Work Day

We spent most of the day at the internet cafe so Tim could work. The wireless connection in our apartment is so low we were unable to get a connection. We received a call an hour ago that we have our 2nd appointment. It's this afternoon. We hope all goes well. We don't know if we will be leaving Kiev today or tomorrow. We'll post again when we have more information.

It's snowing very hard outside. Tim will probably need to buy a new coat before we leave Kiev. We are very pumped about the new appointment.

APPOINTMENT
We had our appointment this afternoon. Everything went well and they expected to have the referral this evening. We stopped by the travel agent to book our train tickets for tomorrow. There weren't any seats available when we checked, but our facilitator is a miracle worker. He said that he would be checking on our tickets and not to worry. He thinks we'll get tickets for the 6:30p overnight train to our region. June made this trip and she told me it's a 14 hour train ride. It's in the far eastern part of Ukraine. So, the adventure continues. We could not be happier with this referral!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who is emailing and sending us comments. I know we've said it before, but we can't wait to see what you all are writing to us.

Ladybug - It was exactly what we wanted! Very happy!

Brenda & Bob - Send a picture of Missy and Joseph. Is there anyway you can airmail a jar of Robbie's picante and chips?

Becca - I'm sorry I won't get to see you when you are in town this weekend. I'm sure you will be very busy with your adorable granddaughter. Keep the comments coming. I know you can multitask. You can type with CJB in your lap :-)

Steph and Julie - Keep the emails coming. We miss you very much!

Mom and Dad - It worked out like we hoped. Very good news today!

Kathi - Please tell Brandi thank you for her prayers. We'll see her soon.

Jeanine - We miss you! Can you believe this? We are very happy. Have a fun and safe trip to Chicago. We hope Caden gets to play in the snow. Say hello to Lyndsey and Lance.

Happy Tuesday!

We talked to our facilitator this evening and he is hopeful that we will get our 2nd appointment no later than Thursday. So, we wait. It was very cold today, but it was another beautiful day in Kiev. It snowed all night then the sun came up and started to melt the snow. We did alittle shopping and took a long walk up and down the main street in front of Independence Square.

Our internet connection has a very low signal and I haven't been able to upload any photos. We are going to the internet cafe in the morning so hopefully I'll have better luck there.

From Tim
Lots of interesting comments on the water with gas. Noted and appreciated! Thank God for McDonald's! We are putting in about 5 miles of walking a day. The most dangerous part is the ice and snow falling from the tops of the buildings. You never realize it's a problem until you hear a huge crash directly behind you and then you think - I bet that snow that fell has no gas.

Still Waiting

We gave our facilitator a letter this morning requesting an appointment for another referral. He has to get it translated and submitted to the appropriate people. It could take 2-3 days. It snowed alot today. We went to the bank to exchange money. Went to the market to get a few items. We spent a couple hours at the internet cafe so Tim could get some work done. The landlord of the apartment we are renting is a husband and wife. They are very nice. When we arrived on Saturday night Tim asked them if we could get some American tv channels on the tv. They came by this afternoon with a cable box and we now have a few American tv channels. We have CNN, Animal Planet, 3 Discovery channels, VH-1, and Hallmark channel. It's amazing what a few American tv channels will do for you.

From Tim
Ukrainian cooking lesson: Take a baked potatoe and add ham salad, garlic and mayonaise. Mix together and eat. That's what I had for dinner. Actually, it was pretty good. I had another bottled water with gas in it today. Anybody that knows me knows that I don't need anymore gas. What's the deal with putting carbonation in water? I just don't get it. The real problem is that I can't read Russian and they can't understand "no gas" in English. Ok, here is your assignment for the week. Go out and buy a bottle of water with gas in it. Choke it down and tell me how it turns out.

Change of plans

Ok, all is well with Sharon and I. Looks like we will get another chance at a second referral for adopton. We have to wait until tomorrow for our facilitator to let us know when our next appointment is. It could be as quick as one day or as long as 3-4 days. We are still in Kiev and have learned enough now to be very comfortable here. This city is beautiful and full of all the world has to offer. We want to let you all know how much it means to us to see your messages on the blog. Communication is all that the world really needs .........oh yeah and family. Today was super. The sun was shining and we got to be tourists for the first time. We bought some trinkits and had the local fare. We slept like babies and washed some clothes. Does anyone know if you can wash a suit case? Mine has kind of a funky smell. I'm taking a poll. I want know what is the longest anyone has lived out of a suitcase? Now, go smell your suitcase. Anyway, I was told once by my Dad to have kindness in others troubles and courage in you own. Good words to live by.

