Saturday, May 31

Hey Everyone and thank you for all your comments! It’s really encouraging to know you are checking in on us and are sharing in this experience! And praying, of course!

BIG PRAYER REQUEST: The registrar did not pay attention to our paperwork approving us for just 2 children, so we got our court date — it’s Tuesday at 4:30(9:30 am eastern time).  We will go before the judge to get an approval to adopt these children.  There is one hurdle – we had to have an addendum to our homestudy approving us for 3 children done and sent to the INS to get the gov’t approval. This is the prayer request– that the INS will approved it by the end of business on Monday and send a cable of the approval (an email basically) to the US embassy in Kiev.   This will be a major miracle because it’s asking the INS to basically respond/approve in 24 hours(business hours).  If we don’t get it, we’ll have to rescedule the court date until the cable arrives. 

There is a ‘concert’ that the children have been practicing for all week. It’s for what is called Children Appreciation Day or something like that on Monday.  They’ll have activities & things happening on Sunday too.  The interpreter told me that she wants us to come 15 minutes early because when we got to sit in on the practice  yesterday, we distracted Anna who was just staring at us & not singing. I got a short video of one of the songs they will sing. Anna Christy and Warren are both in it. I will try to get the video posted, but we haven’t had luck thus far.

The orphanage workers are extremely nice and accommodating. We feel very blessed that the children are in this one. Our kids are an ‘experiment’ – what I mean by that is they have kept the children together (sleep next to each other and are in the same group).  The 2 oldest have actually been in the orphanage since July, 2005, and the youngest when he was 3 months old. We thought that they arrived to the orphanage in 2007, but that was when the parental rights were terminated.

Anyway, Here is a picture of Nick with Anna Christy in the crib room. It was a shock to learn that Anna slept in a crib. It’s gotta be so cramped for her. I doubt she is able to straighten her legs out in it.

 

 They smile really big when they see us now. Corey will run to me and put his hands up for me to pick him up (of course, I’m encouraging him!)

LOL

Polly

 

Photos of Angels

Hi All,

We’re at a coffee house using they’re WiFi.  My computer is about to poop out (I forgot to charge it last night – shame on me!) so I don’t have time to write too much.  Pictures “speak a thousand words,” so I’ll let the photos speak for us today.

God bless you all!

Proud Papa

Anna Christine

Warren James (Yaroslav)

 

 Corey John (Stanislav)

 

And then there were 5

OMG! Yes, we have the ball rolling for adopting 3 children(five including us)! Can you believe it? We didn’t have 3 in mind, but God did.  Sorry we have not been able to post until now, we are in a region called Cherkassy, 3 hours southeast of Kiev.  The nearest internet cafe is not closeby, so we have to hire a driver to take us there.  It was a very busy day yesterday and exhausting. Our apartment is very nice and believe it or not, we have a river view! This town is right on the Niper.

So, the big prayer request is that we can get the US immigration service (INS)to approve us for 3 children very quickly. We are hoping to be able to see the court registrar on Monday or Tuesday. If he/she notices that our paperwork says we are approved for only 2, it could delay things. I think at best we will get the INS approval in 7-10 days unless calling our congressman will work to speed things up. We really, really don’t want any more delays! We are soooo ready to go home! God Bless the USA!

I’m so sorry, but this internet cafe doesn’t have the drivers needed for me to post pictures. We’ll have to find somewhere else.

So, here is a little info on the kiddos.

In order of age, Anna (her given name), turned 4 in February. We have named her Anna Christine. I will call her Anna (pronounced like Anna Gionfriddo pronounces her name) She is very tall, looks 6. She loved my jewelry and wanted to try all of it on. She took the ponytails out of her hair and put them in mine –she did a great job, too.  She has very dark eyes and short brown hair. She started to cry when our visit was over today.

Next is Yaroslav. He turned 3 on 28 March. His brother is one year younger and his birthday is 27 March. We have named Yaroslav Warren James. He has a great smile (all of them do) Cute as a button. Very active–loves to play with cars and balls.

He and his brother, Stanislav have brown eyes like their sister. He seems to be a typical 2 year old, but very sweet tempered. We have named him Corey John.

