Schaffer's Ukraine Adoption

Christmas Morning

2008-03-12T00:30:00.003-06:00

Christmas morning was so much fun. The kids all came racing out to find that Santa indeed had come to their house. The girls got new bikes, Garrett got a much-wanted Lego set. Trevor got Guitar Hero. Daniel got some things for his mission.

It was so fun to watch the kids open their presents. The girls would come and hug us in-between presents. They would tell us how much they love us. It was a most wonderful and unforgettable Christmas.

If you look out the window in the bike picture you will see that we had a white Christmas. It turned out to be a heavy first winter for the girls. It was amazing!

Preparing For Santa Clause

2008-03-12T00:21:00.005-06:00

The kids left our notes, pictures, cookies, and eggnog for Santa. Garrett left him a dollar to help with the costs of Christmas. Karina made a special Santa picture to take back to the North Pole. Cassidee drew a picture and told him that she loved him.

It was so sweet to see them get things ready for Santa. We had a hard time getting them all into bed. Karina saw, "A red light in the sky - Rudolph!!". They finally fell asleep shortly after midnight. I sure hope Santa did not have to pass us by since they were still awake!

Let's Make Christmas Cookies

2008-03-12T00:08:00.004-06:00

Garrett, Karina, and Cassidee helped Leah make Christmas Sugar cookies for neighbors, family, and friends. They had a lot of fun making and frosting them. It was even more fun going out and delivering them before Christmas.

Experiencing all these new traditions and holidays with the girls have helped us remember how the true meaning of Christmas is supposed to be. We are so deeply thankful they are part of our family.

The Girls Meet Mr. and Mrs. Clause

2008-03-12T00:01:00.002-06:00

The girls got to meet Santa on December 15. Our neighbors, The Rusts, had Santa and Mrs. Clause come and visit them during their Christmas party. The girls were very excited to meet Santa. Mrs. Clause told everyone how the girls were new to America and how they and Garrett were all in the "Nice" book.

The girls and Garrett told Santa what they wanted on Christmas morning. They must have been pretty good since Santa brought them the things they asked for.

Decorating Our Christmas Tree

2008-03-11T23:22:00.010-06:00

We took the girls along with the rest of the family for our yearly tradition to get a new ornament for everyone. We do this so by the time the kids are ready to be married they will have several ornaments to decorate their first Christmas Tree with. We got one for each of the girls last year hoping they would be with us for this Christmas. Having them finally in our family was the best present of all!

I do not think Daniel and Trevor looked as excited as everyone else but they really did have fun.

Cassidee's Looses Her First Tooth

2008-03-11T23:05:00.002-06:00

Cassidee lost her first tooth on November 21. We put it under her pillow and the tooth fairy came and brought her some money since it was so clean. She wanted dad to pull out some more.

Halloween

2008-03-11T18:13:00.014-06:00

The girls enjoyed their first Halloween. They made such beautiful Princesses. They loved all the candy and wanted to keep going well after 9:00. It is amazing to see the differences between boys and girls. Those handing out candy were more generous for the girls than I ever remember them being to our boys.

They thought Leah's "Sick" pumpkin was funny!

Pumpkin Carving

2007-10-31T00:36:00.000-06:00

We carved pumpkins tonight. The girls had a ton of fun. This was the first time they had ever carved a pumpkin and they did a great job.

Cassidee was teasing us saying she was going to eat the insides of the pumpkin. She did try a few seeds and like those. Karina was too busy working on her masterpiece. It is amazing how well they are doing with their English. They are so excited for Halloween tomorrow.

We took them to a Corn Maze Monday night and they loved it. A scary guy came out right at the first. Cassidee was not happy about that. I had to carry her for the first ten minutes before she would let me put her down. Karina told us she would beat-up the guy if he tried to scare her. I am thinking she would hold her own too.

Karina Attends Birthday Party

2007-10-31T00:28:00.000-06:00

Karina attends a costume party for her friend Jacelee. She loves her Princess costume. She did excellent at eating the doughnuts hanging from a string.

Getting Settled In

2007-10-07T23:11:00.000-06:00

We have had many things happen since our return on 9/19. The girls are getting adjusted very well. They continue to progress with their English and are starting to even use English with each other. This is great progress.

