Almost There!

Well, here we are two days before court, four days before going home. Thanks for hanging in with us and praying for us through all of this. We’ll be seeing Juliana just two more days, then that’s it for a month. Tough to think about, but it’s been even tougher being away from Justin & Jonathan the past few weeks. We’re counting the hours until we land at Logan at 5:05 Wednesday evening.

No new video today. We went downtown to go to the internet place but there were no computers available, and there were several people waiting. So, we figured we’d update the blog from the apartment. The dial-up does fine with just text, and handles pictures just barely.

We had lunch yesterday with Laurel Boylan, the American women we met a few days ago in the market who is finishing up the process of adopting two boys. We actually ate at a different restaurant, called “Sit-and-Eat” (in Ukrainian). Lots of food choices served buffet style, and Laurel was able to tell us what most things were, so we were able to try some authentic Ukrainian food. Julie didn’t really care for any of it, though (those that know Julie well know how picky she can be). She says she’s just craving a normal salad, with greens in it, something that seems hard to come by here. I could take or leave most of it, but it was nice to eat something besides pizza and McDonalds for a change. Laurel has been here for 6 weeks, electing to stay after court straight through to the end. She was just waiting for the passports for the boys to be issued by the Ukrainian passport office here, and while we were having lunch she got the call that the passports were finally ready. We were so happy for her. Her husband had left to go home after court three weeks ago, so she’s been on her own with the two boys and her daughter that came with her (ages 4, 6 & 7). She left within 2 hours for Kiev and will be home in California by Thursday. The passports had been promised to her several days ago, but she hit one snag after another. This has just reassured us that we have made the right decision to come back in January. If we tried to finish it up before 12/31, and hit just one delay like Laurel did, we’d be stuck here until after their holidays (1/1 – 1/7). Luba will be taking care of the new birth certificate and passport in our absence and we’ll return once it’s all set.

Things we’re looking forward to: our own bed with a real bottom sheet (ask us about it sometime), a bathroom with the toilet and sink in the same room, being able to talk to Lori every day (this one’s from Julie, of course), being able to walk out of our home without smelling garbage and dodging stray dogs & cats everywhere (though Julie does like to feed them – she’s named one of the dogs “ravioli” and a cat “stinky”), public restrooms with toilet seats (again, ask us sometime), television and radio we can understand, American & Chinese food, having more to read than the five or six books we brought and the two that Luba sent us, high speed internet, and most of all being able to hug and kiss our kids. That’s the short list. ;-)

A few prayer requests for those prayer warriors out there: please pray that everything goes smoothly in court on Monday (we don’t anticipate any problems, but one never knows here), of course pray that Juliana will be safe in our absence, and pray that we’ll be able to get a good deal on our airfare for our return in January and that everything will go smoothly then, as well, and that that trip will be as short as possible (we’re expecting 5-6 days).

Thank you so much, again, for your prayers, posts & support. It has made our time here much more bearable. Thanks again, Mom, for sacrificing so much to stay with our kids all this time. And thanks Steph & Lisa for coming out to help Mom; we knew the boys would wear her down (just kidding). Love & miss you all. We’ll post again after court.