The Marble Chronicles

Closed Doors

2007-02-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

We didn't hear anything back from the agency yesterday. I was a little disappointed, but also recognized the agency was in LA - and it was after hours by the time they had received our inquiry.

God woke me up early this morning at 5:30 and I couldn't get back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried. Now if you knew how much effort it normally takes to drag myself out of bed each morning, you'd know how incredible it was for me to be up and going that morning.

At 7:15 the phone rang. John wasn't up yet, so I answered the phone, fully expecting it to be for him. It was Terri with Grace International - it took a second to register, but then I realized she was calling about the little boy in the Waiting Newsletter yesterday!

We talked about the little boy, whom we learned was named Mekhrob, and the Russian adoption process. We were looking at a fast process, and an expensive one. Moscow, Russia is their most expensive program - running about $35,000 with everything. And, we'd be looking at pulling together our dossier right away, and traveling within a couple weeks. Grace International's accreditation in Russa expires March 1st, which means the first trip must be completed by that time. Apparently they have been assured that a court date (the 2nd trip) would be scheduled, as long as the first trip was completed before the agency accreditation expiration. So- that explains the very short timeline.

Terri explained she had received 80+ emails in response to the Waiting Child Newsletter - but there were only 3 families who were "immigration ready" - us being one of them. Basically she was going to share the same information with all 3 families, and then see whoever could be ready to say "Yes" to Mekhrob first. Not that it was a race between us all - but given the reality of needing to move quickly, she had to go with whomever first agreed to his adoption. Terri sent over some additional pictures of Mekhrob, so I've included them here...

After sharing the information with John, we began praying earnestly about the situation. I'm always ready to say "Yes!" in cases like this, but thankfully God has blessed our family with a little sanity in the form of John! About halfway through the day, I showed the kids Mekhrob's pictures and explained what was happening. To say they were excited would be a huge understatement!

To make the time pass a little more quickly, I also did some searching online about this little boy's name - Mekhrob. Even though he was born in Russia, his birth mom was actually Tadjik (from Tadjikistan - a former republic of the USSR). Assuming Mekhrob was a Tadjik word, I started searching, and found out that Mekhrob actually refers to the "Holy of Holies" in a temple or mosque. The Arabic version is Mihrab.

Embracing our children's heritage is something we highly value, and although Mekhrob is a challenging name, I thought it would be neat to find another traditional Tadjik name that would be a little easier in the US. Most of the names were challenging, just like Mekhrob, but eventually I came across "Kia". It means defender or protector...John loved the name like I did, and slowly we began referring to this little boy as Kia Mekrhob (we'd keep his birth name as his middle name).

Now, understand this was a huge leap of faith for us - after all, once you start naming a child, you've really made an emotional commitment to him! Understanding that on some level, we mostly referred to him as "he" - still afraid to become too attached. We continued to pray all day about "him" - asking that God would show us who He intended to be Kia's family...

Late in the afternoon, John was painting and I was "making the case" for Kia....We were both starting to feel like Kia was supposed to be part of our family, but weren't quite ready to step out and say "yes". And then the phone rang....

...and God closed the door. One of the other families came forward to say "yes" to Kia. I was very disappointed, but also accepted God's answer to prayer. We HAD asked Him to show us who He intended to be Kia's family, and He had answered. We didn't "like" the answer, but accepted it.

Perhaps today was an opportunity to meet Terri at Grace International, and God had another plan for our paths to intersect in the future. We don't always understand the big picture - and that is certainly true today.

Strangly enough, a short time after Terri had called, we received a phone call from immigration. I had left a message earlier in the day to check about switching our approval to a different country. Our homestudy had approved us to adopt 4 children, and since we are only adopting 2 girls from Haiti - we have 2 "extra" approvals; we wanted to switch one of these to Russia for Kia's adoption. That phone call didn't make sense to us - it had all the wrong timing.

So we move forward - still having two wonderful girls in Haiti to work on bringing home. Sometimes God's answers aren't always what we want to hear, but we know and trust they are always correct...Signing off sad and disappointed tonight...

"You've got to get off those waiting child newsletters..."

2007-02-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

It was just a few days ago when John teased me about the waiting child newsletters that I receive via email. I've been receiving the Rainbow Kids newsletter for quite some time. Actually, I hadn't read it for months - and everytime it arrived, I was reminded to sign off the list. The newsletter arrived today, and almost immediately, I went to delete it. But right away I felt VERY STRONGLY that I should read it. This is exactly what I saw and read...

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Rainbow Kids Waiting Child Newsletter

Here is our little peanut from Russia. His DOB is October 28, 2005. His Pictures were taken in November 2006. He has been in the orphanage since he was 3 months old. His Nationality is Russian and Tedjik. His Birth Mother was hospitalized at 25 weeks gestation with premature labor. She was stabilized and he was born at 34 weeks in the hospital. His birth weight was 4.0 pounds with apgars of 6/6. He was born premature but is growing well and has been proportional in size since birth. On November 1st his weight was 14 pounds, length 70cm, head circumf.44cm and chest circumf. 43cm. From 4 months of age to 12 months of age positive development has been observed. He can crawl and stand on his own, and he is taking steps.Russia is a two trip adoption and the family that is interested in this baby could leave for their first trip as soon as February of 2007 and will bring him home in March. A family must have immigration clearance to adopt this baby. All labs are negative.

*************************

I was blown away - immediately I forwarded the message to John and began praying. John came home for lunch before he saw my email - but looking at me right away, he knew something was up. "What waiting child newsletter have you been reading now?!" How did he know?!

I showed him the newsletter - he said I could pray about it. That was happening anyways, so I also emailed, and eventually called and left a phone message at the agency....

Oh, where to even start?!

2007-01-07T11:51:00.000-07:00

The Marble family is back! We're complete with upgrades, newer versions and more! As we embark on blogging on our continuing adventures, this blogspot will be a frequent place to share our thoughts, ideas and developments with our friends and family.

We are now a family of 9, complete with 7 children. But, we are also in the process of adopting two little girls from Haiti - which will bring us to 9 kids and 11 people all told. So many people ask - are you done? And honestly, we can't say that we are. God has so richly blessed our family, and so strongly turned our hearts toward adoption that we know we will always, in some way, be involved with adoption as a ministry. That may be through reaching out to other families, helping others with adoptions, and of course, adding to our own family. As John said - as our older children move out, that will open up more opportunities for our family to grow again!

So for now, I will log off, with promises to return and to update you all on our family at this point. So much has happened in our lives since my last blog in June '05. God has really stretched us, and we have been doing our best to follow Him and His plans!

It's great to be back!

We're back - and with Twins!!

2005-06-05T21:02:00.000-06:00

Whew! With a four month absence, one hardly knows where to start. I apologize for the long absence - I have enjoyed your "don't leave us hanging!" emails encouraging us to get back going with the blog.

Obviously, I can't go into a lot of nitty gritty details of everything you all have missed for the previous months because one - it would take forever, and two - I'm not sure I remember it all!

But, I will try and hit the highlights (and yes, I'll get to the meaning of our title above!).

School
We've been really busy doing schooling this spring. We are using (and loving) Sonlight curriculum. The kids really enjoy school (for the most part) and are excited about things. It has been fun to see some of their growth, while at the same time frustrating, seeing what all they need to learn and do.

Our "two oldest" as they have been coined (oldest adopted and oldest bio - Mariyana and Lillia) have just taken off with school. At first they were competing with one another and I had to remind each of them that you are 12 and you are 4! So, that has backed off a little, but they are my over-achievers, always asking to do more.

As mentioned, we are using Sonlight curriculum and chose to start with PK Core, using Janet's enhanced schedule. For math we have been using Singapore. Mariyana has finished the Earlybird series (1A, 1B, 2A and 2B workbooks) and Lillia isn't too far behind as she is on the final workbook, 2B!

We have added in a lot of critical thinking books which the kids enjoy and get a lot from. One of the struggles we are facing is teaching our new kids HOW to think and learn, and these are a good source for learning those skills.

We've instituted Science Notebooks - and have been working on science experiments each week. Right now the kids are growing bean plants, and our kitchen counter has been taken over by snails, worms, and millipedes. If you knew how small our kitchen is - you'd know this is a pretty big deal! Anyways, the kids write up their experiments in their notebooks - usually a date, title and drawing of the experiment set-up. They also draw the results of the experiment.

Mariyana has really taken off with her reading. She can pick up and read through many of our kids' books around the house and is getting more and more confident with her skills. Lillia has picked up probably 20-30 sight words she can read. I think the funniest was the word "up". I asked her to get me a 7up from the fridge one day, and ever since then, she reads it everywhere! She will also dissect words to read the part she knows - the other day she saw "now" and told me - "if you take the 'w' off of that word, it says no! And if you turn the letters the other way, it says on!" Reading isn't too far off with her - I haven't been working with her at all on it - I figure since she is only 4, there is no rush, and we are worried about her burning herself out with school because she pushes herself so hard. Sasha has successfully learned all his letters and their sounds. That was a huge task - something we've been working on all spring. But, I think he has them down - at least most of the time, with most of the letters. Olesya has managed to pick up most of her letters and sounds too - mostly from interacting with Lillia and Mariyana and wanting to do what they are doing! Vanya can recognize his name, write it and now also recognizes the first letter in Anabella's name. So - progress there, albeit only a little, and rather slow!

Olesya and Vanya have actually been doing less and less school throughout this spring. While they are 6 and 8, they really aren't ready for a lot of academics. So, we have been having them practice writing their names, coloring, drawing, playing with playdough, doing puzzles - that sort of thing. Olesya is starting to show more interest and aptitude to do school, but only in limited chunks and only if it doesn't require perseverance and a lot of thought - otherwise she is in tears. But, that is the beauty of homeschooling - we can give her a little extra time that she needs...Vanya is progressing, although it is very minimal. I think he can consistently identify 3 colors now! And, that has been a lot of work getting there! (It isn't a language thing either - he didn't know any of his colors in Russian.)

Sasha is coming along - it is 2 steps forward, 1 or 2 or 5 steps back with him. He really struggles with a lot of concepts that seem pretty basic, and so we are taking our time with them. Patience has been key with both boys, but especially Sasha. I have to almost "forget" that he is 10 and just meet him where he is. Where he to enroll in public or private school next fall (which he won't), he would probably be up to handling a 1st grade classroom, as long as it moved very slowly and didn't expect much prior knowledge coming out of kindergarten. We keep hoping he starts taking off, but I'm not sure we'll ever see a huge surge forward with his learning. It will be very slow and not so steady.

Relationships and Behaviors
We've had our share of challenges this spring with the kids. But, we are starting, with some of them to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Mariyana has really adjusted the best of all the new kids. She has turned into a wonderful helper. Her attitude is usually very positive and upbeat. She is quite obedient most of the time, and encourages her brothers and sisters to act accordingly. She is a very black-and-white-type kid, and so if mom and dad say something - that is the way it is! She has integrated herself so well in amongst our family. It has been fun to see her personality - especially her humor - come out.

Mariyana and Lillia have become best buddies - they go and do everything together. Watching them, you would never believe there are 8 years difference between them. That has been a real encouragement to us for homeschooling too. Had Mariyana been attending school all day elsewhere, she wouldn't have been around to develop those relationships - and when she would get home from school, she would have "learned" that hanging out and playing games with your 4 year old sister isn't "cool" and isn't supposed to be fun.

Mariyana has also taken Anabella under her wing. She usually helps her get dressed in the morning, does her hair and is always around to change a diaper - often without even being asked. Anabella thinks her older sister is the best thing going!

Olesya has been a joy to watch over the past few months. She had some very rough times at first with not being the center of attention and not being the favorite. That evolved into a lot of disobedience and hurtful, mean behaviors (on purpose) without showing any remorse. How John and I cried and prayed over her mean, hurtful heart that saw really nothing wrong with what she had done. It seemed like nothing was getting through, and we really wondered where this little girl was headed...

I am very happy to say that we have seen a huge turn-around in the past few weeks. She is truly remorseful, asks forgiveness of not only us, but also Jesus on her own. Just tonight she and Vanya got into an argument over Olesya hitting Vanya's seat in the van. Olesya was in tears (authentic tears) asking forgiveness of her brother and of us. When John said prayers with her, she wanted to pray to ask forgiveness. And, as we left their room, she was praying on her own to ask forgiveness again, and was once again crying. It doesn't sound as significant as I type this, but if you had seen the change, and what this has come out of, you too would be praising God for a true miracle in her life!

The boys continue to grow and develop. We have had so many struggles with them, and they continue. But, I think they are getting better. This past weekend went very well, and gives up hope to keep going. Sasha continues to be only slightly engaged in our family. We found out that he had been stealing food at night and other opportune times when he was supervised. So, he has spent a lot of time within arm's reach of mom or dad, and the boys have an alarm on their door at night. He continues to struggle with lying, and shuts down - maybe more now than before - when confronted about doing something, even as simple as wearing his dad's socks that were mistakenly put in his drawer. We still search for the thing that he is passionate about and truly cares about.

Vanya is making progress and that is another true answer to prayer. He continues to struggle with control issues and his bedwetting is a perfect example. It has expanded some days to just wetting his pants during school when he doesn't like what is happening. But, lately John has been cuddling with him and reading books with him one-on-one - IF he stays dry. Today after nap, Vanya actually asked John if he could sit on his lap and read books. That is the first time he has ever asked - and the reward of cuddling with dad seems to be a good incentive for the time being. Vanya is also becoming more of a kid. Just this weekend at a picnic, he collected worms, snails and a millipede and filled a cup with goodies from the woods. Even a month ago, he would hardly look at a worm, and would avoid anyone like the plague if they had something dirty or "icky".

Vanya is the type of kid that doesn't seem comfortable in his own skin. He doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands, how to hold his arms when he is sitting, how to run and play...so we are trying to teach him all these little details of life. Most times we don't feel like we are getting through, and then every once in awhile, he comes through with something that floors us - and we think, "so you were listening?!"

Lillia is just blossoming. If you talk to many, many social workers, they will warn you against disrupting birth order of kids by adoption. Well, we certainly did that - Lillia went from being the oldest to the second youngest. Honestly, we were concerned with how Lillia would handle being in a large family. She was the type of kid that enjoyed being by herself, and regularly avoided large groups - even if they were groups of people she knew well. But, our concerns were without merit.

Lillia has really emerged as a leader among the kids, in many regards. She has grown up so much, and come out of her shell. Now her least favorite thing is to be alone! In fact, that is one of the greatest punishments she can receive - is being left out of the group or having to spend some time by herself.

Anabella is truly the baby of the family. She is doted on by all the kids. Everyone looks after her and loves on her. She adores each of her brothers and sisters and often asks to just sit on one of their laps! With her 3rd birthday coming up in August, it is hard to believe she is that old already. She seems so much younger than Lillia did at that age, but we also see Anabella growing up a lot before our eyes. She talks quite a bit, but, like Lillia, can be hard to understand a lot of the time. Luckily, her brothers and sisters seem to understand most of what she says - so they translate for mom!

