Growing closer

Logan, Preston and I had a great visit on Friday.  We were able to play with her for almost three hours, until she was called in for lunch.  Both Preston and I got several kisses from her...melting our hearts.  She continued to love playing with Logan.  We did our usually: climbing, tag, picking huge weeds, monkey bars, etc.  It was lots of fun.  On Thursday we introduced her to the piggy back ride.  We tried it before but without Logan there to demonstrate it she was not sure what we were doing.  She loves piggy back rides and wanted many on Friday.  There are always other kids out playing at the orphanage when we are there.  On Friday several of the older girls wanted us to take their pictures and have pictures taken with us.  We had lots of fun with them and trying to communicate...them in Russian and us in English with a little Russian.  We learned a little about their siblings...some at the orphanage and others already adopted and living in the US.  Many of the older kids know Karis is getting adopted and seem happy for her.  The children there are friendly and we can tell the orphanage does the best they can with the means they have to take care of the children.

Preston and I tried twice on Saturday to catch the bus to the town where the orphanage was but were unsuccessful. The first time, the bus just was not there and the second time it was packed.  We are always the first people on when we arrive about 10 minutes before it departs on weekdays.  So, yesterday we decided to be 20 minutes early incase it was full and we were already too late.  By the time the next bus came it would be too late to spend any time with her because we would need to catch a bus back to our town just about the time we were getting there.  Plus, we did not want to be stuck in her town and not able to get back to our boys for the evening.

So, we just stayed in our town and ended up walking to a museum on the Fort Izmail, learning of the Ukrainian merge with the Russians to defeat the Turks who were taking over their land in the 18th century.  It was really neat to learn.  We also found a beach on the Danube River and Logan was able to go swimming.  We plan to go to the beach each weekend we are here to let all the boys get in the river.

Here is an update of where we are in the process:  We are waiting for some documents from the town social worker, signed by the Mayor.  We are really hoping to have these in hand on Monday.  Please pray we will be able to have them.  The orphanage has been great and has already completed all the paperwork we needed from them.  Once we have the documents our facilitator will take them to Kiev.  Kiev only accepts them Mon, Wed and Fri from 11-1.  They then have to approve the papers...which they have been sending out a lot of redos lately for word choices they don't like in the documents...so you can pray that they are satisfied with the wording of our documents and will accept them.)  (If they do not accept them our facilitator will need to come back to her town (about 10 hour drive) and ask the town social worker to redo all the paper work and have the Mayor sign it all again (could be a 2 week delay).  Once Kiev accepts the paper work they will let us know if they plan to take 10 or 20 business days to review and approve the petition to adopt.  Once they have given us the approval we will go back to the town she lives in and apply for a court date with the local judge.  Getting this date could be a few days or a week or two after we apply.  Once we go to court we will legally adopt her.  She will remain at the orphanage for another 10 business days (by law) and then she will be able to come and live with us!!!  We will then get her new birth certificate and passport in her hometown, which will take a few more days and then be off to Kiev.  Once in Kiev we will have up to a week getting her American visa and her American doctors appointment.  There is still a lot to go, so keep on praying.  So far all of our appointments, documentations, etc have all gone well!