As we were walking down the main street in front of Independence Square a crowd gathered and a camera crew was shooting what appeared to be a famous singer. He sang a few songs in Russian and the crowed was singing along. We took a photo of the crowd. It's posted above. The other photo is of a statues across the street from Independence Square.

Our "Hotel"

This is a photo of our hotel (3 story bldg) and one of the streets in the small city where the orphanage is located.

Thank you all for your encouragement and support. Reading your comments and emails helps us more than you know. I'll post more later once we know what our next step is.

Confusion........

We finally have an internet connection! We are back in Kiev. We arrived this evening. We drove to Odessa on Thursday to see the children. They are wonderful kids, but we have found out that they have an older brother. So it's a complicated situation and we have some things to work through, but the reality is that's it possible that we will be coming home without children. We are hanging in there and are doing ok. I wish I had something witty to say, but the reality is that international adoption is a complex and wonderful thing, but sometimes things don't work out the way you hoped. Whatever happens; we have no regrets.



Thanks for all of your comments. It really makes us happy to ready them!

From Tim
The trip to and from Odessa was intense. And I mean speed (160-200 kil per hour). The orphanage was in a small town south of Odessa. We were at the gates of the Black Sea. The ocean was covered with ice. We had to wait and hour and a half at a draw bridge where freighters headed to Turkey had to pass. This was a wonderful sight. Something that I can look back on. OK, now on to the living conditions.... the hotel was someone's house. We stayed in a room upstairs on the second floor where there were serious plumbing problems, shower problems and no damn coffee! And St. Christoper, the guard dog, barked all night long (which was a good thing). We had a couple of meals prepared by the family and ate in their kitchen. It was interesting. Serious sausage. I kept feeding the cat with the broken leg my food. The kids were beautiful and I didn't scare them with my beard. Even though things have not panned out as we thought, we are making the best of it and there is nothing like a hot bowl borsht (the local standard soup)......yummy.

Photos from Today

These are a couple of photos from our walk around Independence Square. That is Tim wearing the beret and looking towards the dome. Underneath the glass dome is a big food court in the mall.

We are leaving Kiev.....

Tomorrow morning our facilitator is picking us up at 6:00am and he is driving us to meet the children. It's a 5-6 hour drive. We are very excited!

We did some exploring today. We walked around Independence Square and enjoyed the sunshine. The sun hasn't been out much, but today it was shining bright. The temperature dropped considerably last night so we really felt the cold today. We went to the underground mall. It's a huge mall located under Independence Square. They have every kind of trendy shop you can imagine. It's similar to the Galleria - Kiev style. We walked all through the underground tunnels and never got lost. It's like a maze. I'm surprised we didn't get lost considering we can't read any of he signs. Our apartment is right off of Independence Square about 1 block uphill. So even when it's very cold you get your heart pumping from walking up and down the hills.

The photo is of me up the street from our apartment. We are going to the small market on the right to get water.

From Tim
Here in Kiev it is quaint, but very old. The city is crowded with lots of young people. It has all of the conveniences of home. Especially traffic! There are cars everywhere. They drive and park on the sidewalk here. Sometimes it's difficult for people to walk on the sidewalk. At the McDonald's they speak English, just like we figured they would. The napkins at McDonald's are softer than the toilet paper in our apartment. We have to keep reminding ourselves that this is about the children and we will complete our mission no matter how rough the toilet paper is.

Joseph, thank you for the update on Max and Miss Kitty and for taking care of them! It is very cold here - 28-32 degrees. It snowed today.

Betty & Jim - I love the screen name! Tim emailed Bob yesterday. Did he take his computer with him to London?

Kathi & Becky - thanks for the comments. It's hard being so far away from home and we really look forward to reading your comments.

Dad - we get your comments in triplicate :-)! Keep 'em coming. Love, #2

Mom - I'm glad you finally found something to help you get relief from the ceder fever.

Marilyn - thank your for all of your good wishes and wonderful comments! We can take photos of anything and everything. At least I haven't been told not to take photos of anything yet.

The Appointment

Neither one of us slept very well. We were both anxious about our appointment. We really didn't know what to expect. Our facilitator picked us up at 9:30am. He went over a few things and told us not to be nervous that it was just a meeting to confirm our referral since we are adopting known children. The road on the way to our appointment is a very old cobblestone type road. We passed two beautiful cathedrals that were built sometime in the 18th century. You almost get the feeling you are stepping back in time as you look around. There were merchants setting up on the side walk to sell their crafts and gifts. There were many people walking about. Everyone is bundled up to stay warm.

As we were waiting to be called, we couldn't help thinking that "this is it" we have been waiting a long time for this moment and it's here. It really was a very interesting experience. There was no reason for us to be nervous. We were able to ask questions and they were very nice and very helpful. We will receive our official referral tomorrow afternoon. Once we have that we will travel to the orphange and see the children. Hopefully we will see them sometime on Friday.