Homeschooling has been such a blessing for our family. So many people ask us when we are going to enroll our kids in the local school - as if homeschooling was just a quick fix for the kids right when they came home - and I would be hard-pressed to give up our situation! It is a joy to see the kids playing and growing and learning together. They have solid relationships amongst each other. There is probably not a combination of kids that you could come up with, that I don't see together at some point during the day. Even the boys who tend to be a little more stand-offish, get pulled in (literally!) by Anabella taking their hand and getting them involved. If Anabella isn't doing that - then Lillia certainly is!

We have moved the boys into the downstairs bedroom, and the four girls are upstairs. It is a real joy to "have to" ask them to stop talking and go to sleep at night. This is a far-cry from the silence that there rooms used to be. (Or the bickering that would end up with everyone in tears that was a many-times-a-day occurrence when the kids first came home!)

Faith
Our personal faith has been an important part of our lives and continues to be. It is a real joy to see the kids grow in that faith.

The most exciting news is that Mariyana has been saved and is a born-again believer! Today at church we had communion and I told each of the kids they needed to sit and wait for us to get communion because it was only for people who had asked Jesus into their hearts to be their Savior. Well, Mariyana told me, "I did that!" So, just to be sure, we prayed together as we waited our turn for communion and then she accompanied us to communion for the first time! What a real joy that was!

Olesya and Lillia are also really close to making that important decision as well. It has been so fun to see the kids taking their faith and making it personal for themselves - praying on their own, talking about what Jesus says about this or that. My favorite is when Lillia asks me something, and I say, "I don't know." is her immediate response of, "God knows!" She is creating a list a mile long of things she is going to ask God when she gets to heaven!

Lillia is our little Evangelist too. She is very interested and concerned about who is going to heaven or hell. And, she understands the difference. Her little spiel is, "If you ask Jesus into your heart - then you go to heaven. If you no believe and obey Jesus and no ask him in your heart - you go to hell where there is a big fire!" If you ask her about heaven, she'll let you know what you need to do to get there without any qualms!

The boys haven't really yet shown any initiative in the areas of faith. They do faithfully count the days until church (that is how our week is organized according to the kids - how many days until church!). They enjoy going and participate a little during Bible time. They will occasionally incorporate something we've learned into real life, but it is usually prompted by us or one of the girls. They have yet to really come to terms with being obedient (to anyone!), why it is important, why it is wrong when they aren't, and feeling badly about their disobedience. So - that has to come before a lot of personal faith and growth is going to occur. We continue to pray for the boys' souls, and are rejoicing at the growth we've seen in the girls!

Our Growing Family
Well, I guess if you have read this far, then you have earned some exciting news about the family! We are expecting twins! But not in a conventional way (we don't do anything conventionally - so you shouldn't be surprised!)...

I am currently 23 weeks pregnant and due October 3rd. The baby will probably be delivered around September 26th (which is exciting because we don't have a September birthday!). I have been feeling pretty good, although tired. When I was complaining to a friend about that, saying, "after all, I am passed the first trimester when you're supposed to be tired!", she reminded me that I do have 6 other kids, and that might explain some of the tiredness!

We thought for a short time that this baby was twins - I was hoping, probably more than anything. I have always wanted twins, and always pictured twins as part of our family. Well, with the ultrasound come and gone - it is only one child. We didn't find out whether it is a boy or girl - we wanted that to be a surprise.

So - now you are really confused - right? First I say we are having twins, then I say I am only carrying one child...

Well, we are adopting again! This time we are adopting from Guatemala - a baby boy. We are just starting all the paperwork chasing, and expect to be done with our homestudy, immigration approval and dossier right around the time of our baby's birth. Once our documents get turned in, we will get a referral for a baby. Because we are requesting a boy, there is little to no wait (most parents ask for girls)!

Last week, as I was praying about my pregnancy and adopting again, I really felt God impress on me - "I am giving you your twins". So - we expect our Guatemalan baby will probably be born about the same time as our biological baby!

It typically takes about 6 months for the paperwork to be processed in Guatemala - so the baby will be about 6 months old when we can bring him home. We are so excited - in a way I am more excited right now about the adoption. At least with that, we can do something! With our pregnancy, we just wait and wait (and add on the pounds!).

Oh - and the kids! Well, they are besides themselves with excitement. Mariyana says Mama is pregnant with two babies - one in her tummy and one in Guatemala! The problem is that she can't pronounce "Guatemala" and so it comes out sounding like "watermelon". And, let me tell you - I am starting to feel like a watermelon!

And, so, if you are asking yourselves - yes, we are indeed crazy! But, God has been preparing our hearts and minds for this adoption and we are so excited that He is allowing us and calling us to adopt again. Guatemala was a country that I was interested in before even leaving for Ukraine, and so God has been working on our hearts since then.

Some day I will write about some of the ways God has led us to Guatemala - but for now - that's where we are headed and with much excitement!

Well, it is late and this has turned into a huge book. I'm not even sure there is anyone out there interested in reading this anymore, but it at least is a good memory book for us!

Until later (and it won't be four months later either!),

Kristen

Family ski trip - take 2! (Straight to the hospital)

2005-02-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night our house was in a flurry of excitement and activity. Tomorrow we were going skiing - and this time, we were going to be even more organized, and less spur-of-the-moment as last time!

The table was piled high with 8 piles of ski clothes - one pile for each person. The fridge contained a prepared lunch - enough to feed an army, or at least our hungry crew of skiers.

The kids were sent to bed with prayers and well-wishes for a great night sleep before our big skiing day. The next morning, John went early into the office to work for a few hours before everyone got up and ready to head to the slopes. Lillia came into my bed as she often does around 7 AM - I thought she wanted to cuddle. I quickly awoke, however, when she said, "Why is Mariyana crying?"

I wasn't sure - in fact, I had no idea, but knew that if she was crying, as Lillia indicated, it had to be serious. We have one who will cry at most anything, but Mariyana isn't like that. I went into her room, and saw Mariyana laying in bed, crying, in obvious pain. Her stomach hurt - it started hurting early this morning. She showed me where - lower right abdomen, and I knew our ski day was off.

I called John and told him of the developments - he looked online for symptoms of appendicitis - that was what immediately came to both of our minds. She seemed to have a bunch of the symptoms - so he came home to stay with the rest of the kids, while I got ready to bring Mariyana into town.

In the meantime, our feisty 2 year old, had climbed on top of the bookshelf, and managed to open the child-proof lid on the kids' vitamins. Rather fond of the vitamins (we have had to hand-deliver each vitamin to each child in the morning, because when we used to just put them at everyone's place, Anabella would walk around, take and eat everyone's!), she decided to help herself - to about 50! In doing so, she ingested 100 days worth (she is supposed to just have 1/2 a vitamin each day!). So, in between getting Mariyana up and going to bring her to the doctor, I was on the phone with Poison Control to determine if Anabella was also a medical emergency. With some calculations, it turned out she was in the "gray area" - and we opted to just watch her at home. Poison control called our house several times later that day to check on her, and except for some really nasty diapers, she seemed fine. (She is still on vitamin-restriction, and will be for quite some time!)

Mariyana and I headed into Bozeman, with directions in hand for the local "Urgent Care" facility. Even though Big Sky has a medical clinic, they don't start seeing patients until 10 AM, and since we figured it was appendicitis, we predicted we would have to go to Bozeman for the operation anyways.

By 9:15 AM we were at the Urgent Care office, and the doctor quickly summed up Mariyana's case as "classic appendicitis". The hospital was called, a surgeon arranged to meet us at the ER, and we headed (with map in hand - because we had no idea where we were going!) to the hospital.

By 11:30 AM, I said goodbye to her at the operating room, and she headed to surgery. And then, I started getting nervous. Up until then, I was keeping busy doing things - filling out paper, talking, reassuring her - but once all had been done, I started worrying, as a mom does, and should.

While Mariyana was in surgery, I was able to run downstairs to the cafeteria and get something to eat (hadn't yet eaten all day), call John and his parents, and come back up just in time to meet with the surgeon. All had gone well, and they would allow me into the recovery room as soon as she was stable.

Before long I was in the recovery room with Mariyana as she came out of the anesthesia. After a short time, we were moved upstairs to her room, where she would be the rest of the day, and they predicted would be able to go home from the next day. As Mariyana rested, we had visits from Nana and Gramps, as well as John and the kids. Mariyana was a trooper and did a great job recovering. By 2 PM Thursday afternoon, we were checking out of the hospital and heading home.

The care we received at Bozeman Deaconess hospital was wonderful. People were friendly, helpful, kind and caring. Even the pull-out chair I slept on that night was somewhat comfortable! After being spoiled by our care at Gritman Medical Center in Moscow, we weren't sure how well any other hospital might stand up. We are happy to say that the care was indeed comparable.

So, we never really made it out skiing again on Wednesday, but more days would come in the future, we knew. We were instead quite thankful that all had gone so smoothly. Mariyana was feeling pretty good when we arrived home and kept saying how different her recovery was from Sasha's. Apparently, Sasha had his appendix removed while he was at the orphanage. Mariyana said a big group of kids had theirs removed all at once (so I don't think all or even any of them had appendicitis!). Apparently, Sasha slept for an entire day following the operation (drug-induced), and was in the hospital for 10-15 days following!

Family ski trip

2005-02-12T16:26:00.000-07:00

The day was gorgeous and sunny. It was a Saturday with nothing planned and nothing to do. We hemmed, we hawed, and finally, decided to go skiing!

The kids got dressed and we loaded the van. By 11 AM we were headed to the ski rental shop to get skis for all the kids - yes, all 6! None of them had ever skied before, and we never stopped to question whether we were crazy or not taking them all skiing, with just two adults.

Within 30 minutes we were in and out of the ski shop, loaded into the van, and headed up the mountain. We parked in the free parking lot, loaded onto the free shuttle and got dropped off right in front of the lodge. A quick walk up to the bunny hill and we were on our way. (The bunny slope is free at Big Sky Resort - so we didn't need any tickets. And, all Big Sky residents in K-8th grade, get free season passes as well!)

The reality started hitting home when we were crazily trying to get everyone's skis on, and figure out how to get all of them up the hill without causing a local catastrophe. Big Sky Resort has a great bunny slope lift - it is called a "Magic Carpet" - it is a rubber mat that whisks you up the hill (well, not really that fast - these are beginner skiers, after all!). But, it is this little mat you just stand on - kind of like the moving sidewalks (but up a hill) in the larger airports.

We managed to get a majority of the kids up the hill and I volunteered to be the first one to go with the kids down the hill. Mariyana went first - I was skiing backwards, and she skied frontwards (most of the time!) facing me. She didn't have much patience for learning the snowplow - didn't understand why she couldn't just ski like all "those people over there". It took some stern words to let her know that all started out with the simple snowplow and that she needed to learn this before anything else. She got a little mopey, and I know didn't believe me, so it was onto another child, who was a little more willing to try. John mostly stayed at the bottom of the hill and make bathroom runs!

Sasha was next and had the most amazing contortions of the legs and arms you have ever seen! He hardly looked like a natural out there. Sasha is the type of kid that doesn't really try very hard - if it is too hard, he shirks away and gives up. However, he is also great at blending in, and it takes a lot of work to notice that he is giving up and not trying. We went down a couple of times, and once he had the hang of what to do, it was up to him to be willing to try. He would just keep sitting down!

Then it was onto Olesya. She probably picked it up the fastest, except for Mariyana (who finally came around and decided Mom was right, and she would do what I told her to do!). After just a few times down the hill, she was good to go on her own.

Then it was Vanya's turn. John had gone down with him and gotten frustrated, so it was my turn to try. I spent most of the remaining time working with Vanya. He could not get his legs to go into a snowplow! I spent most of the time on my hands and knees (all contorted at funny angles because I had my rather-long skis on the entire time), placing his feet and skis in the correct position. The next morning, my arms ached, and I had bruises on my knees! In fact, I was so tired at the end of the day - I think it would have been less work to just go skiing myself! But, not nearly as enjoyable as far as the day went.

Vanya started getting the hang of it toward the end of the day. That freed me up to work with Lillia a little. Unsure how she would like it, we started out slow, but that wasn't for her. It was a struggle to ski backwards fast enough to stay ahead of her. Considering her skis were crossed more than they weren't she did quite well. She didn't really leave the ski hill able to venture down the hill (safely!) by herself, but wanted to go again, so that was a good sign.

I know you are all wondering about our dare-devil, Anabella. At the ski shop, she was so excited about wearing her ski boots, walking around and saying "ski!" Unfortunately, by the time we reached the ski hill, it was getting to be naptime, and her enthusiasm was outweighed by fatigue. Most of us had stripped off various amounts of clothes because the weather was so gorgeous and the sun was so warm. Anabella figured that nice soft pile of clothes at the bottom of the bunny slope looked like a great place to take a nap. She laid down and was promptly asleep in just a few minutes. My only regret is that we didn't get a picture of her sleeping!

By about 3:30, the kids were getting tired and hungry, and we packed up and headed home. It was a great day - and we looked forward to the next day, which was going to be the following Wednesday. Wednesday was a homeschool ski day, and John already had taken the day off work! We were looking forward to another fun day on the slopes, as were the kids....

Jesus Sees

2005-01-14T15:45:00.000-07:00

We drove into town yesterday to run some errands. The weather was snowy, blowy and blizzard-like through the Bozeman valley, particularly on the drive home.

While the driving was, at times, white-out conditions, the Lord blessed me with a peace and joy that not only would all be well, but just how much our children are a blessing.

You see, we had a CD playing in the van. It is one that we've often put on at night in the kids' room, after we say their goodnight prayers. The CD is a favorite, and if a CD could wear out, this would be well on its way! The CD is "Songs 4 Worship Kids Awesome God".

Sadly, I didn't have a camera, but hopefully I can describe the situation that brought not only joy to my heart, but tears to my eyes. Most of the kids were singing along with the CD, but Olesya was really getting into it. She was clapping, singing aloud and really enjoying the music.

After awhile, she raised her hands to the Lord in worship, and sang, face heaven-ward and with eyes closed, directly to Jesus. When the song "Jesus Sees" came on, I couldn't hold back the tears. Here are the words...

When you do it to the least of these, Jesus sees, Jesus sees.
When you do it to the least of these, Jesus sees, Jesus sees.

When you help your mother with your little baby brother, when you share your favorite toy, when you give your pennies to those who don't have any, Jesus sees, Jesus sees.

When you do it to the least of these, Jesus sees, Jesus sees.
When you do it to the least of these, Jesus sess, Jessu sees.

When you help a widow or an orphan who is little, then your heart will be filled with joy, when you share your bread and the hungry ones are fed, Jesus sees, Jesus sees.

When you do it to the least of these, Jesus sees, Jesus sees.
When you do it to the least of these, Jesus sees, Jesus sees.

When no one else is looking and no one seesm to care, He is there with you and me, Jesus sees.

When you do it to the least of these, Jesus sees, Jesus sees.
When you do it to the least of these, Jesus sees, Jesus sees.
Jesus sees, Jesus sees. Jesus sees, Jesus sees.

Kids' Day #1

2005-01-14T15:25:00.000-07:00

We've started a new tradition for Wednesday nights, and with the first one under our belt, it seems to be a success.

A little background - the kids are fascinated looking through my cookbooks and drooling all over the yummy looking recipes. The cookbooks are used quite often because I love to cook, and we usually have a new recipe 3-5x/week. Any excuse to try something new, and I'm there!

