. Aimee is also sending out a "mass" text-message to those we have cell #'s for. We will also place as many calls as possible while in Chicago while trying to make it through Customs and Immigration. Cannot believe we did this-yes, I can! We are borrowing a BlackBerry from a nice gentleman seated across the aisle because, if you recall-I lost mine! Oh, and an 80 year old woman from Michigan died 10 minutes into the flight! SORRY! Matt and Aimee From 300 miles west of England

"Planes, Trains and Automobiles",coffee mugs and apparel ammo!

2008-10-25T22:21:00.006-06:00

There's a scene in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" that, although highly inappropriate, rings true for, I believe, all of us at some point. Steve Martin is standing at the rental car counter and lets the customer service rep. have it (several times) with, what I believe is the only word that really works sometimes. Before you go casting self-righteous daggers in my direction, let me qualify by saying that this word RARELY makes it out of mouth. For those of you can't help but gasp, I'd submit you're either disingenuous or disengaged-either way, relax!! We all have the same Saviour. And what is it with Steve Martin: "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", "Parenthood" (my favorite), "Father Of The Bride"...

What does this have to do with this "blog"? For those who are here or have been here-you know! For those who are coming or are digesting whether to come-you will know! To be sure, Aimee and I have had it good while here, save a few events (like yesterdays moronic taxi driver who took us to the wrong address then charged us $10.00USD for a $2.00USD ride). Aimee reminded me yesterday that I shouldn't be so negative. I agree-to a point(she always has good input). It's not that things have been "bad", they've been outside of the world that I've learned to navigate, outside my "comfort zone". However, we are going home with our new 15 year old on Tuesday. She's healthy. She's animated(oh, my God, is she animated!) She demonstrates remarkable empathy and forgiveness (like when "papa" refuses to leave St. Andrews and return home in the same direction so as not to get lost...........but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I take us in the exact opposite direction for an hour long "lost-fest" ending with the taxi ride home with the above mentioned). She tried to tell me, I didn't listen, frustrated her, cost me more than I should have paid and she still likes me. She adores her new "mama". She's got beautiful eyes, actually wears things we buy her (unlike other teenagers in our lives-love you guys!) and makes her bed every morning without a single, "Ya nye kochu!!" This is the phrase of choice for many things. If you hear it, look out! If I'm hearing and relating it correct, it means, "I don't want to!". I've learned to respond with, "Ochen zhal!"-"Too Bad!" As one of our commenter's mentioned; while they are still here, they love to exercise their "language superiority..." over you-subordinating you to their desires. I'm OK with this because in two days we will be surrounded by English and it will be at this point that all the frustrations, anxieties and experiences related to the language barrier will pay off as I will completely empathize with her frustration, not dismissing it, until she assimilates. Without this knowledge and personalization, I have no doubt I would have told her, "Ochen zhal". Now, I will know to provide comfort and support. While she will express her points, rather loudly, at the end she respects and complies with most everything.

Back to "that word". There have been moments here that it almost made an appearance. The policies and procedures that we think can be relied on don't happen here. The orphanage changed the visitation policy daily, if not more. Sometimes red-lights mattered, sometimes they didn't. There are moments with our Ukrainian Princess where all is as I envisioned it. At times I wonder what we've done exposing ourselves to this process as well as other family members. Oddly, I have no regrets whatsoever. In fact, I wish I had one or two more just to make it more fun as Aimee and I thrive on this type of activity. We have learned that the more we become involved with situations like this, the faster the days go and the less we spend worrying about ourselves. You become a participant in events and a life that slowly erodes selfishness and the "me-isms" that our culture worships. I compare it to sending a coin on a rolling path downward in a funnel: the deeper it goes towards its goal, the more it speeds up and stays on path to the bottom-focused, determined and no where else to go because it's committed and at the mercy of its destination AND it can't end up anywhere else. It has "promise" so to speak, of ending up where it was pointed. Strange analogy, I know. Perhaps there are some who look at it more like a toilet flushing-too bad for you. I have often wondered how people survived serving others, especially when that service was barely, if at all, recognized. The older I get the more clear this becomes. What is time on earth compared to eternity? Do the right things!! I don't pretend for a moment to be righteous. I don't always do the right things, in fact, I'm amazed at how far I can stray in thought and action. Those who follow adoption blogs and do things that really matter are after the heart of God. If I recall correctly, King David was, "...a man after God's own heart."; it doesn't say he found it! The Lord knows our efforts and knows we're not our own saviour.

Enough of the positives...men, if you're wife disappears in a public place after leaving for the bathroom, make an appearance on her behalf. Being stuck in a McDonald's bathroom will undermine her ability to go to the bathroom alone from there on out. All those years poking fun at women for going to the bathroom together will now undermine your manhood as you become the new "bathroom buddy". Try telling her "no" when she requests that you accompany her. Worse, try not feeling stupid when you're standing outside the women's bathroom door in Ukraine. It gets better: rent a flat on the same day where the bathroom door(you guessed it) can't be opened except for providing a butter knife that separates the door from the frame just enough to open-no anxiety for her there! You have to understand my wife; this girl is 100%, class grade AAA, pink wearing, dolled up, big-beautiful almond shaped eyes, over-reacting, trust issued, fantasy driven, mam-bear mentality, "I like it the way I like it" living, temperature intolerant (2 degrees either side of 72 degrees requires wardrobe change), "...don't walk on that floor I just mopped it!" touting, come kill this microscopic spider screaming, relentless hand washing, passenger-side pull down mirror blocking my safe line of sight using, freezing cold anatomy in the heat of summer, can't pull in or out of the garage without knocking off $300 mirrors driving, 7 pairs of shoes to Ukraine wearing, suitcase that doubles as an SUV bringing, chap stick wearing, Febrezing everything using, angelic smile flashing, American woman. My wife expects nothing less of me than to provide for her complete care and comfort. It's a huge motivator for me because I need goals and an adventure-although I'm really not one, she provides me with never-ending opportunities to be her "hero". Keeps me in tune with her. There is, in my opinion, a biblical basis for some of this: I believe men are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Their was no subordinating, there was service. There were no harsh demands and/or expectations, there were gentle words and empathy. I cannot begin to claim these virtues as my own, quite the contrary (those who know me well or even those reading my words know this)but I try. King David, Samson, Moses, Peter were all "contrary".

Back to adoption blogging: I discovered the most difficult thing for us was the securing of usable, reasonable return tickets to actually get home. When I first booked our tickets back in mid-September, I guessed October 31st. Had to change them. Because of the "unknown", you can't secure these tickets until you know for sure that you're Embassy appointment will end with your visa in hand. By then, you're faced with flight availability and costs that can be frustrating. Back in the states, you rely on "guarantees" and reservations. That does not work in this process. All it takes is one thing and you're best made plans can sink. The worst part is that your best bet is to purchase a round trip ticket for your child/children knowing you will never use one leg of the trip. The airlines actually are shrewd here, they offer the tickets in this manner knowing that they will, many times, get paid for seats not used, then resell them. No wonder they're going out of business-it's not "9/11" and the cost of a barrel of oil, it's bad business practices on a grander, yet more subtle scale that is fostering a frustration among the paying public. Book your flights as soon as possible after your sure of your embassy appointment date.

Yesterday we walked to St. Andrews. All I can say is, "Awesome". There is a street that runs up to St. Andrews that is lined with booths of all kinds called Desyattyann St. It is completely tourist oriented and they sell almost anything you could want for taking back as gifts or for your own memories. The best thing to do is to start at one end and walk all the way up or down. Make mental notes of things you liked but do not buy them the first time through. Buy all the stuff the 2nd time through as you will find duplicate items at different prices, or at least similar items that you may like better than the first one you see. By the time we were done, we had small bags of items which I had the pleasure of carrying all day. We did allow Anya to buy quite a few things that were not to expensive. She's very proud of Ukraine and wanted lots of items, like a Ukrainian flag that will cover an entire wall of her bedroom. When I first declined, she whirled around and stated, "I like..it is my country...I'm leaving", I held out until she said, as only a Ukrainian teen age girl can, "PaPaaaa"! Wait 'til you hear that, guys!!! It was after we left the huge museum adjacent to St. Andrews that I lost my bearings. Go to the museum.

We also took Anya to the front gates of the SDA, where the process really began. It was a little surreal. Last time we were at that gate we were hoping and praying that the picture shown us was hers for the referral, now, we're thinking about suing...not really! Geez, relax! If you're one of those that knows you initially became unnerved by that, you need to relax. This is a very serious, life-changing process, at the same time you'll spontaneously explode if you can't approach it with humor. It may be a poor coping skill, but it works for me.

No cities, anywhere should be configured with converging streets anchored in large circles! I drive for UPS and I thrive on knowing where I'm going. Very frustrating to admit I literally went the opposite direction. When you see "Independence Square" on your way home and you live 2 miles from there and you didn't see it going to St. Andrews, that's a problem.

We've also discovered that in Kiev, you can eat out as cheap, if not cheaper, than you can buying groceries and cooking in your flat and you know what you're getting and your child can't pretend to be ordering what you pointed at and in reality ordering exactly what she wants. We approach being served our meals more as, "What is this? That's not what I pointed at!"-followed by, you guessed it, "...no speak English.."! Ya, right! Also, everything seems to be baked or fried inside some kind of cabbage or wrap of some sort. Be adventurous when biting into things. There's always some kind of cheese, meat, potato, veggie or God knows what else inside; as if not being able to read it wasn't a surprise enough.

I'd like to mention our cab ride while in Donetsk. We arrived in Donetsk at approximately 5:15PM on Tuesday. Nadiya hooked us up with a friend who had a car and knew the city well. What that really meant was that he knew how to be a complete maniac in order to get us where we needed to be. Had this not happened, Nadiya was going to have to stay in Donetsk overnight. We would have had to abandon the train ticket for her and buy a brand new one and pay for a place for her to stay. This guy sped around Donetsk using his car with the same recklessness as a cowboy would use his gun in the old west. At one point he ran his car balanced on rail road tracks (not rail car tracks-train tracks!) for about 50 yards. We got done in one hour what we were told would take all afternoon once in Donetsk. We made the train by 15 minutes.

After much debate, my wife and I have determined that the #1 thing we wished we had brought with us were our "travel-coffee mugs". They do not believe in any sort of take out or travel anything, here. If you're one for coffee and lots of it, bring one-they are no where to be found here. We resorted to saving a McDonald's coffee cup that came with a lid. This is the same cup that just collapsed from usage about 20 minutes ago and spilled all over the only pair of jeans Aimee could wear as well as the only sweater she wanted to wear-remember "that word"? Uh-huh!! It's little things like that that are now causing stress, and lots of it. This place and being out of control of most of what we do is really starting to take it's toll. We've both had it. Small amounts of miscommunication can lead to disasters, you can imagine what that does to things when it is almost non-existent. Like when I'm completely right and the lovely Aimee is wrong and the only way to communicate that is to lovingly shove her off the bed onto the floor, away from the computer (the bed is actually a low couch about 10 inches off the floor-it's not domestic violence unless it's higher than 12 inches above floor level, or until she reads this blog later and I'm never heard from or seen again). Remember that part about, "...being her hero..."? Not sure that's how she'd phrase it right now. And from a mathematical point of view: 7 pairs of shoes=14 rounds of ammunition. I choose to see myself as a war correspondent faithfully relating the events while under fire. Perhaps I now qualify for the G.I. bill and all the benefits thereof...

Our one remaining concern is getting Anya from Chicago to Denver on the last leg of the flight home. I'm not real concerned about this. Once US Immigration gets a dose of our Anya, they will slam her through the process and get her out as fast as possible and on her way. I can only imagine that watching each person come out of the walk-way from the plane at the terminal will be tense, although I also imagine we'll hear her 1/2 way across Iowa somewhere in an all to familiar tune...."Ya nye kachu"!

Off for more sight-seeing. Lots of pictures of the museum, we'll caption later.

Update from Kiev

2008-10-24T11:25:00.004-06:00

Anya in her "Traveling Suit" on the train Today is Friday we are in Kiev. Papa and Anya are watching "Polar Express" and and eating Pringles, I have a few minutes to myself, this has become increasingly rare since Anya is now with us always. I feel like I have been on a non-stop emotional roller coaster since about Sunday before we left Mariupol. I am hoping that by writing some, it will allow me to recover and get back on track. Please forgive me if my thoughts are a little hard to follow, I am sure those of you who have been thru this process understand how it gets at the end of the trip. Sunday we went with Anya to visit her Grandmother's grave. This was one of the hardest things for me to observe since we arrived. We picked her up about 10:00am and first stopped to buy flowers to place on the graves. Both of her grandparents and a cousin where buried there, so she bought three sets of flowers. As most of you know already Anya was very close to her grandmother, who was the one person in her life that cared for her consistently and protected her from her mother's fits of rage. It was very sad to watch her grieve and say goodbye again. She cried in my arms and I felt very inadequate with the language barrier to comfort her. All I could do was hold her tight and let her cry. Monday was Anya's going away party at the orphanage this too ended up being a very sad emotional day for her. I came into this knowing that this child has experienced lots of trauma and loss, and that she will be grieving the loss of her identity and culture as we leave Ukraine, but I never fully expected it to be so difficult for me personally to see her in this type of pain and experience all of this first hand. The party itself was very organized and several of the children did dances and two of them sang songs. They are many talented kids in Anya's group. Anya wore a beautiful formal gown and she and an older boy did a nice ballroom type dance for us. Anya was OK during this portion but after she was done dancing and sitting next to me, the tears began to fall and did not stop for over an hour. After all the singing, dancing, and speeches were made and we were passing out fruit,Nastiya (Matthews) was hugging me and Ludmilla asked Nadiya to tell me that this was her last day here. She told me that tomorrow she would go with her mother. After the party Nastiya tried to talk to me more about this, she told me with her facial expressions and limited English words that she was sad for Mama & Papa meaning Dan & Joyce. I tried the best I could to let her know it was going to be Ok and Mama & Papa would be OK too. I told her to do the best she could and that her Mother was trying to love her and do the right thing, not sure she understood. I will miss her, she is such a sweet girl, always so happy each day we saw her at the orphanage. Also after the party ended we had some pictures to give to Lyena that we had printed to leave with her. When we found her upstairs it became apparent that she had been avoiding Anya and us in order to not deal with her own sadness and loss. When we gave her the photos she and Anya hugged and Lyena broke down. Her and Matt were saying goodbye, and both of them were crying. I would find out later from Matt the details of this conversation. He had told her it was going to be OK and that we would come to visit her in Indiana once she was home with Masha and the Niles family, and she kept saying Maybe Indiana, maybe Not, Maybe Christine and Mark maybe Not. She had fallen back into the insecure thinking that they may not come to adopt her. Matt assured her they would, and if they did not then we will. He also made sure she understood that we along with Anya would call her and write to her often. We will all miss Lyena very much, she will always hold a special place in my heart. Tuesday we arrived at the orphanage about 9:30 to pick up Anya for the last time. We had too wait for a while because Nadiya was still at the court house trying to pick up the court decree. During this waiting time we were given a tour of the rest of the orphanage and were taken to see the infants, toddlers and preschool age children. I would guess about 75 % of the kids in this orphanage fall into this under 4 category. This too would impact me in a way I never expected. We began in the room with infants under one year old. There were many cribs with 2-5 babies in them. We took lots of pictures and posted some for all to see. All the caregivers seemed to love the babies and take care of them well, they were holding some of them and feeding others. But you could still tell the little ones were craving attention. Their little faces just lit up as soon as you touched them. One little boy held my fingers so tightly and so long that a care giver had to eventually come over and pry his hands of of me, it was so sad. I wanted to take them all home with me of course. Next we would go to a room for older babies who are already walking from about 12 months-24 months. Their were 12 smaller cribs in here, each with only one baby and all of them were sound a sleep. So we did not take photos of them or stay long we did not want to wake them up. After this we went to the room for toddlers all of these kids were between 2-3 years old. They were just sitting down for a snack when we arrived. So the caregivers interrupted this and turned on the music and tried to get them to sing and dance for us. Some of them did do their little dances for us. It was very cute. We took some videos of them. There was one little boy who was very afraid of us and he was crying and clinging to his care givers, so we did not stay long in there either. Last we went to the preschool age kids 3 & 4 year olds. I posted some photos of us with this group. The one little girl in this group reminded me a bit of Liliya. I was immediately her mama, and she would not let go of me. The care giver had to pull her away from me and tell her I was Anya's mama not hers. This was also hard, so many of these kids need good families, and knowing we can only do so much and we can not ever fill all of the needs for those we will leave behind. Nadiya was still waiting for the court decree when we finished the tour, this was now after 10:30 so we decided to have the driver to take us and Anya to get something to eat while we waited. I am certain what the hold up at the court was all about but Nadiya was originally supposed to pick up the decree at 9am and this did not end up happening until almost 1pm. Then we went thru the same type of hurry up and wait process to get her birth certificate too. We spent too many hours sitting in a small taxi with too many bags waiting and wondering when we would move again. What was supposed to be one quick stop at one office ended up being four long stops at three different offices in which we would take one piece of paper from each place to the other to get either a signature or a stamp from someone. It was a difficult way to spend the afternoon to say the least. I would suggest to any of you families who are yet to travel, ask your facilitators to leave you in your apartment until this final signature is done and you are ready to travel to the regions capital for your passport! Or else bring lots of snacks, drinks, books to read and lots of patience! In our case the region capital was Donetsk, which is about 1 and a half hour drive for us from Mariupol. The office where we would pick up the passport was due to close at 5:00pm. By the time we were done securing the birth certificate and beginning our drive to Donetsk it was 4:30. Only because Nadiya knows people who work in this office was she able to call ahead and ask them to please wait for us. We asked our taxi driver to drive as fast as he could, and he did! We arrived in about 50 minutes. And at this point the driver would drop off Matt and Nadiya at the edge of the city to meet Nadiya's friend who lives in Donetsk, and because he knows the area better he would drive them to get the passport. Anya and I would go with the original driver to the train station and wait again. Not sure how it was done exactly or why it took so long, but thanks be to God we got the passport and made our train to Kiev. The train ride was very nice again, and we are thankful for that. We ordered dinner on the train and it was expensive but very good. Anya and Nadiya shared a compartment and Matt and I had the one next to them. I was very happy to see Anya had put on her little "traveling suit" I bought for her. I wanted her to have something comfortable to wear, and she was not thrilled about it when I gave it to her a few weeks back, but she wore it and it fit and this for some strange reason made me very happy. She behaved fairly well on the train too, we were worried because her moods had been so up and down the last few days, but she seemed happy. She was a little hyper and loud but happy. I felt a little worried for Nadiya having to bunk with her all night, and assured her she could send Anya over if she was too obnoxious, I felt a little guilty too like she was taking care of our kid for us and we should have her with us. Anya would come into our compartment from time to time to "check in", then go back to hers. Nadiya reported later that is was fun like being a teenager again having a slumber party. She also thought this was good for Anya to have this time with her. she said Anya and her talked a lot about what to expect the next few days and some of her fears about coming to America, and many of her emotions about leaving Mariupol. This was helpful for me and took the guilt I was feeling away. We were met at the train station on Wednesday morning by Sergei our driver. We would go directly to the medical center to get Anya's exam done for the visa. This too was a long time sitting and waiting we arrived at 7:40 and were not finished until about 10:30. The only thing that bothered me about this appointment was that we were given no choice about getting Anya's vaccinations. Apparently she was missing two of them, and if the child is over 10 years of age they will not allow you to wait until they are in US to get the shots required. I was nervous about quality of Ukraine's vaccines, but we were told if we refused her Visa would not be granted, so we signed and Anya got the shots. We would then go to the Embassy to get visa application forms and schedule our appointment for Thursday. We had no issues at the Embassy it went fairly smoothly. It took a little longer than some families just because of Anya's age and this requiring fingerprints and background check for her. But we had a nice lady who helped us out by doing Anya's fingerprints at the same time when we picked up forms which she did not "have"to do until the next day, and she also did all of he data entry when she was supposed to be on her break for lunch already, and this assured us that Anya's background check would be back the next day and we could finish up the process by 2PM on Thursday. It is so nice when you get a helpful person on the other end of things, it can make all the difference. We had a little time before we had to go back at 3:00 and pick up our medical results for the Embassy so we would try to go to work on getting our plane tickets home. (We had been told by Valentin to wait and not purchase our tickets until we were sure about time frame from Embassy on Anya's visa because sometimes with older children these background checks can take a few extra days)Matt wrote about this some already so I won't go into detail, but it was not working well at this point and we were not going home any time soon and we were going pay a lot more than we wanted to. So we decided we would hold off and try contacting Orbits or United directly from the apartment later on when we had access to the Internet. So all of us are starving by this time and we decide to go to McDonald's. Mariupol does not have McDonald's and we have been looking forward to it for several days now. We ate our food and it was really good, then I made a very embarrassing mistake this day when I decided I needed to use the bathroom( which I now will not do in public places until we are out of Ukraine) I went into the restroom and a lady in there said something to me in Ukrainian, and motioned towards the one toilet stall, of course I did not understand her and assumed she was telling me the toilet was open. So I went in locked the door and did my thing them tried to unlock and open the door, and it is stuck! I try turning this thing every way, pushing, pulling, pressing up, down, nothing works it just keeps clicking. ( I think now that the lady was telling me it was broken, not to use the lock, you would think they would post a sign or something warning people, not that this would help as I could not read it either but still! ) So I get out my phone and call Nadiya, no answer goes straight to her machine, either her phone is dead or she is on it. I try the lock some more, no luck. By this time there are many angry people in knocking and yelling at me in Ukrainian again, because I have been in here a really long time and there is a long line waiting. I begin knocking on the door and yelling back in English that I can not get out and I can not understand them, of course they can not understand me so this is not helping. I try Nadiya again, no luck. Now for those of you who are thinking why am I not crawling under the stall to get out, let me explain, this door is nothing like an American McDonald's restroom door. This thing is thick solid metal, from floor to ceiling with a tiny little window way at the top about 7 foot high, I can not even see out of it let alone crawl out of it. This is Ukraine, remember! So back to trying to call for help, I think about calling Sergei, as I now assume Nadiya's cell phone is dead, which it was) then I think I better not call him with his limited English, how will I explain this to him? So I decide the only thing left is to call Valentin. This is so embarrassing, Valentin is probably at home enjoying his time with his family and his stupid American has to call to get him to help her out of a bathroom! So I say to him Valentin this is Aimee, Please excuse me for bothering you and sorry this may be the strangest calls you ever receive, but I am in the McDonald's locked in the bathroom stall and Nadiya is not answering her phone and I can not get out. Can you call Sergei and ask him to go in and send Nadiya up to get me out? Valentin was very kind, he did not laugh, and you know he wanted to, he just said yes of course I will call him. By the time this call ended one of the angry Ukrainians who want to use the bathroom had apparently figured out I was stuck and notified the manager who showed up with key to unlock the door, Why is there a key lock on the outside of a toilet stall door? It is Ukraine, remember! Nadiya walked into the restroom just after the manager let me out, so now there is Nadiya, the manager and about 9 other customers standing here when I come out and I just wanted to die from embarrassment! After this we head back to the medical center and pick up Anya's paperwork then to wait to meet our apartment owner to get our keys. It is a nice place and we now have working Internet, I won't go into details about this because Matt already wrote about it. But I did post some pictures of it for you to see. We spend the rest of the evening working with the Internet guy trying to get the computer working to search for tickets and also on the phone with airlines and the Barrett's who are also helping to search from the US for us-Thanks again Twyla and John! Thursday at 1pm Sergei picks us up to go to our Embassy appointment. The appointment went well, took a little longer than we expected about an hour and a half, more waiting around. But it was uneventful for the most part. And she got her Visa! When we got back to the car Valentin had showed up and was waiting with Sergei. He was wearing a Denver Broncos T-shirt in our honor. He then took us to the Swiss Air office again to try to help us get better ticket prices and maybe one that gets us home sooner than Wednesday. Him and Matt went in, Anya and I waited in the car with Sergei. I am getting really good at sitting and waiting in cars. Anyway after about an hour and a half, they come back and Valentin was great, he was able to get us all three home for only about $1,400. This includes the charges for changing Matt's and I tickets and Anya's flights all the way to Denver. That is the good news. The bad news is still no way for us to leave any sooner than Tuesday the 28th. And also Anya will have to fly from Chicago to Denver on a separate flight that leaves about 90 minutes behind Matt and I. There was only 1 ticket left on the later flight. So Matt & I have to leave earlier. Anya will need at least 2 hour layover in Chicago to get thru immigration and get all her paperwork processed. So unless we get some miracle worker immigration agent that can do this very fast, then we will make arrangements to have Anya escorted to her flight from immigration and we will meet her in Denver. If they get her thru fast enough then we will attempt to put her on the same flight with us. Many prayers for this will be appreciated, I am pretty nervous about this plan, but I know it was the only option available to us, they tried everything else first. For those of you wanting to meet us at the airport here is all info: Matt & I arrive in Denver from Chicago on Wednesday 29th at 8:11pm on United flight 253. Anya arrives at 9:30pm on United flight 959. Matt and I will go and attempt to pick up our baggage, then go back to the gate to meet Anya's plane. We ended our evening Thursday by dropping Valentin at the subway, where he would travel home and then going with Sergei to a Ukrainian restaurant for dinner, it was a really neat place, great views and atmosphere, good food, (all four of us ate a ton)and good prices too. After dinner we stopped at a supermarket for a few essentials for the apartment, then home watch movies and sleep. Today we did not do much. Some laundry and emails this morning and went out for lunch and a little sight seeing. It was cold and I was emotionally worn out and not doing well. So we ended up back at the apartment sooner than later and watched Sleepless in Seattle and vegged out for a while. We are hoping to get up earlier tomorrow and get to go to more of the places we would like for Anya to see. The weather is not supposed to be very nice again rain and cold, but maybe it will turn out to be a better day.

