Sleepovers with Natasha

It's been girls night at the apartment for the past few days since Natasha came back to Poltava. It has been really fun. She is a crack up. I even tried red caviar for the first time. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I doubt I'll be adding it to my shopping list anytime soon.

I have been getting to know the girls better along with some of their friends. One in particular, Anya has really touched my heart. I nicknamed her "Principessa" (Italian for Princess), and she just lights up whenever I say it. One day she laughed and said, "I'm not a princess", and I said, "You are to me". She just beamed at me. She writes me notes in my notebook in broken English saying we're friends, and sent me a text message last night. I wish I could adopt her too, but she has an 11 year old brother and we're not approved for that many through the State Department. I will really miss her.

Some of you may remember when we first began this journey by deciding to host a child in our home through the Save a Child organization http://www.saveachild.cc/, we were thinking of hosting two of a group of three sisters. A few weeks before the children were to come over, we found that the two younger sisters were not at the same orphanage as their oldest sister, and at 16, she was too old to be legally adopted without them. We were so surprized our first day here to see her because we thought the kids had to leave the orphanage at 17 instead of 18. As we've watched her interact with others, we are very impressed with her. Loren and I have decided to meet with her and see if she would be interested in us sponsering her to come to the U.S. to attend college at the end of the school year. Even though we cannot legally adopt her, she can still be part of our family. I hope she'll accept.

Today is the final day of the waiting period, so tomorrow we can get back to work picking up their new birth certificates from their birthtowns. When we have those, we can apply for their new passports. After that waiting game, we can finally get to the Embassy in Kiev to get their visas issued. At this point it looks like I will be able to fly home on October 10th. I am very grateful for all of the hard work and organization our agency has done for us (http://www.adoptionway.com/). Every adoption has it's twists and turns depending on each child's individual circumstances, and Natasha is a pro at figuring out how to make it all come together. If I had tried to do this myself, I would be here until January! I'm finally able to post a few pictures again. It took some trial and error to guess at what to click on since the computers are set up in Russian.

Watch the news on October 18th because this year's group of children being hosted will be coming to Utah that evening. It's quite a scene at the airport with all the excited families, balloons, signs, etc. Seeing it on the news two years ago touched our hearts and brought tears to our eyes inspiring us to take this wonderful journey. I am so glad we did.