So, I decided that a good way for the kids to learn about meal planning, meal prep and cooking, and give me some one-on-one extended time with each child would be to have a Kid's Day.

Each child got to pick out there own menu. They had to have a meat, starch, vegetable, and fruit. They could also choose a dessert if they wished. I then drew names to determine the order of the Kid's Days. (We draw names a lot around here - to determine who gets the last piece of Pepperoni pizza, who goes on the computer first, who gets to pull the purple sled, who gets the yellow plate...it works great, incidentally. In fact, we don't have arguments about "No - me!", nor complaints about it not being fair. The kids actually ask to draw names when something comes up, so it seems to work well....Anyways....)

So, every Wednesday, starting two days ago, for the next 6 weeks (and then beyond if we decide to continue, which I think we will), is Kid's Day. Mariyana was first and her dinner was halibut steaks, marinated cherry tomatoes, garlic & rosemary braided bread, fruit salad and raspberry sherbet jello mold. Yummy!

The meal turned out great, and as it turned out, Mariyana discovered she really liked to make bread, so I think that will be a more common occurrence. The recipe actually made 3 braided bread loaves, and so Mariyana and Sasha brought the extra loaf to our neighbors who arrived for the weekend.

Here are a few pictures....
Mariyana kneading her bread dough. She said it was hard work, but fun, nonetheless!

The beautiful results!

The entire family enjoying the first ever Kid's Day Dinner.

Adopting again...Our New Year's Prayers for You!

2005-01-07T17:37:00.000-07:00

We are still unpacking and putting things away. The other morning, the girls were in my room while I finished getting dressed. On the table in our room (the long-term plan is for that table to be my scrapbooking table) was a pile of bathroom stuff to be put away (lotions, soaps, shampoo, etc.).

Lillia found a pregnancy test (left over from a 2-pack when we were pregnant with Anabella) and wanted to know what it was. I explained it to her, and all the girls were very excited about another baby. I tried to explain that no, there was no baby coming now. Of course, the next question that came was, "Why not?" I explained to them that Mama and Papa were praying about having a baby and adopting again, and that we probably couldn't do both right away. "Why not?" came again.

Mariyana decided that we should have a baby and then adopt. I explained we wouldn't be able to travel with a new baby, so that wouldn't work very good. No problem, she reasoned - adopt first, and then have a baby!

The conversation shifted to adopting and they wanted to know when we were going to adopt again. I said that I wasn't sure. With only 3 bedrooms, I explained, there was limited room for adding to our family. It would work fine for us, but I don't know how well a social worker would view the arrangement, and what they think does matter for a homestudy!

Again - the girls thought having enough room wasn't a problem. Mariyana offered to sleep on the floor, Olesya said her new brother/sister could use her sleeping bag and Lillia decided her new brother/sister could have her bed!

As if that was the final hurdle that was now cleared, Mariyana said, "We adopt tomorrow?" She was so disappointed when I told her that no, we couldn't adopt tomorrow, or even the next day, as she requested. She was quite surprised when I told her it took us a year to bring them home!

My heart has really been stirred in the past few weeks to adopt again. John is feeling the same way. In the way is our wanting to be sure our new kids are attaching and adjusting well, before we add others to the family, and also our living situation. I trust that God will work everything out in His timing. But, once again, I find myself dreaming about who else He has chosen for our family. I don't know the number, age or gender - but am trusting that He does! Just last night, I dreamt about a family with 20 kids that we met somewhere in dreamland...

As the new year unfolds, I would request that you continue to pray for our family as we reach out again through the joy and miracle of adoption. We pray for God's timing and His will in our endeavors. We feel so blessed to have learned about the joys of following God's will in our lives at such a relatively young age. We aren't concerned about what new toys we are going to buy, what vacations we are going to take, or even what special vacation home we'll enjoy in our retirement. Investing our lives in God's kingdom work is so much more important and enjoyable. It doesn't leave you disappointed when the next year's model comes out, or when the vacation is over. It doesn't leave you longing for the next fun time here or there...It doesn't leave you feeling empty, only clinging to accomplishments or purchases.

Our prayer for all of you is for you to find the same joy we have found. Maybe it isn't through adoption. It could be missions trips with your church. Full-time ministry. Leading a Bible study in your church. Witnessing to your good friend and neighbors. Whatever it is that God is calling you to do, it is there that you will ultimately find peace and joy. It isn't always easy or fun, but it is always right. We thank God daily for leading us down the path He has called us to!

Ukrainian Christmas

2005-01-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was January 6th (Yea - I'm finally caught up!) and in Ukraine, people everywhere celebrated Christmas. In planning for Christmas, we decided to open presents on Ukrainian Christmas. We thought it would be a great way to once again, share the meaning of Christmas, and bring in some Ukrainian traditions to our family.

I've received several emails from many of you, wanting a "sneak peek" into our Christmas celebrations with all 6 of our kids. This is what we did...

Each child drew another's name. Together we helped each child shop for their sibling - they spent between $5-10 each. The kids did a good job coming up with ideas for gifts. Most of the gifts were "projects" - sewing for Olesya, models for the boys, needlepoint for Mariyana...

We bought stocking stuffers for the children. They included an ornament for each child, Ukrainian chocolate bars we brought home with us, a pair of socks, knit gloves and bubbles.

We bought each child one gift. Again, these were "project" gifts. The boys got tool belts, along with some small-size real tools "just like Papa", Lillia & Olesya got kits to make mosaic stepping stones, Mariyana got an American flag latch hook pillow kit, and Anabella got a kids' nativity set. Simple little projects that will bring a lot of enjoyment and learning - not just more "stuff".

Finally, we bought a game for everyone to enjoy. We have spent many hours this past week in the evenings playing games ("Sorry!" is the favorite!) and putting puzzles together (we currently have a 1000-piece puzzle spread out over the dinner table).

So - that was it. We began and ended the evening with prayer and the true Christmas story to try and keep their attention directed to the right direction. Here are a few pictures...

Stockings!

Anabella had Sasha for Christmas - this is her giving Sasha his gift.

Vanya and Sasha opening their tool belts.

Mariyana showing off her new gloves and socks!

A family time before bedtime....

It was a very special evening together. In no way did the kids feel like "that's all?" - in fact, they were overwhelmed with how many things they received.

A sweet note - at lunchtime, the kids were asking me about whether Mama and Papa had presents to open. I said no, just the kids. That was not OK in their books - they tried to convince me to go to town - I could buy Papa a present, and then they could buy me something on their own and hide it from me. A very sweet gesture.

Another final note - all of the kids shared their candy and little toys/games with each other as they opened presents. We are so blessed by how great these kids are....Merry Christmas!

A LARGE visitor

2005-01-07T16:52:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was upstairs folding laundry and happened to look out the front window. I dropped what I doing and went racing downstairs. My slippers flew off halfway down the stairs and the kids came running to see what was the matter....

Well, nothing was really the matter - I just wanted them to see our friendly visitor that was inches away from our front windows - a yearling moose!

You see - the kids had seen every possible animal at Yellowstone just days before: bald eagles, wolves, bison, elk, antelope, and deer. We'd seen mountain sheep driving into town one day. They had become quite familiar with Grizzly Bears from the Bear Discovery Center in West Yellowstone. So, the only thing missing was a moose, and here he was, standing front and center out our front window.

Apparently, moose frequently come down into Meadow Village when the snow comes. He took quite a liking to our plants and trees outside. In fact, he was so engrossed by eating, he hardly noticed 6 peering children and a mom with camera and video camera in hand!

Wolves and Junior Rangers

2005-01-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

On the day after Christmas, we set out for Cooke City, Montana. This is the only road kept open through Yellowstone in the winter. While Cooke City isn't anything to get excited about (think Princeton, Idaho!), the drive is gorgeous and takes you through several areas that offer opportunities for great wildlife viewing.

One great excitement of the day was spotting a single wolf whom we watched for probably 30 minutes. There was a dead animal which he was coming toward to feed on. He was very skiddish and it took him probably 25 minutes (of our viewing) to finally get over there. He was a black wolf and so we could spot him quite easily in the snowy field. We also enjoyed seeing a herd of 350 elk, and another herd of probably 200 bison.

We stopped for lunch at a picnic area - it was a little chilly for an outdoor picnic, but with the scenery and great company, we could hardly complain!

On the return drive to Mammoth, we were treated to seeing a pack of 5 wolves. It was an enjoyable site, and one that many people aren't so blessed to see when visiting Yellowstone. Throughout the entire day, I couldn't get a thought from Beth Moore out of my mind. In one of her Bible study videos, Beth talked about enjoying God's creation and the distinction between worshipping the CREATION versus the CREATOR. What an awesome God who creates such beauty simply for our enjoyment and His worship!

*******

We have really enjoyed the various options and activities we can participate in, now that we have older children. One of those things is the Junior Ranger program. Offered by Yellowstone, the Junior Ranger program is for children ages 5-12. Depending upon the children's ages, there are program requirements to complete which involve learning about their surroundings. It is quite an involved program, but one that was enjoyable as a family to work on together....

The older children had special assignments to do that required various scientific equipment that we had to check out from the Rangers. Sasha was quite proud wearing the fanny pack with the equipment! If you look closely, you'll see the blue Junior Ranger badge the kids earned on the fanny pack.

Mariyana measuring the wind speed and air temperature. After we came inside, they figured out the wind chill - which was pretty chilly!

Hiking up the Mammoth Terraces. There were many steps, so Sasha and Mariyana packed the stroller and Anabella up, up and up!

All 6 kids - aren't they great?!

Anabella - the youngest Junior Ranger. (She was too young to participate in the Junior Ranger program, but she earned a sticker for circling all the animals we saw.)

Reading the map for our Junior Ranger hike.

Working on our Junior Ranger newspapers.

It's badge time! After completing the entire program, we turned in the newspapers and the kids received their special Winter Junior Ranger badges.

Christmas in Yellowstone

2005-01-07T15:07:00.000-07:00

Christmas Eve arrived and it was time to head to Mammoth Hot Springs. Last year we began a family tradition of going to Yellowstone together with John's parents for Christmas.

Of all the 30+ Christmases I have enjoyed, our time together at Yellowstone last year was by far the best. Being surrounded by God's glorious creation, with innumerable outside and inside activities to enjoy, the focus of Christmas was not on opening presents. Last Christmas was honestly the first Christmas I haven't felt some twinge of disappointment and feeling of, "that's all?". And so, we decided to make the trek to Yellowstone a yearly tradition to be enjoyed.

This year, our family looked a lot different! With 6 children, instead of 2, the excitement and joy was even greater.

Mammoth Hot Springs is the only entrance into Yellowstone that is open throughout the year. Last year we bought a year pass for Yellowstone ($40 instead of the one-time entrance fee of $20!) and were able to use it again. Living so close to Yellowstone, we will definitely get another year pass. But, I digress.

Coming through the gates, we were asked if we were a commercial tour! I guess they aren't too used to seeing big 15-passenger vans being operated by families - usually they are some special tours. We assured him we were just a family, and weren't operating any sort of commercial tour!

When you stay at home at Mammoth, you stay in the old lodge. It is a beautiful lodge that has been upgraded, but still retains much of its historical appeal and charm. Out back behind the lodge there is an ice skating rink. A cabin next to the rink is open all the time with skates to use.

Across from the lodge is the dining hall which is where we enjoyed special family dinners. Down the road is a beautiful stone chapel - this is where we attended a standing-room only candlelight service on Christmas eve night.

All around the lodge are hills for sledding and trails for skiing. There was minimal snow this year, so we weren't able to do any sledding or skiing this year, but we had plenty to keep us busy.

After Christmas eve dinner, the kids opened a special present - all new PJs! Here they are all decked out in their new pajamas, cuddling with Gramps.

After opening their PJs and pictures, we headed over to church for the candlelight service. The evening was rounded out by attending an ornament decorating party in the "Map Room" at the lodge. Everything was supplied for participants to make special Christmas ornaments, including hot cider and cookies!

The next morning, we slowly woke up, enjoyed breakfast, watched the elk wander among the grounds of the lodge and eventually headed down to the Map Room to open stockings. John's parents' gift to us all is our trip to Mammoth and so we just do stockings for everyone. But, I think stockings are the most fun anyway - and apparently so did the kids.

With the Map Room empty except for our family, we opened gifts and played with everyone's new coloring books, crayons and lego contraptions for several hours. Apparently, we were quite the sight because we had several people come in to ask if they could take our picture. So, somewhere, pictures similar to these are in someone's Christmas photo album!

John and Sasha are building a Lego barn. Gramps is teaching me to play "Pick up Sticks" (and he beat me terribly!).

After cleaning up, it was already time for lunch. We headed out to the fire pit, and had an outside hot dog roast and picnic! What a great Christmas lunch!

Yum!

After lunch, it was naptime. And then, out to the hot tubs! Mammoth has hot tubs you can rent by the hour - individual hot tubs are outside under the stars, with a cabin close by for changing clothes and even showering. Most everyone enjoyed the hot tub. Lillia sat right down, while the rest of us eased into the hot water. And, Mariyana went "swimming" in the hot tub, even going under the water! Anabella and Sasha weren't too sure about the hot water, but all in all, it was a lot of fun.

There is nothing better than being in a nice hot tub outside in the cold winter air, under beautiful sunny or starry skies.

We had just enough time after enjoying the hot tubs to get dressed and head over to the dining room for our special Christmas dinner. The dining hall is quite a fancy restaurant, and it was the first time several of our kids had been in such a nice restaurant. We had discussions about why there were 2 forks, what to do with a bread plate, how to order food from a menu, where cloth napkins go while you're eating....We had to smile when all the kids about licked their salad plates clean that night. They didn't realize the salad was the first course, and more was coming! They thought that was all, and were a little surprised when another huge plate of food came, and then was followed by dessert! Needless to say, we brought several doggie bags back to our room!

Enjoying Christmas dinner.

With everyone dressed up and looking their best, we tried to take a few family pictures by the lodge's fireplace - this is the best we could come up with!

Goodnight!
familydinner.jpe

School in December

2005-01-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

In between packing, moving, unpacking, taking another trip back to Moscow, more unpacking and Christmas activities, our month has been quite full.

We have focused on learning about the true meaning of Christmas. And honestly, the kids haven't been exposed to anything but. With no TV, very limited video watching (and everything has to be approved by mom), little to no time in the stores, no "browsing" through endless Christmas catalogs, no making a Christmas wish-list....the kids know exactly what Christmas is about. And it's wonderful.

They haven't even been asked the typical, "What do you want for Christmas?" questions. Their wishlist for Santa, mom and dad, or whomever, hasn't been made, and certainly doesn't grow by the day. What a joy.

The beautiful Christmas tree is enjoyed for its beauty, its memories and for what is represents. Not for what might be placed under it. In fact, our tree doesn't have any gifts under it. At most, you might find some pine needles and some pieces to our Veggie Tales nativity set which the kids have been playing with.

Are the kids sheltered? Maybe, but, in our minds, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I just looked up the word "Shelter" in the online Webster dictionary - shelter simply means to cover and protect. Isn't our job as parents to protect our children? We think so. And, if they "miss out" on the gimmees of Christmas, the endless wishlists, the commercialization of a very holy holiday, then I think we've done our job well!

