Howard Stern marries Molly Mormon

Halloween starts early on our street.  The YM/YW had a fashion show night.  The boys drew girls names and dressed each other up.  They has a great time.





                 Grandma and Grandpa at Maddie's Birthday.
This is what Artem likes for breakfast.  Honeycomb cereal, blueberries with chocolate syrup! Yummy!  Actually it doesn't look that bad.

One Month! So Far. So Good

Just catching up!  It has been a month since we arrived home from Ukraine.  We have had a pretty busy month, and it was hard to find time to up date the blog.  Sorry to keep you from our very exciting lives for a whole month, but I see that everyone has survived through it well enough.  We are happy to report that the boys are doing really well.   They only miss Ukraine "a little bit," so I guess we are on the right track.  They seem to like school, and already have good friends there.  Catherine being one of them.  I already feel out number some times when Lauren is working and Cat is at cheer.  Kent has been out numbered since he was born.  I don't know how he is still sane.  Thanks for hanging in there Kent. 

Here are some pictures taken this past month.  They will catch you up on what has been happening here. 

             Maddie had her "Golden" Birthday this month.  She turned 19 on the 19th

Here is what you do when you adopt kids from another country.  You put them to work, and help them learn english.  I took them to the doctor, and the first thing they had to do was to pee in a cup.  WELCOME TO AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  

Good to be home!

Here are just a few more pictures from the airport that my Dad sent to me.

                                               I missed my girls!

Home Sweet Home

We made it!  Home at last.  I can't believe that a month has come and gone.  The last few weeks were starting to melt together, and it was hard to keep track of them.  Thank goodness I kept a journal, because I wouldn't have remember any of it.  

We woke up around 6:00 am.  Natalie and Valdimir picked up the Hatches and us, and we headed to the airport around 7:30.  Everything was fine until I had to say good by to Natalie.  I completely lost it!  I loved Natalie.  It was extremely hard saying good by to a person that you so heavily relied on for a month.  Then Valdimir who was so amazing with getting all of our adoption stuff done without any problems.  I was so grateful for both of them.  It was very hard to detach myself from them.  

We got to the check in, and as I thought, our luggage was overweight.  Thanks to Kent for packing another bag.  We filled it, and just barely come in under the weight restrictions.  The Hatch's got through that just fine.  When we got to the check your papers place, Julie had packed her documents that she thought she didn't need, and had to wait an hour, before someone said she had to retrieve those documents.  She had to pull her checked in bag off the plane, and just made the fight in time.  Artem was so worried, that we kept losing him from the gate area, because he was going back to the check in area to see if they were coming.

We were worried too, but we had to get on the flight either way.  Sorry Julie!  We were praying hard for them, and it turned out fine.  The rest of the flight went well.  We knew we were back in the states when we saw organized lines.  The people in customs were actually nice to us, even in New York!   America Rocks!

We were an hour late getting into Salt Lake, but that was okay.  We were home!  Thanks to all of you who met us there.  It was so great to see everyone.  The boys were so happy.  

Today they got up like they had been here all of their lives.  "Good morning, Mom!"  I got from them.  I made them breakfast, they rode bikes, played x-box, then went to the movies with Cat and her cute friends.  Talk about throwing them to the wolfs.

Mostly, it is great to finally have them with us.  We feel so blessed to have them be a part of our family.  

Last Post in YKPAIHA (Ukraine)

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - Our last full day in Ukraine and we're on our way home tomorrow morning!!

Today we hung around our apartment for the morning then found a local store and bought some meat and cheese. We gulped it down and went outside where Natalie had a couple taxis waiting for us to go to the Embassy. The Embassy was full of people waiting to get in and it was really nice as U.S. citizens to walk to the front of the line.

Before going in, an Embassy worker walked up to us and asked if we were the Utah group adopting. He was a young man that grew up in Utah, served a mission in St. Petersburg a few years ago and was doing a 3 month internship. Also, the gentleman that helped us, Dave Allen, was LDS from Josephville, AZ. One of his first questions was, "Are you blue or red?" When I answered red, he said that he wouldn't be able to complete our paperwork for another month! I think I'm the only Utah fan in our group of families although several graduated from the U. What's wrong with people's allegiance these days anyway????

Afterward we walked around Kiev, bought some souvenirs for the girls and had dinner in the underground mall. Walking home tonight we saw Kiev at night for the first time and it was very beautiful. It reminds me of other European cities with the old buildings, a lot of history, modern stores but not nearly the crowds as you find in Paris, Munich, etc.

It's also fun to see how car crazy the boys are. They kept taking pictures of cars they thought were cool. Most were Japanese "rice burners" that had silly paint jobs. They also think Hummers are cool. Sasha told me later that when he's 16, he's sure that's what I'm going to buy him. I think their expectations of America and being part of our family is going to be disappointing in some ways...

We were also running low on Greevnias so Arri and the boys succumbed to a little begging in front of McDonald's. They didn't get too much...