God Bless America!

2008-10-23T03:33:00.004-06:00

Trying to send a short update. We plan on updating a lot more tonight. We are in Kiev after surviving $100.00 train meals! Is it just me, or is that a lot for only four people? Today we will finish our document process at the US Embassy-hopefully. As well as this entire trip has gone for us, especially considering the situations endured by others, it's starting to unravel-fast! We will be unable to leave Kiev until at least October 28th because of Swiss Air and the flights available. This is the first one. Trying to change and/or purchase tickets is nothing short of the biggest corporate "rip-off" I have ever seen. They have you, they know it and they stick it to you. To change tickets and get Anya's return ticket(it would be nice to actually take her with us) is going to cost $2400.00!! and that's IF we get this particular ticket, it could be more and if the airlines really try hard, they will send us home straight into the "well-fare" system. I may have to vote for Obama just to insure my ability to survive. We are in a $100.00/night apartment with Internet. Trying to find a cheaper place for the last few days. We were thinking of one of the old WWII bunkers that we saw on the way here from Donetsk. Last night we had to have a Russian speaking IT specialist come set-up the Internet in our flat. It was during this time that we discovered that, indeed, our precious 15 year old "daughter" DOES speak and understand English much better than we thought. She became frustrated with my inability to communicate with this guy so she, unwittingly, chimed in with her own translating services; interpreting all to well. It occurred to her what was happening and she went bonkers, laughing, running around yelling(of course, all in Russian with a lot of, "...nyet, no English..." and I'm sure some other choice Russian words as well)-too late!! Exposed. What a "twerp"!!!! I now call her,"..little intwerperter...". Have to go to the US Embassy now, where I'm sure someone, somewhere will find a way to make this as difficult as possible-probably get arrested and charged with, "Unnecessary Effort in the adoption process". More later-promise. Matt

The Ukrainian Way!%@#&$&$%&

2008-10-20T23:10:00.002-06:00

This is going to be short as we leave for Donetsk in less than an hour by taxi to get the birth certificate and passport. We then have few hours before boarding the train for Kiev. 4 first class tickets cost about $135.00/each-well worth the extra money.

Sunday we had a taxi take us a few miles outside Mariupol to visit Anya's grandparent's graves and one of a 20 year old cousin. It was quite emotional and short! If you EVER want to visit the absolute "creepiest place on earth", go to a Ukrainian cemetery. Words cannot describe the ambiance. If you can imagine gigantic grave stones in all sorts, shapes, sizes and conditions, with carefully engraved pictures of the decease and all sorts of creative messages and symbols, some above ground, some trampled, some decaying and breaking apart, trees, shrubbery and vines everywhere-you have the picture. I've never seen anything like it and will never forget it. This was important to Anya for some closure. Shortly after the Grandmother died there was no more protection from the physical, emotional and psychological abuse that came from her mother. She ended up in the orphanage.

We spent the rest of the day with Anya at the apartment. She was pretty good for the most part.

On Monday we had her going away party. I'd like to go into more detail, but time doesn't permit; it was wonderful. The older children performed dances and songs and even Anya was all "dolled-up" in a Cinderella dress and hair-do. She actually danced with one of the older boys. Ludmilla entered the arena and all the children surrounded her-they LOVE this woman. She gave a short speech about how much Anya was loved and would be missed and then mentioned her new parent's and the opportunities that we were providing for her and how they were better than the those available to Anya in Ukraine. Lots of tears, hugs and good-byes. Aimee and I were invited front and center to become part of the emotional "orphan-riot"! It was everything it should be.

THEN.........the melt downs began. Angry, snotty-you name it-we got it. After 5 weeks, my true self is emerging and I had to remain silent on many issues I otherwise would not have. We ended up at her apartment (amidst protest, sneers and glares) and the melt down worsened. Frantic phone calls, writing information on pieces of paper and running around "rifling" thru those things she would bring with her. It was ugly. At some point, Anya (knowing we don't understand her) placed calls to Nadiya and the vice-director, Natalia, that we were there and were not welcomed. Natalyia actually showed up at the apartment and began discussing the fact that Anya had done NO packing or preparations to leave-NONE! and was now under pressure to pack up and vacate her world. Aimee and I left to lower the tension. Hope it worked, we'll find out in about 1/2 and hour when we go pick up Anya at the orphanage.

Off-topic: we stayed in an apartment provided the son of Ludmilla, the orphanage director. It was perfect-for the most part. We paid, what I thought was $50.00 for three weeks. WRONG! Things in Ukraine operate completely, well, stupid! The $50.00 only "hooked it up...", then there was the shut-off fee when went over the megabyte usage (which we were never told about) then there was an additional $80.00 fee for "usage" and finally, a $10.00 fee for

keeping it on today to write this stupid "blog" :) For the grand-prize of %$140.o0 for 3 weeks of Internet usage!!!

There is SO much more I'd like to say, just don't have the time. We will be out of touch until approximately late Wednesday night of Thursday morning. We may not be able to "blog" at all.

We are going to try and fly out Thursday night, but this is unlikely and we will end up leaving sometime Friday depending on flights.

Update of our time on Friday and Saturday

2008-10-19T00:07:00.003-06:00

Friday

On Friday morning we went with Nadiya to the Mariupol train station to buy our tickets for Tuesday. Then we had several hours before we could visit Anya and Nadiya had paperwork stuff to do so Matt and I decided to go to the Market place again. We had the taxi drop us off before he took Nadiya to the orphanage. This is the taxi ride that Matt lost his blackberry in.

We found the earring we had come to look for, the one that we bought Anya last week and she lost one of them already. I was also hoping to find a pair of Sunglasses because I lost mine the last time we were at this market place, but no luck.

After we realized we lost the phone and Nadiya called the driver and he was not able to find the phone, we needed to walk back to the apartment to call T-mobile and cancel the service so we did not end up with large bill from someone using this to make international calls.

We were then picked up by Anya and the taxi driver around 3pm after she had once again driven to the trade school and university to finalize the withdraw from school and receive her transcripts. We were picked up on the way back this time so that Matt could pay the fees to the taxi driver again, he was thrilled about this process.

Shortly after we arrived at the orphanage the Italian couple we have been hearing about had finally arrived to adopt the little blond girl Nastiya T. I posted a photo of them in our pictures for you all to see. We are so happy for her, it is going to be a good match I think. The couple spoke pretty good English so we were able to talk to them. They are an older couple who has never had any children, and they just adore Nastiya. We spent most of the visit with them and she was so excited. Thank God for one less orphan in this place. There is also another Italian couple here, who are adopting two brothers ages 7 and 2. I posted a photo of the dad with the little one, he is so cute. We have video of all of the kids playing outside on this day together.

After the Fields time with Nastiya was up for the afternoon, we took Anya with us back to the apartment where Tami was making us wonderful cheeseburgers and french fries, it was so great to taste some food that was familiar. We all ate way too much!

Saturday

I have been given the seat of power to "blog"about yesterday, although, I have to admit, I have lots of other things that I would like to put out there, but I'm having "bloggers-block" from all that has occurred for the last 5 days.

18 months ago I observed from a staircase, Anya putting her hands on Aimee's face stating, with no hesitation, "I want a family". She was completely invading Aimee's personal space by stating this while almost touching noses. It was at that moment I went from "host-dad" to the eventual, "Papa"! Just like that the future and direction of our family was changed. It was, without a doubt, the LAST thing I ever expected to be relating to my wife who was even more surprised than I was. I vaguely recall slightly shaking as the words, "We need to adopt her", rolled out of my mouth. It was a either a prodding of the Holy Spirit, or a moment of complete emotional betrayal. I'm convinced that being the only male in the house (and I mentioned this on Dr. David's blog via a "comment") that I "co-PMS" with all the females in the house. There are times I can literally feel the testosterone abandoning me. Either way-we're out of here in 2 days with a 15 year old Ukrainian girl that I adore. More on stuff like this at a later date.

Saturday we picked up Anya the Field's, their Nastiya and Nadya at the orphanage at 10AM. We were taken by taxi to "City Park". As this was the only day that we had opportunity to take them off the grounds, we were met with clouds, drizzle and rain-all day. We explored a mini version of a Ukraine village and witnessed another wedding. This, of course wouldn't be complete without several older people/workers sweeping...you guessed it-the dirt-and in the rain and wind, no-less!

We went to the bowling alley/billiard hall. This is the only place I remember being in that looked "westernized", very nice! Our family parade apparently invaded a serious pool tournament. At least 30 men(all in black shirts or vests) playing pool, drinking and smoking. They played with all white, numbered balls. We got what I would call annoying/irritating/disapproving stares.

After what seemed like an eternity, we all had our shoes on(except me, I'm in stabilizing boot from an ankle injury) and the bowling started. Everyone is pretty bad, although Anya ended up winning thanks to Brian Fields "accidentally" throwing consecutive gutter balls in frame 10, preserving Anya's 7 pin advantage. Most of the pool players were, by the end, standing around watching us.

We were the only people bowling and there were a dozen empty "Brunswick" bowling tables-none being used. You wouldn't think there would be a problem using one table for coats, bags and umbrellas. You would be wrong! We were told to get our stuff off the completely empty table. Shut up, already! Had this occurred in the states, I would have been "language empowered" to carry that discussion further.

We went to eat and then went to a little book store. It had a huge selection of English study books. Paid about $35.00 for about $150.00 worth of books. We then went to the apartment.

I have lots to say still remaining. Out of time as we are going to visit the grave of Anya's grandma. After she died, Anya would eventually end up in the orphanage.

More later.

Matt

Lost my phone!

2008-10-17T05:01:00.002-06:00

It just wouldn't be the perfect trip to Ukraine without leaving your Blackberry phone in the back of a cab-gone forever! If you've been contacting Matt thru the Blackberry-STOP. T-Mobile was contacted and all services for the phone have been deactivated indefinitely. I'm fairly certain that trying to purchase a similar phone and getting a "Sim-card" that works would be nothing short of a nightmare. Probably wait until I'm back in the states. At least it wasn't my wallet...yet! We're reaching our limits with being here. Yesterday we trekked down to the GIGANTIC steel factories, pursuing Anya's school records and I've never seen anything like it!! It was like an epoch scene out of some huge Hollywood production. The pollution was nothing short of toxic and the fog/smog/sea air just about did us both in. I honestly do not know how people survive here. I haven't "blogged" in a while because I'm literally emotionally drained and feel physically like the environment is sucking the life right out of me. Matt

Thursday- Smog, Junk Food, & Ukrainian Gossip Sessions

2008-10-16T23:22:00.004-06:00

Above is Anya in front of her school. When we arrived to visit her on Thursday we were told we needed to go with here and her caregiver to get her transcripts and withdraw her from school. We drove in a taxi down to the industrial area where the large steel mills are located. And we have never had such a problem breathing as we did in this area, the pollution was horrible. I do not know how people work here each day. We posted a few photos taken from the moving car so they are not that great. But on is of the front of Azov Steel Company, this is where both Anya's parents worked. After a stop at her trade school we had to go back near us to the main trade school university to sign some more papers. Anya was very irritated when we left there, and we found out later from Nadiya this was because they did not have her transcripts ready and we would have to return tomorrow to pick them up.

When we arrived back to the orphanage the Fields, Nastiya, Nadiya, Katiya and Lyena were all hanging out in the little room. This soon turned into an all out Junk food consuming Ukrainian gossip session. See video below.

After this some of the girls were going to the circus with the orphanage workers. Nastiya would be going, so Brian and Tami went home. I guess the kids had a choice if they wanted to go or stay, Anya and Lyena did not want to go. So we were invited upstairs with the rest of the group to play games. There was only a hand full of them up there, many of them watching American cartoons in Ukrainian on their TV. We played several hands of Uno with Lyena and Anya, while Vika(red Haired one) and Nastiya T. (blond girl) and little Vera watched, for some reason they were told over and over by Anya and Lyena they could not play. So when we began to play Jenga Matt and I insisted the little ones could play and this of course sent Anya into a pouting fit and she and Lyena left for a while. Matt & I ignored her and had a good time playing with and loving on all the younger girls. Even our little angry mean red haired Vika was nice and smiling. We had a good time. We left there a little after 6pm and Anya was fine by the time we went, ignoring her was a good plan.

That is all for now, it is Friday and the cleaning lady is coming soon so we must vacate the apartment again until 2pm.

Update from Aimee about Tuesday & Wednesday

2008-10-16T04:27:00.003-06:00

Tuesday: We walked to the orphanage about 1:30 on Tuesday, and were actually sweating it was so warm. It had to be close to 70 degrees. We looked at the forecast for the rest of the week and it said high 60’s. We are very surprised at this because it is mid-Oct and we almost expect it to be snowing here. When we arrived Anya was still not interested in leaving with us. I think she finds comfort in being with Nastiya because they speak the same language. So we did the normal things we do, sitting in the little room for a while, doing word searches and Sudoku puzzles for a while, until everyone was bored and Anya begins to tell me the word for outside in Russian. I cannot remember what the word is at the moment, but as with many things she says to us often I recognize it when she is saying it to me. We played around with the soccer ball for a while, mostly Anya did I think the rest of us have just had enough of soccer ball games. Anya has a very strong leg, and often time’s hurts people or things when she kicks the ball, not meaning too but just playing hard. She is very competitive. This day she hit Wendy’s pregnant one eyed cat Pirate. She felt really badly and went after her and held her for a while to make sure she was OK. Don’t worry Wendy she is fine, it looked worse than it was and I posted the photo of Anya holding her so you can see. After we had been there for over an hour, Matt & I finally convinced Anya to at least go for a walk somewhere other than around the building. We got her to agree to walk to the supermarket close by because I had not brought Anya her favorite bottles of tomato juice today and we would go and buy some. It was so good to just be going somewhere, she held both of our hands the entire way there, telling us My Papa, My Mama, and comparing our sizes, it was very sweet. When we got to the market we purposely walked up and down isles we did not need to go down just too waste time. We bought even more time by allowing Anya to pick out all the junk food and snacks she wanted for herself, Nastiya and the Fields who were still back sitting at the orphanage. After we picked out all the snacks and drinks and paid for them, I asked her if we could stop and get coffee, there is a little coffee shop attached to the supermarket. To my surprise she had no issue with this, so we went in. I ordered my coffee and Anya got a little snack size pizza. It was a good time to just sit and talk to her about things coming up in America. I told her some of the things our girls have been doing back home and what they told us in their emails, not sure how much she understood. I also showed her some of their pictures from my cell phone. She responded some in English, saying I have 3 sisters, I love sisters. We also talked some about when she would begin school in America. Matt and I have been trying to figure out what would be best for her transition, and going back in forth about starting her after Christmas Break as a freshman, or waiting and homeschooling for the rest of this school year. We got out the calendar on Matt’s phone and showed her the options. She said in English she wants to start after Christmas. We all agree this would be the best plan. It will give me about two months to get her used to normal life and family, and work at home on conversational English and phonics. She has a hard time with our vowel sounds when she reads things in English. I think Anya has been reading about Christmas in America and is very excited about this. On or walk back to the orphanage she held the bag over her should and said she was Santa Claus, and that she likes Christmas. She also said Christmas in December not October, then this lead to her and Matt saying all the months in English and then in Russian. Back at the orphanage she gave out all the gifts/snacks to Nastiya, Tami and Brian and “fought” with Matt over his soda, she had one of the same but wanted to drink Matt’s and share it with everyone else in order to save hers for later. It was all pretty funny to watch. We stayed for only a short time after this and then we had Anya call us a taxi back to the apartment. She is very useful like this, she has our apartment addressed memorized and calls them on my cell phone. When the taxi arrives she makes sure he again knows where to take us before she lets us leave. After we got back to the apartment Matt and I walked to the store by us to get some food for dinner. We have found they have some good pre-made stuff in their Deli; they have cabbage rolls and little meat loaves, and something like a chicken pot pie, all very convenient to heat up in the microwave when we don’t feel like going out to eat.