Each day this month, whenver possible, we have made special ornaments or projects for Christmas. Here's a few pictures of the kids making dough ornaments - first mixing up the dough and then cutting out and painting them...Mariyana and Lillia even ventured out from ornaments and made their own nativity sets.

Our newest skiier

2005-01-07T14:34:00.000-07:00

For those of you loyal readers of our online journal (not sure if anyone really reads this, but it is a good way for me to keep track of our family memories!), you know that Anabella isn't exactly one to be left out.

Skiing hasn't been any different. She has decided she wants to cross-country ski too, so several times throughout the week, she gets her skis on and "skis" around the condo.

All I know, is that she is pretty cute!

Mariyana is a great big sister, always willing to help the little kids get their skis on (or whatever else - she even changes stinky diapers!).

Tree decorating

2005-01-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

With a Charlie Brown tree brought in from the forest, it was time to start decorating. In all reality, our tree would hardly be considered part of the Charlie Brown style. It was quite full (relatively), no holes to hide against the wall and of course quite large (they always look so much smaller in the woods!).

With Christmas music playing in the background, the mood was set and the kids were excited. In all reality, it was a bittersweet time. You see, as a tradition, we get our children an ornament every year - something that is significant to them. I don't think we have any typical store-bought ornaments - they are all ornaments that were John or mine growing up (presents or homemade), or ornaments that have been given to Lillia and Anabella.

The children all enjoyed unwrapping the ornaments, hearing the stories of who made what, and when, and decorating the tree. The bittersweet part was the realization we all had, quietly in our hearts, that all of our children hadn't been with us to celebrate Christmas for each of their years. There were no ornaments for four of our children - no stories to tell of their youth. No special memories to laugh about from Christmas-past.

Olesya summed it up best when she said, "We still at Detsky Dom, right Mama?"

The kids didn't really have many memories to share about Christmas - just Mariyana and Sasha had some stories to share from school, and what they had done at school for Christmas. Our friends from Odessa, the Andersons, had shared with us that New Year's is a much bigger holiday in Ukraine than Christmas, and so we weren't very surprised with their limited experiences and memories.

Unwrapping ornaments and sharing stories...

Christmas lights - shining in the darkness of night. Just like our Saviour whom we celebrate at Christmas...

After the tree was decorated, we gathered together on the floor around the tree with Christmas cookies (brought over by our neighbors) and hot chocolate, and read the Christmas story. A wonderful ending to a special night.

Cold Days in Big Sky

2005-01-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

The weather here in Big Sky is quite a bit different than what we are used to in Moscow. And, for the most part, we love the difference!

When it snows, the snow sticks.

When it isn't snowing, the sun shines!

And when it's cold, it really gets serious about being cold.

For a few days before Christmas, the weather got quite chilly. The high one day was -8 degree FAHRENHEIT! But, when the air is dry and the sun is shining, it doesn't feel all that cold. And so, the kids still love to go outside and play.

One night after dinner, some of the older kids wanted to play outside before bed. It was -18 F, so we didn't figure they would last too long, nor did we figure the younger kids would want to venture out. Were we ever wrong! Anabella didn't want to be left out, and insisted on going outside. So, all bundled up in pink, she headed out the door to play for probably 35 minutes!

What beautiful rosy cheeks!

Because it was so cold, the snow didn't pack very well. A snowman was out of the question, so the kids improvised and made a snow lion!

Going hunting...Christmas-tree-style

2005-01-07T12:28:00.000-07:00

With Christmas quickly approaching, it was high time to get ourselves a Christmas tree. Back when Lillia was a baby, we started a family tradition of cutting down our Christmas tree in the woods. While we don't always have the most beautiful tree, we certainly take away some great memories and have some good laughs about our "Charlie Brown tree".

After church, we changed clothes, donned hats, gloves, snowpants and jackets and headed out. Before we got all dressed, little Anabella was asleep in her Gramp's arms. So, Anabella and Gramps stayed home and took naps while the rest of us adventured out to get our tree.

Ssshhhh! Anabella's sleeping! (And Gramps isn't too far behind)

I still can't get over the beauty we are surrounded by here in Big Sky. It took us just 10 minutes to get to the National Forest to find our tree. When we first got out of the van, the kids were a little hesitant about exploring and were complaining it was cold! It didn't take long, however, until we were having to reel in the kids and leave because we (the adults!) were getting cold.

John and I were a little concerned about just how long it would take to have all 7 (with Anabella sleeping) of us agree on one tree. In the past, it has taken quite a family conference to decide, and there were only a few of us! But, the perfect trees were obvious to all and within a very short time, we all had made a decision and were cutting our tree. All the kids had a turn using the saw, and while waiting for their turns, they collected pinecones, snow berries, dried bear grass, puzzle plants, twigs, rocks, pine needles and rosehips. I am continually amazed and delighted with their creativity and inventiveness. They wanted to collect various items to make wreaths! Pretty clever - I certainly hadn't thought of doing that, but what fun they had filling up our pockets with all sorts of great finds!

That's the one!

Having fun in the woods!

Olesya, our little woodsman.

"Timber," yells Lillia.

After loading up the kids in the van, along with all their treasures, John tied the tree on the top of the van and away we went. Just as we turned onto the highway, our tree went flying off the roof and onto the road. We turned around at the first spot we could find, and as we returned for the tree, we saw another truck had stopped for the trees. "How nice," I thought - they are picking up our tree for us. It became quickly apparent, however, that they were doing a little tree hunting for themselves! John, in his leisurely, calm manner, sauntered out of the van while they were throwing the tree in the back of their pickup, and jumping in to leave the "crime scene". I wasn't quite so calm, and laid on the horn and shook my head (complete with my "Teacher Look"!) at them. I wasn't about to have some young girls take off with our perfect tree! Once we convinced them it was ours, we loaded it inside the van and headed home.

Always an adventure!!!

"Laura Ingalls" style walk to church

2004-12-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

We brought over our (somewhat) final load from Moscow and are getting settled. We arrived on Saturday afternoon, and the next day being Sunday, it was off to church.

We are only 1/4 - 1/3 mile away from church, and so we decided to walk. We wore our boots, dressed up in warm clothes (it was quite cold, but beautiful and sunny!), and loaded the little ones onto the sled. What an amazing way to go to worship the Lord, walking through and enjoying His creation along the way.

Sunday at church was the Christmas "play", and our kids had been asked to participate. We had a wise man (Sasha), shepherd (Vanya) and the cutest four angels you've ever seen. Considering there were only 11 children in the play, we rounded it out quite nicely! All the kids did a great job - they had to walk into church, down the aisle and stand up front while the congregation sang songs, some special music was played, and the Christmas story read. Except for Anabella getting a stinky diaper right before walking down, and thus the "littlest angel" was a stinky one, all went smoothly!

Our shepherd and wise man.

Our four little angels.

And when church was over, it was time to head back home. The church had collected food items to give us, as a welcome gift. There was probably 50 pounds of pantry items that we loaded onto the sled and headed home. Walking through the snow, in dresses, bringing home our groceries, I felt like Laura Ingalls!

Our sled-full of groceries!

We have a 12-year-old!

2004-12-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would be celebrating my child's 12th birthday if you had asked me, even 6 month ago!

But, God has different plans than we do sometimes, and we have found, it is best to go with His plan, because His ways are the best ways! What we would have missed already had we stuck with our "logical" plan!

But, yes, Mariyana turned 12 in the middle of the month. My parents brought Mariyana to the ballet for her birthday - it was my pure delight and joy to help her get ready, including curling her hair. Once she was all ready, I wasn't too sure we were going to let her out of the house - what a special, beautiful girl she is becoming! And, she certainly looked a tad older than 12! (Maybe that makes up for her mom, who looks a tad younger than her 32 years!)

Mariyana had a wonderful time at the ballet and came back with a balloon (yes, still a little girl in some ways!), smiles and stories from the ballet. Here are a few pictures of her ready to go...

The birthday girl - can I really already have a 12 year old??!!!?!?!

Ready to go to the ballet with Granny and Pops!

In addition to the ballet, Mariyana had a party with her friends in Moscow, during which the 17 children (!!) made and decorated houses with candy (like gingerbread houses, but we used wafer creme cookies instead). Unfortunately, I used my "old-fashioned" 35mm camera, and don't have the pictures developed, so I can't put any up yet....

I am catching up with everything, so I'm going to post this update and move onto the next update!

Pictures!

2004-12-11T00:45:00.000-07:00

I just took 89 pictures off our memory stick, and couldn't go to bed before sharing some of them with you! It has been awhile since you have "seen" the kids, so here you go...

Thanksgiving - We spent Thanksgiving this year with the Marble family in Forest Grove, Oregon. Most of the family hadn't yet met our new children, and while it was just a quick trip, the kids loved playing with all their cousins. And, I mean all! John's dad has 8 brothers and sisters, all of which have children, and a few of the children (like us) have children!

Sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner.

Playing with older cousins.

Playing with Danny, one of the kids' younger cousins.

Fireworks - After Thanksgiving, we drove to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and met my parents at the Annual Light Parade and Christmas lighting ceremony. While there were too many people to see the parade well, the kids loved seeing the fireworks, set to Christmas music by Mannheim Steamroller!

Moving Days - The house was in shambles and packed in boxes, but the kids made the best of everything. They thought it was cool to all sleep together on the floor in sleeping bags when our beds were packed - they were fascinated with our Uhaul trailer - they collected boxes, hauled boxes, taped boxes, packed boxes, loaded and unloaded boxes!

We never knew how much fun an empty Uhaul trailer was until our kids showed us!

This is what each room looked like for a few days before we starting loading the Uhaul trailers!

Just when you are ready to pull your hair out completely with a child, God gives you a glimpse of their developing hearts. As I came upstairs one afternoon from packing, I found Lillia kneeling over her little sister Anabella, who was asleep on the floor taking a nap. Lillia had found her New Testament Bible as she was going through things in her room - she had it open and was praying over Anabella and singing "Jesus Loves Me". It is probably one of the sweetest displays of God's love I have ever seen...

Getting settled in Big Sky - We are currently renting a 3-bedroom condo from John's parents. Located directly across from the golf course, the children can play in the snow just by walking out our door.

Our kitchen.

The living/dining room - still being unpacked, and also decorated for Christmas!

The kids were invited to help Nana and Gramps decorate their tree...They all had a great time helping!

Enjoying the snow outside! And don't think for a second that Anabella will ever be left out! She always wants to be out there with her big brothers and sisters! I wish I could tell you how many miles Sasha has logged, pulling Vanya, Olesya, Lillia and Anabella around on the toboggan!

Vanya enjoying the snow! Not only a cute picture, but what a long way he has come! Just 4 months ago when we came home, he cringed at getting his fingers wet or cold - and now he makes snow angels, sleds and asks to go outside and play! If he gets snowy, he'll look up at us with his huge brown eyes and say, "That's OK, Papa (or Mama)!"

Our little skier Sasha!

Getting ready for skiing! Doesn't Mariyana look like an All-American girl??!

I saved the best picture for last. I just love this - it wasn't posed at all - I just snapped it when the kids were playing outside. I'm a little bias, but I think the kids look like they are modeling for a magazine - they are so cute. And you know what? As cute as they are, they are even better kids!

Picture time over! Please don't overlook the next entry - no digital pictures, but hopefully a wonderful word picture of God's goodness and blessings in our lives!

We are so blessed

2004-12-10T23:43:00.000-07:00

I guess at Christmas time all of us get rather in sentimental, thankful mood. This year is no different for us. The only difference is how many blessings we can count and praise God for!

We have moved to Big Sky, Montana. We are settled into our new home. The children love it there! (And so do their parents!) There is lots of snow and sunshine, and with a golf course across from our house, the kids have a huge playground to enjoy this winter. A day hasn't gone by since our move that they haven't been sledding, cross country skiing or just playing around in the snow.

Some collected thoughts, blessings and special memories to share with you that have gone on over the past few weeks...

* Singing along, at the top of our lungs, to "Awesome God" with my almost 12-year old daughter, Mariyana, while driving our van to MT. The dark night sky was dotted with a million stars and the moon was shining bright. Can you experience God more deeply than worshipping him with your new daughter on such a night? I never have...

* Listening to Olesya, our 5 year old daughter, thank Jesus for her Mama and Papa at each meal this week.

* Seeing the excitement in all the kids' eyes as they find every Baby Jesus in every Christmas display around town.

* Hearing Lillia, our 4 year old, thanking God for her entire family by name at each meal.

* Having Olesya say "America is cool!" when we were talking about her forever family.

* Hearing Lillia pray for and talk about her brother and sister she has never met in Ukraine (the two older siblings of our new children).

* Seeing the growth and change in the two boys' confidence and language skills.

* Counting the days each week with excitement and eager anticipation until we can go to church again!

* Hearing stories about the children's experiences and memories in Ukraine before coming home.

* Listening to our 2 and 4 year old daughters (our bio daughters) as their vocabulary grows daily - with both Russian and English words! And, laughing with joy at having to remind Lillia that she needs to speak English with her grandparents if she wants them to understand her! Smiling as we tell Anabella to say "Yes" and she repeatedly says "Da" instead.

* Listening to our 5, 7, 9 and almost 12 year old as they "review" their Russian vocabulary that is beginning to slip away. (We aren't joyful they are forgetting their Russian - we would love for them to keep it, but it does show us they are really progressing in English. It has taken them longer than an individually adopted child to learn English because they have each other to speak to, as well as help understand English.)

* The opportunity to live in a ski resort community, surrounded by God's beautiful creations, while being able to teach the children about sledding, cross-country skiing, downhill skiing and iceskating. Seeing and experiencing their excitement in participating in these activities.

* Our meal-time prayers in which some or all of the children participate as they feel led - each saying their own individual prayers for what they are thankful.

* Hearing the kids share their prayer requests at bedtime each night - mostly prayers of thanksgiving for their family and for Jesus.

* Seeing the children's understanding of family and their permanent place in our hearts and lives grow - not only to increase their comfort and security, but wanting to expand and extend it to other children waiting for their forever families.

* Daily experiencing God's grace and strength as we enjoy our family. Six children are a blessing. We are not overwhelmed with anything except joy and blessings. Our full table is alive with laughter and sharing. Our work load is light with eager helpers. Our hands aren't full - our hearts are. Family has become our true priority and instead of missing our time or money or sanity or whatever else we might have imagined missing with six children, we just sense missing our other children - out there somewhere waiting for their forever family.

And so, for tonight, I will close with a happy heart and a thankful spirit. God is so good!

Big changes ahead

2004-11-16T16:51:00.000-07:00

That's right - big, big changes!

First and foremost - we are moving. We have spent much of this fall driving this fall back and forth between Moscow, Idaho and Big Sky, Montana. The trip is almost 500 miles each direction - and takes a little over 8 hours! With 6 kids in the car - that can be a long day! Honestly though, the kids are all really good travelers, but we knew we couldn't constantly be driving back and forth, especially with the winter months with potentially poor road conditions ahead.