The Girls started school last Monday. Cassidee is in morning Kindergarten and Karina is in 1st Grade. Both of their teachers are very complimentary of their progress. Karina has a friend - Jacelee - who is taken her by the hand and shown her all the things she needs to know. She has been a great helper. They have an ESL - English as a Second Language - program at their school. The ESL teacher is also praising them.

The pictures are of the girls first day of school, playing in the snow, girls with new coats and boots, and their new dresses.

Leah's father passed away on Thursday morning. We are so happy he was able to met and spend some time with the girls. The funeral is tomorrow and we will try and update more later in the week.

We Are On Our Way Home!!

2007-09-18T15:17:00.000-06:00

It is 12:30 am in Kiev and our lawyer will be at the apartment to pick us up at 4:30 to head to the airport. We fly out of Kiev for Prague at 6:30 am on Czech Airlines flight #4919. We arrive at 7:45. After a 3 plus hour layover we head for JFK on flight #5 at 11:00 and arrive at 14:15. We then have a 5 plus hour layover - but we need up to two hours to process all the documents for the girls. We will switch to Delta and fly to Salt Lake. We leave JFK at 19:31 and arrive at 22:59. Time is almost out so we will talk to you tomorrow or today - however you look at it!

Here a picture of our return trip. They finally slept at JFK.

More Pictures

2007-09-17T14:05:00.000-06:00

1 - Spitting watermelon seeds over the fense.

2 - Cassidee squeezing the life out of a poor frog. (we saved it! )

3 - Garrett was invited to swim today- it was good because he is homesick and is sad to have missed the 1st day of school.

4 - Garrett says hello from Krasnokutsk, Ukraine.

5 - This is our street. It is only 6:50 and there are about 3 neighbors already burning their garbage! Very stinky!

6 - Karina playing hide and seek in the woods.

7 - These are some of the darling little boys at the orphanage.

More Pictures

2007-09-17T12:20:00.000-06:00

I am not sure how the order of these pictures will go but here is a list of them: 1) This is the village ambulance. I wonder if they have any openings? 2) Can you say Hogan's Heros? 3) Polka anyone? 4) 5) they love to burn garbage all day long. 6) Karina sets up bowling on a rainy day visit.

More Village Pictures

2007-09-16T14:36:00.000-06:00

Now that we have internet access once again, we are putting some more pictures on.

The market's meat counter. The next one is how they paint lines in the street. One is the Doctor of the orphanage's car.

9/16 CHURCH!!!!

2007-09-16T13:44:00.000-06:00

Last Night we were able to get in contact with a pair of the missionaries here. They met us this morning and walked us to church! The church is downtown and is on the 3rd floor of a big building. It was an English speaking branch. It was so nice to feel of the spirit and be around something familiar. It is so true when people say that the church is the same everywhere. It was the same 3 hr. block and same lessons, everything was the same. There were only 5 kids in the primary, 3 of which were ours! There are 20 something sisters who are here to teach English. There were a few American and Canadian families that live here for their jobs. There were a few members that had been on missions to America, England, etc. who wanted to keep up their English.

When we got there and sat down, the girls were amazingly good! (normally kind of wild!) The branch president's wife was behind us and shared books, coloring pages, etc. One of the missionaries was also behind us and I would occasionally turn around and have him translate something to the girls so they would know what was going on.

When we started the opening song, I was so overcome with emotion, the spirit was so incredibly strong, I couldn't sing past the first half of the 1st verse. I could only seem to cry. I can not explain the emotions that overcame me. The talks were incredible.

After that, the girls and Garrett went to Primary. 2 sisters that were there for the English teaching program conducted and played the piano. When they found out I was the chorister they were really happy to recruit me for singing. It was really fun! There was a sweet Ukrainian sister that sat next to my girls and translated everything! So, we did head, shoulders, knees, and toes, popcorn popping, Autumn time, The wise man and the foolish man, Book of Mormon Stories, Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam and a bunch of others. When they did sharing time the same sister translated the entire thing to my girls! It was so great to see them in that setting. I left and went to Relief Society and left the kids in their class. The teacher later said that Garrett is so smart and had the answer to everything and the girls were good and even came up front to help out with some actions. As soon as it was over, they started running around and climbing over the couches and so on. It will take some time to train them, they are "wild", literally!