Wednesday: Today was to be Brian and Tami’s court day at 11:30. Nadiya returned by train this morning about 9am. It was nice to be with her again, she just adds to the atmosphere for us. It was good for Matt and me to have a few days alone, but we all like having her around too. She did not get to see the newly born nephew because he has developed Jaundice and has been put back into the hospital. I guess in Ukraine they do not allow visitors like they would in America, so she did not get to see the baby or her sister in law. She has promised to email us pictures after she does finally get to see him. When I called Brian this morning he was already at the orphanage, and he told me Anya was there and not in school. I asked him to have her call us if saw her saw her again, so we could make sure she knew we were planning to come early. The plan was for us get Anya and to meet up with the Fields after court to go to lunch and then to go get Passport photos. We would soon find out nothing went according to our plan this day. Nadiya Matt & I took a taxi to the orphanage and Brian, Tami and Nastiya all were standing out front all dressed up for court. Nastiya looked so pretty in her new outfit. Photo is posted. Nadiya went in to check in the attorney and came back with the first set of bad news, Nastiya could not come with them to court, and they said she was too young. Why they never told them this before they went out and got court clothes for her and before she was all excited to go, no one knows. Anyway Nastiya was obviously disappointed. Nadiya assured her that they would come back right after court and she could still have lunch with them. Matt and I also decided we would go and get flowers for her and Tami from Brian and Nastiya was excited about this and requested red roses. Soon after Anya came running by, she had gone to her apartment to pick up some books that needed to be returned to school. I tried to stop her and explain to her that we wanted to keep her out of school, but she refused to listen gave me a hug and ran away. Turns out this would be fine anyway, because we have now decided to meet up with the Fields again back at the orphanage after court in order to pick up Nastiya. So the Fields leave in their taxi headed to court, and we decide to walk to the flower shop that Anya had taken us to on Teachers day. On our way we stopped at a street vendor selling DVD’s we were hoping to find some of the type that can be switched into English for Anya, no luck all in Russian only. The guy selling them was completely drunk at 11:30 am and I almost fell over when he spoke to me because of the alcohol on his breath. He also kept falling into Matt and I had no sense of personal space. It was truly disgusting We headed on to the flower shop and not 5 minutes after we finished purchasing the flowers, Brian called with the bad news. No court today! The judge was sick apparently and never showed up. And they were not sure when it would be rescheduled, Nadiya said hopefully Friday but most likely Monday. This is really bad because their kids back home are not doing so well, and Brian had decided to fly home on Thursday to be with them, and Tami would stay and complete the rest of the adoption process. This was very sad and disappointing for all of us. They were headed to the attorney’s office with Nadiya to see what could be done. Matt and I decided to walk over that way and try to meet up with them for moral support. We walked down the way and near the large Market place only turned a block to soon. We ended up taking a long detour thru another large open market area, this worked out Ok because we found a shop selling toys and bought some soccer balls for the orphanage, something we had wanted to do anyway and had not found at any of the other places we had looked. By the time we made it back around to the main road, Tami called and they were done and heading back over to get Nastiya for lunch. So we walked back their ourselves and met up with them and Anya. Nastiya was asked to pick where she wanted to go for lunch, and she choose Pizza of course. When they asked her where she hesitated and Anya choose for her “Mc Pizza Chicken” so Nastiya agrees and we are off. It was a good lunch and I think Nastiya really just enjoyed being out with her new parents. Also on the way over Nadiya apparently asked the taxi driver about some of these museums we have been hoping to visit and he told her of the Mariupol Regional History Museum, this was supposed to e the most interesting one. After lots of pizza, chicken strips and fries we were off to the museum. It turns out it was just a block away from our apartment, in a direction we hardly ever go. We never would have noticed. It was a good choice. I posted a lot of pictures for all to see. The first part was a wax museum and this was a little creepy! Anya did not like the statues; she was truly scared I think and held on to me a lot. After the creepy wax part we headed up stairs to the history part. It was very interesting for us, and with Nadiya there we actually got to understand things much better. All of the exhibits were specifically about Mariupol. We saw the early history of the land with fossils of native animals, fish and exhibits on the farming and crops. Then we saw a lot of exhibits on the armed forces, and Soviet Union’s era. There was a part with artifacts and photos from the Nazi war camps and citizens of Mariupol, who died, it was very sad. Nadiya read from a notebook they had displayed of the poems and songs the people wrote which was of hopes of freedom to come one day. As we moved into the more recent history there was a wall that had a section dedicated to the girls’ orphanage opening. It had photos of Ludmilla with kids back in 1982; this was very interesting to see. Also there was an area highlighting some of the local schools, and one of the photos was of Anya’s former school and her fourth grade teacher. Then we saw area dedicated to the arts and local sport teams and the Olympians. One thing very strange was in the area dedicated to local medical stuff, Jasmine this you will appreciate see the picture of a “Novo Pen” This is the same type of insulin injection device our daughter Jasmine who has diabetes used to use. Over all I think everyone enjoyed the museum. After this we found an old building next to the museum that was bombed during the war and never torn down nor rebuilt, it was kind of neat just the shell of it was left, we took pictures of the girls standing inside, and I posted them for you to see. We then went to get the passport photos done and took the girls back to the orphanage. I had been a good day after all the disappointment with court not happening. The rest of us went back to our apartment and had some dinner and the Fields updated their blog and check email. Please pray for Brain and Tami and for Nadiya to be granted favor with a new court date sooner than later. FYI-I will post this as soon as I am able, as I am typing this in word to copy in later. Our Internet is not allowing me to sign in on this Thursday morning and we do not know why.

Life in Mariupol Sunday & Monday

2008-10-14T02:04:00.004-06:00

Above and below this paragraph are videos of what our visit times mostly consist of, it gets old rather quickly. We are either playing soccer, Frisbee, or volleyball with the soccer ball and no net, or basketball with the soccer ball and no hoop. If we get tired of the outside play we go into one of the little visitor rooms and eat Pringles and M&M's and color or play card games. Card games are not easy because the girls cannot explain to us the rules of "their" games and they don't really understand if we try to explain the rules of "our"games. We have found that matching memory type games are the best. Anya and Nastiya both make this a full contact competitive sport. They need to win, and they will cheat if they have too. All along Tami, Brian, Matt & I are trying to build trust and often try to help by pointing to the correct card foe them to choose, they do not trust us assume we are trying to trick them, or worst of all when they do trust us and choose the card we point out and we were wrong, look out, because this is not easily forgiven. It really has been very interesting at times learning the different behaviors they exhibit during these games.

On Sunday when we arrived for our visit it was about 12:30 and the rest of "the Group" was outside with Anya and Nastiya. It was good to see all of the little girls we have come to know over the past two weeks, and of course sweet little Nastiya Matthews, but at the same time it is taking an emotional toll on me. I am so overwhelmed by my emotions the past few days. I guess the whole place is beginning to wear on me, I am so tired of the trash and poverty that surrounds us each time we leave the apartment, and the girls in the group are beginning to haunt me in my dreams. When we arrived and said hello to the group, they all want so badly to communicate with us, and try to say whatever they know how in English. Most importantly they want us to know their name. It is as if they believe if we know their name we will want to adopt them too, and you know I do. I am almost certain that even though we have found out that Lyena is going to be adopted, that in the next year or two we will be back for another one of these girls. There are so many of them that I could see fitting in our family, and all they really want and need is someone to love them, and tell them they are special enough to belong. There are two of the older girls 12 & 13 year old that are especially grabbing hold of my heart just as Gyena & Lyena did with Matt's. Neither one of them are available now and it may be a year or two if they are available ever, but I just can't see myself leaving here and never returning. I guess we will just wait and see what God reveals to us later on, His plan will always play itself out eventually.

We got to spend only a few minutes with the group on Sunday before it was time for them to return to the inside. This was probably best, as I was on the verge of tears almost the whole time they were with us. Anya was wearing her new blue sweat suit that we had bought her a few days ago. It was nice to see her in something different, and she had showered and done her hair all new. She was feeling very pretty you could tell by the way she kept tossing her hair around. It was all very sweet except for the mounds of blue eyeshadow all around the eyes, top and bottom just like the roommate Anya wears. I had specifically told Anya about this when we purchased the eyeshadow last week, she understood she could only wear a little and on the top only. I know she just needed to test me and it all worked out. I told her she was looking very beautiful, but the eyeshadow on the bottom had to go. She argued for a bit like she does, but when I brought it up later and handed her the tissue to wipe it off she complied very respectfully. She went in and washed it off, and came back to show me with a big smile and hug. I could not ask for more.

After playing outside for most of our time, everyone was bored you can only play so much soccer or basketball with out a net and hoop, and it was getting cooler so we went inside to try out the card games. Like I mentioned above the memory game was worth it, very interesting insight into the true personality traits of these girls, and speaks volumes about the environment they have been living in. Our visit ended much like it always does with Anya trying to get us to stay, and a little bit of pouting and arguing about what time we will come tomorrow. Anya was still trying to convince us that she was not going to go back to school, and we were certain that she was. So after much back and forth it was decided we would come at 2:00.

Monday

As I mentioned earlier the girls from the group were in my dreams all night long, and I woke up just sad for them and Matt and I both just wanted to give them something, anything to make them feel loved or just so they would know we were thinking of them. We decided to walk to the store and get them some fruit and head to the orphanage early, because last Monday the girls group was on the playground at 12:00, so I assumed they must have a shorter school day on Mondays and that they would be out when we arrived. I was wrong. Last Monday must have been a holiday or non school day for some reason.

As we were leaving our apartment to head to the store, Matt took our garbage to drop in the dumpster, and as there most often is, there were two people searching thru the trash for anything of value or to eat. It is one of those things that just makes your heart break each time you see it, and one of the reasons Ukraine is emotionally wearing on me. Matt dropped the bag and immediately the guy grabs it and begins to search thru it. Matt said it was just breaking his heart because the one lady was very old and missing on eye and the other eye looked as if it was falling out, and the younger man was maybe her son unable to provide for her. So Matt gave them some money and told them with hand signals and little Russian he could speak to get something to eat, not to buy alcohol but to get something good to eat. It is so sad because you know we can only do so little, and it is like this everywhere you turn, so many needs that we can not possibly begin to meet. It is just really hard to be here at times.

Anyway when we arrived at the orphanage like I said the girls were not there but still in school. So by talking with Kseniya we were told we could leave the food and juices in Natasha's (vice-director) office and when Anya returned at 1:00 she would give it to them from us. This was a bit disappointing because I had hoped to see them, but at least we knew they would have a special treat after school today. It was about 12:30 now so we decided just to wait outside for the kids to arrive, rather than leaving and coming back at 2:00 to see Anya.

After the kids arrived, Matt stayed outside and I went in to wait and see when Anya would come to be with us. And shortly after this Natasha went up the stairs yelling at someone, and the someone turned out to be Anya who followed her down the stairs into her office and didn't stop to say hello to me but she knew I was there. This was followed by more angry Ukrainian lectures by Natasha directed towards Anya, which I could hear from the next room but of course I cannot understand. This is quite a strange feeling because legally this is my daughter in there, but physically she is still "property" of the orphanage at least for 7 more days, but still I began to feel offended at some level like "How dare she yell at my Child?", then I flip flopped to maybe "My Child" deserved it, and then the worst what if she is yelling at my child because she is angry at me because I am here at the wrong time of day and bringing treats for the kids without asking. All of these thoughts are interrupted when Natasha, Kseniya, and Anya who had obviously been crying show up next to me. Anya is sad, and I am sad for her and have no idea what is going on, she hands me her camera and walks up stairs. Then Ksenyia begins to translate for Natasha who is talking to me and about completely different things, and I am just wondering is she going to tell me why "my daughter" is crying? Sh never tells me, like it never happened. She has Kseniya tell asks me if I need transcripts from Anya's school and where is Nadiya, and did she ever discuss our visitation schedule with us( which the answer is no, because no one ever told her) and also if we would prefer to take Anya out of the orphanage each day for our visits. After this Natasha leaves and I feel more relaxed just talk to Kseniya alone. I first tell her of course we would prefer to take Anya out for our visits, but that we had been told we could not anymore, apparently this has now changed and they would prefer that we take her out. She is going to be in school the rest of the week from 8-12:30 and we should take her from 2PM-6PM each day out to do whatever as long as we tell them what this whatever will include. Then I tell her we do need the transcripts from school. And could she tell me why Anya was getting yelled at, and crying, and did this have anything to do with us showing up early with the treats? She assures me that this had nothing to do with us, just Anya has been not doing her part to help out and is no longer respectful of the teachers and things like that. Like Matt wrote about in one of his older post the "short timer" attitude. So I guess she did deserve it, maybe it sounded a lot worse because I cannot understand the language. And I have learned all Ukrainian sounds like yelling and anger even when it is not. Anyway the good news is we can now leave with Anya as soon as she comes back down.

No luck- Anya finally after about 25 minutes reappears and needs a lot of hugs and holding to recover, before she perks up again. I think she was embarrassed because she knew she was acting like a little jerk to her caregivers. So we tell her we can leave with her and she refuses! She wants to stay at the center! What! We thought we were free at last from these boring visits, and she wants to stay. Matt figures it is because she knows she will leave soon, and she is going to miss her "home". So we end up outside with Nastiya and the Fields doing all the same soccer games and eating the Pringles like the days before. We decided we would let her do this for just today then the next days we will at least split the time, leave for an hour or two then spend the rest of the visit there at her center. I think Matt communicated this the best he could to her, and she didn't seem to object, we will find out soon. It is 12:30 on Tuesday as I am writing and we are planning to go to get her at 2:00 today.

Nothing else exciting to write about. We ended our day by having pizza again at the same place with Brian and Tami. Food was good and service was too, we now have a favorite waitress who loves Matt because he tips her(most people do not tip in Ukraine, Nadiya says it is not expected)This favorite waitress makes sure we get the best comfortable booth she has available and always wants us to sit at her tables. She is wonderful! I did post a few new pictures from Sunday, but not many too much of the same things to see each day. I hope to ask Kseniya today about some museums or sights to see in Mariupol to help us get thru the next few days. More later love to all of you back home. I miss you!

Reply to Response by "Supreme Editorial Dictator" and motion for removal of her "Self-Appointed " position.

2008-10-12T01:51:00.010-06:00

Comes now the offended: Matthew Garrett and states the following:

1. Offended parties version, while only only partially accurate, is nonetheless self-serving and he likes it that way!

2. Offended party was asked to "blog", no, more like forced!

3. Offended party did not intentionally give erroneous information-OK, that's not altogether true, either.

4. Offended party is really attracted to the offender; hereafter referred to as, the "offender".

5. Offended party's attraction to the offender makes it impossible for him to win this motion unless he gets to make the decision himself, so at this point he also asks for complete, sole disctetion in rendering a ruling from the "chair of power", which is right in front of this computer.

Therefore, offended party requests that offender be removed from her position as "Supreme Editorial Dictator" because of the unfair advantage perpetuated on the offended party because she's much more attractive than I am AND request for all future "Posts" to be at the sole discretion of the offended party-regardless of accuracy, authenticity or flippenality and that the "Offended" party be given sole discretion in this action.

This motion presented on this 11th day October, 2008. And being solely self-appointed as "Judge, Jury and Executioner, do hereby deem this motion granted in favor of the "Offended" party.

That was easy!

Now, I've just been told that no one will see her post unless I mention to look below this post and read hers. Didn't take long for that order to be violated...

A few additions and or corrections to Matt's previous post

2008-10-11T23:56:00.008-06:00

It is about 9:00am on Saturday, and yes we did go to bed at 4:30pm last night, but no I did not sleep the entire time, Matt has gotten a bad cold, so I spent most of the time laying and listening to him snore very loudly. I knew he needed to rest, and if he heard me get up he would also be up, so just stayed put. And I did not get up at 7am but close about 6am.

I have added more pictures from the last three days. There are many of the ballet, but the lighting was not so great it does not reflect how beautiful it really was. And the music was wonderful, and like Matt mentioned the atmosphere in the audience was a lot of fun. And No he really did not attempt the wave. We had noticed the sign for the ballet earlier in the week, when we still had Anya out with us, before we were restricted to visits only within the orphanage grounds. At this time we asked Anya if she would like to go with us to the show, she was very clear that she did NOT want to go to the ballet, she hates the ballet. So we decided to just go anyway, the opportunity to see the Russian Ballet preform Swan Lake in Ukraine is not going to happen for us again.

The reason I mention this is because when we were at the orphanage with Anya Thursday evening and told her we had to go soon to get ready to go to the performance, she melted down. She refused to talk to or interact with Matt the rest of the visit simply because he was the one who told her we were going. So I am not sure if she really did want to go, or if she just wanted us to stay, but at any rate we had real tears and sadness for a while, not just the pouting we have become accustomed to. She was OK by the time we left, but I had to hold her and soothe her for quite a long time to get to that place.

Our time with Anya is not as adventurous as it used to be since we have been asked to stay at the orphanage, we are given about three hours each day to hang out with her, we can pick the time of day for the most part. Three hours is a long time when you have nothing to do but stare at each other in a little room, with a very noisy loud parrot. When we were there on Wednesday Ludmilla told Nadiya that we should work on English with the girls (us and the Fields with Nastiya) so we got out a notebook and Anya began to write what she knows in Russian and then in English. She really is very good with the written English. She wrote her new name, Matt and I name and all of her sisters names. Then her address and phone number and many simple phrases she had memorized.

We have since discovered that when she needs to because Nadiya is gone for several days, Anya can speak quite well. She can say short sentences, such as we heard yesterday, when I asked her what time we should come to visit tomorrow. "10:00, no 11:00, no 12:00 I want to sleep tomorrow." When Brian told her no we would come at 9:00, she said" No 9 I can not sleep, please come at 12:00."

Court was on Friday at 11:30. We arrived a the orphanage to get Anya about 10:00. She was obviously nervous and hardly acknowledged our presence, some type of defense for her I guess. She was not dressed yet, because we had brought her shirt with us, it had been drying then ironed by Matt. So I was asked by the care givers to go up stairs with Anya to get her ready. Turns out we shrunk her shirt, as you will notice in all the photos. But it was too late to do anything about this now, and Anya tells me it is OK, she always says it is OK even when I know it is not. So then we went back down stairs to take a few pictures and call the taxi's. Nadiya left first to go pick up the Regional Director, and we went in a separate taxi with Anya and the attorney for the orphanage, I can not remember her name. But she is very young and pretty and for this occasion she was dressed as a pirate slut. Fish net stockings, knee high high heeled boots, short pirate looking black skirt and a white puffy shirt with lots of cleavage.

Like Matt mentioned the court was really just a judges chambers with a desk for her and a long table adjoined to the desk where Nadiya, the public prosecutor, the jury lady, and the Regional director sat.The pirate/attorney, Matt, Anya, I sat on chairs at the end of the room facing the judge. We did not understand much except for names of people, and places. I heard Anya's former parents names often, our names, and Tsentr Opiky, and also Adoption Journey International when the Regional Director read from our home study. And I could understand names of documents in our dossier, which the judge went thru page by page and had them submitted into the record. There were microphones on the table recording everything. Besides what Matt mentioned the only other question we were asked was about her health issues, we were asked if we understood these and if we would get her proper care in the US. I told them we were informed about her conditions and that we would certainly have her examined by our doctor back home. After we were invited back in to the court room, the judge began to read the decision and I agree with Matt all the language barriers where no longer in place. I knew she was saying we were Anya's new parents, and when she read her new name "Anya Rain Garrett" I could no longer hold back the tears, I could hardly stand I was so overcome by emotions, and I tried so hard to hold it in for I was making a big cry baby mess of my self, but it was just something we had hoped and prayed for so many months and it finally was done! I wanted badly to began singing praise God from whom all blessing flow as loud as it was singing in my head, but I thought they may have me committed at that point.

