All Done

We just got Juliana's visa, the very last document in this whole process. She's our daughter, she can leave Ukraine (passport), and she can enter the United States (visa). All that's left to do is to go to the airport tomorrow and head home. This trip has gone as smoothly as it possibly could have, probably smoother than we dared to hope - we're even done a day early! Too bad we hadn't made our flight reservations for today!

We have high speed internet in our apartment this time, but since we didn't bring our laptop, we're using the desktop that's here. Unfortunately, we neglected to bring along the software that enables us to upload video, but here's a picture of the three of us this afternoon. We also forgot to bring along the USB cable to hook our digital camera up to the computer; thought it was the same as the one used by our video camera. Made the same mistake last time - duh. At least our video camera has the capacity to take still pictures, so with the bathroom mirror we were able to snap this one.

Juliana continues to amaze us with her great disposition. She's always happy - even gets up smiling. We don't expect that to be the case all the time - if it is, we figure we'll probably pay for it when she's a teenager. We had been really nervous about how she'd handle the plane ride home (especially for the sake of the other passengers around us), but we really have no concern at all now. Of course, the honeymoon could end and the little stinker may surprise us, but right now it's not looking that way. She just seems to embrace every new experience and just soak it all in.

We all got a full night's sleep last night, finally. The apartment is a studio with only one bed, so we all slept together (at least the bed's queen-sized). There is a couch, but no extra sheets or blankets anywhere, so we made do. Juliana migrated all over the bed throughout the night. At one point, she was lying across the bed with her feet by Julie's head and her arm across my face. Hard to believe we got as much sleep as we did, but, despite a few such interruptions, we probably still got at least 8 hours' worth.

Justin & Jonathan - your little sister is finally coming home. She knows your names and faces, but in two days she'll finally get to meet her two awesome big brothers. Just like that, we go from a family of 4 to a family of 5. God has really blessed us.

This will be our last post before coming home. Thanks again, all of you that hung in with us and prayed for us throughout this whole adventure. You can never know how much it's meant to us.