We are taking the missionaries to a cafe near our apartment tomorrow and they will teach the kids some basics about the church. It was so good to talk to people "like us" today, and we are looking forward to it tomorrow!

Well, we go tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. to the girls Dr. appts. then to drop off papers at the US consolate. Then go back the next day to consolate for Interview to get Visas. We have to leave for the airport on Wed. morning around 4:00 A.M. !!!!! Yikes! We pick up our tickets tomorrow and will have exact travel info posted on the blog tomorrow between 11:00- 2:00 your time. We do know that the plane gets in around 11:00 P.M. Wed. night.

We are so excited to be home and get the girls into our little "Utah Bubble" (as the Relief Society teacher today joked about!). Garrett is sick to death of all the smoke, beer, "inappropriate clothing".

Well, got to go, computer time is up! love you all!

Leah

Update 9/15

2007-09-15T11:16:00.000-06:00

We made it to Kiev. The train was an early one and the girls were excited to go but not excited about getting up at 5:30 am. We have a nice apartment near our first one so we are lucky to already know where everything is located. Also now we can communicate enough to get what we need.

We did go to TGI Friday's tonight and were able to read an English menu. Yeah! The girls ate good and after they polished off their french fries and half their hambuger the waitress came by and they asked for two more in Ukraine. They are so funny and eat like our older sons. As long as Karina likes it Cassidee follows suit. Otherwise if she says, "Foo", then no chance of Cassidee even trying it. They say Foo a lot without even trying some things. Once they do it is a different story.

We purchased our plane tickets today and will be back in SLC on 9/19 - Wed - at 11:00 PM. I will remember to get flight numbers tomorrow.

See you all soon!

Greg, Leah, Garrett, Karina, and Cassidee

Update 9/14

2007-09-14T15:20:00.000-06:00

We could not resist getting a picture of them sleeping. After a long day they were so tired they went to bed fairly well. They were excited to catch the train the next day. We did not get the passports as planned on Thursday but we did on Friday afternoon. One problem, we could not get a ticket for the Friday 6 pm train so we will leave tomorrow morning for Kiev (Saturday 7am).

Our stay in Kharkov has been great. We enjoy the apartment. It is very nice and was only $60 US. More than worth the extra $10 versus our village accommodations. We ventured to a pizza place tonight. Very wimpy, no toppings, very little cheese or sauce, and as Garrett put it, “This taste nothing like pizza”! Well it was not that bad and to get three pizzas for 42rph - $8.40 US you can not complain too much. I will miss the good food prices.

We will visit the US Consulate on Monday to take care of visas and medical exams for the girls. We promised Garrett a trip to Independence Square for another meal at McDonalds. The girls are excited as well to have a hamburger since Papa’s was “Yum Yum”.

We will try and get pictures on the web in Kiev but the internet cafe we were at the first time had their own computers and did not allow jump drives. We have a Wi-Fi place here in Kharkov and it has been much nicer to work from my own laptop. Leah and I both went there and had some yummy desserts.

We better get some sleep since it is after Midnight and our driver will pick us up at 6:00 am. Keep leaving comments; we love to hear from all of you.

Best wishes and we will see you next week! Love Ya, Greg, Leah, Garrett, Karina, and Cassidee.

Our Little Helper

2007-09-14T15:14:00.000-06:00

What a little helper! After lunch today Cassidee went in and started doing dishes. I got a few pictures and Leah took some video with her phone. I hope it turns out.

He's Hooked

2007-09-14T15:07:00.000-06:00

We got one of our lawyer, Roman, hooked on a game called Luxor. He sat and played it for a few hours today. He was funny! Leah’s mom got us hooked on it too. We will have to find him a copy and mail it too him.

Village Food

2007-09-14T15:00:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures of the refrigerator at the house in the village. Notice the fish on the bottom shelf. Talk about your sushi. They just cut it off and eat it. It was there for several days and it smelled bad. Some of the items on the top shelf were there since we arrived on 8/15. I do not even want to know what they were. All the items in sealed container are ours. We ate a lot of Raman noodles, instant potatoes, and eggs.

The items in the freezer are loose pieces of meat just frozen in place. The market is the same way. We never got a picture but one of the stores had a half- yes a half of a pig’s head loose in their freezer. No we did not buy any frozen food there! The other picture is what they had to use to cut up their meat. Medieval if you ask me!!