John has been working in Big Sky, Montana for his parents. They have a construction company there, and have offered him a job as Project Manager. While John really enjoyed selling real estate, we always said real estate is a great second-income. It is only commission based, and so months can go by with no paychecks. And, that is precisely what has happened this fall...

And so, we faced the difficult decision of does John travel back and forth, do we move, do we travel back and forth with him, do we relocate for a short time....???? So many questions and options, and it has taken all fall, and lots of prayers, to come to a decision. For the sake of the children, we didn't want to always be "on the go". It is important to us find a church family, although we will be hard-pressed to find something as wonderful as Christian Life Center here in Moscow! We want to get settled as soon as possible so the kids can start making friends and feeling comfortable again.

God has, of course, been faithful in leading us to this decision. He has in fact, shown us some exciting things about our new place of residence like the following:
* Very strong, active, supportive community of homeschoolers.
* A summer hosting program for Russian, Ukrainian and Kazahstanian children - many of which are adopted by their summer host families. This means there will be many international adoptive families with children from Eastern Europe who speak Russian, as well as community resources and events that will help us keep our children's heritage alive!

For the time being, we will be likely renting a 3-bedroom condo from John's parents in Big Sky itself. We would ask that you please join us in prayer as we look at houses, and make a decision about something to purchase. We actually have already found something, just today, that is "perfect". It has everything on our list of needs, as well as desires. Out in the country, yet only 10 minutes to town, it has room for animals, as well as places for children to play. The house is large enough for everyone in our family now, and any others that we may add at a later date (see below for more details!!). We would appreciate your prayers as we consider whether this is what God has in mind for our family, because that is what we ultimately desire.

The other big news (wow, can you handle anymore!) is the realization that John and I had this past weekend that our family isn't necessarily complete yet. We attended a wonderful adoption conference in Spokane, Washington on Saturday that was sponsored by Kingdom Kids (www.kkadoption.com). I have always had the sense that we might add to our family another two or so children, but I thought we were done adopting. This isn't because we had a bad experience - quite the opposite! Just with the finances, travel (who would take our 6 kids while we traveled overseas?!?!?!), etc, I thought we might conceive and give birth to another child. You want to know what is funny? I am constantly concerned that I have lost two children - I count to 6 and think, "oh no, where are the other 2?". And now, John does it too!

Anways, I'm off topic and just rambling (is anyone even out there reading this bumble jumble?!). The minute we walked into the opening session of the conference on Saturday, I began to tear up and I knew, we weren't done adopting. I looked over, and had to share my kleenex with John, and I could tell, God was speaking as loudly (if not more so) and clearly to him as He was me.

It's funny. For a long time, I was going to go to the conference by myself. We didn't have anyone to watch the children all day, so John was going to stay home with them, while I attended the conference. At the last minute, we talked to the coordinators of the conference, and they suggested we bring the kids. She assured us they could play in the nursery, and they would send their older children to make sure everything went smoothly. Honestly, we never considered our children might get something out of attending (in the nursery) the conference, and were we ever wrong! Isn't it cool how God uses everything to touch someone, somehow, in ways we don't even expect??

I can't tell you how touched our children were by spending all day with adopted children, and their siblings. For the first time, I think, the kids understood very clearly that they were here to stay. This wasn't a short term thing. It was so great to point out all the children and say "she was adopted", "he was adopted", "she was adopted", etc. And, many of the children had been adopted multiple years ago, and they began to see that adoption is lifelong!

During lunch at the conference, John was looking through a "waiting child" brochure from WACAP. He had attended an "Adopting an Older Child" workshop, and had found out about WACAP's Promise Children. WACAP designates certain waiting children, including ALL international sibling groups as Promise Children. A generous donor pays ALL the WACAP fees for the adoption of Promise Children. So - adopting a sibling group (which is what is near and dear to our hearts), would only cost our home study, INS and travel! Can you believe that?!? We couldn't either, and are so excited. Adopting another sibling group will be financially possible, when God directs us to proceed.

So, back to lunch. John is flipping through the Waiting children brochure, and he keeps showing me different sibling groups. Mariyana wanted to see the booklet and asked who the children were. We explained to her, and then she asked if there had been a picture of them. I explained, in a very simplistic way, the Ukrainian adoption procedures at the NAC, but excitedly told her that now - there were NO pictures of them because they were with their forever family. And then came the part that still shocks me. She told me that we should go back to the orphanage and bring her home some more brothers and sisters! ALL the other children excitedly agreed, and began discussing how many, ages, gender, etc. WOW!

So, God is not done with us. We still have room in our van for 7 - although I'm not thinking we'll fill it completely full! In God's timing, we will likely adopt a sibling group from Russia through WACAP's Promise Child program. If you are out there reading this, and thinking you would like to adopt siblings, but can't afford the fees, please consider this wonderful program. You would quite likely be able to adopt a group of 2 or more children for very little expense. If that is what is holding you back, please contact them. Please - we don't have any agreement with WACAP. Our hearts are drawn to sibling groups that are looked over because there are so many of them, and sometimes the oldest is older. But, I can assure you - our experience has been nothing short of WONDERFUL. We would do it again in an instant, and quite likely will (not in an instant, but I would guess within the next year). If you want more information, please email me. Again, I don't work for WACAP - I just am so excited about their amazing program, I want to share it with everyone I can!

So - that is enough for today. I look forward to some emails from those of you interested in sibling groups. There is one group in particular that is near to my heart, and if parents aren't found for them, we might be the ones...Won't you email me today? (marblefamily@idahovandals.com)

May God bless you richly!

Kristen

A frenzied cooking afternoon

2004-11-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

I have discovered something that works wonders for our family. In addition to the 8 of us, we also have 5 college students that live in our home and eat dinner with us. That means I prepare dinner for 13 every night. It really isn't that big of a deal -it isn't honestly much harder to cook for 13 than it is for 4. In some regards it may be easier. The only thing that makes it harder is the day when I don't get my act together to plan, take meat out to unthaw and get dinner going before 5:00. It gets pretty expensive to do Papa Murphy's or drive-thru or eating out for 13 people - 7 of which are adults!

So, I rediscovered the freedom and joy of once-a-month-cooking. So far I have only prepared 15 recipes (although 2 of each) in one day. It is so nice to have something all done each day. And, for the days that I feel like cooking (I LOVE to cook!), or have more time, then I don't have to use whatever is in the freezer. Today was my 3rd round of preparing meals and this time everyone helped. The kids were chopping onions, slicing sausage, opening tin cans, grating cheese and washing dishes. We just worked this afternoon, so didn't get everything done, but made a great start. The kids don't quite understand the idea that we are making all these meals to put in the freezer for later - they get so excited and keep asking if we are eating this or that or that for dinner tonight or tomorrow!

Well it's time to eat dinner. Guten Appetit!

Fall leaves & Operation Christmas Child

2004-11-03T23:30:00.000-07:00

When John and I first had Lillia, our firstborn child, we decided we wanted our children to grow up knowing the absolute meaning and purpose of Christmas. We immediately decided to eliminate Santa Claus (although discuss the real St. Nicholas) as a gift giver, greatly downplay the gift-giving - basically remove the commercialism and focus on the true meaning.

One of the traditions we began that first Christmas as a family of 3 was Operation Christmas Child, sponsored by Samaritan's Purse, which is run by Franklin Graham. Operation Christmas Child sends shoeboxes around the world to underprivileged children. Each shoebox is filled by the giver with toys, games, personal hygiene items, and a picture of the giver. Samaritans's Purse also includes a little booklet inside each shoebox that presents the true message of hope that is ours at Christmas, illustrated with eye-catching pictures and written in the child's native language. Every year at Christmas, we fill a shoebox for each child, and send it off with prayers and excitement.

This year was no different, but even more exciting, as we filled 6 shoeboxes. It brought tears to my eyes as I watched our new children proudly and carefully packing their shoeboxes. Just 3 months ago, our kids would have been potential recipients of these shoeboxes. And now, they are packing them for other children. Wouldn't it be something if God directed their shoeboxes to the orphanage in Belgorod-Dnestrovsky, Ukraine? I don't make this statement in a cocky or look-at-us, sort of way. It is just a statement how reaching out in some small way can make such a huge difference in the life of a child.

Our dining room table was full of packages, shoeboxes, goodies and excitement this morning as the children packed their shoeboxes.

Anabella was napping while we packed our boxes, so the kids helped me pack Anabella's. However, Anabella woke up in time to help decorate the box with stickers! She took her job quite seriously!

This afternoon, after the shoeboxes were packed, the boxes decorated, pictures drawn, photographs enclosed and letters written, the kids enjoyed a beautiful sunny, albeit crisp, fall day. It didn't take much encouragement for them to immediately enjoy raking the leaves, jumping in them, hiding each other in them, and throwing them. The remaining pictures below are the kids just being kids! What a joy it is to see that!

Lillia, Olesya, Sasha and Mariyana playing in and raking the leaves in our front yard!

Oh the joy of throwing leaves! Mariyana couldn't get enough of it!

Just really quick...

2004-10-27T23:25:00.000-06:00

Tonight was the Fall Festival at church. The four younger children went and so I've included some pictures of them here. John took the older two kids with him to Montana. They have schoolwork to do in the AM, and are earning money helping him work in the afternoon. John has gotten many holes dug and a lot of snow shoveled because one particular child is quite stubborn about doing his schoolwork, but he's coming around! It's late and being a single parent this week with John gone, I really need to head to bed...

Sheriff Vanya

Olesya the Bear

Our cute little ladybug, Anabella

Lillia, the flying unicorn

All 4 cuties posing (kind of!) for a Halloween picture

The three little bathing beauties lined up in the tub! (Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency - the name of the game with 6 kids!)

Sear's Photos

2004-10-21T23:25:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we took the whole clan down to Sears to get pictures done. We have tried to keep our current pictures of the kids up-to-date, and desperately needed to have ALL of the kids hanging above the mantel. The appointment went very smoothly - in a matter of 2 hours we were able to have each child (except Anabella - she was a little turkey!) photographed 6 times, a family picture and a picture of all the kids. While in Ukraine, we bought "traditional" clothing for everyone - so we had our family picture done in those clothes. The kids were really excited about their special Ukrainian clothes, and boy did they ever look cute!

So, here are their beautiful pictures!

All 6 kids

Mariyana

Sasha

Vanya

Olesya

Lillia

Anabella

Our family

I'm Back reporting on Life as a Family of 8!

2004-10-19T23:25:00.000-06:00

S0 - We have been home for going on 2 months now and have had numerous requests to PLEASE update our webpage. Gosh - we didn't know you were so interested. When one request today suggested we just add a live video cam that would let you "peak in" anytime you wished, I decided it was time to sit down and add a few entries.

It seems hard to believe we haven't even been home for 2 full months yet. Gosh - how busy and blessed and busy and loved and busy and embraced we have been! And, did I mention we have been busy?!!?

Seriously though, we have been so blessed by the outpouring of love and support we have received from so many of you. Friends from the Parent-Toddler Coop and elsewhere threw a wonderful family-welcoming shower for our family within a couple days of us arriving. The kids, in particular, had a wonderful time playing with other children, and our hearts were touched by everyone's joy and love for our bigger family.

A week after we arrived home, John and I, along with the two older children, went to look at a 15-passenger van that was being auctioned off at the University of Idaho. It was only 5 years old, with just under 50K miles! After doing a little research, we put in a bid and eagerly waited to see if we were the high bid! And guess what? We were! So our vehicle troubles are behind us - and everyone can see us coming wherever we go. The Friday before Labor Day, we were able to complete the sale and register the vehicle just in time to pick it up, get it loaded and head out for a family camping trip in St. Regis, Montana.

We met John's parents in St. Regis and they bought sleeping bags for all the new kids. We set up the tent, and had a great time that weekend roasting marshmallows, fishing, sleeping in the tent (with frost coming down both mornings!), and riding bikes. We knew camping was a definite hit when the kids wanted to not only sleep outside the night we got home, but were asking when we could go again.

Here's a few pictures from our first camping trip...

When you are a family of 8, you need a big vehicle! The Lord blessed us with this wonderful 15-passenger van. We have lots of room (maybe even for a few more kids!) and I really like driving it! My only complaint - it is white! I've been hoping for a colored vehicle (something besides white, beige or tan!), but oh well!

And when you have kids - you have bikes. This was our bike rack loaded up with 7 bikes (Anabella's trike was inside the van).

Everyone (and everything!) loaded up for our first trip in our new van

Our first night of camping - John is tucking in the kids.

Blow Olesya! Roasting (or burning!) marshmallows.

Since the kids had such a great time camping, we decided to make it out one more time before the cool fall weather would make it too chilly. We went camping near Avery, Idaho with a wonderful family from church - Steve and Diane Rathbun, and their two sons Seth and Nathan. The weather was rainy, but we all still had fun. Mariyana and John went on a 17-mile (all downhill) bike ride on Saturday along the old Hiawatha railway line.

The same weekend we went camping, our church held a wonderful reception/shower for our family and we were showered with generousity and love from so many families. We continue to be amazed at how interested, supportive and loving so many people have been...We can't even begin to explain how God has brought wonderful people into our lives, and our kids' lives to touch and bless us.

The kids have all begun participating in the Wednesday night church activities and really love it. The boys are Royal Rangers and the girls are Missionettes. The Missionettes had a costume party and sleep-over. Mariyana stayed the night (can't say sleep, because she didn't!), and Lillia and Olesya stayed until 10:30 pm! They were having so much fun, that when Dad came to pick them up at 9 pm, thinking they must be getting too tired, he was informed they still had things to do! Anyways, here are the girls dressed up in their costumes. Both Lillia and Olesya won the "Best Costume" awards for the party! (For some of my long-time friends - you may recognize the costumes - they were my tap-dance recital costumes!)

Olesya ready to go!

The 3 ballerinas! (If this was video, instead of a photo, you would hear Anabella crying in the background because she can't go with the other girls!! - It's tough being the youngest!)

After the Missionettes sleep-over, the boys had a turn. Both boys had fun sleeping at the church, going fishing in the morning and playing basketball. I didn't get any pictures, but believe me, there were plenty of smiles!

The first weekend of October we went down to the Wilson Banner Ranch in Clarkston, Washington for a Harvest Festival. This ranch is a working ranch that grows fruits and vegetables. The kids enjoyed picking pumpkins, painting pumpkins, sampling apple cider, enjoying apple treats and watermelon slices, and taking a hay ride (twice!). Here are a few pictures from that fun day...

The whole crew (minus me, because I'm behind the camera lens!)

Anabella picking out her pumpkin

We just returned late Sunday night from Big Sky, Montana (near Bozeman), where we visited John's parents for 10 days. John worked on framing a house, while the kids and I enjoyed learning about geysers, hot springs, wildlife and more, as well as enjoyed spending time with grandparents. We made a trip into Yellowstone, as well as the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in the town of West Yellowstone. It also happened to snow one day (about 4-6 inches up on the mountain) and so the kids had a great time playing in, rolling in, throwing and sliding in the snow.

Waiting for Old Faithful to blow during our recent visit to Yellowstone

Enjoying the Snow in Big Sky, Montana

It is late and so I need to sign off for the night. I hope this appeases those of you out there, at least for a few days. Things are going really well - much better than expected. When I have some more time, I will try to go into more details of family life and whatnot, but for now, I thought the highlights of the last 7 weeks would be good!

