Homeward Bound

We arrived back to Kiev yesterday morning. We recieved Alec's passport and have completed requirements in Kiev now. Tomorrow we will pick up his visa and will be on the airplane home first thing Friday. Stan and Kim arrived to Kiev yesterday. Today we all went to TGI Fridays and had a nice lunch. We wish them a quick adoption process and a quick return back to America.

Yalta

Things went well in Dzhankoy. Alec was very excited to leave with us. I cannot believe that he is finally with us. The last month has gone by very slowly as we waited and waited for appoinments and court.

We have completed all of our paperwork in Simferopol and now we are waiting again to travel to Kiev to do more paper work.

Today we have traveled to the city of Yalta. We are staying at Hotel Yalta, it is on the Black Sea. Many of the employees even speak English. That is a huge bonus. Next to their swimming pool is a pool where they do dolphin shows 3 times a day. Alec and Meghin can not wait to see the show tomorrow. The countryside is very beautiful down here. We really enjoyed the car ride from Simferopol to Yalta. Will write more later.

Pictures

I forgot to mention that I will add more pictures when I get to a computer that comes up in English. When I log onto this blog website the only thing that shows in English is what I am typing. That makes it a little hard to use since I haven't learned Russian yet.

Hello from Kiev

Yesterday August 24 was Independence Day for Ukraine. They had huge celebrations and fireworks here in Kiev. It was great to see. I haven't seen so many people in one place in a long time.
Tomorrow we travel back to Crimea by train. We are getting used to the train rides now. At first when they told me 15 hours I was worried, now we get in our compartment and make ourselves home like it is just another trip. We are going to pick up Alec first thing, then travel to Kerch to get his new birth certificate. (That is the town he was born in.) Then we will travel back to Simfropol to apply for his passport. The waiting begins again. They say it is taking approx. 10 days at this time, so we will keep our fingers crossed. We are hoping to stay at a resort down at the Black Sea for most of the wait, so that will be nice for a change in scenery.
We enter a update as soon as we find internet access in the town we will be in. We miss everyone............

Court date

We had our court date on Aug 16th. Everything went great, we were granted the adoption. We pick Alec up in 10 days. He is very anxious to come to America on the airplane. We are waiting our 10 days in Kiev and then traveling to Simferopol to wait with him for his passport to be issued. Ukraine seems to be restructuring their passport system as the USA has and it is taking longer to process passports.

Dzhankoy visit

We are back in Kiev. We visited Dzhankoy Mon thru Thurs. Everything went great. The kids are healthy and happy. The day we arrived we had lunch with them. We really enjoyed spending time with the kids. We have traveled back to Kiev to wait until our court date on Aug 16th. We are excited that everything is moving foward so nicely. We will enter more later.......

Pictures of Independence Square

Kiev

A few pictures taken at Independence Square in Kiev

Leaving for Dzhankoy

We are traveling to Dzhankoy tonight, Igor left us a few hours ago to make the arrangements. He is getting train tickests if they are not sold out or a car and driver. We were unable to go this weekend to to unforeseeable circumtances with Igor. Everything is fine now and we should be there soon. We have had fun sight seeing this weekend. The weather is hot here, but we here it is warmer where we are going in Crimea. We are hoping to get to the Black Sea. It is suppose to be really beautiful. We will write more when we can.

SDA appoinment

We had our appointment at the SDA yesterday. It went fine. It was alot less stressful than I had imagined that it would be. I think it lasted all of 15 minutes. The ladies were really nice. Igor is picking up our referral letter today from the SDA and we will travel by train to Crimea possibly tonight. We do not know any of the details of where we are staying at this time. We will not be able to visit the orphange until Monday though. We are really anxious to see Alex's face when we arrive. We cannot wait to see him again.
We are walking around Kiev again today. There are so many things to see. It is really a neat city.
Later we will try and go to a wi-fi internet cafe so we can connect with our laptop and download some pictures.
Everyone take care.

We made it to Kiev

We are in Kiev..........................
Igor (our facilatator) picked us up at the airport and took us to our apartment yesterday evening. Our flights were long but great, we even made it with all of our luggage.
Today we are with Dean and Jill, another American couple here from Minnesota to adopt. They are showing us around Kiev. The city is beautiful. We will have alot of pictures to bring home. Our apartment is very nice. The only thing is there are no screens on the windows so a few unfriendly mesquitoes enter and bother you. We are going to walk around the city today, tomorrow we have our appointment with the adoption center at 11:00. We then may find out what day we travel to Crimea. Igor is really nice to work with, he is very good at getting things done and helping you any in way you may need. We will write again soon.

We are off to Ukrine tomorrow!!

We cannot believe the day has finally arrived. Our flight leaves Denver tomorrow , we arrive in Kiev at 4:30 PM Kiev time. We have a long journey ahead, hopefully everything will go without a hitch so we can return home soon. We have had a very busy week preparing for the trip and trying not to forget anything while packing. We are so excited to get to see Alex again. Yesterday afternoon our daughter Brandi had her baby. Conner was born at 4:19 pm. He and mom are doing great. I am thankful he arrived before we left so we got to meet him. Isn't he handsonme? Addison is now a big sister....

We will write again once we are in Kiev and find internet access. Wish us luck.

Chris and Kristi

Zoo

Today we went to the Zoo. We are trying to spend as much time as possible with our kids (and our grand baby Addison) as possible before we go to Ukraine. The zoo was great, although Addisson did not know what to think about the animals.

Waitng to travel

I am creating this site to hopefully make it easier to communicate with family and friends back home when we are away. Hopefully it wil be easy to navigate and use. We are planning on taking lots of pictures while we are there.

Our appointment date at the SDA in Kiev Ukriane is August 2nd. We are anxiously waiting for July 30th to get here, that is the day we fly out of Denver. Today Brandi, Addison, Meghin and I went to the Mall and picked up a few things from the travel store. We are trying to think of everything we may need to take with us. I know that we are going to forget something. There is no way you can pack for 5 weeks to travel overseas and get out of town with everything you will need.