We are off to dinner and hopefully to find a WiFi place so that we can use our own computer and download some pictures for you.

LOL

Polly & Nick

 

 

Monday, Monday

So, its a cold and dreary day again in Kyiv (that’s the Ukrainian spelling- Kiev is the Russian spelling).  I’m glad the DC weather outlook is much nicer!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!! 

We had our appt at 10am and where shown 3 siblings: 1 girl- 4yrs old, and 2 boys- 2 and 3 yrs old. We will travel to the region tomorrow which is 3 hours southeast – on the Niper river to meet them and get their story. We don’t know really anything about them except that they have been in the orphanage only 1 year and are in very good health comparatively speaking.

Keep prayin’!  

Polly & Nick

Sunday, Sunday. Da da dadadada

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, backing up a few days to Friday– Aunt Linda joined us for dinner of potato salad, carrot salad, fixins for sandwiches and boiled quail eggs. These little bitty eggs are an everday find at the grocery store. Susan couldn’t pass them up. Aren’t they cute? They were good, too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, there was a very large stage set up in the street on our way home from shopping–obviously this beer was the sponsor. A large bottle of beer wouldn’t be complete without the foam coming out of the top…Yes, Ukrainians LOVE their beer.. Nick enjoys a little of it himself, but I couldn’t get him to hug the bottle.

 

Back to Sunday –Kiev Day again today. The cobblestone street filled again with people buying & selling—we were right there in the thick of it. Susan came along with us…Here is a picture of her and I with a local watercolor artist Nick really liked. 

Did I mention what a tremendous blessing she and Orest has been to us???  

 

PICTURE OF THE DAY: There was an older gentlemen playing the accordian and belting out the Ukrainian tunes!  He was so fun to watch– quite comical.

Ok. This one might take the cake. It’s of the DOG LADY. She sits at the same corner everyday with a sign and bowls out asking for money to help her feed the dogs. Of course, her entourage of dogs are with her!

 We have to be at the State Dept at 9:20 am tomorrow. This is it, folks!

 

May 23 Update

It’s a beautiful day here in Kiev.  The sun is shining brightly, the temperature is in the upper 70’s, and it’s breezy and not too humid.  We had quite a deluge last night with a little bit of thunder, so the air has been cleaned of the heavy pollen of the last few days.

There’s not too much to report on the adoption front.  There was a “very slight chance” our second appointment would be today, but as of 4:25 p.m. Kiev time (the time now as I write this), that hasn’t materialized.  Therefore, our next appointment will be this Monday.  We’re waiting to hear the specific time, but I would imagine it will be in the a.m. like our first appointment the Monday before last.

We’re peaceful and making the best of the situation.  It’s actually been fun touring the city and just plain relaxing, but naturally we’ve also had our moments of boredom and despair.  It’s all good.  We’ve met alot of wonderful people, and we’re really learning to appreciate the life we have in the good ole USA.

One of the many, many blessings of staying with the Holovaty’s is that we’re within walking distance of everything we need such as groceries, household supplies, public transportation, etc.  We have a very similar situation at our home in Fairfax City, and I’m hoping that this new “habit” of walking will stay with us when we return home.  We’ll see.  I do love driving my truck (it’s the Indiana in me, I guess)   

We’re greatly missing you all and all of the activities and life events that are going on in the U.S.

God bless you all!

Nick

P.S. Here are the pictures that Polly promised 2 days ago…sorry for the delay!

May 21st update

Today we ventured out to see the Lavra Caves where Monks choose a life lived underground and were buried there around 1100 A.D.  We paid for a tour guide because we couldn’t read any of the signs and didn’t know where to go (many buildings, many, many door ways). Well, though she was great and told us all about the history and paintings in the churches, she doesn’t take people into the cave itself.  So maybe tomorrow we will actually go into the caves.

We didn’t make it into the caves because we got a call to meet with our facilitator. We had a good meeting and know that he clear about what we’d like and is looking out for us.  He did say that it is very unlikely that we could get 2 children under 4 years old that are both ‘healthy’ because of the 1300 other people that want a child too.  The only senarios would be if the they are siblings (one would most likely be older than 4) or getting one healthy and one special needs. We’ll see.  Looks like we should have another appointment on Friday.