Orpahage Pictures

2007-09-14T14:41:00.001-06:00

We had to make a mandatory $1,000 US “Donation” at the orphanage - $500 per child. Around a week later we noticed some new windows going in. We hope that our money went to help improve the kids living conditions. The old windows looked quite drafty and these ones are much better.

Here are some pictures of Karina’s sleeping area. The tents are the kids’ pillows. There were 15 beds in this one room, about the size of our living room.

New Jackets and Shoes

2007-09-12T14:41:00.001-06:00

Here are the girls back at the orphanage in their new jackets and their new shoes! Very excited!

Hard life in the village

2007-09-12T14:37:00.001-06:00

This is a sweet little lady who lives nearby. She has to carry pails of water about 2 blocks, stopping about every 5 feet. This is her going to the market-about 1 mile round trip.

Garrett Found Legos

2007-09-12T14:28:00.000-06:00

Now he's happy! We found this for 10.00 at the grocery store! Yes! Grocery store! Ah... Normalcy!

A Day at the Zoo

2007-09-12T14:16:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon we took the kids to a toy store near our apartment. Garrett got some action figures, Karina picked out a stuffed Tigger and Ariel doll, and Cassidee chose a stuffed Winnie the Pooh and a different Ariel doll. Karina especially loves her Tigger. She carries it around hugging it all the time.

Today we took the kids to the zoo. It only cost $6 US to get all 5 of us in. Leah wondered how they could care for all the animals with such a low entrance fee. We quickly realized that it is because they do not care for the animals. PETA would have a stroke if they saw some of the conditions the animals were in. We took a few pictures while we were there. The girls had fun on some of the rides they had inside. They got to ride on a horse and pony. We are sure it was probably their first time on a horse. It made for a very fun and tiring day.

We should get passports tomorrow which means we will take the train to Kiev. The girls are really excited to ride on the train! Once in Kiev we will then do mandatory US Doctor check-ups for the girls, visas, and other business.

Our lawyer found us some even better airfares. We now will go from Kiev to Prague, New York, then to SLC. We will not be getting in until around 11:00 pm on Wednesday 9/19. We can’t wait to see everyone.

The Girl's Going Away Party

2007-09-11T13:44:00.000-06:00

We threw a party for Karina and Cassidee's group on their final day. We bought bananas, juice, and cookies for them all. They all sat so good and ate their treats. Several of the kids had no idea how to open the banana. We took some pictures of these darling kids during the party and afterwards.

I wonder if the girls will miss their friends and the care-takers. They did spend over two years and Karina would have left for another orphanage on September 1st - the beginning of the school year so they would have been separated. I know that the Lord does thing a specific way and if it was not for all the trials and problems we faced over the last two plus years we would have never found these little blessings in our life.

We will update more tomorrow, Love Greg, Leah, Garrett, Karina, and Cassidee.

The Open Market in the Village

2007-09-11T13:31:00.000-06:00

We have visited an open market several days during our stay. It is very interesting commerce. They own these storage shed style steel boxes that open each morning at 8:00 and close around noon. Here are a few pictures of the open market. We found many great deals on clothes and other items. We bought 20 new pairs of underwear, 20 pairs of warm leg stockings - "tights", and a lot of socks for the orphanage. It was all under $35 US. The looks on these little angles when they showed us their new items would just melt your heart. This has been a very touching experience.

One Step Closer

2007-09-11T07:51:00.001-06:00

We are now in Kharkov. We arrived here Monday morning. The apartment is very nice and we are close to everything we need, even a Wi-Fi cafe. YEAH!!!

We finished submitting all the passport information and now we play the waiting game. Our lawyer thinks we will have them Thursday or Friday. She left for Kiev today. We ate at McDonald's yesterday so Garrett was excited to "Finally eat some American food". He has been a real trooper through all this. This is a picture of Garrett and Karina by the McDonald's slide. The girls like dad's Big Mac more than the McNuggets. It cost close to what it does in the US to eat there. We spent 115rph which is a bit more than $20.