After our appointment we had lunch and wanted to see some of the sights. We were able to get out for about an hour before it started raining. We went to St. Michael's and St. Andrew's. We also went to a small market to get water. The last three times I've picked up bottled water I keep getting the water with gas. This time we got two bottles of flat water - thank goodness.

We saw our first American today. He stuck out like a sore thumb. We heard him talking on the cell phone in English and noticed his leather jacket and cowboy boots. As he was talking on the cell phone his biggest concern was; "at least they have beer here". :-)

It was a good day!

Marilyn, yes the pictures we are posting are ones that we have taken.

The photo above is of St. Michael's.

Thanks for all of your comments and emails! We look forward to reading them!

Sharon & Tim

Hello from Kiev!

We made it! My flight from Houston was delayed over an hour and I was very concerned about making my conection in Frankfurt. I had 1 hour to make my connection from Frankfurt to Munich. If I missed that flight, then we would have missed our flight from Munich to Kiev. I felt like I was on the Amazing Race running through the Frankfurt airport with my 30 lb backpack. The flight crew made up the time in the air so we landed in Frankfurt about 10 minutes late. We got off the plane outside and got on a bus that seemed to drive all over the airport before finally stopping at terminal B. I was told to go through passport control, but I couldn't find it. The German people are very nice and so many people helped me along the way. I got through passport control then I had to go through another security check. Of course the security station was in terminal A and I was in terminal B. So the running began. I got through security and realized that the signs never said where my gate was (A-11). They had every other gate listed for A, B, and C terminals, but nothing for gates A1-A11. I asked someone at one of the other gates and he checked my ticket and said to go through (pointed across the terminal)those black doors and up the elevator then down the stairs and to the right. Get on a moving side walk then turn right and then another right and you'll see it. What?????? Then he said, "I'm not telling you to run, but I would walk VERY, VERY, fast because you only have 10 minutes." I ran like Forest Gump. I never stopped until I got to the gate. I basically got to the gate and walked on the plane and sat in my seat. The flight was only an hour to Munich so I had time to cool down. I met Tim in Munich, but by that time I was exhausted. He was rested because he spent the night in Munich. He stayed in a hotel that was on the aiport property. It was beautiful. The entire hotel was glass. It was sparkling, clear glass and Tim was walking back in to the hotel through the turnstyle front door and promptly walked in to the glass smashing his forehead and hand in the door. We've had a good laugh about that numerous times already :-)

Flying in to Kiev all we could see was what looked like flat lands covered in snow. The sun was starting to set as we were landing so we didn't get a clear view. We were met at the airport by our travel agent's rep. He got us through immigration and helped us get our bags. Once we got everything we were met by our facilitator. He is very nice and gave us history lesson about Ukraine and some information on what to expect along they way. He showed us our apartment and helped us get settled in then we walked around Independence Square, had some tea and coffee, exchanged some money, got a cell phone, and then we went back to the apartment. So far, so good. I slept from 9:00p last night until 11:00am this morning. Tim got up earlier because he was already on Europe time. We are one hour ahead of Munich time which is 8 hours ahead of Central Time.

Our appointment is tomorrow at 10:00am. June, we found the bakery and the small stand with pizza and what looks like pigs in a blanket. Thanks for the information. And yes, for all of those wondering, it is very cold, but not unbearable. We walked around today for a while and we were both comfortable and never got too cold.

It's time for me to fly........

I spent all day (and I mean all day) packing. Packing should be used as a torture technique. I have packed and repacked trying to fit three weeks worth of clothes, supplies, gifts for the children, snacks, electronic equipment, cosmetics, paperwork, gloves, scarfs, boots, etc., etc, in three small suit cases. I'll get back to it in the morning. I give up tonight.

Tomorrow, my nephew Joseph, is picking me up and taking me to the airport. I'll be so happy to be on the airplane and start this adventure. Tim called tonight to let me know that he and one of his coworkers will be driving to Munich tomorrow. It's a two hour drive and he will be driving. Tim on the autobahn. Please pray for the other drivers. If all goes well, I will meet Tim in Munich on Sunday and from there we'll fly to Kiev.

Thanks for all of your prayers and messages!

Tim is on his way to Salzburg!

Ok, let’s see I think I have everything I need! Ok, maybe not! This is going to be a very long trip to a new country with a very different culture and I can’t wait to embrace all that we will encounter. I am going to miss everything here at home. I can’t wait to meet the children and start our new family. The children have been on our minds for a long time and we count each day until we meet them. We are taking some small gifts and lots of love for them. A & D here we come! - Tim