Come Lord Jesus!

Here are some pictures I took today of the largest church on the monestary grounds ( just rebuilt 5 years ago) and a few of the many doors as I mentioned above….I thought they were very cool.

Well, I can’t get them to load. I’ll try again in the morning.

Thank you to everyone for you comments and thoughts & prayers!!  God Bless you!

 

 

Laid-back Monday

We just did a few things this weekend–did alot more walking then expected (took a few wrong turns). Took a look at St. Michaels Church & lovely grounds, went to the underground mall and ate some fries from McDonalds -Nick was craving a filet-o-fish–it was just supposed to be a stop for a ’snack’ before dinner. Never thought I would eat at McDonalds ever again after having watched ‘Supersize Me’ documentary. We went to dinner at TGIF in downtown Kiev on Saturday night. It was nice to have American food!

I was so tired this morning and all my muscles ached.  We were thinking about going to the famous Lavra Caves today, but I just couldn’t do it. Instead, Nick went with Orest to pick up screens for a few windows while Susan and I went to the market to pick up fresh veggies and locally made ricotta cheese (this version tastes a little different, but texture is the same).  The Holovatys eat so healthy–I hope it rubs off on us. I kept that in mind when I made vegetable lasagna for dinner.  The Ukraine version of tomato sauce tastes more like a cross between ketchup and barbeque sauce. I was worried what this would do to the lasgna- but it tasted just fine. 

Susan took this picture of Nick in front of their home. Isn’t the grape vine just gorgeous? What a quaint homefront!

 

Peace and Blessings

I am peaceful. Though this process is the pits, now we’ve done all we can do up to this point and it is all in God’s hands.  We will still stand our ground and do all we can to make things happen, ultimately it is out of our control.

And we are so blessed. The HOLOVATYS are nothing short of Angels from heaven itself!! We have been remiss in not mentioning them before now. They are an incredible help. From the moment we stepped foot into their home, they have made us feel so at home. Susan & Orest has taken us all over- to show us how to use the metro, get to the grocery store, get to church & downtown, take a taxi and learn the Ukrainian alphabet. Nick is picking it up much faster and easier than me. They took us to some good & resonably priced restaurants and made sure that we could get back there on our own. It was the Holovatys that called the hosts (who live in the next building) & asked if their American guests could home over and talk to us about their experience of adopting so far. This couple were the ones that told us about the appointments – that the state dept shows special needs children as a rule before they will show healthier ones.  The Holovatys have other contacts and haven’t hesistated in helping us through this process every step of the way.

They are in Poland visiting relatives until Sunday. We miss them already!! They have provided us will all the comforts of home. We being able to stay with them, and them showing us around is such an incredible help-words cannot describe it. It’s difficult to be in a country in which nothing is in your language.   We have to be able to read signs in order to get around.  If we didn’t have the Holovatys, it would be much more difficult to live here. They have a beautiful home. I plan on taking a picture of them in front of it next week so everyone can see just how beautiful it is.

Today we will probably do some sight-seeing. It’s a beautiful, sunny day.

Hello, hugs & kisses to everyone!

 

 

Back from our first visit to the orphanage

The orphanage itself looked like it was in pretty good shape, and even had new windows! All the caregivers spoke Russian. It probably took us almost an hour to get out there. When we arrived, we did not see any children outside playing– or in the building.  We did meet 2 children, and they are not the ones for us. Nikolai had some obvious neurological problems and screamed(thats the way he communicated) just about the entire time he was with us. The other boy, who was 5 months younger, had cerebral palsy.  Back to the drawing board. Next prayer request is that we get another appointment quickly, and that they will show us healthier children.

 I have a picture of the back side of the orphanage, but I couldn’t get it to post today..will try again later.

Cliff —  the dogs pretty much stay to themselves and don’t bother people(haven’t bothered us, anyway). Our hosts said that they are known to bite men on the buttocks!  We’ve seen them hang out near grocery stores and farmers markets.