Home Sweet Home

2004-08-26T16:29:00.000-06:00

At the American Embassy in Kiev, there was a quote on the wall that went something like - you never know how much you love your home until you are away. Well that was definitely the case with us - it is so great to be home.

The last day and a half home with all 8 Marbles has gone really well, actually. Almost too smooth! Today we walked down and got the boys haircuts. Yesterday they were treated to new sneakers, and a bag full of clothes from my parents.

Our friends have lovingly lavished us with clothes for the children. What awesome friends we are blessed with.

I will try to write more at a later time, but right now the kids are resting, and I have dinner preparation on my schedule.

Thanks for your continued prayers!

Love, The Marbles - all 8 of us!

Live from Amsterdam!

2004-08-24T01:29:00.000-06:00

Greetings from Schiphol airport in Amsterdam! We flew yesterday afternoon from Kiev into Amsterdam, arriving right around 6 PM. It is now 9:30 AM the following morning - we have spent the in-between hours enjoying this wonderful airport.

For those of you traveling soon to Ukraine, and facing an overnight in Amsterdam - have no worries! The airport hotel was booked (and very expensive) - we weren't really planning on using it anyways. There is a child's room on the first floor, next to a baby room that is full of high chairs and cribs. The child's room has play equipment and Nintendo games. After enjoying some time there, and meeting another adoptive family from Russia, we had some dinner and then wandered around the airport. The kids love the moving sidewalks, escalators and elevators, so those things along keep them quite happy. In addition, we found a gate area that was empty of people, and so the kids could burn off a little energy playing around.

NWA/KLM had a service desk that provided blankets and there are lounge chairs on the second floor where you can fairly comfortably stretch out and sleep. My only complaint was that the lights were still pretty bright, but we all were able to get a decent night's sleep. This morning, John and I enjoyed free, hot showers (remember to bring towels and soap - we didn't know to do that!). We bought the kids some beads and K'Nex and so they are happily waiting for our flight. We have found several kids' play areas - one of the 2 McDonalds has a playland, and there is yet another climbing structure/slide for kids on the second floor. Even though we have been here over 14 hours, it hasn't been bad at all!

The kids all did pretty well on the flight. I was afraid that Vanya would be scared - but he wasn't. We had some "discussions" with Sasha about keeping his seatbelt on, and because he was being stubborn, he didn't get any icecream that the crew members gave the kids (leftovers from the first class passengers!). The crew was really wonderful with the kids and actually very excited to hear about our adoption. Oh, and don't let me forget to mention the wonderful food we got on the plane! I would fly KLM anywhere, anytime!

Well, I bought a 15-minute time card for the internet, and it is flashing that I have two minutes left. So, goodbye for now. Next time I log on, we will be home!!!

See you in Lewiston!

Spelling change of name and coming home

2004-08-21T23:37:00.000-06:00

Ok, just a quick note this morning. We are off to a parade in downtown Kiev. This next week they are celebrating their Independence and they are doing it with quite a bang!

We will for sure be arriving into Lewiston from Seattle on Wednesday the 24th at 6:30 PM. We look forward to being home again and starting life as a family. Anyone who would like to come and say hi to us and kids - we'd love to see you!

Also, just a note on Olesya's name. We originally spelled it, and that is how it is on all the previous posts as Oleysa. When we went to go get her passport, they explained to us that a more conventional spelling of her name is Olesya. That spelling actually better reflects the pronunciation, and so we decided to go with it. Sorry for the confusion - it can be challenging sometimes to translate the Cyrillic letters into English appropriately, especially with vowel sounds. So - her name should be spelled - OLESYA.

That's it for now! Bye - off to make breakfast for our hungry charges!

Done and waiting for Monday

2004-08-21T02:46:00.000-06:00

It’s been awhile since we were last online to update our journal. We were like the cliff hanger on a soap opera that was pre-empted by breaking national news. But, we’re back and the story continues…

Monday night, Kostya finally got our paperwork from the National Adoption Center at 7:45 PM! It was truly a God-thing to get it that late at night. As soon as he had the paperwork, he got a train ticket, got on the train and called us.

First thing the next morning a minivan picked us up from the apartment. We had completely packed everything, including all the food. Incidentally, John and I had just gone shopping the night before, thinking we wouldn’t see the paperwork for another day or two, so we would need groceries for 3-4 days!

We dropped off some outfits for the kids at the orphanage and tried to explain the significance of the day. They understood a little I think. Then we were off to court to wait for Kostya. His train was due at 7:30 into Odessa, then a 2-hour bus ride to Belgorod-Dnestrovsky. Around 10 we met with the lawyer, who notified the judge we were ready.

Soon thereafter, we were invited into the judge’s chambers where our court hearing took place. Present were the judge (young woman probably in her 30s), a court recorder (hand transcribed everything!), John, myself, Kostya, the local social worker, and a representative from the orphanage. The court proceedings were probably about 30 minutes. We were asked individually to give our names, birthdates, occupation, address, the reasons we wanted to adopt 4 children, why we wanted to adopt from Ukraine, what kind of connections we made with the children, support from home, questions about Lillia and Anabella…The judge was extremely kind and personable, and really seemed interested in our answers, rather than simply trudging through “required questions”. We were also asked about the 30-days waiting period, and why we thought it would be beneficial for us, our family and the kids. There were statements made by the social worker and orphanage representative, and then we were asked if we wanted to add anything. We then were asked to step outside and please wait. We ended up waiting probably 20 minutes. At one point, I was starting to get nervous, but once we went back inside, I understood why it took so long. While we were waiting, the entire court hearing was typed up, along with the court decision. So, the decision time might have been instantaneous, but it just took time to prepare the documents. Once we were invited back into the chambers, the judge had us stand, and she read the decision. She then heartily congratulated us and wished us all the best. And so, we became an official 8-member family, and immediate execution was granted (aka 30-days waived). The judge was extremely gracious and even agreed to a picture with us, crowning the special moment.

After the court decision was read, we once again had to wait. Many copies had to be made, and while that sounds like a simple procedure done quickly on a Xerox machine, getting something copied here is quite the process! First, they make photocopies. Then they stamp them, certifying they are official copies. Then, they stitch them to make them extra-official. Stitching is quite a common practice here. John and I have laughed that if you asked any secretary in the US to stitch some paperwork for you, they would laugh quite heartily! But, most secretaries here seem to have a needle and thread/string in their drawers. Four holes are punched along the left margin of the paper, and then they are sewn together. The ends of the string are then tied, and a small sticker is placed over the knot. Finally, the knotted, stickered string is stamped! So, with us having to get many, many official copies of the court decree, we waited for quite some time…

Finally we were done at the court and went over to the orphanage to pick up the children. There were more papers to sign there, and more papers to pick up to bring with us. One of the papers that we had to pick up was a current medical statement, which was to be taken from the children’s files. Vanya has had a sore on his ear since we first met him, and we were curious what it was. This was the same sore that we took away fruit snacks from him about, back last week. Anyways, we asked the orphanage doctor about it, and she claimed it was only a couple days old, and actually started when we bought them icecream a couple days ago when we went to get their passport pictures taken. She said she had only treated it once, when in fact, it had been treated probably 5 times since we first started seeing Vanya…She was in quite an uproar about the entire thing, and finally huffed out of the office and came back with some kind of capsules. She opened the capsule and dumped it into his ear and instructed us to do that 3x/day. The treatments that Vanya had received previously on his ear were this awful purple liquid that was some kind of antiseptic. We don’t think it did much of anything, except make his face look awful! We are just looking forward to getting home and having a doctor we know and trust look at his ear and treat it appropriately. Needless to say, we are not dumping some unknown capsule into his ear 3x/day. It was amazing what a little cleaning did to make his sore look much better!

Once we were all loaded onto the van, we headed off. A short stop to pick something up from the social worker and then finally we were off to Odessa. The traffic between Belgorod-Dnestrovsky and Odessa was awfully slow and so the 71 km trip took almost 3 hours! We could tell the kids really had no idea what was happening, because everytime we stopped for traffic, they all said “So?” meaning “all done?”. Once we were finally in Odessa, Kostya found an apartment for us to all stay in. It was somewhat a challenge because many of the apartments were too small for 7 people, and most of them were onkly available by the week, rather than day. He finally found a gentleman that had two apartments. We looked at the first one, which was actually very close to Vladimir and Lena’s apartment. It however, had no running water. The other apartment wasn’t going to be available for another 2 hours, and so we left our things and went to get some dinner. And where would a family take 4 of the newest American citizens? Why McDonalds of course! It was actually Kostya’s idea, and after having them sit in the van for many hours, the Playland was a hit. They weren’t too sure about hamburgers, but the fries were a definite hit. We have discovered salt is the most common seasoning here, and so the salty fries probably were something that tasted familiar. After dinner and arranging notary services for paperwork we had to collect the next day, we went to the new apartment and settled in for bed.

Getting 4 children, all sleeping in the same room to settle down for bed took a little doing. They were wound up and excited, and eventually, after tucking them all in, saying prayers, and reminding them to be quiet several times, I “stood guard” at the door until all were asleep.

John slept that night with Vanya on a pull-out couch (somewhere between twin and full size). Vanya thrashes in his sleep and actually fell out of bed at one point (never woke up)! So, John pressed himself against the wall and did the best he could sleeping-wise in between elbows, knees and toes being jabbed into his side. I was going to sleep in the pull-out couch with the girls. However, once I came to bed, there was nowhere to squeeze, and so I opted for the very-hard floor. There was very little sleep that night, on my part!

The next morning, the alarm went off at 4:30. We drug the kids out of bed at 5 and were on the minivan at 6 AM a very long day. On the agenda was getting new birth certificates for the kids, and registering them at the Oblast capital. It sounds quite simple, but add to it a lot of miles on poor roads (without road signs to point the way!), 4 tired, cranky, antsy children, and lots of waiting around at each stop and you have a recipe for an extremely trying day. We were on the road from 6 AM until, well, 9 AM the next morning, when we kept going. Three of the children were born in Odessa Oblast. The place we had to get their birth certificates was a 300 km drive (remember how long it took us to go 71 km?!!?). Their birth certificates had to be registered in Odessa, so that had to wait for the next day. Then we were off to Kirovgrad Oblast to get the last birth certificate. The lady was really nice and actually waited until 6 PM for us. Our final stop for the long day was at the Oblast capital to register the birth certicate. As we pulled into town at 9:30, Kostya simply called the lady on her cell phone and she met us at the registry office. We were shocked and amazed that a government official would not only give Kostya his personal cell phone number, but come in so late at night! But she did, and we were done with all that we could do. We were still a 5-6 hour drive from Odessa (where the paperwork chase had to continue first thing the next morning), it was 11 at night, and so we headed back to Odessa in the minivan. The kids were able to spread out in the van and sleep pretty well. The adults, well, John slept fairly well (he sleeps anywhere!), I slept about an hour total, and Kostya dozed off and on as well. Around 2 AM we stopped for a few hours so the driver could sleep. John and I had a bowl of Borscht at the little restaurant at our stop. It was quite delicious, but didn’t sit well with my stomach…

I am going to sign off for now. Just a quick note about when we will be returning. We will arrive Tuesday, August 24th into Lewiston at 6:30 PM from Seattle. I will try to get back on this afternoon while the kids are resting to put more updates!

Nothing new...

2004-08-16T06:22:00.000-06:00

Nothing new to report. I'm sure you guys have been eagerly checking to see the latest updates, but sadly there are none.

Yesterday we took it easy, went to the Baptist church near the apartment and saw the kids. At church this lovely lady came over and shared her hymnal with us (we did the best we could!). One of the hymns was "How Great Thou Art", so sang the English chorus along with everyone singing in Russian. The dear lady tried to talk to us after the service, but we didn't understand hardly a word. Only enough to introduce ourselves, and tell her we were Americans. Oh, to speak the language!

Seeing the kids in the afternoon was a little strange. They were quite solemn, and Mariyana was close to tears. We weren't sure what was going on. We really have no idea if they are getting a hard time about leaving from other kids, from their caregivers, or what. We are getting a little tired of just visiting them and playing. I think we are all bored, and ready to move onto real life. As much as it is nice to see them, it is such an artificial environment. You can only play and interact for so long in this manner!

Kostya is in Kiev right now, hopefully getting our paperwork. We understand that the NAC is in a crazy uproar. They are seeing about double the amount of families as normal, and behind on all paperwork. We are really praying that Kostya gets our paperwork back today. If so, he will get on the overnight train to Odessa, and be here tomorrow AM, meaning we can finally go to court.

John and I took some time yesterday to start doing a little planning for school, schedules, and more. It was actually really a productive time and we are excited about everything we planned. We are just ready to get home and put everything into place!

That's about it for now. Hopefully next time we log in and update it will be after we head to court on Tuesday! In those hopes, we are off to take pictures of places that we might not see again, if indeed we do head to court tomorrow. We want to make sure to have pictures of the social worker's office, the park where we spent many hours...well John is reading over my shoulder and says he already did all that. So, nothing left to do but by our "regular" lunch (icecream) and take the bus back to the apartment for our daily nap...

Rough day for Vanya

2004-08-14T07:07:00.000-06:00

Greetings again from Belgorod-Dnestrovsky. We are still in Ukraine, and still waiting for paperwork from the NAC. We didn't get it Friday, like we were hoping. Kostya will be in Kiev Monday AM, and try to get it from them. There were two American families at the same orphange as we are, and their paperwork took 5 and 10 days, respectively, from the NAC. So, we are hoping that we are closer 5 than 10! So, please continue to pray that the NAC will finish with our paperwork on Monday so we can head to court on Tuesday....

John and I have discovered that when we are bored, we become very lazy! We went to bed last night at 8:30 and John didn't get up until 8:30 this AM! Then, after a tiring breakfast, we both took a nap for 2 hours! Once we finally got up, we went to visit the kids, and then downtown for some shopping for kids, and the daily stop-in at the internet cafe. Tomorrow is Sunday, so we'll go to church in the AM. There is a large Baptist church between our apartment and the orphanage. John and Kostya went to it last weekend (I was home sick). So, as we have been saying, "that'll kill 2 hours!"

Well, let's see. Seeing the kids...it is going well, but I think we all are getting a little bored. You can only play ball so often without any changes. We are all ready to get home and get into the routine of being a family. Sasha asked us last night if he could just come to our house with us that night. The older ones are asking how many days, and although we said 4-6 days last weekend, we are still having to say 4-6 days. I think they understand somewhat that it isn't completely in our hands, and so seem to be ok with not knowing exactly when. Hopefully Monday we'll get our paperwork, and start getting a better timeline in place!

Our time with the kids has developed into a regular routine. We greet them with hugs and kisses and then give them their snack. Most of the time, they are the snacks that we brought with us from the States. We haven't hardly touched them ourselves, but they've been handy to share with the kids. We usually have a bottle of water for them to share, and then granola or cereal bars, fruit snacks, or crackers. Sometimes we have brought fresh fruit for them. Yesterday afternoon Mariyana requested oranges, so that is what we are bringing them this afternoon.