Overall, a great trip. We're getting out under 4 weeks and have met a lot of great people like Vladimir, Natalie, Tanya, Natasha, the branch members in Sumy. And of course, we had GREAT roommates in Brent and Lucinda Milne. It's hard to live with people for 3.5 weeks and they've been so easy and helpful to be with.

For those of you who want to come to the airport, our final leg is from JFK to SLC, Delta flight 97 arriving at 8:11pm on Thursday. The Hatch's will also be on our flight.

So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu...

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - We lost our Internet access on Saturday so this will be a quick catch up. We went to church on Sunday and I met David and LeeAnn Luke who drove in from Romny just to go to church. Things are not going well for them and they have yet to get a court date. What a difference a good facilitator makes as well as the willingness of the orphanage people to let you adopt their children.

Sunday we had 3 new elders there. There was an Elder Anderson from Norway who trained the son of a good friend of mine (Elder Devin Shumway). They asked Neil Milne and Todd Heiner to give the sacrament meeting talks and Tanya did the translating. They both did great jobs and there was a great spirit in the meeting.

Sunday we said good-bye to Valeria, fixed lunch back in the apartment and met the boys' Grandma and brother Maxim one last time. Artem and Maxim had a bet that if one of them cried, they'd owe the other $200. So both stayed strong. Grandma and Arri both shed some tears and I was holding back some emotion. We've asked Maxim to come see us in a couple of years as we would like to keep the boys in contact.

While eating, the boys started telling stories about growing up. They were laughing so hard it was really fun to watch. When Natalie translated, it was just silly stuff. They talked about the time they walked to their granmother's house, 30 km away and how during the walk they laughed and joked the whole way. They also talked about the time they had 10 Greevnias (their money) to come into town. When they discovered that only 2 of them could make it, they left Sasha at the village. I'm glad they all could laugh. I think they were trying to hide some sadness of parting.

We left grandma but Maxim walked back to our apartment. They acted like it wasn't a big deal but we could tell he was uptight about the parting.

On Monday, we picked them up from school around 3:00pm and they said good-bye to their friends. It was classic boys. They looked at their friends and said, "Bye!" and walked away. We walked over to Sasha and Austin's teacher's house (Maria) who had the day off. She came out to greet us and she shed some tears. She's a wonderful lady.

The boys just want to play games on the computers. We didn't have enough bed space in our apartmet but we made due (without blankets) and got up this morning around 1:30am to be ready for the bus at 2:30am.

We drove to Kiev and met with the Doctors at 8:00am. We joined the Hatch's and Alan Morgan. The exams took longer than we had hoped and depending on which doctor did the examination, a different requirement was given to each boy. No rules and no consistency. We then rushed to the US Embassy to meet the 12:00noon deadline and hit horrible traffic in the city. At one point, Vladimir hopped out of the Van and was directing traffic. The guy knows how to get things done!

So, we submitted our papers, took finger prints and we go back to the embassy tomorrow at 2:00pm. We all hope that it goes well and we're able to jump on our flights on Thursday morning for the U.S.

By the way, the apartment we got here in Kiev is a large 3 bedroom (they count the front room with a fold out couch as a bedroom) and they have free Internet! Nicest place we've seen here yet!

We're anxious to get home!

Hoppy Beerfday to Juu!

Saturday, September 20, 2008 - Artem's 15th birthday! Seems like it was just a year ago when we first saw and met our son! :-)

Today we picked up the boys and gave Artem his choice of where he would like to go eat for his birthday celebration. And to our great surprise he said, "McDonald's!" I don't think I'll eat at another McDonald's back in the States for a long, long time. It was packed as usual and took about 30 minutes or more for everyone to order and get their food. I've never seen a McDonald's busier than this one. Artem ordered a coupe of items including fries but Sasha ordered a Big 'n Tasty, Chicken Wrap, 9 piece McNuggets, Fries and a large Sprite. Of course, he had to chase all of that with a Sundae.

We brought the boys and Austin back to our apartment with Natalie and the boys had fun playing on the computers. Arri had brought Artem's gift from the States which was a Nintendo DS Light. He and Sasha both seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

After, Arri and Lucinda made a Top Ramen soup and added some other vegetables including peas and we were amazed that none of the boys liked the peas. They all made faces and pulled them out of the soup. Then Arri placed matches on Artem's cake (couldn't find candles) and he blew them out very quickly.

Natalie asked Artem if he had a nice birthday and he said, "Yeah. It was a lot better than my 5th and 6th birthdays."

When she asked him why, he said that everyone in his family was drunk on those birthdays. He didn't really laugh and it gave us a little more insight into what he can remember. It will be really good when he learns english and we can talk to him and Sasha better.

The weather warmed up today and all in all another good day. We've learned that we cannot leave Sumy until early Tuesday morning about 3:00am. We'll drive to Kiev to get their medical work done and if all goes well, we'll get to the embassy to get their Passport work started. If we can't get there by 12:00 noon on Tuesday, we will have to postpone our Thursday flights. Keep us in your prayers that we can all get done on Tuesday.