After we thanked the judge and went out to the hall way, Anya was hugging everyone except Matt of course and she hugged me so long and kept telling me it was OK, I tired to explain to her I was just crying tears of joy, but she could not understand me, and she kept trying to comfort me.

When we were waiting for the judge to call us back into the court room earlier, I had asked Nadiya to ask the attorney for recommendations of nice restaurants to go afterward to celebrate, and she DID NOT recommend the "Santa Barbara strip club" as Matt said in his blog she recommended a very high class place near there with French and European food, which we stopped at before Santa Barbara, and we were not allowed in because it had been reserved for a wedding party later that day. We ended up at the Santa Barbara because our Taxi driver took us there, it was one of his favorite places. And to help you understand the truth, not according to Matt, the main club area is a separate building from the little house we ate in (see Photos) and the strip club is not open during the day, only at night. So even if the food and service was not great the atmosphere was very appropriate, other than the sign in front. The Little House was decorated with Ukrainian cloths and artifacts, and we were right on the sea shore.

So I have been rambling on and probably not making much sense so I am going to have to end this soon. I have got to get ready to go hang out with Anya at the same little room again.

FYI for those of you traveling soon the weather has gotten a bit colder has been in the high forties last few days. Time frame for the rest of our trip is as follows: We will get our court degree on the 20th (thanks to Nadiya's magic, we are not delayed she got the judge to agree to count the court day even though it is on a Friday) On the 2oth we travel to Donetsk to get the passport and birth certificate( again thanks to Nadiya's magic Ludmilla has agreed to let us fax her the copy of passport and birth certificate and not have to return to Mariupol to get Anya, Anya will travel with us to Donetsk) Then we will take a train to Kiev on evening of 20th. We will arrive in Kiev on the morning of 21st and begin our immigration paperwork. We will have Anya's medical exam and Visa appointment hopefully only about three or four days more in Kiev and we will fly home. We have not booked our return trip yet, but we will let everyone know as soon as we have done this. We should be home by the 26th of October I would guess.

That is all for now, off to see Anya soon and more shopping later with Tami and Brian, we discovered a new Super Wal mart type store closer to us than the fox mart, and also a big mall next to the pizza place where we found some souvenirs.

Video of Anya learning to eat her shrimp:

Ballet fatigue, "The Santa Barbara Club" and appreciation at its lowest!

2008-10-11T17:14:00.010-06:00

We decided we would take a short nap after doing virtually nothing for the short period of time we were actually awake on Saturday(7AM-430PM). We laid down at 430PM to rest, intending to get up and "blog". It's now 2:16AM here, I'm wide awake and Aimee's still sleeping. I can literally feel the "lazy"virus sucking the life right out of me. Back home I consistently put in 18 hour days, 12 of those at work. Here I can't hardly stay awake or motivated for more than 6 hours out of 24.

As for court: it was in a small, office type room in a large building that did not look like a court house. The judge sat at a regular desk with a large Ukraine flag on the wall. She was no-nonsense, to the point and gave no signals from facial expressions or body language, how things were progressing. This was the first time Nadiya had been with this judge so it caught her off-guard when the judge sat her next to herself and us about 10 feet away. Because of this, Nadiya could not translate one word of what was going on except to face us and tell us to stand because the judge was now questioning us. The questions were short and to the point: name, address, date of birth, profession. The only question asked of me, directly, was how much was my salary. We were asked if we were aware of our rights to certain information and if we did, indeed, want the adoption to proceed. We had no reason to react to anything that was happening because we had no idea whether we should be, or not. At times like these you become a real student of body language, facial expressions and voice inflection. Anya was asked twice to stand and make some statements. They were short and were apparently received well. I was able to catch our names several times and near the end I was able to pick up on the official name change for Anya as well as the transition in terminology for who her new parents would be. We were asked to wait outside the office for about 15 minutes after the hearing. Once called back in the judge began reading the official letter of approval of the adoption and it was then that the language barrier disappeared. All indicators; smiles, breathing, sighing and some tears broke down all barriers. Upon finishing, the judge flashed a quick glance at both of us, her face was now softened and full of empathy, knowing that she had just opened the door of opportunity for one of her counties children to have a chance at something other than the certain dismal future Anya faced.

Once outside the in the hall, hugs were exchanged. Well, for everyone except me! It was odd and yet almost expected. It took her until after our celebration lunch for her to even acknowledge me. Anya's main focus was hugging and bonding with mama. Even more odd, was that I was completely OK with this. My role in the family is clearly defined, ask all the girls: I'm the "jeep". I carry things, carry things some more, carry them back from where I carried them earlier, fix things, carry the fixed things back from where I carried them to fix them and make sure they work once I get them there or I'm carrying them again! I transport things that are bought from the garage into the house. I carry things that need to be set up for camping, taken down after camping and put back in the vehicle after every possible disaster that can occur, does occur during "family fun" camping. Has anyone else noticed that "family fun" is anything BUT "fun" during the activity and yet, at the same time produces the most bonding memories afterwards? Our family has more fun recalling and reminiscing about perceived family fun than we do actually doing it. Aimee and I have discovered that the more the possibility for disaster, the better the activity for the family as a whole. Back to my "role": I go to work and if I don't go to work, for any reason, I'm usually informed by all the females that my presence during their after school naps and feeding frenzies as well as my presence during dinner preparation, or the simple fact that I even exist between the hours of 715AM-330PM for purposes outside of work, is unappreciated as well as a complete nuisance to their routine.

Nothing makes the new dad of a teen-age orphan prouder than to finish off the adoption-day process by taking the whole crew (Aimee, Anya, Nadiya and the Fields) to the local strip club for a celebration dinner-thanks to the attorneys restaurant tip. That's right folks: "The Santa Barbara Club" in lovely, seaside Mariupol! Yes, what better place to take your beautiful wife, new teen-age daughter, a lovely Ukrainian facilitator and a good friend's lovely wife...and the friend!!! Before you start nominating me for "Dad (or husband) of the Year", let me throw in that Anya almost succeeded in ordering herself alcohol to celebrate. Were it not for Nadiya's quick ear, I would have been toasting the recently approved adoption right into debauchery at its finest! There may be a possibility that I broke more protocol, more laws and more standards in one glorious moment than most men do so cumulatively in their entire lives. Thank you very much. I may need to write a book! What a perfect scene. In the likely event of the need arising, there will be a web-site established soliciting donations for bonding me out. You know, it just keeps getting better. The restaurant served us our 6 meals over a 2 hour period, I think only one person was eating at any given time.

Going back in time one day; Thursday night we went to "Swan Lake" with the Fields at the theatre presented by the "Russian Ballet". Can I just say that if you ever get the chance to attend something like this-do it. Yes, it's corny, yes there are lots of tight outfits and yes I was uncomfortable watching some of the guys (especially the one I referred to as 'Sir Crotch-A-Lot'), but WOW!!! These people are athletes at the highest level. The strength and sheer physical prowess are nothing short of amazing. We paid about $30.00USD/ticket and had great seats-bottom level, 6 rows back. It was a bit long (3 hours) and way to many mood swings for me ("happy dance, sad dance, happy dance, sad dance...enough already). I don't know the story, I didn't know the swan died-she was in white one minute, black the next, back to white..what the he__? And all that "tippy-toe" stuff, no wonder that by the end of the play you could see the fatigue throughout their entire body-faces, legs, etc. and lots of sweat. It was a little disturbing watching "Sir Crotch-A-Lot", sweat! The crowd was almost as fun. They clap in unison, to a beat, you really get caught up in it. I tried to start a "WAVE", that did not go over well. One of those awkward moments when you stand up, yelling, throwing your hands up and no one gets it-all those stares, hmm. There were also several little girls sitting close by who could not get past our English-they just stared. I couldn't get past the gigantic Ukrainian bows in their hair-they were bigger than their heads!

I'm all over the "chronological map", I know. Yesterday, we went to the orphanage for another 3 hours of visitation. We were supposed to be there at 1000AM. We got there about 1015AM. Anya wasn't there. We were advised by Nastiya (Fields) and the "Gate Keeper" that Anya was at her apartment. We walked over to see her. She answered the door, well, completely asleep.

Where's the "love"? "Hate to bother ya. We just spent the last 18 months emerged in this process, spent $25,000.00 and gave up 5 straight weeks of our lives for you." So, there you are. For those who are all offended by the lack of appreciation-DON'T BE. If you're looking for them to worship the ground you walk on, you are in for a rude awakening. These are real people, too. They may very well "sell" themselves in an effort to be taken from their current environment, but at some point, reality sets in. Its somewhat similar to when people, finding themselves in a desperate situation, fall on their knees, praying (for,perhaps, the first time in months or even years) in an attempt to be taken out of the situation. Are they really any different than us? Let's compare situations to, well, God! He could very well be over-heard saying, "Where's the Love? Hate to bother ya. I just spent 5000 years playing the strings of the history of mankind like a musician plays the harp, strumming the perfect plan of each and every persons redemption, spent about EVERYTHING, including the life of my only son who endured the most horrific punishment/slaughter in history, completely undeserved and I've remained patient with you, loving until the end"-and we, at times, answer the door 1/2 asleep, if at all! Maybe this is why adoption is at the very heart of God. We need to get over ourselves. It is most certainly a good thing that we are involved in, but approach it with realistic expectations. To be sure, there will be moments when the appreciation is seen and there will be various levels of that-some will show it more than others, some will surprise with the level they express, whether it be much, or a little. At the least, it will make all of us more keenly aware of our Lord. Adoption, international or in-country, is not the "Royal Flush" in the high stakes gamble of getting into heaven, it is a desire and a calling put their by the Lord, Himself, to draw us closer to Him.

Whew! Enough of that. We've also discovered that Anya, while completely undisciplined as to the rules of organized sports, has an incredible leg, as well as aggressive nature. She's about 5ft. 6", 125lbs. and growing. Perhaps she'll try some sports at home-like, afternoon couch lounging-"ball", or, waking up at the crack of noon on Saturdays-"ball", or, every teen-age's favorite: trash can content shoving, can't take it out on my own-ball! We will at least expose her to some real sports at home that she can choose to be involved in.

To Kim: Aimee did daycare for years, almost exclusively little boys (until the last year) and I was privy to a lot of what goes on with 2 month-3 year old boys. It is amazing that little boys even survive long enough to grow into men. My experience has shown me that little girls at the same age are completely on defense when it comes to how their male counter-parts treat them-or is that called, "marriage"? :)

It is now 415AM here. Aimee is still asleep! That's almost 12 hours and she won't be up until about 7AM and she'll be exhausted by noon.

Among the list of items to bring, I will summarize with this: research the area you will be going, and factor in the weather. This is not a 3rd world country, they have nearly every item here that you could buy at home and it's cheaper here. IF!!!, you are going to a remote area, then I would suggest bringing specific items that I, as well as others have mentioned, otherwise, wait until you're here. I do wish I had brought a small (and I mean, small) fan for drying clothes on racks otherwise, it can take up to two days for stuff to dry. Guys, I cannot emphasize enough to bring 2 sets of clothing-that's it and one decent outfit for court. You can fit all your clothing into your old middle school duffel bag, minus the "pee-wee, XXX Small," size jock strap!

Aimee will add her version later. I always seem to forget the stuff most important to her. Don't get me started on that subject...

Court!

2008-10-10T09:24:00.002-06:00

Real quick, it went great. Sealed the deal. We've had an emotional day, our facilitator is gone for 5 days, we're going to watch a movie and go to sleep. We'll "blog" in detail either later tonight or first thing tomorrow. Matt

drdavid

2008-10-09T13:25:00.001-06:00

Thanks for comment. Contact info.???

The Bird!

2008-10-08T23:05:00.002-06:00

Aimee just reminded me about the bird. Apparently, the bird is scared to death of any changes to its cage and this includes toys that dangle or can be chewed on or in anyway change the atmosphere to which it has become accustomed. Don't bother bringing toys or gifts for the bird-sorry, Twyla.

Anya tried to convey this to both Aimee and I but we failed to heed her warning, not to mention she is just as leery of the bird as the bird is of everything.

The orphanage psychologist, who initially helped us put the toys in, later, after an intense therapeutic session, took them all out. The bird had retreated to the bottom of the cage and was refusing to come up. This was similar to several door slamming incidences I've had the privileges of being a part of back home. I'm sure you're all shocked that any female, of any age would ever slam the door in the face of such a caring, sensitive person.

Hurdle crossed; popcorn and Brown!

2008-10-08T11:42:00.012-06:00

Just got back from eating at a "Pirate" theme, underground restaurant in downtown Mariupol. Very good, gigantic portions and enough grease that it came with a coupon for a free, "cardio-unblock" procedure-maybe that's why it was so good. A part of the conversation turned to who won WWII. They are taught here that Russia along with Ukraine, won WWII as well as WWI. Really? We also got a great view of the large plasma TV tuned into Ukraine's version of "MTV", which is actually what we would refer to as "soft-porn". We are quickly coming to the realization that we made a good choice not to bring our kids here. We would have spent a lot of time on defense and/or explaining why things are culturally appropriate here and not back home. With teen-age daughters at home, it wouldn't have been easy to defend our standards. It may be one of the best decisions we made. This may only apply to those who travel to larger cities in Ukraine. For our particular situation it turned out well.

We did get a court date for this Friday. Nadiya performed her magic, again, and has us in front of a female judge at 11:30AM. We don't anticipate any issues or further delays, unless I can't figure out how to iron Anya's shirt-yes, that's right, I'm the only one in the family who can iron! This will add about two days to our trip.

It was a good day, for the most part. Picked up Anya around 10AM. It's only because of my ability to completely and utterly ignore the female mood-swings that we made it through the day. Anya became immediately pouty because we were going to walk instead of taking a taxi to do some shopping-for her! She thought we were headed back to the apartment for Pringles and DVD's. At one point, she was almost 200 yards ahead of us (actually, at some points, out of sight). As Aimee began to literally run after her I noticed that not only had she stopped, but had started back to us. Only that she came back on her own did the journey continue forward as opposed to a return trip to the orphanage. I was able to communicate, quite effectively in Russian, to wait for us, stay with us and quit causing anxiety for mama. She respected this the rest of the day, it was really quite nice-I was very impressed, so was the now, always lovely, always composed, never losing sight of the prize-Aimee!! This little episode occurred during 1/2 time so no scoring took place. Papa=3, Ukrainian Teen-age female=0.

Shopping at this gigantic, mid-evil type bazaar is chaos. We did manage to buy all the shirts and other things on, "...the list."! Aimee has this fetish for 'Sticky Notes a/k/a: Post-It-Notes'. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING goes on a sticky note. Our whole bedroom at home has a sticky note theme. As much as I taunt her about this, everything she sets out to do, gets done! I should have known something was up about 18 months ago when I spotted that pink sticky note on the dresser that said, "Adopt Ukrainian Orphan".

Had to exchange money today and with the US stock market tanking-what better time!! All the way up to $5.67gry for $1.00USD. By my calculations and with this trend, we may stay here as in Ukraine, I will shortly be a millionaire whereas in the states I'll be struggling. What are y'all doing back there? Anya tried repeatedly to show me where to exchange the money. I did not trust or value her insight. It was only after I agreed to heed her advice and go to the little booth with the little window that you can't see inside as your pushing $100.00 bills through it, that she smiled and was very happy. I realized at that moment that the language barrier and the loss of control and input because of this is HUGE!!!!! I read that somewhere, now I've seen it first hand. People, your adopted kids have massive amounts of change to process and cope with; demonstrate patience and support. As for my lovely wife; she is the best when it comes to this whole issue of international adoption and everything else as well. For those who don't know my wife, you are missing out on one of God's true gifts to man-kind-both inside and outside!!!!!

We did manage to see our first "UPS Ukrainian Guy" today. I ran him down, explained as best I could who I was and what I did back home. He smiled and said, "...awesome...". His truck and packages were nowhere to be found, only a satchel full of documents-are you kidding me!! Paperwork only? Anya made it very clear that we had completely embarrassed her. Don't teen-agers world wide realize that nothing is more satisfying than to completely, publicly humiliate them?

We were also told that starting tomorrow, Anya, who has become progressively less cooperative at the orphanage ("short-timer's attitude" as we call it in the states), will be going back to school every day instead of hanging out at the orphanage waiting for us to transport her into, "I'm the center of the world" land and being a complete pain in the aspirin may help her feel better about having to go back to school temporarily. :) We will now only have 3 hours/day with her which, for those of us who have had to morph into, "Entertainment Today and Night" for these kids, is not always entertaining. In all honesty, I have yet to discuss this subject with any couple who didn't, at least at some level, have some less than positive comments about spending hour after hour with, at times, very little to do. Most of these orphanages are not located in tourist locations. I move that all orphanages have to be within walking distance of "Disney Ukraine". Yes, it's great to have time with them and yes, they have had it hard (especially those summer camps in Greece) and yes, we love them and want the best opportunities for them, but has anyone else noticed that all those extended parent/orphan play-dates are lacking? Speaking of "play-dates": what is that all about? Is there a book out there somewhere that somehow suggested that this would be a good idea? Is it called, "Lets Turn Our Boys Into Sissy's"? When I was a kid we didn't have "play-dates"! We just, well, played...I move that stupid terminology like, "Oh, let's have them get together for a 'play-date'", be done away with! Do we really want to raise a generation of men who fondly recall the good 'ole days as, "play-dates"? To all moms: we love you. All the tenderness, love and care that you provide are the very foundation upon which character is built-without that attachment and empathy that is rooted in the very service you provide, there would be no men to accomplish great things. It is the very platform upon which to launch a little boy into manhood, and he is just that, a little man. Stop with all the, "play-date" non-sense! It's not a 'date', it's usually more like a 'brawl'. We can compromise: we'll keep the 'play' part and replace "date", with a more accurate description, 'brawl'. Now we have "play-brawl'! Da? Or how about, "play-battle'? Or, "play-butt kicking, furniture climbing, plant destroying, arm biting, couch face smashing, Cheerio throwing, backwards chair falling, my Fruit Roll Up is a sword stabbing, counter top pull ups exercising, 'how the hell did you get up there' screaming, cell phones are hand grenades throwing, everythings mine grabbing, machine gun sounding, what the flip is in your mouth panicking-date".

Please do not misconstrue, misunderstand or misquote me (unless, of course, it advances your position and, under the umbrella of 'self-justification', you feel entitled, feel free to do so). I love Anya and really do enjoy most of our time together, but I would be lying to you if I said it was all, "..love and roses...", sometimes, it feels more like, "Guns and Roses". Just kidding! Lighten up!

We watched the"Truman Show" in Russian today. Yesterday we watched "RV" in Russian. They don't bother removing the English, you can hear it a split-second before the Russian kicks in. Sometimes, as in the "Truman Show", they don't even bother dubbing in female voices, it's the same tone throughout. Picture, if you will, a cross between Adam Sandler and Vladimir Putin and you have the voice of ALL the characters.

Anya and I really enjoyed the movie together as I can hear just enough English and can comprehend just enough Russian to know the humor. Anya is very selective as to what she'll laugh at, but when she does, she means it.

We also discovered that throwing popcorn at each other is fun. Yes, I started it by knocking her elbow through her jaw, spewing her handful all over-she deserved it, I don't know why, but she did. She's relentless at throwing popcorn back at me. Then it occurred to me that I was throwing greasy, buttery popcorn all over Ludmilla's sons' apartment. Aimee should have stopped us, but noooo...........!!!! Anya and I also love to correct each others language usage, in fact, I've spent considerable time learning words and phrases and I can say in all seriousness that it has probably been the single biggest bonding ties between us. She sees me attempting to enter into her world and this shows her respect-she loves that, more than I can say. I, in turn, get to use it as leverage to encourage English and out of love and respect, she is really trying. See, I'm not the arrogant, uncaring, neanderthal you think I am. I'm in Ukraine-I love this kid.