We will try and update things daily as long as the laptop battery will last in the Wi-Fi cafe. Right now our plans are to return on 9/19. We will leave Kiev at 6:30 am and arrive in SLC sometime around 9 pm the same day. We had to forget about our old tickets for the return on 9/13 and purchase new ones since the fees to change would be more than the new ones. This time we go through Paris to Cincinnati then to SLC.

We will update more tomorrow. Please leave some comments. We sure enjoy hearing from everyone. See you in 8 more days.

New Birth Certificates!!

2007-09-07T13:44:00.000-06:00

Today we went to the city where the girls' birth certificates were registered. If you all like thrill rides, just come on over here and ride in the back seat of our driver's car!!! Holy Cow!!! Anyway, we got the new birth certificates which have us listed as their parents and also have their new names on them! yeah!

Tomorrow, Saturday, we go and officially get the girls from the orphanage. We bought bananas, juice, and cookies for all the kids in their group for a goodbye party. Even though the girls are excited I'm sure they will be sad to leave as well. They have many good friends there and great caretakers that love them.

We have grown to love many of the children there and gotten to know them quite well. Even though we are glad to be done with this phase of the process, we are sad to be saying goodbye to some of the kids. There are a few that have really grabbed our hearts.

We have been anxiously counting down the days till we could leave this village, but today as we drove through the town I saw several faces of people we have gotten to know from shopping in their markets or going to the cafe, orphanage, etc. I realized, we will actually miss this place!

Regardless, we are GLAD to finally be leaving on Monday morning, with OUR new daughters! We will stay in Kharkiv for a couple of days taking care of the passports.

Well, got to go to bed! We will keep you posted!

Love,

Leah and Greg

Pictures!!

2007-09-01T22:01:00.001-06:00

This is a little church across from the orphanage.

These are some of the darling little boys at the orphanage.

The kids put on a play today, it was really neat even though we only understood a few words.

The bed barely fits Cassidee. Karinas is too short for her.

Karina playing hide and seek in the woods.

Greg handing out sunflower seeds after the kids got out of the pool.

Garrett was invited to swim today- it was good because he is homesick and is sad to have missed the 1st day of school.

Garrett says hello from Krasnokutsk, Ukraine.

A cool caterpillar we found in the woods.

2007-08-27T14:14:00.000-06:00

The girls love to ride on "Papa's shoulders". In fact it was one of the first words they learned to say in English. I am getting my workout with these two jumping and spinning all the time. That with the new Ukraine diet I will probably lose 20 pounds before we get back home.

Girls in the woods by the orphanage.

2007-08-27T12:40:00.000-06:00

2007-08-27T12:38:00.000-06:00

They are ours!

2007-08-27T12:03:00.000-06:00

Today we went to court, it was extremely scary. There was a judge, two jurors , a secretary,
a prosecutor, an inspector, our lawyer, and us. The judge and two jurors questioned us for 45 minutes without smiling even once. Everything was in Ukrainian and our lawyer had to translate. After a grueling 45 minutes we had to leave the room. While we sat outside we could hear them speaking fast and loud for another ten minutes. When we were allowed back in they told us they approved the adoption and confirmed the girls new names. Now we have a mandatory ten day waiting period before we can take the girls. During this time anybody could appeal our adoption, (orphanage, court, family) The only thing we are nervous about is the fact that another family came today from San Francisco wanting to adopt OUR GIRLS! And their big
sister. Their lawyer says they will not encourage them appealing because he knows our girls are happy!

We leave the village Sept 7th to go to the girl's birth place to get new birth certificates. (About three hours away.) After that we get to take the girls from the orphanage and then we will stay in Kharkov. There we will apply for passports. After we get passports, which could take up to two weeks, we head back to Kiev. We have more stuff to do in Kiev, but we're not sure what it is. We'll keep you posted! Check back often, Daniel will be adding pictures that have been sent by camera phone.

Fun day with the girls!

2007-08-24T13:44:00.000-06:00

Today is Friday the 24th it has been a very eventful and long two weeks. We spend four hours a day with the girls. We have bonded and are experimenting daily with ways to teach English,
manners, and to discipline when needed.