Anyways, this AM we brought fruit snacks, watermelon and kool-aid for the kids. I was feeling guilty giving my kids kool-aid, but I guess I don't need to worry - they really didn't like it that much, so we can go back to water! Vanya has a scabby sore on his ear, and his nose is all crusty with bloody scabs in it. We aren't really sure what it is, and what the cause is - we figured it was just a little boy picking at stuff until it started bleeding...Anyways, we gave Vanya a fruit snack bag, and Mariyana told us he shouldn't eat it because it made his ear and nose worse. Well, we aren't real positive that is the case (can't think of anything in them that would cause this!), but wanted to at least acknowledge her comments, and be respectful of what the different orphanage caregivers are thinking. So, we had to take the fruit snacks away. Well, that was a major ordeal. Vanya is the guy that inhales all the food we give him. If he finds a crumb on the ground, he picks it up and eats it. When he was eating the watermelon we brought, we weren't watching, and he ate the rind. I think he is really undernourished and hungry a good majority of the time. So, you can see, that taking away food from him, was a major problem. He looked so sad, and just pouted and cried the rest of the time we were there. Hopefully he'll be better this afternoon.

Now that we are talking about nutrition, let me share a little about what we have observed. The smells that come from the kitchen at the orphanage are wonderful, and from the few times that we have had Kostya or Ira with us to translate what the kids have eaten for different meals, sounds like they are getting good quality and variety of food. I think, however, there probably isn't much as far as quantity. There are probably 300 kids at this orphanage, so that is a lot of mouths to feed! So, we expect that when we get home, our kids will enjoy the opportunity to have seconds and even thirds, if they wish. But, for right now, we are bringing them nutritious snacks each time we see them...

The town of Belgorod-Dnestrovsky is quite busy construction-wise. The Prime Minister is coming on Independence Day, which is towards the end of August (the 25th, I think). They are actually installing gas lines, which will be active after his visit. So, the streets get torn up to put in the line, and then re-paved the next day to smooth them out again. In addition, many of the public buildings are being white-washed, repainted, cleaned, etc. The orphanage must be expecting a visit from either the Prime Minister or his wife, as they are busy repainting all the playground equipment.

As those of you readers who are in Idaho know, one thing we always complain about is the condition of the roads in Idaho. Well, no more! Our Ukrainian friends often told us how wonderful our roads were in Idaho, and we would laugh and say, "They're awful!" Now we understand. Taking a drive anywhere is indeed an experience. The taxi drivers should be better called off-road specialists, as they duck, dodge and drive around and through various holes and potholes. To give you an idea of the roads - Belgorod-Dnestrovsky is 71 km from Odessa. We have made that trip several times, in search of a notary. Anyways, the shortest we have ever had that trip take is 90 minutes, and believe me, it wasn't because the driver was dawdling! Granted, the road meanders through two small towns, so it means slowing down (slightly!) for those, but most of the time is because of the road conditions.

I realized I haven't shared with you where we are staying here in B-D. The first night, we stayed at a local hotel. I think there are only 2 in the entire town. The hotel room was very similar to a dorm room, as far as the furnishings and feel to it. Our particular room had three single beds and 2 nightstands. The bathroom had a toilet, sink and then a mount for the faucet for a shower. There was no "shower stall" perse, it was just a place to stand next to the toilet.

After that first night, we arranged to stay at the apartment of the secretary of the social worker. Apartments here are designated by how many rooms they are - when an apartment is built, they don't have closets in them, so there is no distinction between what rooms are considered bedrooms, and which rooms are considered living rooms. So, our apartment would be considered a 2 room apartment. You enter from the front door. To your immediate left are two small rooms. The first is the toilet room. The second room has the sink and bathrub, with handheld shower wand. Straight ahead from the door is where we are sleeping - it would be what we call a bedroom. Our bed is a sleeper couch - my side is quite comfortable, although John's isn't quite so! There is a small hallway. To the left off the hallway is the kitchen. It has a fridge/freezer, sink and two-burner hotplate. There is an oven in the kitchen that the hotplate sits on, but it isn't hooked up because there is no gas service (yet). There is a small table and stools in the kitchen where we sit. We haven't yet ever seen a dishwasher here in Ukraine - they are apparently even beyond a luxury item...Next to the kitchen is the 2nd room - it is set up like a living room. This is where Kostya or Ira have slept. The hostess set up a cot for them, but they have each elected to sleep on the floor instead. Off of the living room there is a small balcony. It isn't really wide enough to do much there except stand. But the windows open and there is a clothes line, which is quite important for drying clothes. Washing machines are luxury items, and our particular apartment doesn't have one. But, washing clothes by hand isn't that big of a deal, and right now is something we figure will "kill 30 minutes!". We have never seen a dryer here - everyone just hangs up their clothes; thus, every apartment we have seen has some sort of balcony for doing so. (Even our hotel room had one)

Our apartment is in a 5 or 6-story building. Each floor has 3 apartments. John feels quite at home because there is always construction going on! People often buy their apartments, although doing so can be quite difficult because mortgages are still almost unheard of (and the few that exist have 15-20% interest!). The apartment building is in an area that probably has 15-20 other apartment buildings of similar size. There is a "common area" between the buildings that at its infancy was quite nice. There are play areas for the kids, including bars, balance beams (metal), soccer field and basketball courts. The area hasn't seen any repair or work on it for many, many years so everything is overgrown, rusted and many things broken. Still, there are always children out playing on it when we walk by.

Our apartment is about 3/4 or 1 mile from the orphanage across an undeveloped field. There is nothing in the field except a lot of shrubbery, the occasional tree, well-worn paths, and sandy roads the width of our sidewalks that the taxi drivers love to drive on very fast. The soil here is completely sandy - that explains the delicious watermelons that can be bought on every corner.

Some of you have asked about coming to the airport in Lewiston when we come home. I think that would be great! It would really help the kids feel like they are coming home to a bigger Moscow-Pullman family that joyously welcomes them. I will keep you all posted about our flight details, if you wish to greet our family at the Lewiston airport.

One more thing I just thought of. For those of you waiting your turn to come to Ukraine to find your forever children, you might be wondering about digital cameras, pictures, etc. I will just share with you what we have done, and it has worked wonderfully. Our online journal is through blogger (blogger.com). It is very easy to use, can be accessed from any computer, and is free! It also allows you to include pictures right within your journal postings, as we have done. It is very simple - it has a feature to allow you to upload your pictures to your server. We brought with us our digital camera (Sony Cybershot) which uses memory stick pro cards. Then we brought with us a SanDisk reader/writer that we bought at Wal-mart for $35 or so. We can plug the SanDisk reader/writer right into the USB ports on the internet cafe computer, put the memory stick in it, and the pictures show up just like an external drive. We don't need any specific software, nor do we have to worry about putting pictures onto the internet cafe computers. For us, it has been so easy! Just a note about memory - we brought a 512 MB, 256 MB and a 32 MB memory sticks with us. Our 512 card is full, and our 256 stick is 1/3 full. We also have burned probably 100 pictures onto a CD, and deleted them from our memory stick. Ok, hope that helps someone! I know we were at a loss as to how to deal with technology while we were here, so maybe someone else is in the same boat right now!

Well, that about covers everything I can think of for now. I will put up a few pictures that we took yesterday when we showed the kids what we bought for them. As soon as they see their new things, they of course have to try them on, and wear them until it is time for us to leave. So, that meant Oleysa spent yesterday afternoon running around in her new pink swimsuit!

One of the things that we have encouraged each time we are with our kids, is to have them interact with one another as siblings. We aren't sure how much of this they actually do in the orphanage. They are all in the same group together, but we think they tend to interact more with each other as someone else in the group. So, we have really enjoyed seeing them act like brothers and sisters - playing together, helping each other out, and of course, the occasional sibling fighting! Here are a few pictures of Oleysa and Sasha playing together, Mariyana, Oleysa and Vanya together, and Mariyana and Sasha looking at their new clothes....

A picture of each of the kids in their new clothes....aren't they cute??!!
Vanya

Oleysa

Mariyana

Sasha

That's it for today! Thanks for reading, praying and encouraging us! We miss you and can't wait to get home!

Motorcycles, shopping and on our own!

2004-08-13T05:57:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon when we arrived at the orphanage, the front drive was full of large men in leather and shiny huge motorcycles, and a crowd of very excited children! This group of probably 20 men and their bikes were from Germany, although many spoke Russian. Apparently they have some connection to the Odessa area. They came for a visit to the orphanage, and boy did they give the kids a treat! They brought stuffed animals, toys, snacks, candy, juice, and of course their shiny, fancy motorbikes!

Our two older kids were part of the group that was allowed to come out and see everything. Mariyana and Sasha made themselves quite at home, found a seat on the motorcycle, and wouldn't hardly move! Their mom and dad were praying that they didn't get too many ideas about wanting their own motorbike when they get older! We of course took pictures (after all, it may be the last time they ever ride one before they turn legal age!!).

Mariyana feeling quite comfortable on a motorcycle!

Mariyana and her friend Vika (Viktoria).

Sasha, the "gentle" biker!

For the last week, we have had Ira with us. She works with Kostya and helps him with his families. When Kostya went to Kiev with our paperwork, Ira came to be with us, and keep working on details here in Belgorod-Dnestrovsky (you have no idea how much work an adoption is here and how many details there are!!). Ira left this morning for Kiev to pick up paperwork from the National Adoption Center (we still aren't sure if it will be today (Friday) or Monday...). Kostya will come back here on Monday, so we are on our own this weekend. We are quite fine with it, and thinking it will be fun.

This morning after Ira left, we visited the kids for awhile and then took the minibus into town to go shopping. I think we have finished shopping for the kids, for now. We managed to get them each 2 pairs of underwear, a pair of shoes, backpack, 2 outfits, PJs, swimsuits and hats - all for about $100. We were pleased. We'd love to do more, of course, for them, but right now we are thinking about making sure we have enough money to buy them plane tickets home.

After spending some time here at the internet cafe, we'll go home, eat lunch, take a nap (a regular part of our days!) and then go visit the kids for awhile.

I also was able to call NWA/KLM today here in Ukraine, to change our plane tickets, and to check on the availability of kids' tickets. Ira and Kostya are thinking that we will likely still be done (as long as we go to court Monday or Tuesday) and ready to go home by Saturday the 21st. Well, the cheapest tickets for the kids were $1024 each! The lady was able to find tickets on the 23rd for $887 each, so that was a little better. We have those reserved right now, but are still hoping to find something better - we'll see! But, for right now, we will be flying from Kiev to Amseterdam on the 23rd (spending the night in Amsterdam) and then Amsterdam to Seattle and Seattle to Lewiston on the 24th. I think we get in around 6:30 PM on the 24th. We are quite anxious to get home. It was 4 weeks ago today when we left. It has been a fun time, and we have really enjoyed pretty much everything about the trip, but we are ready to just get home and start our lives as a family...So, if everything gets done on Friday like Kostya and Ira are hoping for, we may still try to find cheaper seats on the Saturday or Sunday flights...We'll keep you posted!

So, now to some more pictures....

My three little tree climbers (the only reason Mariyana wasn't also climbing trees was because she was painting some of the playground equipment!)...

So, that's all for today. We'll probably be back sometime this weekend. On one hand, we are happy to have our shopping done, but on the other hand, that was something we could do during the late morning when we can't be with the kids. So, we aren't too sure what we'll be doing this weekend!

Thank you for your prayers and well-wishes!

Love to all! Kristen, John, Mariyana, Sasha, Vanya and Oleysa

Notes from home....

2004-08-13T05:53:00.000-06:00

This afternoon when we checked our email, we had a great email from my parents, who are currently watching the girls. We thought we'd share some stories from home, from our two little ones waiting for their new brothers and sisters, and their mom and dad...

Three cute stories to keep you updated on your girls back here......At
breakfast we were talking about the
new brother/sistas and Lillia said, "When Mommy/Daddy get home they will
say, 'Where is my little girl?" and I will say, you do not have a little
girl because now I am a big girl...I am Lillia!".

And......Joanne and Richard did not send back the top to the two piece
bathing suit and Joanne said Lillia was constantly telling her the one piece
was hers and not Anabella's (although they had worn the opposite when they
were here before). So we had a talk and said maybe we should buy a new suit
and the truth came out........Lillia did not want her tummy to show and that
is why she did not like the two piece suit. She said the one piece suit was
"actually Anabella's". She picked one out (one piece of course) at Costco
with a pretty Hawaiian print and if I let her she would be wearing it 24
hours a day. So.......when Joanne sent the top of the other suit along with
some other things she had not brought over before, Lillia ignored it and is
happy to wear her new suit, life jacket and flop flops all day.....her
uniform.

Anabella is hanging in there.......wanting everything Lillia has so the best
solution is to divide and conquer. Dad takes her outside in the AM while
Lillia and I play......then at morning naptime, Lillia goes out to help Pops
for a while so I can take a shower (the quietest part of my day). Then
Lillia comes in for a snack, we 'sew' and then to the park, lunch, and
naptime. I usually am down for a power nap as well.

Oh-another good one. Joanne taught Lillia to read the clock and morning
time was at 6:30AM. Well, that worked the first day (HURRAH) but the next
day Lillia figured out where the clock was plugged in (on the serge
protector in the living room with the cord coming into the bedroom......)
and so she 'turned it off' by switching the serge protector off. Well, we
had a talk about that and she said she would not do it again........the last
two mornings she just turned the clock face down so she could not tell the
time.......quite a girl you have. SO our day is starting early.....Anabella
starts stirring at 5......we move her porta crib out to the living room
before we go to bed so they will not wake each other up......that sort of
works......Anabella points to all the boats going by in the lake and says
"boaaaaaasssss".

Well, off to our daily visit to the Bayview Park and then lunch. The other
day we took a picnic there and that was fun. Lillia has learned to hang on
the monkey bars and swing her feet up on the bar and hold them there! But
yesterday she go all worn out so I told her she had to go to the muscle shop
and buy some more muscles, which she did (the picnic table was the shop),
and was right back on it. Anabella can climb up the side bar ladder, step
across and has gone done the big slide twice. Love You, Mom and Dad

Thank you all for your prayers for the grandparents who have been watching our girls - it is no easy job! Also, thanks for the prayers for our girls, and their parents who are missing them terribly!

Prayer requests

2004-08-12T07:52:00.000-06:00

We have been so touched reading our guestbook entries these past few days. People we had no idea were reading, or even cared, have sent prayers, joys and encouragement our way here in Ukraine. Thank you! God has used each of you to bless us and our children while we patiently (or not!) wait to come home.

I realized that I ended the last entry without listing out our prayer requests. God has answered prayers throughout our entire process, and we know He is faithful to continue doing so, all the way home (and beyond, of course!).

So, here are our prayer requests. As God brings our family to mind, please pray for:

* That our paperwork gets processed quickly by the National Adoption Center. This is the first thing that has to happen before we begin a litany of various steps (court, birth certificates, passports, medical exams, visas...).

* When it is time to come home, we can find 6 seats together on ONE plane (preferably together!) and the prices are reasonable. Looking on the internet, the cheapest flights we found were $1400 each, and that was only to Seattle!

* That God will handle our vehicle transportation needs in Moscow, if that is His plan. We feel very blessed to have two vehicles that we can use; however, would be blessed to have one vehicle that would fit our entire family!