Concerning language and word usage: I described to Anya that my popcorn was, "...popcornyets.." and hers was, "...popcornka..." The 'yets' is gender specific to males and the, 'nka' is gender specific to females-not always, but enough to make my point (and, no, it's not grammatically accurate, but you get my point). She was very impressed and absolutely loved the play on words that I was able to perform. If Anya and Nadiya got it and laughed and no one else does then I'm good with that.

Aimee continues to impress with her insight, patience and grasp of everything going on with Anya. All that preparation is really paying off as does a genuine love, care and concern for adoption-she truly has the heart of God in mind.

One more thing: do not and I repeat, do not allow your kids to have I-Pods. These things may be thee single worst thing that can be present at any sort of family event. It allows for complete dis-engagement and withdrawal.

Matt (only) The views expressed herein are not expressly those of the "Editorial Dictator" and do not necessarily reflect the opinion she may otherwise have.

First hurdle!

2008-10-08T00:27:00.003-06:00

Real quick: Court date postponed until at least Friday. Judge is being ''investigated". Refusing to allow a quick court date during this time. Apparently, our court date occurred two to three days faster than normal. His books are being reviewed for the next two days. This will add at least a day to our trip, but could add as much as a week. Anya misunderstood Nadiya's explanation and thought there were serious problems with her documents. Of course, she jumped immediately to the conclusion that the sky was falling. Nadiya and Aimee performed "search and rescue" outside the pizza place. I sat inside and continued to eat (recall my post about being able to devalue the seriousness of a situation...?). Thanks to all who are commenting with encouragement and advice; it is well received! We'll "blog" at length later, we have, well, nothing to do right now so we'll just put it off some more...

Just another day in Mariupol

2008-10-06T13:18:00.005-06:00

Hello everyone,

I wanted to reply to some of the comments:

First to Joe thanks for the tip about the book, I have read this one, it is good stuff,Thanks. About the restaurant again Thanks we are getting kind of tired of pizza. Not sure we have seen this "Golden Lion" is it near the park or in the park? Is the sign in English or Ukrainian? Any other help in locating this would be great. And by the way I knew what you meant even with the spelling :).

June, thank you for the info on your daughters emotions, this is what we figured with Anya normal and will improve as she feels more secure. But it is nice to hear of similar experiences.

Jen, We love you and Miss you too. I am glad you are enjoying the pictures, I have not taken many the last two days because Anya is taking so many on her camera(FKA:Matt's camera) and because we keep seeing the same things each day. I will hope to find something more interesting and different soon.

Melissa, Thanks for your prayers and I too hope and pray your waiting period is short. I know it is soo hard having a child so far away and wondering about them all the time.

I have a few pictures from today nothing very exciting.

We had rain this morning for a while, then sun again and warm. Brian, Tami, Matt and I took a taxi to Fox Mart this morning to get a camera for Nastiya and other food and household items that we needed. After this we met up at the orphanage about 2:30 and they had their visit with Nastiya until 6pm, unfortunately they will not allow Nastiya to leave the orphanage grounds on the weekdays. Matt and I took Anya back to the shops near the market place to purchase the belt she wanted yesterday, we had not brought enough Ukrainian money with us last time so we had to return for this today. We also picked up a few more personal items for Anya including a new toothbrush, a battery powered one hoping she Will use this, her teeth are in really bad shape. A lot of work to be done when we get back home. The other thing we purchased today was small tea size spoons for the orphanage, they needed them apparently and Anya was sooo happy when we told her we would let her them buy them for her group, she jumped up and down and did the happy dance! It is just amazing how much the little things we take for granted at home. These tea spoons for 5 of them cost less than one American dollar, and it was like treasure for these people. I got some nail polishes, hand creams and manicure tools for the girls in Anya, Nastiya and Lyena's group. Tami also brought a bunch of these from home, so Tami and I are hoping to be able to do all their nails one day this week just for fun.

The only real exciting thing that happened today was the email we received from Christine Niles in regard to Lyena. They are for sure coming back to adopt her ASAP, after she is available next November. Masha had called Lyena today and now she knows for sure, and she is sooo excited and happy. We are also so over joyed that this girl is going to get a family that loves and cares for her. So we will not be coming back to Ukraine next year, as far as we know, God may have other plans but for now, we are thankful and content with our Anya.

When we saw Lyena today she was all smiles. She was walking around the orphanage grounds with Anya carrying her a letter that the Niles family had written to her last December. She wanted me to read it and gave me a big hug, and she told me thru Nadiya "don't be sad because she will give me her address and we can write." I told her I was not sad at all and that I was so happy for her!"

So after our shopping we took Anya to the pizza place for dinner, Matt had the pizza again the rest of us had the lasagna and veggie/salad dishes. Tami and Brian met us at the pizza place after their time with Nastiya was up and we had a good time eating together again. Nadiya was wonderful and spent about 45 minutes during this dinner working with Anya on her English and helping her by writing things out and teaching her correct way to form sentences. Anya was trying really hard and by the end of this lesson asked us several things in perfect English. The Fields and us have decided that we will be bringing Nadiya home with us, to be the English teacher, family therapist, and personal nanny to all of the kids from our group. Nadiya says she is too old for us to jointly adopt her, but she may consider it if we can find her a suitable American boyfriend. She says the only good boyfriend she ever had was an American, and there are no good looking men in Ukraine. Jen I was thinking of Cory, what do you think?? Not sure how she feels about motorcycles?

Oh and we will have court in two days wednesday the 8th, Nadiya confirmed this for us today.

Soldiers on swings, Brides on Tampolines, & Bumper cars

2008-10-05T12:26:00.003-06:00

Saturday morning we met up with Tami & Brian at the orphanage to take the girls to Extreme Park. We had to call for the "Mercedes Van Taxi" today because we have grown in numbers. On this trip we had Matt & I, Anya, Lyena, Nastiya, Brian & Tami. We left the orphanage just after 10am, as we were only able to keep Nastiya from 10am-1pm. While we were waiting for the taxi we had many "shifts" in Anya's mood. She went from extremely happy to flat out not going and then back to happy. The jealously thing again, I would have to guess she is going thru so many emotions and so much anxiety about her future and all the changes ahead, that at times she does not even know her own thoughts. Lyena handled this all very well, she told us at one point when Anya had stormed off that she knew Anya was doing this because of her, and that we should not judge her as Anya is not like this, and this is not her as she is normally. Matt made it very clear to Lyena that it does not matter either way if Anya chooses to act this way, and that she is still important enough to us that we will not allow this to interfere with our plans. We are trying very hard to find the right balance with the girls to make them feel secure and cherished while at the same time keep things in check and not allow the mood swings and jealously dictate how our day goes.

All was great by the time we got to the park, and Anya sang to us her Russian music from the MP3 player almost the entire ride there. All three girls were very excited when we arrived and each one had the idea of what they would ride. It was agreed that we would first all ride the "Crazy Train" roller coaster. After this Ice cream was suggested by Nadia, and this would lead to the absolute worst breakfast/lunch any of us have ever eaten. This would include a combination of ice cream, Popsicles, chips, peanuts, pizzas, sausage rolls, and some very strange smelly dehydrated fish jerky type stuff that Lyena wanted. All the kids ate it happily and seemed to enjoy this, Matt, Brian & Tami tasted it and regretted every bite, I refused to try this and am very glad that I did.

Immediately following the Breakfast of champions, Anya & Lyena decide this is the time to ride the one that flips them around in complete circles over and over! The screams could be heard for miles away. Then Nastiya and Lyena headed for the Ukraine version of "Tower of Doom" you know the one that takes you way up in the air and just drops all of a sudden, oh the looks on their faces, Nastiya informed us through Nadiya that she is not doing that ever again!

Next was to the Flying Swings, but we had to wait because apparently these were in process of being used for basic training for the Ukrainian Army( See the recently added photos for these soldiers on swings) Anya & Nasitya had a good time on the swings. But the best part was the bumper cars, I think we rode these a total of five times. Lyena was the most dangerous, both Matt and Brian decided they are going to pay way too much for auto insurance in the near future. After spending some time at the souvenir stand and carefully chosen bracelets and necklaces were bought, we had just enough time for one last ride and a group photo. It was on the walk to the outer gate for the group photo that Anya's mood shifted again, we had her refusing to be in this said "group photo" and she was apparently no longer part of our group. After some pleading on my part and bargaining by Nadiya, Matt pulled out the "papa tone" which worked quite well, she was now again part of our group. As Matt would have you know the score was now Papa-3 Ukrainian Orphan-0.

The constantly shifting moods with Anya continued in the parking lot where we were waiting for our van taxi. Were now discussing how to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening, and if Anya would want to go back to the orphanage or stay with us and go back to our apartment. First she wanted to stay with us, then she did not, then she did and then not. Nadiya and her had many words, Nadiya is now fairly frustrated with Anya who is indeed acting like a small child. Matt and I discussed this on the way back to the orphanage and decided it was time to draw the line and put an end to this pattern. Since Anya's last verbal request was to stay at the orphanage, we would not allow her to come with us if she changed her mind after we arrived. She did not change her mind and ask to come with us because I am fairly certain she heard our discussion on the way in the van and can understand our English much more than she wants us to know. So we said our goodbyes, and tomorrows and went on our way. It was hard to leave her, but we hope it is for the best and that she will not continue this back and forth game next time we visit.

Brain, Tami & Nadiya were off to the attorney to do some more paperwork and Matt & I decided to walk back to the apartment. On our way we wanted to stop at a grocery on the other side of the Fountain park, so we walked thru the park. This is where we encountered at least 10 different wedding parties all over the park. There were brides everywhere we looked! Even brides jumping on trampolines! Only in Ukraine!(see photos, for a small sample of these brides.) We asked Nadiya about this later, was this a special holiday for weddings or why so many? And we are told this is just a typical Saturday- we can not figure it out very weird stuff.

After this walk in the park and the stop at the market we went back to the apartment to meet up with Nadiya, Brian & Tami. After a while at the apartment we would go out to the pizza place for dinner ad then home to bed.

Sunday

Today was a rather uneventful day. We picked up the girls (Anya & Nastiya) at 10:00 and took taxi's to the Market Place. Matt decided if he had to endure the Market Place on a Sunday then so did Brian. We had a goal of finding each girl an outfit for court. Again to day we had to have Nastiya back to the orphanage by 1:00 and accomplishing this goal in 3 hours was not going to be easy. We got off to a great start when our taxi turned instead of following the Fields taxi when it went straight, so we were dropped of on the opposite side of the market Place. This would not be a big deal we would just call, and this is when we found out our minutes on our phone expired and we could not call. Thank God for Anya, who was able to understand us and help us find a place in the Market to purchase the MTS minute cards. So after this is done and the phone is updated and activated, Anya calls Nadiya to find a place to meet up. After three phone calls and walking in huge circles(taking directions from a 15 year old again) we finally find Nadiya and can meet the Fields and begin this shopping mission.

After many battles over size and tightness and height of the heels and one very embarrassing shirt suggestion from Mama to one future teenage daughter ,that I am choosing NOT to blog about because Brian already told me he would be sure to cover this in HIS and I am sure he will, (if not Matt will they just love it when the Mom makes these very rare mistakes) We accomplished our mission and both Anya and Nastiya have very nice appropriate court outfits. We even had time to get Tami her makeup, me my perfume, DVD's for Twyla's Misha and Brian his Ukrainian underwear. All and all it was a pretty good trip to the Market Place and now Brian and Matt can say they survived shoe shopping with women in Ukraine.

A few more updates on us and the whole process. We expect to go to court on Tuesday or Wednesday, hopefully Nadiya will a get a definite answer tomorrow for us. We received an email from Christine and Mark Niles, Masha's parents, the one that we thought may be coming back to try to adopt Lyena, and it seems that this may be their plan after all. I am waiting for another email back and a little more details, and Nadiya will discuss this with Ludmilla in the morning, but the way things look today we will not be coming back for her next November, and we are just happy that she will be with a family who loves her. Anya was much more mellow today and consistently happy, and well behaved we did not have the attention seeking pouting or mood swings we are hoping this continues and our strategy from Saturday worked.

Check out the photos for our day at Extreme Park, and we will write again tomorrow with any updated news. Love, Aimee

Question for any and all

2008-10-04T13:54:00.004-06:00

Was getting started on one-way ticket back to the states-Anya's ticket. Anyone know the best direction to take? My plan was to purchase the ticket ASAP on the same flight as our return tickets. I bought ticket insurance on our tickets because I knew they would need changed. It cost $150.00/ticket to insure against a $250.00 ticket change, which I knew would occur. Now, I'm trying to do the same thing with a one-way ticket. My understanding is (and I don't fly, ever) the more in advance, the cheaper the ticket. I want to get it... yesterday! Checking on-line tonight and I didn't realize that most discount ticket providers do not allow/support a purchase of a ticket that originates outside the U.S. What is that all about? Anyway, if anyone is savvy with this sort of thing I need solutions-ASAP! The only flight I found was on United-$3519.00-are you kidding me...

Don't have the energy to "Blog" right now, eyes worn out from ticket research-and way too much "orphan-induced" fun today. Maybe in a few hours when I'm STILL wide awake from all the stupid fireworks that are relentlessly going off-again! It was just about the best day, though...more later.

Useful stuff

2008-10-03T23:06:00.006-06:00

Everyone must thinks I'm taking this whole adventure rather lightly, I'm not, it's how I process and deal with things, we all do it in our own ways. Also, Aimee is telling me she does not agree with some of this (I'm shocked!), especially about the fashion and gifts ideas. Gender differences-I'll add a "*" next to her input. That said, I thought it may help to actually shed some light on travel needs and ideas: 1. Bring very little, especially for women unless you're willing to bring all your "night club" outfits. The women here, in large part, dress for relational success. Also bring easy to wash items and mostly black-seriously. No open-toe shoes-bring more like "Urban-Hiking" shoes. *Aimee didn't like this-Oh, really? I never said to dress like a "slob" (did I say that-NO, I didn't), I said to be practical and that you won't stand out unless you dress like you're "clubbing". 2. Bring a Wi-Fi laptop-do not rely on finding an Internet Cafe with available computers. Maybe bring two laptops: "his" and "hers"!! Amazing the differences in perception. 3. Try to find an apartment with an Internet connection that can be set-up upon arrival, so much better than carrying your laptop around. 4. Bring small, disposable everything! Sugars in packets, creamers in packets, condiments, a small spoon and maybe even a super-small dust pan and little broom. 5. If you are able, bring a inexpensive digital camera with a memory card, the kids who are leaving probably like this more than anything else. 6. I wouldn't bring any gifts at all for anyone, you'll be asked to purchase things like boxes of paper, office products, etc...or simply bring cash-they love cash and $5.00USD can go a long way. *Aimee didn't like this, either-Oh, really? Yes, Anya liked giving what we brought, but it made us bring a 5olb. bag of luggage-stuff that could have been replaced and/or bought here at 1/2 the price. But what do I know, I only had to carry it all over the place. 7. Bring a phone that can be unlocked and inserted with a Ukrainian "sim card", either your own or a cheap one that can be used temporarily, otherwise you end up buying one here-a phone is a "must-have", at least it for us. If you have a BlackBerry (I do) it is wonderful over here, but make sure it is set up with "International E-mail". For about $19.99 for one month it is incredibly useful and allows for timely attention to important matters at home and in Ukraine. 8. Bring a small utility tool. Guys, you probably know why, just do it. 9. Do Not bring shorts. It has been at least 70degrees here for a week, very warm and I literally have not seen one person in shorts, no one! *Aimee, the ever present editorial dictator, has told me that this is strictly seasonal, NO sh__! 10. Bring "Febreze" and pocket "Kleenex"-actually, anything that can be put into a small applicator ("Tide", "Neosporin", hand sanitizer...) and even small boxes or packages of laundry detergent. 11. Bring several International plug-in adapters. 12. Rechargeable batteries. I don't know how useful this is, it is just a few things that have surfaced that we thought to bring and are really glad we did. I'll add more later as things come up. Off to Extreme (ly) "Boring" Park with three girls and the Fields. I wonder how many mood swings I'll survive today?

Brian & Tami arrived in Mariupol today.

2008-10-03T13:42:00.002-06:00

Today was another good day in Mariupol, beautiful sunny and about 70 degrees. We had to leave the apartment today from 9am-2pm because Ludmilla has a cleaning lady who comes each Friday. We woke up late so after showering and rushing to get ready we had not time for coffee before she arrived. We walked to the little coffee shop down the street, and had just sat down to order when in walks Brian & Tami. They had just arrived in Mariupol and Nadiya sent them with the driver to get coffee because the regional director was in a meeting when they arrived, so she would just wait and call when they were ready for them. So this was a great surprise for us, we really enjoyed being able to talk and spend time with friends. After the coffee, Nadiya called and said it was going to be longer so we walked a bit further to a restaurant to get some breakfast, the coffee shop has no food. After this Nadiya and the driver came to take Brian and Tami to the orphanage to meet with Ludmilla and to see Nastiya. Matt & I decided to walk to the orphanage, this was a bad choice, or should I say my shoes were a bad choice. I had not worn these here yet, but they are fine and comfortable back home. The walk to the orphanage is all at a downward slant, so I was always slipping forward in the shoes, and half way there I developed a blister and had to stop and put band aids on it. Matt was not too happy with me at this point, and wants to go shoe shopping for more practical shoes! When we arrived at the orphanage, I heard our girls(Anya & Lyena) on the landing of the stairs. So I went on up to say hello, they were hanging up a poster they made for "Teacher day" and Anya asked if we could go and buy flowers for all their teachers. We said of course, and she did this "happy dance". Turns out we were having a party and Nadiya was informed that we would pay for this party. So she went to get cakes, coffee & juice while we went to get the flowers and stop by the apartment for more practical shoes. By this time the cleaning lady is almost done so we wait for a while longer so we can get the key before heading back to the orphanage. When we arrive back at the orphanage Brain & Tami are saying goodbye to Nastiya for they need to go do more paperwork and check into their apartment. And good news Nadiya has gotten permission for them to take Nastiya from the orphanage tomorrow and come with us to Extreme Park, we are so excited because they normally would not let a child so young leave the grounds. Before they leave we ask Nadiya about this party, and when it will happen, and she says now I guess. We are now upset, the party we are paying for and we are not invited? This did not last long, Anya asked us if we wanted to go up with her group, and we are excited because normally they like us to visit outside, and never upstairs. So we go up to the sitting area and visit with Lyena and Genya for a while. Genya shows us her photo album, turns out she went to Utah in August on a hosting program, and seems this family will be coming to adopt her sometime in the upcoming year. Matt is so excited to know this, as he has really fallen for this one. She is a great girl. We also talk more to Lyena, and turns out she went to Indiana in August and stayed with Masha's family Christine and Mark Niles, they adopted the friend Masha two summers ago. Lyena is not sure if they want to come for her, and wants me to ask Ludmilla about this. She wants to come to Colorado with Anya but also to Indiana with Masha. She does understand her documents are not ready until November of next year. We also learned some more about her little sister, not everything because all these conversations took place with no interpreter and with the help of little English by Anya, Genya & Lyena and even less Russian by Matt & I and translation dictionaries and hand signals. We saw a picture of the sister who is named Vika and is 6 years old, she is only half sisiter same mother different father and she now lives with the grandfather. She is sick we are told but still don't know how sick. It seems to me the grandfather can only afford to take care of one of the girls so he choose the one you was ill and needed him most. We are told she left two years ago, and she has not seen her or the grandfather since, this is why Ukraine would most likely agree to separate them by adoption of only one of them. Lyena told us she loves Vika, and got tears in her eyes as she talked of her, so not sure separating them further is best? She also told us of her Love for Jesus, and showed us her framed photo of Jesus. She talked a lot about her Grandmother and the church she goes to and Jesus. As we are sitting here talking one of the other girls brings us a plate full of the cake, and this is our invite to "the party" Yes! We are invited into the girls room and sit at Lyena and Genya's desk/table. We are given the coffee, black, luckily I have sugar and creamer packets in my bag, not enough to make it good, but better than nothing. And this is the party. The children are doing homework at this point and smiling and looking at us. Then I remember I have the balloon animal kit in my bag, I figure party needs balloons. Homework is done, and one by one they all end up at the table with us pumping up balloons, trying to blow up balloons, popping balloons, fighting for the pumps to the balloons and all kinds of chaos has broken out. This whole time Nastiya(Matthews) is very close by my side trying to communicate with me about Mama Joyce, she shows me the Teddy Bear we had Anya give to her and cards from Dan & Joyce, and gives me three bracelets to give to Joyce, and she asks me to have them write. We were told yesterday by Valentin and Nadiya not to get involved with the whole mess and that nothing had changed with Nastiya and that her mother was trying to do this right and get her back with her. I am not sure what to think, it feels like to me Nastiya has no idea why the Matthews have not come for her and she obviously wants to be with them, please everyone keep this situation in your prayers! So at one point Natasha the Vice Director walks in and has had enough of "the Party" and does not want anymore balloons popping! She asks Anya to kindly take her mama & Papa outside! At this point Nastiya(Matthews) is so funny she is motioning to me like crazy, and very worried that I need to leave, if only I could understand what this director had said, but from the look on Nastiya's face it was not good, Anya just shrugs and tells me" it's OK" she always says it is OK! So we go outside for a while, and wait for Ludmilla to get out of her meeting, she is the last one Anya needs to give her flowers too before we can leave. 10 minutes later Anya, Lyena & I are outside Ludmilla's office(Matt was listening he stayed outside) waiting to give her these flowers, and in the office across the hall is Nastiya (Fields) with her grandparents, they are signing the papers allowing the Fields to adopt her. Nastiya loves her Grandma you can tell this by watching her. Finally Ludmilla comes out and we give her these flowers, Anya makes a long speech first, then Ludmilla makes a long speech, then hugs for Anya and then hugs for Lyena, and more speeches by Ludmilla and more photos, and finally the "Spa-see-ba"(Thank you) to me and we can go now. Matt, Anya & I walk back to the apartment and hang out for short while, Anya and Matt load her photos on the computer and play around with Google Earth, she likes that we can zoom in on our house. They follow the flight path we will take on the way home and this kind of thing, it is good fun for them. Then we are hungry and call Brian & Tami we all meet up for pizza, Nadiya joins us a little bit into the meal as she has been working on the documents for the Fields. Dinner was a good time, Anya ate everything in site. This is the most we have seen her eat ever, then discover maybe today she skipped lunch! We had originally told her that we would come at 10:00, then when the Fields showed up this changed, and we ended up having this late breakfast with them. Every time we picked up we had taken her to eat, when she was not all the hungry because she ate at the orphanage, so she must have decided to not eat and then we did not show up and leave with her until long after lunch, poor thing! Anyway she made up for it at the pizza place, she ate four different salads/vegetable dishes, pizza, Borsch, bread, & lasagna. Then she was a happy girl! That is all for today, more tomorrow. I added more pictures. Love to you all, Aimee

@%$$&^#!@##%!