Today we were fortunate to leave the orphanage and take the girls to the open market. It is a huge market where they open up metal booths a couple times a week and sell everything from clothes and furniture to fish and hair dye. At 12:00 PM they lock their metal doors and shut down. Then it looks like rows of big blue metal boxes. We got each of the girls a couple of outfits and new sandals. "To go to America in!" After the market we took them to lunch at the cafe, and then to the house where we are staying. They were so excited when we showed them their suitcase. They found Q-Tips and were excited to clean their ears. They found Garrett's toothbrush so I pulled out theirs I had bought at home. We gave them to the girls and they were so excited to brush. Their teeth are in horrible shape. I'm thinking they don't brush.
We wrestled around and the girls tried on Leah's lipstick and did hair. At 4:00, instead of going to the orphanage, we went swimming at a lake. It was great fun and so very refreshing after the heat and humidity of the day.

Today is Ukraine's Independence Day. Last night there were fireworks and a big celebration, of course it held up our court date, but we're getting there. Court is in three days!

Bye for now, Love, the Schaffers

Our Girls!!

2007-08-18T13:48:00.000-06:00

It is Saturday the 18th of August 10:45 PM in the village of Krasnokutsk.

We arrived here after a 6 1/2 hour train ride to Kharkiv and a very fast 1 hour ride in a car. We had two lawyers, Greg, Leah, Garrett, driver, and luggage all crammed into a compact sized car! We are renting a room at a woman's house. We have a driver who picks us up and takes us to the orphanage each day, twice a day from 10-12 and 4-6 and then brings us home.

The first time we went to the orphanage we went into one of the dorms and there stood an adorable little angel with big blue eyes, a shy smile, and beautiful blond hair. This is our youngest girl age 5 (6 on September 25), Karalina!

We are changing her name to Cassidee Karalina. About 5 minutes later in came a smiling, excited, absolutely beautiful sweetheart age 7 named Karina. Her name will be Karina Rae.

These are our two new daughters!

During our visits we play outside on the playground, paint nails, color, play Frisbee, go for walks to the nearby pond to catch frogs, and have lots of snacks. They love juice, yogurt, and bananas. They probably don't get them at the orphanage.

Our lawyer left today and we are left here in a village where nobody understands us and we certainly don't understand them! We will go to court on August 27 or possibly a couple of days earlier. Then we stay here and continue visits for another ten days during a mandatory waiting period. So, 19 more days! Of course, nothing is final until court... we have to request separation from other three siblings. I know it is sad, but they have already been separated for two years. It will be OK. There is always the chance it will be denied because of the siblings, so please keep us in your prayers.

I know this is long-we have no Internet and had to call Daniel and tell him what to type. So, bye for now! Love you all, Greg, Leah, Garrett, Karina, and Cassidy

Kharkov Tomorrow

2007-08-14T12:02:00.000-06:00

It is 9:00 pm -Noon MST - on August 14 and we leave at 5:30 tomorrow morning for the train to Kharkov. It is around a 5 hour train ride and and hour by car to village. Yes Village. We will stay in a house only a few minutes walking distance from orphange. We are told we can see it from our house.

Village means NO internet access which means no more updates for awhile. We will try and get driver to take us into the city a couple times each week to access and update. Please bear with us over the next few weeks.

We visited one of the grand cathedrals with a private tour this evening. Very intresting. We will submit pictures at some point of our trip. Even Garrett was entertained. Funny to see things that date to the 9th century and think there is not anything in the US that dates back that far. Wild.

Our laywer - Natalia - about crapped when we told her how much they wanted for a one-way ticket back for the girls - $3,300 each. We went to a local travel agency and found one-way on same flights as us for $680 each. Much better I would say.

We love you all and appreciate your prayers and support.

On To Kharkov

2007-08-14T11:39:00.000-06:00

Well things went better today at the SDA. The two girls we went back to review are both healthy and adorable. One is six and has blonde hair. The other will be seven on Sept. 29th and has brown hair. It is exciting. One problem, we have to travel to a small village to meet them. If we accept them we stay for a few weeks. No Internet, No updates. Scary.

One problem, the girls have siblings. One younger brother who has TB and two older sisters - teenagers. They had a younger brother who was already adopted by a Ukraine family. To adopt these girls we need to get a letter of permission from the older siblings to take only these two. Laywer seems to think it will not be a problem since youngest one is already been seperated. This can cause us to not get them so keep your fingers crossed and prayers open for us. If not accepted there is one other possiblility of three girls but they will not be available for visit until end of August. We will wait and see. I am sure we will get the ones we are intended to get.

