Update from past 5 days

We have had very poor Internet connection in our new hotel/apartment that we moved into Friday. We are on the third floor and walls are mostly concrete so router has a hard time with the signal up here. This combined with the fact that Oksana or Vlad are on my computer whenever they are here with us, and I am so tired by the time we get them back to the internot I have had no energy to blog. I have been posting new photos each day on the Picasa web album link with some captions that tell a little bit.

A lot has happened since Oksana made the decision to move forward. Our paperwork has been completed. Valentin called this morning to let me know it had been submitted to the SDA. He expects us to have it back by Friday and then Yuri will return from Odessa with the copies for court. Valentin thinks we will have court by the end of next week, I am not sure about that it seems rather quick, but I would be thrilled if it does happen.

Yuri our "Translator/Driver/in region facilitator" is a very strange person who speaks very little English, his second language is Italian he does adoptions for many Italian families in this region. Valentin figured with Matt's little Russian, Yuri's little English and this being our second adoption, that having a "translator" who does not know how to translate would work for us, it has been very stressful to say the least. Yuri left yesterday morning for Odessa with our documents, it has been good for us to have time apart. He is good at his job and does have good relations with all the right people here in Izmail to get things done for the adoption, but it is always a guess for us as to what he is doing. Perhaps we were just spoiled by having Nadia during the last adoption trip. He is the slowest driver ever, has been taking him at least 30 minutes to drive us to the orphanage each time, and it is very obvious that he takes a lot of roads that just waste time and take us in circles. Other drivers are always honking at us, and Yuri often pulls over to allow everyone to pass, there are times when we are actually coasting, no gas pedal being pushed for many minutes. The worst thing is that he really has a fear of black cats. He will pull off to the side of the road if he sees on in the distance, and wait for another car to pass the cat causing the cat to run away, then he will drive again. It is absolutely insane, if you have been here you know how many stray animals roam the streets, so black cats do cross the street more times than we had the patience for. Yuri also is grumpy a lot, or at least it appears that way. Oksana & Vlad do not care for him much either. Yuri seems to be inserting his advice and or request of the children, when it is really not needed or wanted by any of us. One day after one of these conversations between Oksana & Yuri I could tell she was very annoyed with him. I asked her what is his problem, her answer "I don't know He Always has a Problem!!" This is Yuri's car where we have spent too much time. The bonus is he has this self installed security alarm system, that has the old manual door locks now wired to a push button locking system. A few days back this system had a major malfunction and as a result the locks in the driver side and front passenger side door constantly move up a down as you drive. It is creepy. Yuri just laughs and says in his broken English "Crazy Car" "Magic Car". Since Yuri has left we have been using Taxi's to get back and forth from the orphanage and the hotel, Taxi takes 5-6 minutes tops, this in comparison to Yuri's 30 minutes.

We have had much freedom as to our visits with the kids. We can take them with us to eat, shopping or to to the hotel to hang out. We can also stay at the orphanage and visit there for a s long as we like. We have been doing some of both. There are two other American couples adopting now from their orphanage. I posted their photos on our web album. When we visit at the orphanage during the same time as these couples it is really loud and chaotic, the other couples have younger kids so they are very active and everyone tends to feed off each others craziness. This is the photo of Matt bench pressing Vlad during one of these visits. This was after the 10 minute long WWF match between the two of them. After Matt was all worn out Vlad wanted more, so little Yura put down the gameboy and joined in for round two. After all of this Vlad was very hot and sweaty in his three shirts. He took off the top two layers which left him in a tank top and his jeans. We were informed by one of the care takers who happen to walk by that this was NOT OK. She began to spout off in an angry Ukrainian mother tone about how Vlad will get sick and it is way too cold bla bla bla. Vlad tried to explain over and over how hot he was, she would hear none of it, finally he compromised and put back on one of the long sleeve shirts until she was gone. These Ukrainians and their superstitions, it is out of control! By the way I talked with Valentin about adoption of Yura, no way to do this during this trip. If we had brought a second dossier we could add him to the petition and have the same court and would have been able to bring him home also. I wish we had brought another dossier but we did not think it would be needed. Matt and I are praying about how, when or if we can come back for him in the next year. Yuri has been in the orphanage for 7 years. He turned 13 on December 23rd this past year. He wants to go to America and have a family. Please pray with us as we seek God's will and try to figure out His plan for this little boy.

Monday was a busy day. The children did not have any medical records in their orphanage files. I am not sure why this is, maybe because they have only been in this orphanage for a little over two years, not 6 years like Oksana had told us when she was in America. Anyway we had to take them along with the orphanage nurse to the children's clinic for an exam and to get a certificate of health made. This clinic is like the rest of Ukraine very old style stuck in the soviet times all the equipment in the exam rooms looks like it was made in the 40's. The system of record keeping for each child's medical history is shocking to me. They each have a little notebook like they use in school with had written notes, various papers stapled in them and all of the little books are stacked on desks with the child's name on the front of it. No computers! This is the picture of the doctor writing in one of their little notebooks not sure if you can make it out but there is a stack of these on the edge of the desk.

Monday was also Vlad's 10th Birthday. We had a cake with candles that spelled out Happy Birthday in Russian letters, balloons & Presents. We had the plan to have the little party at the orphanage with Vlad's group of kids, but he really wanted to do the party at the hotel with just us. It was a good time. Vlad got a MP3 player and a Avalanche Hoodie and sweat pants. He loves his music and really gets into his dancing, it is pretty funny. Matt has a video maybe he can post on facebook of Vlad dancing in his new outfit on this day cracks us up. Vlad also asked me to take pictures of him in various poses with his outfit and the avalanche hat he got when he was in America over the summer, he really thought he was the man in this get up.

I think we are just entering the hurry up and wait zone other wise known as Groundhogs Day. I guess I have rambled on enough for now. Matt is also writing a blog post here next to me so between the two of us I am sure you

will have a pretty good idea of what has been happening here with us. If any of you have facebook and don't have Matt as a friend look for him, he has been updating often there from his blackberry which has better connection than our hotel internet.

Good Night for now!