2008-10-02T14:47:00.002-06:00

SEE BELOW he was able to recover the earlier post! Also more pictures added of us with Lyena or Leena or however you say it-we like her either way. From Aimee Want to know what my post is tonight? Nothing! Why? Because I just spent two hours composing it only to be kicked off the Internet as I was adding ONE picture. Oh, and it was good, I mean GOOD!

Exposed! (again)

2008-10-02T13:09:00.005-06:00

OK! Well, thanks for the input about how to recover my blog post-7 hours late (thanks Kari). While this is a good thing, there's also one problem: because I thought it was gone forever, I described it as "GOOD...really GOOD!" Remember that? Now I have to post it because I'm too lazy to redo what is already available. I'm apprehesive about this for fear that if it isn't all that "GOOD", then I'm completely exposed in the same fashion as someone who posts someone else's picture on an Internet dating site!! It's like people who can be anyone they want and say anything they want about themselves behind and E-mail address because no one will ever know, except in this case, everyone can find me. Oh well, so I'm a liar-dang it.

So here goes:

We heard from the Barrett's tonight who are surviving(in every sense of the word) their time in Gorodnya. Without going into all the details, I have to say, "Hang in there" and that doesn't begin to touch the surface of the chaos that is their experience here in Ukraine.

Tonight, Aimee and I realized that our two biggest complaints were: 1. We wish we had an extension cord for our lap top so we could use our computer closer to the couch(we actually do have one, concerned it would blow the fuses if used). And(this is a killer) 2. We have to vacate the apartment for 4 hours tomorrow because our own private cleaning service is arriving at 9AM to completely clean the place and will do so every Friday-"Lord, when will it ever end". What's next? Take out our own trash? Less than perfect weather? Eating less than 11 times/day? Who do I take such grievances too? Outrageous!! Aimee and I actually feel like we are floating somewhere between "Ukrainian Adoption LaLa Land" and, " All hell's about to break loose-land".

It didn't take long for human nature to supersede the "love-fest" we've been wallowing in with Anya. Jealousy, by the way, is universal! So as not to implicate those involved (hint:teenage Ukrainian female) we'll just say that our relentless pursuit of attempting to pronounce a particular {other} teenage girls names can lead another particular teenage girl to jump to completely groundless assumptions that because your saying this certain name over and over, that THAT would be the one you REALLY care about(even though the language barrier gives her absolutely NO idea the context)!! But why should reality, context or common sense prevail when you can manipulate the situation into a "pout-fest". Nice try. Like I don't see that, well, almost everyday back home from any one of a number of family members. We discovered that phrases like, "...grow up...", "...quit acting like a child...(even though she is)" and "...get over it...", translate quite well from English to Ukrainian-thanks Nadiya! Dad=2, Teenage Ukrainian Female=0. That's a 200% advantage-YES! The best part: she was shortly in Aimee's arms as well as mine, smiling, more secure than ever that she's "in".

Valentin told us that a 2nd referral is like, "..looking for gold at the end of the rainbow." I think of it more like, "...no, an orphan at the end of Chevchenko Blvd." Either way, it's not likely to happen-at least not now. It is becoming apparent that we will, more than likely, be back here in 13 months to do this all over again-this time possibly for two more. The only issue with this is that at this time, no girls are available that fall in our age range (10-16), who are off the registry and don't have siblings-small window of opportunity. You'll have to understand if I don't elaborate.

My emotions (I have, I believe, one left), are in over-drive. We met several kids the last few days that do nothing short of reach down your throat and grab your heart, extract it and run up the stairs, squealing the whole way-it's really quite irritating. What I wouldn't do for a 10 bedroom home(like, oh, stay a whole night in Gorodnya maybe)!

Anya has shown us several trees with carvings in them. One shown here is her name in Cyrillic. There were others, including a former boyfriend-WHAT?! My first thought was; wow, orphans running around with knives and carving utensils-no problems there, no opportunity for bad things to happen. As I got closer, I realized just how DEEP those cuts were, those names were staying in those trees-I'm surprised the trees survived. We'll just ignore the under-lying psychological implications hidden in all those gashes.

We had to purchase several items today at Fox Mart. The driver drove us three miles each way and waited an hour while we shopped-$16USD! The simplest math regarding exchange rate: $1.00USD=$5.00grv.(Approximately). $1.00grv=$0.20!! I believe over the next two weeks we will be worshipping at the alter of the Fox Mart logo-it's a "comfort" and "safety" thing with Aimee.

I "gave" my digital camera to Anya this afternoon. Quite frankly, if I don't give her mine, Aimee would have( if she were able to get past my super cool, Swiss made, TSA approved miniature security locks). When you give birth to a teenager the "present curve" is steep! Blocks, stuffed animals or even old boxes don't cut it, no, you're straight into expensive, delicate electronic equipment. I hope it makes it out of the orphanage tomorrow.

Speaking of photo-op's: there is small boat shaped piece of playground equipment in the back of the orphanage-perfect for, "I'm the king of the world" scene in "Titanic". After I pushed Anya off the boat, the "king" took his spot; not one of my prouder moments, but I do have boundaries. During our walk around the orphanage, I got an even better idea of just how much money is being poured into improvements on the grounds and the structures (which can be seen on "Google Earth"). The walk was also when we got to spend time with Lyena (sp? and pronunciation?-recall the whole "jealousy" incident?) and Anya. This was the banner moment of the day, at least it was for me.

Today's "Taxi Cab" story: the driver looked like a "Boy George" groupie. Old military coat, shaved head, tattoos, earrings (everywhere), what looked like dark eye shadow. I was waiting for him to break out into that one song, you know, the one where you don't know if he's saying, "...come-uh, come-uh, come-uh, come-uh, come-uh chameleon..." or, "...kharma, kharma, kharma, kharma kharma chameleon...". Or is just me?? I don't know. There's been several songs like that in my life where I've said the wrong words for years and then one day it hits you-you see it somewhere, or it's more clear in a remake or someone says something about it and you stand there in all your inner shame and humiliation, trying to act like, "..oh, yeah, I've known those words all along...", all those horrors come rushing over you-that everyone who has ever been within ears shot of you is now vindicated that, yes, you're a moron! Now all those unwarranted stares, glares and eye-rolling looks you received makes sense. It wasn't your fashion choice, it was the stupid words that only YOU didn't know. Maybe it is just me. Does Boy George even sing that song? See....

Back to "Orphan Adoption Blogging": Today's clothing advisory-bring 1/3 of what you think you need. I've discovered that I CAN, indeed, where the same socks for four days. And, because Aimee is so concerned about the water drying out her skin or the laundry smelling strange, I get, virtually a free pass on personal hygiene.

Anya gives me the ole, "...blah, blah, blah..." when she pretends not to be understanding me, key word, "...pretends...". These kids, while they may not be able to perform conversational english, they comprehend it. Do not be fooled; nuance and delivery say a lot, they play the "...no speak english..." card as long as possible, especially the older ones.

I am fully aware that tough times are ahead, some more than others(especially if she doesn't stop wearing jeans that are the equivalent of low-rise underwear-I don't care if that's Ukrainian fashion, it's not what "Papa" wants/needs to see), but for now my affection for her and determination to do the best for her keeps ratcheting upward.

One more thing: don't mess around with the women taking your order or running the cash register. They have very little, actually "zero" patience for smart-alec foreign tourists. They just don't know me well enough to appreciate the humor and smoothness-what is "THEIR" problem? What was Aimee thinking all those years ago. If I lived here, I'd be the lead character in "The 40 Year Old Virgin."

Got to go: cleaning lady here!

LOOK WHO WE FOUND TODAY!

2008-10-01T15:15:00.003-06:00

WEDNESDAY: Anya was not allowed back to school again today, apparently she is still on some sick list from the whole hospital allergy thing? So we are told at 10am she is ready for us and we can come anytime. We have to go to the Notary/attorney first for the last up the pre-court paperwork. Then a quick stop at the regional inspectors office-we wait in the taxi Nadiya said 5 minutes, turns out it was Ukrainian minutes translates to 25 minutes, this is OK because several days ago Nadiya had explained to us about this Ukrainian time, so after 5 minutes had passed we knew were had most likely crossed over into Ukraine time. We arrive at the orphanage about 11:00 and Anya is not inside, Nadiya needs to talk to the ladies in the office and then Ludmila so Matt and I decide to go out and walk around. I soon find Anya out on the playground with her friends, I do not think any of these kids ever go to school it is not even noon and they are hanging out playing?Anya says goodbye as she assumes we are leaving, I explain we will stay for a while and she immediately wants the camera. I get introduced to some of her closest friends, this is wonderful. I get to talk some with Leena, this is the 13 year old girl that Ryan Carlson told us about a year ago, we had written to Ludmila about her and prayed about adopting her too. We first saw her on Monday just briefly and we recognized her from the photo Ryan had given us. We now know that Leena has been registered but won't be available for International adoption until next November, we may have to come back to Ukraine after all. Anya very much wants us to take Leena home with her, they are very close. We also meet a 13 year old Genya she is one of Matt's favorites speak English very well. We assume she must have siblings or family that visits or not registered because we have been told there are no other available girls without siblings between ages 10-16 as of today. Matt is afraid to ask this one's story because she is already capturing his heart, but so is Olea, one of the younger Nastiya's and younger Vika he is worse than me! This is the hard thing about being here, we want to help them all and we can not. After being on the playground for about 20 minutes, Nastiya (Matthews) walks up to me and smiles that beautiful smile of hers, I almost scream! I can not believe it is her, we hug and I start asking her a million questions in English, she just smiles and hugs me. I then think I have to call Joyce, yes it is about 3am but i still need to call her, this is unbelievable, because just yesterday Anya told me she was gone, we assumed with the biological mother for quite some time. For those of you who don't know, Dan & Joyce hosted Nastiya same time as we hosted Anya, and when they were in Ukraine a few weeks ago and got Nastiya as their referral, the bio mom came back into picture and regained custody of her. Nastiya did not want to be with the mom, and loves Dan & Joyce so much. SO this is a BIG Deal! So I leave three messages on Joyce and Dan's phones and then they call me back a few minutes later, and we get Nastiya on the phone to say hello. It is hard because she really does not understand them, but she is just smiling and so happy the whole time she is in the phone, it is so amazing, both Matt and I shed some tears. After the phone call we continue to watch and play with the kids, and of course take more photos and video. Nastiya (Fields) appears at one point and she is very happy too, more big hugs for us. Then the 11 yr old Nastiya with blond hair and red shirt comes up to me and says in English, "hi my name is Nastiya" and her little friend in pink sweater does the same" hi my name is Vika" and they shake my hands. This is when my heart begins to ache for them all, they just want to be noticed and loved just a little. Not long after this the caregivers tell the children they must go inside, and Genya comes back for Matt and tells us that we can all go together. She walks with Matt arm in arm the whole way back to the inside, not sure what she said or did because I was further behind but what ever it was she has got Matt feeling all hearts for this little one. This is the one he is afraid to ask questions about, for it keeps it safe. He would probably come back for her, Leena, Olea and this blond haired Nastiya if he could. After the other kids have gone inside to do what ever it is they will do Anya continues on this photo journey, taking pictures of all her caregivers and every nick knack and piece of art work on the walls, and then all around the outside of the building, every angle of the playground, and finally the trees, turns out her and several friends had carved names and initials in these trees at some point and she needed to capture this on film too. We have lots of photos of these trees. Finally Nadiya is done with the meetings and we can leave the orphanage for a while. We need to find a paper/office supply store to buy 2 boxes of printer paper and clear protective sheets for the orphanage office, they had asked us about this a day or two back. We think this is because they intend on having us make these "applications of responsibility for life and health" and will soon be out of paper for us to do so. The first paper store we try is closed for lunch. So Anya wants to go to the one close in her neighborhood where she used to live with her mother. There are several other places near this store that she wishes to see before we leave Ukraine. So we get the taxi and head to Anya's neighborhood. She photographs everything! We buy DVD's in Russian of some of her favorite movies and a few books at the market place where she used to shop with Grandmother and mother. She gets a cook book to give to her roommate Anya from the apartment, like I said they are learning to cook but have no recipe book, I think this is a very thoughtful practical gift for her to give. We then have lunch at a nice restaurant, that we find out later is the place she was taken after her graduation from the 9th grade this last year. It has pretty good food. The we are off to the swimming pool and park where she used to go, again photographing everything around her. It is just an amazing thing to watch how she captures these little memories and I wonder about all the times she was at these places. We end up back at the orphanage and she takes more photos, and after a bit we need to go home to the apartment for the evening. She has been with us for a long time today so we decide she will not go with us tonight as it would only be for an hour or so before we would have to take her back. So we all hug and say the goodbyes and the tomorrow's and we go. We can pick her up at 10:00 tomorrow for more.

2008-10-01T15:08:00.003-06:00

TUESDAY: On Tuesday we picked up Anya at the orphanage at around 3:00PM, we were walking the weather has been beautiful about 65 degrees. When we arrived at the orphanage Anya’s friend Leena was sitting up in the front window, and she yelled out “Anya, Mama” and then some more in Russian I could not understand. Shortly thereafter Anya came down the stairs, wearing one of her new outfits we got at the Market place the day before. The jeans are way too tight and too small, but this is the fashion we are told, we are picking our battles this will not be one of them. I figure a few months in America and all the food she will consume, she really won’t fit in them long enough to matter. Today Nadiya was not with us, she was doing paperwork for us. It was good for us to be with just Anya as she seemed to open up more and attempt to talk to us in English some. Before we left the orphanage Matt decided we should ask when Anya needs to be back for the evening, since the night before we had no idea. Turns out asking was a bad idea, as Ludmilla was gone and this started mass panic and confusion among those left in charge. Kseniya had no idea so she asks Tanya the vice-director, who also does not know, she tries to contact Ludmilla, no luck, Kseniya says they normally do not ever let the kids leave the grounds, this we know but do not like, we decide because Anya is older maybe this was fine with Ludmilla. Tanya then wants to know if we will be with Nadiya, I assure her we will meet up with her, and she finally agrees that I can take Anya only after writing an application to do so. So I hand write this “Application to the Director of the Orphanage” I write I am asking to take Anya Ablitsova on such date for a walk until 7PM and will be responsible for her life and health. I must sign and date it and Kseniya must translate this to Russian, very official. All because Matt had to ask. I would have been fine with just guessing at what time to have her home and doing just as we did the night before. Anyway it was done we could go, but now I had to make sure Anya stayed alive, or I would have to pay for this because I had signed, Matt was quick to remind me as Anya is crossing the street into oncoming trolley traffic, that he did not sign! We walked from the orphanage to the big fountain park near our apartment. This is a very popular place, always full of people all hours of the day and night. At night the fountain lights up and changes colors, it is pretty. Anya took the camera at this point and took some pictures of things she wants to remember. We have seen some very odd photos of things the last few days, (you will see a sample of these photos in the updated album) it is all about her saying goodbye and desperately wanting to hold onto the memories of things that are familiar. It has been interesting to watch her process these things, I can only imagine all the feelings she must be having. After the park got boring, and her and Papa used the English-Russian dictionary to look up Boring in Russian and label him as such. We put in a call to Nadiya at Anya’s request, she asks her to come meet us for dinner, Nadiya denies this request, Anya begs, whines and then accepts it. Nadiya knows Anya has got to learn to communicate with us on her own, and feels we should have times where she gets to practice this before we leave for America, Nadiya is right. We walk up the street a ways to a cafeteria type place where you can see the food you will be ordering, we have found this is the best route if we are without translator or place that has English menus. Along with the visual and Anya using the dictionary we are able to order things we know are to our liking. She was very helpful and made sure we were getting the things we wanted. Anya is always very concerned about my happiness, I have noticed, always asking me if I am OK, am I cold, am I hot, am I happy? It is sweet in a way but in the back of my mind I wonder if this comes from survival with a mother who was abusive if she was feeling Not OK, and Anya is acting out these fears with me, needing to ensure my happiness to ensure her safety, just sad thoughts to have. I hope one day she will know I am always Ok and she is always safe. Dinner was good and we had some more laughs as Anya and Matt practice speaking each other’s languages, she is comforted by Matt who does know a little Russian and is not afraid to make a fool out of himself with the pronunciation, Anya really likes this. I see her connecting more to Matt today rather than just clinging to me as she has the past few days, this is a good change, and the balance is nice. After leaving the restaurant we continue to walk back to our apartment. The whole way Matt and Anya take turns sounding out the signs, Matt does the signs in Cyrillic and Anya corrects him or affirms him, and Anya reads the signs in English, Matt corrects her or affirms her also. It is very cute like watching to preschool age kids learning to read. Back at the apartment we look at pictures on the computer of our last few days and eat ice cream. Anya goes thru the bag of gifts /donations we brought to decide what she will give to which friends and caregivers. We have decided to leave this process entirely up to her, as we would not know who was special to her. About 7:00 we call a taxi and drive with Anya to check in at the orphanage then to her apartment. Matt walks her up to her place with the bag of gifts, and she comes back down to give me a hug and tell me “Tomorrow”. Matt and I take the taxi home it was a good day.