Thanks all please keep leaving comments or sending emails - leah@silkspin.net (Leah) or Sprout2@yahoo (Greg) Chow for now, Greg and Leah

SDA appointment

2007-08-13T10:37:00.000-06:00

Today we had our appointment at the SDA. It was really frightening. We waited outside in a courtyard, eventually were called inside where we walked up some bland stairs into a hot, humid stuffy office, to meet with the child Psychologist and interpreter. We were shown files of kids that were mentally retarded, sibling groups that included boys, and other unsuitable things. So, we actually chose a group with a 10 year old boy, 8 and 5 year old girls. All healthy except for Scoliosis for the boy. Garrett was ecstatic about having a brother. When they went to call the orphanages (they are at 2 different ones), they found out that the 2 older kids are on a hosting trip to Italy right now and won't be back till Sept. 6. Wow, so we would have to stay here till then just to even start the whole process. So, Natalia, our lawyer, called the orphanage director herself and found a set of 2 girls. She went back to the SDA and insisted they find the files, which they did. We go back tomorrow to look at them, they are 5 and 6 or 6 and 7. I can't remember! Anyway, we are nervous again. I hope all works out, wish us luck! Please include us in your prayers.

We will try to find a way to post pics soon. Bye all! luv ya! Greg, Leah, and Garrett.

We are in Kiev

2007-08-12T09:27:00.000-06:00

Well not a lot of time but we arrived in Kiev with just a few problems. Luggage was left in Poland and is n0t scheduled to arrive until later today. I hope! We did have a washer to wash our travel clothes but no bathroom supplies etc. Oh well we did make it and have tons of stories we will add as time permits. I am trying to type this from a Ukraine Internet Cafe and everything is in Ukraine so no spell check. Sorry if I misspell something. I will correct it later.

Flight and everything was ok. Lost luggage and then Garrett's Gameboy somewhere between security check in Warsaw and Apartment. Oh well.

We have our meeting tomorrow at SDA. We will find out what time just after 9:00 am when they open.

Met our Lawyer today. Very nice and stunning. She took us around to get a few items and show us where internet cafe was located.

Must run time is about up. We will get pictures imported to jump drive and load some goodies either later tonight or tomorrow.

Cheers from Kiev, Love Greg, Leah, and Garrett.

We Are On Our Way

2007-08-10T05:27:00.001-06:00

We have the dresser done and their room is ready for their arrival.

It is 5:30 am and I just finished packing. Leah finally went to get some sleep and I will try and get mine on the plane. Our flight leaves at 10:23 and Leah's mom, Sally, is picking us up at 7:00.

This will be quite the adventure. Check back often and leave us a post to let us know what is going on.

Thanks for everything,

Greg and Leah

Girly Stuff

2007-08-05T22:20:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone! Well, we have 4 more days to get ready! Yikes! We are running out of time! Here is a picture of our very first girly things in the house, it was really fun setting it up, Greg especially enjoyed it! We're going to get a night stand tomorrow and paint it white to put right there in between the beds. We leave Friday, wish us luck and please include us in your prayers.

Love you all,

Greg and Leah

Less Than Two Weeks

2007-07-29T00:21:00.000-06:00

Twelve days and counting.

We held a few fund raisers over the last few weeks. On Saturday, 7/21, we held a car wash at a local hamburger place, Kirt's Drive-in. We figure we had around 70 cars show up. There were many very generous people who donated to our adoption. We raised a little over $1,200. WOW.

Friday night, 7/27, a good friend of ours, Keith Sandstrom, held a benefit concert with "The Good Times Band". Although the audience was less than we had hoped for, we still were happy with the support we did receive. Most of the crowd were friends, neighbours, and family. North Ogden City donated the amphitheater at Barker Park and Keith and his band jammed from 7:00 until after 10:00. All those who attended said they had a great time.

We are so very thankful for everything. The outpouring of support is greatly appreciated.

We Have A Date

2007-07-09T22:15:00.000-06:00

Finally - after 2 years and three months we finally have a date. On June 26 we received an invitation to travel from the SDA. Our date is August 13. We are so thrilled and excited about things finally coming together. Return for more updates as we get the ball rolling.