Matt's View on this trip so far

2008-09-30T02:58:00.003-06:00

Thought I would chime in here with some thoughts. I tried to discourage Aimee from composing such a lengthy “Post” for the Blog-you can see how that went! Something that has become quite clear (those who have been through this process may, or may not agree); there is no template for this process that can extend to each situation, a lesser sense of anxiety and/or apprehension about how things will develop with each passing day. My suggestion; let it come to you with as much of an understanding and willingness for adaptation as possible. Each individual ought to strive to come to an inner understanding that; no, this doesn’t make sense, no, it isn’t how we do things in the states and, no, it isn’t fair (or is it?). Those who thrive and/or survive on deadlines or strict procedural adherence may not survive this very well. It’s an adventure-approach it as such. Everyone’s situation will have few similarities and more personal differences-each its own story. Our particular situation has had no sense of what I envisioned it would be. We’ve had a wonderful facilitator, more than adequate accommodations-paying 50%-70% less than budgeted, less than ½ the fees for cabs & I can feel myself getting fatter by the day because the food is available, good and cheap. We saw Anya before meeting the Director; we were specifically told that our “donation” was needed for a specific “large” purchase, so there was no “gnawing” feeling in the gut when given! For those of you wondering where all that money goes; it goes toward new interior painting and wood work, new windows for heat, some landscaping-it goes where it is supposed to. This particular director cares for these kids and it shows. The kids love her. Anya has told us that if she could, she’d bring Ludmilla. Our “orphan child” has her own apartment; never expected to visit my new 15 year olds new place! She was hospitalized when we arrived, simultaneously with our 15 year old at home-I shrug my shoulders-no big deal, quite the opposite for “Mama Bear”. Phone calls back and forth to the ER in Colorado, marching around with that female march; steps that originate from focused, determination to properly coordinate an ER visit from 9000 miles away, the sort of steps that can only originate from swiveling hips (men; you know those steps-they strike the floor with a totally different force and tone!). My experience has taught me that this particular “step” is also set into motion when I demonstrate, though unintentionally, a unique ability to completely devalue the concern and anxiety over such situations. My capacity to stay entirely comfortable on a couch or chair, continue to do whatever it is I was doing (probably eating on said couch or chair) demonstrating little, to no empathy for the situation at hand is, at times, the stuff legends are made of. At times, my lovely wife’s reactions are equally as legendary! I must say that watching her coordinate the crisis was impressive. I got fatter! Did I mention that wearing a rear-view mirror, like when riding a bike, may be something to consider when walking down a sidewalk? In Ukraine, sidewalks are nothing more than raised sections of the street. We saw Nastiya (Field’s) on Monday. She is the last one from our group that came in March 2007. She recognized us, walked right up, hugged Aimee, she let us take a picture and promptly left. We were able to see Anya for about 5 hours today. Ate lunch, took a short walk and then took her back to the hospital so she could be released as soon as possible. We went straight to the orphanage to take care of some paper work items; otherwise known as “donations”, by the time we got there, Anya was already there! Policies and procedures at the hospital are, well, nowhere to be found. People come in and leave at will, no check –in or check-out, nothing. Overall, there is very little regulation concerning things that we, as Americans, are accustomed to having regulated. Driving patterns are nothing short of controlled chaos, yet few accidents (you don’t hear emergency sirens, unless someone can’t find a cigarette lighter) and no police cars or law enforcement to speak of. Maybe that’s what the guys in fatigues carrying machine guns are for? It makes me wonder: why do we think we have so many more freedoms than places like this? There is a sense of understanding regarding personal responsibility here. For example: pedestrians know that vehicles are bigger and outweigh them and that in the event of coming into contact with one-they lose! Therefore, they watch where they walk and yield accordingly as opposed to the states where pedestrians and bicyclists dare you to hit them! The second time we saw Anya we took her to our place and hung out-it was a blast. She’s starting to come to grips that she is accepted as she is into this family. The more time she spends injured, hospitalized, over-eating Pringles, trying to buy jeans that are too small or buying stiletto boots with 6 inch heels, being completely indecisive about items when shopping or where to eat, losing jewelry, or smiling at me to get what she wants (followed by a glare and a lightning-shot glance; within seconds of smiling and not getting what she wants!), the more she’ll fit into this family of mostly women. Underwear shopping was a treat. I was told to look away or turn my back. I then heard talk of “Playboy”. Yep! There it was in all its glory. Nothing a firm, “Nyet!” and eye-to-eye contact didn’t clear up quickly. Dad=1, 15 year old female Ukrainian=0! This also worked on the smallest, black mini-skirt I’ve ever seen. However, I’m not altogether unreasonable; I offered to buy it for Aimee! Remember the scene in “Shrek” where he laughs at himself? It was a very cold, lonely moment when Aimee, Nadia and Anya just stared in total self-righteous disbelief. Oh, and for all my lovely girls at home, see, I’m consistent; this goes for you, too!! Happy birthdays to my lovely daughters: Heather, 18 and Taylor 16. And the lovely Jasmine; I know you’re disappointed about your ankle and volleyball-it’ll be OK. You were great. And of course, the always lovely Haley: thanks for all you’re doing while we are gone. And happy birthday to Deanna. Translation lesson: when 2 women speaking in Ukrainian at a huge shopping mall exchange the word, “Da”, simultaneously, it translates into: “Get out the wallet”-and I’m not kidding! Each time this occurs you will also get two sets of eyes burning right into your skull. There is no remedy for the burning sensation other than the obvious. Sunday night we took a 3 mile walk to find Wi-Fi. We found it. Coming back to our apartment we ran right into a gigantic, Sunday night party covering about 10 square blocks. There was huge stage with one of Ukraine’s top female rock stars and probably 10,000-15,000 people. I base my estimate on what I saw at sold-out Denver Nuggets games. Lots of black, lots of high heels, short skirts, smoking, walk- up sidewalk bars, oh, and loud! We went home to watch, “Sleepless n Seattle”. Any idea how hard it is to watch a movie like this during a Ukrainian party/riot? Totally wrecks the mood! Did I mention lots of high heels and short skirts? Not many people look you in the eye or acknowledge you when walking down the street. This has less to do with being unfriendly and more to do with having to watch where you walk as the sidewalks/dirt paths are anything but straight and level. You don’t see any skate-boarding or roller-blades. It would be more of an extreme sport, or full contact sport; man v. sidewalk, man v. vehicle (cars, trains, buses, military vehicles, trolley cars…) Watching Aimee and Nadia interrelate is interesting. They act alike, laugh at the same things, express similar opinions about almost everything. It’s more like watching two close sisters relate to each other. Needless to say, one of their favorite subjects/targets is me and men in general. Even without hearing the specifics, I can turn, look at them and know. They totally validate each other in every opinion, position and point of view-Aimee doesn’t need any additional validating; if you don’t believe me on anything else-believe that! So for me, I’m engaged in defense of the male gender on two fronts-East and West; Blonde and Brunette; English and Ukrainian. Nadia is currently reading, “Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus”, everything you can imagine is being discussed and scrutinized. For those who are feeling empathetic at this point; thank you. Men; my resolve is solid, I will not concede! It’s a tough battle, but someone’s got to fight it! One thing I can’t get past is the number of big, gigantic, concrete buildings that rise into the air or spread out over acres and are totally incomplete-large concrete skeletons-everywhere. Signs of decades of Soviet occupation are everywhere. Some of the neighborhoods give me the sense of starring in “Saving Private Ryan”. The closer you get to the center of Mariupol, though, the architecture is stunning. One more thing: don’t slam doors of cabs, they hate that and you don’t need to speak or understand Ukrainian to know this. I’ve not quite figured out the line between “closing” and “slamming”. We’ve paid less than $3.00/per ride ($10grv-$20grv) which is about 2-3 miles and cabs are everywhere and drive everywhere. What you and I would consider “on-coming” traffic is actually a passing lane. More pictures added.

Update from Sunday

2008-09-28T10:50:00.002-06:00

Today is Sunday. We took a taxi to pick Anya up at the hospital again. Today she was not waiting outside, so Nadiya and I went inside to find her. The nurses asked Nadiya for the letter from the orphanage that gives us permission to take Anya and her passport for identification purposes; this makes me feel a little better. The hospital inside is much cleaner and nicer than it appears outside. The nurses seem very kind. They ask Anya who I am she tells them I am her mom, this warms my heart. There are two younger girls, apparently patients also hanging around eating apples. After leaving the hospital we take Anya to this place called the Market Place where she wants for us to buy her new shoes. The ones she has are very old, and falling apart, they are the ones she got in America last march. As we are walking from the place the taxi drops us to this Market place, we stop at several shoes stores along the way, and Anya declines to buy shoes each one because she is worried that it is too expensive. We try to convince her otherwise, but she is insistent on the Market Place. So we arrive at this Market place it is like a large outdoor flea market, very crowded, people everywhere. They sell everything you could imagine from candy and food to clothing, shoes, toys CD’s and DVD’s. We search for shoes at several of the stands nothing is right, then she finds the jeans, she really likes them but no, too expensive for her taste. So we move on and try on coats, she chooses a nice one that fits and is also warm enough to serve the purpose. We finally convince her not to worry about the price, because it is way cheaper than we would pay in America. After the first purchase she has got the hang of it. She looks, asks Nadiya and I our opinions and if she gets the double “da(yes)” then she calls out “Papa” and whatever the amount is in Ghryvna he hands her the money. We continue on like this for an hour and a half, she gets shoes, shirts, undergarments, and finally she goes back for the Jeans she now has decided that Papa will pay the price. Anya announces that is enough for today and we leave the market place. Papa is happy he survived. We are almost out of time she is due back at the hospital to have lunch, I ask if she would rather have lunch with us, she says she has no objections to that. So we walk a bit and find a sign in English Pizza and Chicken. It is a fast food type restaurant that sells KFC type food and Pizza. It was pretty good. The pizza was more American style than the one we had at Extreme Park. During lunch we talk more about Anya’s memory of her life before the orphanage and ask if she would like to try to find her parents before she leaves Ukraine. She does not want to find the mother or father but would like to take us to the place she used to live to find old friends whom she wants to say goodbye to. She also tells us about her aunt whom she also wants to find. We tell her anyone or anyplace we can take her too, we will do and that she just needs to tell us where. Anya wants to know what her new name will be. We had decided yesterday to just choose the name rather than ask her first, so we already filled the paperwork with her new name with the attorney. We decided on “Anya Rain Garrett” Nadiya tells Anya and writes it down for her. She is not happy at first; she wants the middle name to be Christine. We begin to think maybe we should have brought the list of names we were considering and ask her to choose. So we ask Nadiya to tell what Rain means, she is not impressed with the literal meaning, and want to know if she is somehow associated with the rain? I explain that we just liked the name; it is more uncommon than Christine, and then that when we arrived in Ukraine it rained a lot for many days, so I became more convinced that Rain was the right name. Then Matt tells her his take on it. He says when the rain falls to the earth it brings refreshment, and new life. This is what he thinks that Anya will be beginning a refreshing new life with a new family and that reminds him of the rain. She seems to like this explanation better, after a bit she decides it is OK. That she does not mind Rain so much, and even tells Nadiya that as we are the parent’s maybe we know better than her! We like this one! We agree that she will think it over for the night and we will decide tomorrow if we should change this paperwork or not. Maybe she will be Anya Rain Christine Garrett? I think not. After lunch we need to get her back to the hospital for the evening. This time Matt & I both walk her up the little path to the door, it is easier. Not so long hugs, and just a smile and Tomorrow. We have agreed to call her about 9am and make arrangements to pick her up she is supposed to be discharged from the hospital and maybe get to spend the whole day with us

Update Friday -Saturday

2008-09-28T10:23:00.001-06:00

This is us in our train compartment

This is going to be a long one as we have not had Internet since Thursday in Kiev. We have felt very blessed so far on this trip, everything has gone relatively smooth here in Ukraine. It seems all the craziness and chaos is happening on the home front in Colorado. I received an email from Jasmine, my 14 year old daughter on Wednesday that she was going to Doctor because she hurt her ankle at her volleyball game Tuesday evening. After which I called her and she was headed to the ER because it had gotten worse. Her diagnoses nothing broken, severe sprain. OK Not so bad I can live with that, called her again to check in on Friday, “Hi Mom I am at the ER again!” Pain and swelling increased she cannot sleep; this is 10:30pm in Colorado Friday evening. Ok so glad you are back at doctor, I will call tomorrow to find out what they decide. It is Saturday evening as I am typing this, just got off the phone with my Mom doing this check, “Aimee we are at the ER again, Jasmine had a seizure this morning and we had to call the ambulance.” Ok, these are NOT the words a mom wants to hear when she is thousands of miles away and cannot possibly get home, or do anything to help! For those of you that may not know about Jasmine, she has type 1 diabetes and epilepsy, both which have been very well controlled for past two years no diabetic complications or seizures for over two years, never the less with the special medical concerns she really was my biggest fear in leaving my kids for so long. Anyhow Jasmine is doing better, should be fine after a few days to recover, mostly with her headaches for a day or two is normal for post-seizure days, as long as we keep nausea and vomiting under control then the blood sugars will stabilize and hopefully no hospital admittance, please keep her recovery in your prayers. Doctor seems to think her body just reacted badly to the pain and stress of the injury and that combined with the pain medication and lack of good sleep caused her system to misfire. Matt and Jasmine will have matching walking boots on their ankles when we return home that is a picture for the wall.

So back to Ukraine, We took the first class train in first class section Thursday evening from Kiev to Donetsk. The train ride was really not bad at all. It had been one of my biggest fears heading into this trip, all the train horror stories we have heard. I was told by our translator Nadiya, that sometimes families who travel during tourist season cannot get any tickets on the first class train, and have to go second class train and the first class section on those trains can be even worse. The price for the upgraded tickets were not very much more and well worth it, I think we paid about $140 US dollars for each ticket, so for our tickets and Nadiya’s it was about $420. We had a private compartment with two beds and plenty of room. Nadiya was in the compartment next to us with a woman passenger who slept most of the time and this made Nadiya happy. The bathroom on this train was very clean, had toilet paper and running water. The only thing that took some time to figure out was the faucet, the knobs that appear to control the water do not work, you just pull down on the part where water actually comes out of and it kind of sprays in multiple directions, so watch the purse it will get wet if it is on the counter. We ordered dinner on the train and it was good, we had mashed potatoes, breaded chicken and pork patties and bread. The coffee was not so good, black and strong. Tip for families waiting to travel, if you are coffee drinkers bring with you travel packets of creamer, and sugar, or instant flavored coffees, they do not have Vanilla creamer anywhere in the stores and I really miss it. Also everywhere we go they have really dry bread and no butter, so bring some little portable size butter packets that you can stick in your purse. We watched DVD’s on the train there was a plug in for the computer cord so we did not have to worry about the battery going dead, it was nice. (Don’t forget to bring several of the international plug converters with you to charge many things, such as cameras, phones, computers, and then they all are done and ready when you need to go out for the day.) After the DVD we both were able to sleep on the train fairly well, I would suggest your bringing your own comfy blanket, as the trains blankets were very rough and scratchy, but other than that the bed was very comfortable. We arrived in Donetsk about 7:00am on Friday. We were met by a driver who took us by car to Mariupol. He was friendly and safe, nothing to fast or scary. I think we arrived in Mariupol about 9:30ish. We went directly to the Social Worker’s office for that region to get permission to visit Anya’s orphanage. She was a nice lady. Nadiya had called ahead to tell her we were going to be there soon, and she said fine she had time to meet with us, but when we arrived she said we would have to wait. So we sat in the waiting area for only about 15 minutes then she called us in. She told Nadiya that she had to go to court so she would only have time for a few questions. She only wanted to know what town we lived in, if we had other children and their ages, then how long we had been married and which children were biological for which one of us. We answered these questions and she printed the letter for us and we were out of there within 15-20 minutes. Nadiya said we had some time to get something to eat before we went to orphanage if we wanted so we had the driver take us to a little cafeteria restaurant nearby, it was pretty good food and easy to choose because you can see it all prepared in front of you and if we were uncertain Nadiya was able to tell us what it was. Nadiya is absolutely wonderful. We get along like old friends. She is a fun, pretty, young woman, I think she said 25. Her English is perfect. She has been working for different adoption facilitators for many years, but just recently for Valentin. Some of you will know the Renfros, she was also their translator. We really enjoy her sense of humor and she is very open and honest. Matt is feeling a little overwhelmed, like having two wives he jokes, I guess because he is outnumbered again, and Nadiya and I think alike and react to things in that female mindset that is often confusing to men. Nadiya is beginning to perfect my mannerisms, looks and gestures, the ones that only my husband understands, it is great fun when he gets these from both of us at the same time. It is all in good fun and Matt is truly enjoying her company as well. So after our lunch we head over to the orphanage to meet the director Ludmila and Anya. When we arrive neither of them are there. Ludmila is at a meeting away from the orphanage and Anya is in the hospital. NOT what a mom wants to hear after waiting 18 moths and traveling thousands of miles to see this child wants to hear, but as you know our family spends lots of time in hospitals, clinics, and ER’s Anya is going to fit right in! So it turns out Anya has had a bad allergic reaction from too many eggs. She had a severe rash and swelling of her throat the past Friday so she had been in and out of the hospital for treatments the whole last week. Apparently they give this treatment to flush out her system several times per day and it is given thru an IV line. She spends the nights at the hospital but can leave for two-three hours at a time during the day if she needs too. So we are asked to leave and come back at about 2:00 and Ludmila and Anya will both have returned by then. While we were waiting for Nadiya to finish talking to vice director, Kseniya came in, she recognized us and was very happy to see us again, gave each of us hugs. She then told me again that Anya is in the hospital but she had already sent word over for them to get her ready to come back to orphanage at 2:00. So we leave again and decide to go and get some coffee and visit the sea shore for a bit. We found a decent place that is just across the road from the beach to get coffee. It was OK, still no vanilla creamer, but coffee was good without it. They would not allow us to sit outside, which was strange because it had a very large patio seating area, but Nadiya said she asked please several times and they insisted we sit inside, strange. So we had our coffee then walked over to the shore and walked around for a bit, it was nice, not to cool. After this we drove back to the orphanage and neither Anya nor Ludmila had returned. Nadiya insisted that we would not leave again but we would wait for them. So as we are standing there taking some pictures and watching the workers who are doing remodeling, I turn around and here is Anya walking right to me. I was not expecting this at all because we are not supposed to see her until after meeting with director, so I had no camera ready, no video camera ready, nothing, she gives me a big hug, and then for one for Matt too, and back to me. I ask her if she is OK and was she sick- that we heard she was in hospital, and she says “NO I am Ok” in English. Then she gets very shy and won’t make eye contact, and almost does not let us take a picture. I think it is overwhelming for her to have us there after so long of hoping and wishing for this day. We find out later she is feeling ashamed of being ill, and afraid that we do not want to take her home with us because she is not well. So silly, like I said our family is always at some type of doctor for one thing or another. Matt explains to her later thru the translator how he has been in hospital many, many times and I still let him come home with me. So just after this moment with the shyness, a caregiver tells Anya she must leave us and go upstairs with the other children, she is not happy about this. Anya argues a little but after the third Nyet, she goes. Apparently they did not know we were standing there when they brought her in and we are breaking the rules by seeing her before our official referral with Ludmila. We are told we can wait in the vice-directors office until Ludmila has returned and is ready. This gives Matt some time to charge his video camera, which has gone dead just in time to meet Anya. So we wait and Nadiya talks to some of the other office workers, it is very busy around this time lots of people coming and going, the remodeling going on, and just a feeling of things being out of order, many people waiting on Ludmila. There is a young blond girl in the entry way meeting with what appeared to be her grandmother and maybe an older sibling. At one point about 15 children came walking thru some carrying balloons and heading outside for some type of celebration. As I am watching, I see Nastiya Fields, She recognizes me and smiles and waves. It happens fast so I am unable to speak to her just wave, so Brian & Tami, not to worry, your surprise arrival is still in place. She will be so happy to see you! Ludmila finally arrives about half hour later, and many people have to talk to her, then they bring in a tray of food for her, so we wait again. Nadiya, Matt and I all agree we do not want a Grumpy Hungry Ludmila, so we wait patiently. After about 20 minutes, we get to go in and see her. Kseniya and another lady (this one tells about Anya’s medical history, so maybe she is the nurse?) are present for most of the meeting. When we walk in to the office, Ludmila is happy and remembers us from the visit to Colorado last year, she greets us each with a hug. We are told Anya’s social history and why she ended up as an orphan. The story is similar to what we knew before but a two year difference in time frame. Anya was left at the maternity house by her birth mother, just shortly after she was born, probably a few days. No mention of the biological father. Anya was adopted by a Ukrainian women, at age two months from this maternity house, seems they keep them for two months and then they can be adopted by local families. (We had previously been told Anya was adopted at age 2 years by Ukrainian family, something missed in translation I think.) So this mother who adopted her named Elena was married but the husband Michael was working abroad when the adoption took place, and the wife told her husband that the baby was their biological baby, and for many years he raised Anya thinking she was his child. Adoption laws must have been different many years back for this to have happened. When Anya was about 3 years old the mother and Anya left the father because of domestic violence against the mother by the father. After this separation the mother began to drink heavily and became angry and physically abusive towards Anya. Anya’s had a grandmother who was good to her and with whom she lived with a lot but was never given legal custody of, this grandmother would protect her from the angry drunk mother as best she could and she would take care of Anya as best she could. Anya loved the grandmother because she gave her attention and tenderness we were told. But then the Grandmother died. I think Anya was about 10 or 11, we still need to get that detail, but after this there was no one to protect Anya and mother got worse and worse, and one teacher at Anya’s school called social services because it was apparent that Anya was being abused. They said she was happy to come to the orphanage and went willingly she was relieved to leave the mother. This was in 2006. No one came to visit Anya, & Both Parents rights were eventually terminated. Anya was said to have done well at the entrance to the orphanage, helped with younger kids, cleaning and made friends with many kids right away. All the caregivers really love her, and she loves them too. Anya just wants a family and to be loved. We were told she went thru a period of brief depression as she was under the impression that we would come for her in May, and then May went and in June she had decided that we would not come. This is why she was so happy when Wendy and Joe told her that we would come in November or October, she had began to think we would not be adopting her. Anya’s medical report show same as SDA had reported. Just the spine curvature and the heart murmur, we are told the heart thing is just because of her age and development taking place too quickly and that will go away. All blood test are normal. The only other thing was an old injury that they could not give us details on, we will ask Anya later, a broken jaw and head injury some time ago. I would guess from abuse from the mother, but like I said we will ask Anya at a later date. Listening to Anya’s history was a hard thing to do. Both Matt and I shed some tears for her. Then we were told Anya is upset because she thinks we will not want her because she has been in hospital and is sick. And that she would come soon so we could comfort her. We are then told that Anya has graduated the high school, our 9th grade and that she attends this trade school for older children. This we knew from her last letter. But what we did not know was she no longer technically lives at the orphanage, but in a nearby apartment. She lives with 2 other girls who are a little older and also attend the trade school. Over the summer there was a wealthy Italian family who wanted to bless the orphanage in a large way, so they paid for two apartments one for girls and one for boys where they will live and learn to care for themselves before they must leave the orphanage system. They learn to cook, clean, do laundry and manage a household in order to be more successful in adulthood. Anya has been at this apartment life for about two-three weeks. And this is how she became ill, she ate too many eggs, and only eggs for many days, and she had an allergic reaction to the eggs. This does not surprise me much because when Anya was with us she loved eggs, always wanted an omelet! At the orphanage they do not get eggs we are told- never. So when she was given this freedom at the apartment she ate and ate the eggs until she was very sick! The kids in the apartment do go to the orphanage three times per day for regular meals, but are given supplemental food as well to learn to cook. And we are told that a caregiver from the orphanage drops in on them often unannounced to make sure things are as they should be. So during this whole thing we never expected to be taken to our orphan child’s apartment for a tour and tea! Anya came into the meeting at some point, and she had been crying thinking we did not want her because of the whole hospital thing, and like I said earlier we comforted her and she held me very close for a long time. It was good to be able to comfort her in this way, as I have dreamed of this moment for many months. After this we were asked by Nadiya to take Anya outside for a while so she could inquire about the possible second child from Ludmila. We are told afterward by Nadiya that Ludmila showed her the list of available children within 10-16 year old age range. There was only one child who is not attached to another sibling, but he is a boy. This will not work with the dynamics of our family; we do not have a bedroom for a boy to have by himself. If we were to adopt another girl she would have to share room with Anya. There are two girls available but one has a brother and one a sister Ludmila says is very rare that they would separate them and we are only approved for two children not three. Ludmila says there is a girl who may be available next year in September, but not today. So it seems that we will not be adopting two, just our Anya. We may ask about possibility of going to another orphanage in Mariupol, but most likely they will not allow it. Next we drove with Anya to her apartment. She showed us her bedroom all of the photos and gifts we had sent her. She then showed us her computer and played for us her Hanna Montana CD. She made us some tea and we drank this and had cookies. She was telling Nadiya she was nervous and did not know what to say to us. She asked us about Nastiya Fields, and if her parents would come for her, we told her yes but it is to be a surprise. She had a picture of Dan & Joyce’s Nastiya and I asked her what she knew about where she was. She told me she gave her the letter from Joyce, but that she is gone from the orphanage, and she does not know where she is at. Anya told us she would like to visit her grandmother’s grave before she leaves Ukraine. We will try to do this next week sometime. After we leave Anya’s apartment we must drive her back to the hospital to drop her off for the night where she will receive more of her treatments. We get lost several times, and ask directions many times, that is what we get for taking directions from a 15 year old! Finally we find the place, it is a huge complex with many buildings spread out and connected by old torn up pavement and sometimes dirt paths. Anya, Nadiya and I walk down the path to this old run down building, Matt and driver stay in the car and wait for us. Anya is sweet she wants to hold my hand the whole time we are walking. I cannot believe the way this place looks from the outside, we say goodbye just inside the entry way near the stairwell. She gives me a very long hug, and tells me in English she loves me and tomorrow. I tell her the same and then she walks up the stairs. It was a very strange thing, I would never dream of dropping my children off at the door the hospital and go home, but to Anya this is fine. No one to check in with or anything, just leave her? Every time Jasmine has been hospitalized I stay overnight with her for over a week at a time if that is how long she must stay. So after we leave Anya we go to our apartment. We meet Lyudmila’s son Sasha at the apartment. We will be staying at what we are told is the other Son’s apartment because he is out of town for work. It is the same one Ryan and Jessica stayed in I believe. It is only $50 per night and very nice inside. It is on the second floor no elevator, but short flights of stairs, not too bad. We have hot water all the time. We have a nice clean toilet that flushes. We have a washing machine, no dyer of course but they have a really big hanging drying rack that fold up, it works well. There is a bedroom with a nice comfortable bed then there are two separate living rooms which both have couches with hide-a-beds. Both of these rooms have doors that close so the apartment could essentially be considered a three bedroom place. Nadiya is sleeping in one of the living rooms with the hide-a-bed she is very comfortable as well. We will have internet available in the apartment as of Monday, Sasha will have it turned on for us, and we will pay about $50 US dollars for the three weeks we will stay to be able to have unlimited Internet in our own place is well worth the cost. We feel very, very blessed with this apartment it so much nicer than I could ever have imagined. God is good! On Saturday we go at 10:00am to pick up Anya at the hospital. We were allowed to take her from 10-12 on this day. We ask her where she would like to go and what she would want to do. She chooses to go to Extreme Park. It is a small amusement park, close by. It is more like carnival or fair type rides rather than the large one like at our Elitches. We pay only 1 ghryvna per person to get into the park. Then each ride is between 2-4 ghryvna. The place is not crowed at all, only two other families and us. First we get some food, Nadiya and I have pizza and Matt some type of sausage wrapped in bread and pizza. Anya just wants the ice cream. It is a bit different than American pizza but still good. So then Anya wants to go ride the rides. The first ticket booth person tells us no tickets for sale-what? So we try another booth and they agree to sell us these tickets, should there ever be a choice for them? Anya wants all of us to ride the “crazy Train” it is a small roller coaster. She and I ride on the Ukrainian version of the “sea Dragon” or the “Viking ship” you know the one that is like a big swing and goes way up in the air to one side and then back down and up to the other. I scream the entire time Anya just smiles and looks at me like I am nuts. We all ride the Ferris wheel type ride and can see great views of the city and river. Our time is almost up after this, just time to buy a souvenir, use the bathroom and head back to the hospital. Anya chooses a necklace with the two heart pieces one saying best and the other saying friend, she must have a friend whom she is going to miss when she comes home with us. We drive her back to this hospital place and her and I only walk up the path this time. She again holds my hand the whole way and big long hugs, and the “I love you, Tomorrow” in English. I agree and tell her we will be back at 10:00, she nods and says goodbye. Next we are off to the Mariupol version of Wal-mart. It is called Fox-Mart there is a sign out front with this written in English. This place is like a super Wal-mart has electronics, household goods, clothing, toys, and food as well. We are here to get a blow dryer, because the apartment in Mariupol does not have one to use like we did in Kiev. I did not bring my own from home as I was told it would not work properly because of the difference in our watts. We find the blow dyer and also buy some laundry soap, toilet paper and food for the apartment. Then back to the apartment for the evening, we will need our rest for tomorrow Anya would like to go to the market place and shop! She needs some new shoes. Matt’s worst nightmare, shoe shopping with three women in Ukraine.

SDA day

2008-09-24T11:15:00.004-06:00

I am typing this for the second time, thanks to Matt who navigated away from the page before I saved it!

We have added more pictures from today and yesterdays sight seeing in Kiev.

Thank you all for reading our blog and posting your comments. It is very good to hear of all those back home praying for us every step of the way. Wendy thanks for the tips on water selection, we did buy some salty, fizzy stuff one day that tasted like sea water. I will look for the lighter blue caps. I think you are right Lisa, the rest of you waiting families are going to fly thru the process with no issues, learning what not to do by our mistakes.

We arrived at our appointment with lots of time to spare so Valentin suggested we go into St. Andrews for a while. We walked in on a wedding in progress. It was beautiful. Lots of singing by the priests and a women's choir. I was scolded by an old women that worked there for taking pictures, but she never noticed Matt video taping. Valentin was very knowledgeable and shared lots of Ukraine's history with us.

The appointment was uneventful, we were shown Anya's photo and file right away. We were asked about when we met her, and when we began the paperwork to adopt her. Then I was asked my age. Somethings are universal, you know I get asked for my hall pass in my girls schools, so why should it be any different in Ukraine. Ukrainian law says adopting parents must be a least 15 years older than the child to be adopted.

Anya' s known history was much what we were previously told. She is healthy except for heart murmur and curvature of her spine, nothing to worry about.

Valentin asked the lady about a second child for us. She agreed to allow us another girl between the ages of 10-16 from Anya's orphanage without another dossier. She spent about 35 minutes looking thru files from the region and found none to show us. So she told Valentin that when we arrive to ask Ludmilla to introduce us to children that meet our criteria, and if we decide to move forward they would send the referral paperwork down to us. This is fine with us, because we will not have to choose from photograph alone.

We will pick up Anya's referral tomorrow at 5:30 then travel to meet our translator Nadiya at train station. We board train for Donetsk about 7pm. Not sure how easily we will find Internet in Mariupol so may be a few days before we can update. We will however make sure to get Anya's reaction to our arrival on film. We are very excited to see her.

Love to you all!

Aimee

Day 2

2008-09-23T05:43:00.003-06:00

I made it thru all of "A Few Good Men", Aimee did not. This was after watching "300", "RobRoy" and "Somethings Gotta Give". I have no answer why we were both wide awake most of the night, especially me. I now know that you can toggle back and forth between a bag of "Munchies" and Skittles for a complete two-course meal! After "300"and "Rob Roy", I was ready to go out and save the world-however, when you can't even work the door code to the building you're staying at, it's best not to leave the apartment. You don't want to risk being an international moron by being locked out of your building in the driving rain-oh, that's right, that was us!! We met Valentin this morning. He was an hour early, so I shook his hand in a bath towel. Great 1st impression. Perfect English, very nice and personable, answered all our questions and used our map to point out where things were. SDA tomorrow at 2PM. He said we could walk there in about 15 minutes or drive there in an hour, so, of course, he's picking us up at 1PM to drive us!?! We leave Thursday evening at 715PM for Donetsk, then to Mariupol by 11AM Friday. Had him upgrade to 1st class on the train-too many horror stories about the alternative, not too much money, either. Our translator is Nadiya. Valentin is very positive about her and we know the Renfro's had her when they were here and had nothing but positives about her, also. McDonald's, on the main street has Wi-Fi. Because I know just enough Russian/Ukrainian to start WWIII, I was able to read the letters and sound out the menu enough to not irritate the a large portion of the Kiev population. It REALLY helps to at least be able to know the letters and the sounds-a lot of words are the same, if you can stumble through the letters. Walking on the sidewalk is tantamount to walking in the middle of the street, but no one seems to mind! My personal take on Ukrainian fashion: tight jeans, Stiletto's and lots of black-for what that's worth from a guy who wears brown most of the time. For those wondering: Barrett's are fine, though they have NOTHING to do in the place they are-to use Johnny's words, "...outer gates of hell..." They apparently have limited to no access to Internet, however, Johnny still has E-mail on his Blackberry. They have "preliminary court" on Wednesday-whatever that is. Johnny's take is that it is a hearing where the court gets to "request" more money in order to get a real court date. Pure speculation, we'll see. The underground malls apparently have a, "..never-ending-descent" process-lots of descending levels. Very cool, though! Added a few more pictures. More later.

Day 2

2008-09-23T05:43:00.000-06:00

Day One.

2008-09-22T04:37:00.003-06:00

Hello All,

We are here in Kiev, and survived the first night. It is rainy and cold about 45 degrees, has been like this since we arrived. The flights and airports were OK, most trouble was in Chicago.The signs were all misleading, we had a three hour lay over and barely made the plane. Matt took a long time to get through security with his ankle boot, they always had to take him to separate area and do extra searches.

We were given custom forms on the flight into Kiev. We filled them out but not complete, we only did the arrival section not departure, the customs agent at the airport was very irritated with us. We also did not complete the section that asked us who was meeting us because Valentin did not say his name, only that he would meet us with a sign with our name on it. The customs agent was unwilling to help or give us any instructions, just wanted to keep sending us to the back table to redo and go to the back of the line. Thank God for the nice blond lady working with him who finally stepped in and told him just to put Kiev and give us the stamp. The man did and we were free to go, but he was not happy about doing so. Why they have people with that "Gate Keeper" mentality meeting visitors I do not know.

We were met by Sergei our driver, he was very nice. Told us right away that he only spoke a little English, but it was plenty enough for us to understand each other. He drove a very new clean vehicle, had plenty of room for our 4 suitcases. When we arrived to his car, he promptly called Valentin for us to check in. Matt talked to Valentin by phone and said his English was perfect. Arrangements were made for us to meet the nephew of the lady who apartment we were staying at to get keys, door code and instructions. Sergei drove fast, but I felt very safe, he had seat belts and we did use them. And yes people do drive and park on sidewalks we did too. Sergei pointed out some popular sights along the way, and was always very concerned with our comfort. Matt asked if he could stop for us to exchange money, we got the standard answer"No Problem" after that he took us to the apartment. The outside of the building was a bit run down, and the elevator was small and scary. Sergei had to take our luggage up in several trips because we could not all fit in there with it. When we made a comment about size of elevator he blamed it on the French, said was designed and built in France over 25 years ago.

Our apartment is very nice and clean. We have hot water and a washing machine. It is very close to downtown Kiev. We have found a coffee shop that has WI-FI and really good cappuccino.

We plan to walk around more after this and try to find some of the sights and churches to explore.

By the time we got settled in apartment we realized we were starving, and had no idea where to get food. Thank God for Cup 'O Noodles and Munchies that we had packed just in case(thanks Twyla for the advice) there is bottled water and a plug in water boiler in the apartment so dinner was served.

We leave for Kiev Tomorrow morning!

2008-09-19T13:03:00.003-06:00

Well the big day is almost here. I can hardly believe it is really happening. We have waited a very long time to bring our Anya home. As we look back and remember all that has happened we can truly see God's handy work. Every detail has been in his control even when we/I fought so hard to control things myself. we were very shocked and anxiety filled over the short notice and getting everything ready in time, but even that, we now know was the best thing and of course God knew that all along. God knows I would not do well if I had a month or 6 weeks to prepare for this trip, I have hardly slept since we got the date,I am often sick to my stomach, over emotional, my system is all out of whack. You can only handle so many days of that. As many of you know Matt has had an ankle injury that has kept him out of work for the past four weeks now, and he will be traveling in a walking boot (has to have it 7 more weeks) At first we were upset over this and wondering why God would let him get hurt and not work when are preparing to travel and can not afford to be without income. We now see even this was part of Gods perfect plan. Had Matt not been off work the past few weeks we would have not gotten down to Denver to update our fingerprints and documents for the second dossier and all of the other preparation we had done before we got our notice to travel. And this way Matt gets to spend the remainder his recovery time combined with the adoption trip, so he will not miss work twice. Everything is working out just the way He planned it. We are so thankful for all the good friends and family who have been used by God to bless us and help the details of this trip come into place. You are all wonderful.Special Thank you to Twyla & Johnny, you are the best. By the way Mom, your comment posted just fine, it works! Leaving my girls is going to be the hardest part of this whole thing. Thank you Mom for taking care of them while we are away. They handled it pretty well today when we said goodbye before school. There were just a few tears, and lots of hugs. I love you both so much, don't worry God will make sure you are cared for while we are gone too. Our flight leaves DIA at about 12:30 in afternoon, we fly to Chicago and have a three hour lay over then on to Switzerland 1 hour lay over and onto Kiev. We are scheduled to arrive Sunday about 3:45 in afternoon Ukraine time. We are hoping to be able to update the blog each day, but you all know how Internet access goes, you never can tell. I will do my best to write many details for all the families who will be going after us. It has been so helpful to read the blogs of people who went ahead of us, I feel much more prepared. It is a strange thing to think about up and leaving your whole life for 4-6 weeks. We are a little sad at all the things we will miss while we are away. We will miss many of the girls soccer and volleyball games, and choir concerts. I am for the first time in 6 years going to miss leading the kids choir at church, all you fellow leaders know my heart and prayers will be with you on Sunday during the first practice. Jane(or whom ever is lucky enough to get the kindergartners) bring candy! Also to Peggy and all adult choir, I am praying for the special on Sunday hope it is all that God wants it to be. We will miss Taylor's 16th birthday-so sorry Taylor we will celebrate when we are home if you want too. We will miss Koyla's welcome home party and seeing all of the families from our adoption/hosting group. Wendy & Joe hope that goes well! Matt is most upset that he will miss Dairy Queen blizzards. A final note if any of you are bored to death with my ramblings you can thank Lisa for this, she insisted that I post to the blog before we leave. I told her it was not exciting and that I would write when something actually happens, but she told me I was up all night anyway and I had plenty of time to do it. So it is not the middle of the night but, I do have some time so here it is. Thanks Lisa, you know I love you!

We finally got an SDA appointment date

2008-09-09T15:27:00.002-06:00

God is working in miraculous ways! After many many delays and months of waiting we finally got the email we were waiting on. Our SDA appointment date is September 24th. We are thinking we will leave Denver on the 20th. We just got this news today and are shocked that they are giving so little notice, we have about 11 days to make all the plans. Thanks for all of your prayers and support we could never do this alone.

Adopting Anya

"Asherah Poles"!

ARRGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Starting back up.

"Snuggle" !$#%$^%&

It's about time!!!

Another update ....

Anya's Christmas wish list

Home just over two weeks now...

Power Of Attorney, bad info. and Idol worship!!

Home!

Garrett's ARRIVE TONIGHT 10-28-08

"Planes, Trains and Automobiles",coffee mugs and apparel ammo!

Update from Kiev

God Bless America!

The Ukrainian Way!%@#&$&$*%*&

Update of our time on Friday and Saturday

Lost my phone!

Thursday- Smog, Junk Food, & Ukrainian Gossip Sessions

Update from Aimee about Tuesday & Wednesday

Life in Mariupol Sunday & Monday

Reply to Response by "Supreme Editorial Dictator" and motion for removal of her "Self-Appointed " position.

A few additions and or corrections to Matt's previous post

Ballet fatigue, "The Santa Barbara Club" and appreciation at its lowest!

Court!

drdavid

The Bird!

Hurdle crossed; popcorn and Brown!

First hurdle!

Just another day in Mariupol

Soldiers on swings, Brides on Tampolines, & Bumper cars

Question for any and all

Useful stuff

Brian & Tami arrived in Mariupol today.

@%$$&^#!@##%!

Exposed! (again)

LOOK WHO WE FOUND TODAY!

Matt's View on this trip so far

Update from Sunday

Update Friday -Saturday

SDA day

Day 2

Day 2

Day One.

We leave for Kiev Tomorrow morning!

We finally got an SDA appointment date

The Ukrainian Way!%@#&$&$%&