* That God will continue to bless and comfort Lillia and Anabella who have been away from mom and dad for 1 month now. They apparently are doing quite fine, and Lillia is reportedly very excited about her "2 brothers and 2 sisters from Ukraine". My mother-in-law told me the first night we sent pictures of the kids, she wanted them printed out, and slept with them that night! Anabella is really too young to completely understand. Also, prayers for my parents as they watch the girls until we arrive home.

* That God will begin teaching and preparing us for having boys (!!) and a pre-teen daughter. We have already been very blessed to be in contact with several families that have Christian, homeschooled peers her age in Moscow!

* Finally, as we look forward to coming home, that God will prepare all of us for adjusting to having a LARGE family, and to moving slowly into the school year. We have prayerfully considered our educational options for the children, and for many, many reasons, we feel that homeschooling is the right option for our children, at this particular time. This will allow all the children to bond together and with us as parents, without being away from home 8 hours a day. It will also give them the opportunity to slowly learn English and catch up academically in a loving, family environment. In talking with other homeschoolers, we have heard the first year can be the hardest. We would so appreciate your prayers, because not only will this be our first year, but we will be doing so with 6 children, 4 of which are learning English!

Back online again

2004-08-12T06:37:00.000-06:00

Hello!

Sorry for the quick absence over the past few days. We were so excited to find an internet cafe, we thought surely there would be no reason we couldn't post a quick update everyday. Well, it is actually a funny story.

Tuesday afternoon we came downtown, while the kids were napping and we couldn't visit with them anyway, and all the windows and doors of the internet cafe were closed tight. It looked like the business had completely shut their doors! Hmmm...interesting. We had other errands to do with our paperwork, and then decided to look around for another internet cafe. We finally found out that every internet cafe that day would be closed because the tax police were in town!!! They were supposedly "in repair" during the time the tax police were here.

So, Wednesday, we went downtown, hopefully also to get into the internet cafe, unsure of how long the tax police would be here. Well, the taxi driver told our translator that they were still here, and he wasn't sure how much would be open at the market. Sure enough, only about 10% of the stalls were open for business. A few that were open, were quickly being packed up for the day when we walked by! And, of course, the internet cafe was still closed for repairs.

Today, Thursday, apparently the tax police have left the town. Everything is back up and running again, so here I am! I won't make any promises about my frequency coming back, as I have no idea how often the tax police check on things in town!

Let's see, where to start. First of all - more delays. As I mentioned in my last post, our paperwork had gone to Kiev to the National Adoption Center with Kostya. We were a little concerned because the lawyer that we are working with here in town warned us that the previous 2 American couples had waited 5 and 10 days for their paperwork to be processed at the NAC instead of the 3 days they are supposed to do things in. We heard from Kostya last night that the NAC was back-logged, and were predicting that our paperwork wouldn't be available until Friday or Monday. We are still praying for a miracle, that it will be done today still, but it isn't looking good. Not having that paperwork means we can't go to court tomorrow, as we had planned. And, so once again, we wait. Right now, not exactly knowing when we'll get the paperwork from the NAC, we can't predict our timeline. If we get the paperwork Friday, we'll be in court Monday. If we get it Monday, we'll be in court Tuesday. The problem, however, is that the Embassy only processes visas Monday-Thursday in Kiev. So, with a court date early in the week, and birth certificates to get (in two different towns, two different oblasts (states)) we have a lot of work to do before the embassy appointment. We are currently predicting we'll be flying home around the 25th, but that is simply a guess at this point.

The kids have been asking us everyday when they can leave with us, and when we're going home. They are getting quite excited I think. One of the American couples that has been here had their court appointment yesterday, and left with the kids yesterday afternoon. Our kids were really interested and excited to see their friends go, because they knew that very soon it would be their turns!

So, this post will simply be a bunch of details and information about our last few days here....(with of course some pictures!)

As some of you know, we are members of FRUA (Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption). They sent $75 with us to purchase requested supplies for the orphanage where our kids are from. The director of the orphanage requested toilet paper, soap and shampoo, so the other day we went shopping. It is amazing how much $75 can buy here - we ended up with 150 rolls of toilet paper, 200 bars of soap, 2 bags of laundry detergent, 10 bottles of regular shampoo and 47 bottles of kids' no tears shampoo! It was quite the heavy load to bring into the orphanage. We hope it blesses the kids still waiting for their forever families! Thank you FRUA!

Thank you FRUA! Here we are with our huge pile of donations we were able to present to the orphanage director.

Over the past few days we have found out a little more about our children's biological parents. They are both from Moldova (Moldavia). There are also 2 additional siblings, both of which are not available for adoption. Jakov is 18 and actually getting married soon. Anna is 14 and lives with her aunt in a nearby town. We had to travel to that town to pick up some paperwork that verified that they were not only not involved with our kids, but also weren't available for adoption themselves. The NAC is very careful not to split apart siblings, which we are happy to hear. Anyways, our trip to this town in Ukraine meant we actually had to drive through Moldova! So, we've been to Moldova! It was interesting at the border crossings - the police just looked in the car to see how many of us there were, gave us a piece of paper that had that number written on it, and then flagged us through. However, several cars were stopped and thoroughly searched. As we were driving through Moldova, there were armed soldiers in the fields along the road. I'm not sure if we were allowed to get out of the car, but we didn't!

Two days ago we went to the Medieval Fortress here in Belgorod-Dnestrovsky. Belgorod-Dnestrovsky is 2500 years old! It was founded by people from the Middle Eastern town of Milet. They built the city on the mouth of the Tiras river (now called the Dniester) and called it Tira. At the fortress grounds you can see the excavations from ancient Tira dating from the 6th century BC! In the 13th and 14th centuries a fortress was erected under the Princes of the Moldovan Principality. There was originally a Turkish mosque on the grounds. Since then, the town has been occupied by Romans, Crimean Khan and Soviets. The fortress was an amazing thing to see - we were there probably 2 hours and could have spent more time. The fortress is built on the mouth of the river, and on the other 3 sides, is surrounded by a moat 20m deep and 13.5m wide! The total length of the defense walls is 2.5 km. The height of the walls and towers is up to 15m and the walls are up to 5m thick! The walls of the fortress were strengthened by 34 towers - probably about 6-7 of those towers still surive.

The main entrance of the fortress. The entrance fee for the fortress was 1 grivna - about 20 cents!

One of the many towers of the fortress.

Looking through one of the doorways of the fortress out onto the huge field.

The previous two days we have had fun at the local market buying items for the children. When we finally get to pick them up from the orphanage for good, they can't take anything with them. We are buying each of them backpacks, shoes, underwear, hats and clothing. It has been like Christmas, I am sure, for the kids the past two days when we arrive with our purchases. They have been so excited, and it is a little bit of a struggle to convince them that they can't keep the items right now. They do understand, however, they can have them very soon, and are quite anxious to come home!

This afternoon, our two oldest kids are on an orphanage outing for older children - they are riding dirt bikes at some mountain nearby. Needless to say, their mother isn't overly thrilled with this idea, and thinking it will take some time to get used to all these big kid things! John also keep reminding me that I need to get used to having boys around - boys that will collect grimy, creepy, crawly things - boys that will run, jump, climb anything!!! Whew - I think I'll need to start watching for gray hairs!

Mariyana and Oleysa

My almost-teenager! (pictures taken by Oleysa!)

Oleysa playing ball with Mama. She is wearing her new backpack that we bought for her - it was quite the negotiation to get it off when it was time to go!

The kids enjoying bananas and juice boxes we brought for snack.

Vanya "flying" with Papa.

Vanya playing with a balloon we brought for each of the kids.

Sasha can be pretty shy, and likes to play by himself at times. He will often draw and write while we are there with the kids.

Sasha is also a little climber. The other day, while we were playing ball, it ended on the roof of the shelter. He shimmied his way up the pole, climbed on the roof and got it down without a second thought. Needless to say, his mother's heart was pounding a little!

Well, - that's all for today! Hope you enjoyed it! We'll see you again soon! Thanks for signing our guestbook - we love reading the entries from you all!

Love, Kristen, John, Mariyana, Sasha, Vanya and Oleysa

1,2 or 3? Actually - 4!!

2004-08-09T07:37:00.000-06:00

We finally found an internet cafe today in the little town of Belgorod-Dnestrovksy. So, we know you have all been waiting with baited breath, and the grand revealing of our children is finally here!

The mysterious sibling group that we have been talking about for 2 weeks are definitely our kids. It was a long wait to finally see them, but it took only about 5 seconds to agree that not only are these the perfect kids for our family, but it was definitely worth the wait!

So- let the introductions begin.

The oldest is Mariyana Faith. She is 11 years old, and her birthday is in December. She seems to be a real tomboy, and has enjoyed playing ball with us. I think she will be the next great volleyball player for the Marble family! Mariyana stands to my shoulder and her feet are almost as big as mine, and definitely bigger than her Aunt Kathy's and her grandmother's. We have been joking that we don't know if feet size is an indicator of future growth, as it is for puppies, but if that is indeed the case, then she will be pretty tall. Maybe the Marble-Bennett family will have some tall genes finally introduced!

Mariyana blowing bubbles the first day we met her.

The next oldest is Alexandr Bennett. Since he is the first grandson, and the Bennett name is dying out with Kathy and myself, we thought it would be an appropriate middle name for the grandson. Alexandr actually goes by Sasha - a common nickname for Alexandr here in Ukraine. Sasha is 9 years old, has a birthday in April, and is quite shy. But, don't let that fool you - he is quite the charmer. All the pictures we have of him have an adorable smile, that we'll have to watch out for in a few years!

Our little charmer, Sasha!

The next child is Ivan Richard. Ivan goes by Vanya (rhymes with Tanya) - again a common nickname for Ivan here in Ukraine. Vanya is 7 years old. His birthday is in May. He, of all the kids, seems to understand the most English right now. He is skinny, skinny, and we fully expect him to gain a bunch of weight once we get home. When we bring the kids snacks everytime we see them, Vanya's is always the first to be gobbled up.

Little Vanya.

Finally, the last one is Oleysa Joy. Oleysa's birthday is in June and she just turned 5. She is a little chatterbox and her middle name really reflects her personality (unless she is pouting, which she can also do with great fortitude!). Oleysa is quite a little hugger and just keeps on talking to us non-stop even though we have no clue what in the world she is saying. She is apparently the orphanage favorite here in Belgorod-Dnestrovsky.

Oleysa Joy posing for pictures at the orphanage.

So, that's the kids. We have had so much fun getting to know them. The orphanage is very open to having us come visit, as long as we work around the kids' eating and sleeping schedules. Typically we have been going in the morning for a few hours, and then again after naptime for awhile before dinner.

Our schedule is starting to shape up as well. Kostya is heading to Kiev tonight on the overnight train to bring all the paperwork back to the National Adoption Center. They have 3 days to process and approve all the paperwork, so everything for court will be headed back our way on the Thursday night train. We are hoping to be in court Friday, have immediate execution granted (ie 30 days waived), go to get the kids' new birth certificates on Saturday and Monday, passports on Tuesday in Odessa, overnight train to Kiev on Tuesday, then Wednesday and Thursday will be medical examinations and embassy appointment for visas. So, with any luck, we will be flying home on Friday. That is, of course, if we can find tickets. Finding 6 airline tickets on the same airplane may be no easy task - so we might have to just be patient waiting until the right time.

We are so excited to get home, and start our family of now 8!! Wow - that sounds pretty big!

For all of you bargain shoppers out there, keep your eyes open for either a 8-passenger, or better yet- as 12-passenger van that is for sale for a reasonable amount! Somehow our little 7-passenger villager just won't hold our new family! Right now, that is the least of our worries - we figure we can take 2 cars when it is time to go grocery shopping and to church!

One more note about names:
We've decided to keep the children's original Ukrainian names, as we really like all of them. Mariyana (we thought it was Maria initially, but it is Mariyana, and she doesn't like Maria!) was my great-grandmother's name, and has been on our name list each time for children. Mariyana's middle name is going to be Faith. She is the definite leader of these children, and it will be a very big change for her. We thought Faith really fit her, us, this entire experience and her journey she will take to become a Marble!

A few more pictures....(because we know that is really what you want to see - not a bunch of words!!)

The four kids with "Mama"

The four kids with "Papa"

Sasha and Mariyana the first day we met them - they loved blowing bubbles! I think we have used up 4 containers of bubbles!

The two little ones at the orphanage. They absolutely love playing with and wearing sunglasses. We need to find each of them their own pair!

Our big girl, Mariyana. John keeps "reminding" me of all the different milestones that are quickly coming up with our new 11 year old daughter - you know, things like driver's licenses, playing club volleyball, college! All sorts of things I figured were a long ways off just a few weeks ago! But, in many regards, it is awesome to look back over the past few months and realize how God has been preparing our hearts for not only a larger sibling group, but also for older children. We feel so blessed to have already discussed and "figured out" so many things that having older children entails. There will of course be a large learning curve, but we look excitedly forward to those different opportunities!

The orphanage grounds. They are quite beautiful and very well kept. The building itself is quite large - we are guessing there are probably around 300 children in the orphanage. Everytime we are there visiting our children, there are several other families also visiting their children. There have been 3 other American couples and 2 French families here in the week we have been here. Only the French families are adopting single children. The other American couples have 2 children, 2 children and 3 children, and then us! We are amazed how busy this particular orphanage is!

Hey, how'd that one get in there??!!? Well, our adoption adventure has been far from anything tough and boring now that we are finally here in Belgorod-Dnestrovksy. We are on the Black Sea, and so this weekend, in between visiting the kids, we roughed it on the sandy Black Sea beaches, complete with water that was 79 degrees! Even John went swimming several times and was in the water for 30+ minutes at a time!

That's all for today. With any luck, we'll be able to update again tomorrow!

Love to all, John and Kristen

Off to Belgorod-Dnestrovsky!

2004-08-02T11:22:00.000-06:00

Great News!

Thank you so much for your prayers - we had many, many answered today.

First thing this AM we were able to pick up our FedEx package, get the translations done and attached, notarized and dropped off at the NAC. Originally we were told to come back tomorrow to pick up our permissions to visit the children, but about 5 Kostya got a call on his cell phone saying they were done.

A quick taxi ride to the NAC, picked up the permissions and miraculously got tickets! We are headed out right now. We will meet the kids tomorrow!

Pray for us!

Love, Kristen and John

Market Day

2004-07-31T02:50:00.000-06:00

Today is our last day in Odessa. Tonight we will get on the overnight train and head back to Kiev. Our paperwork arrived in Paris last night, and this morning, showed it was in transit – meaning, on its way to Kiev!

Our overnight train will arrive at 7:39 AM Sunday morning in Kiev. Kostya’s train arrives at 8 AM from his hometown, Gorlovka. We will go to our apartment, shower and then head out to church. We are excited to attend church here, even though it will be entirely in Russian! After church we’ll have the rest of the afternoon to enjoy Kiev, and then Monday morning we will hopefully be able to pick up our paperwork, attach Kostya’s translations, get it notarized and bring it to the NAC. With any luck, we’ll leave the NAC with our permission to visit the children, get train tickets for that night, and head to Belgorod-Dnestrovsky. This town of about 30,000 is a 2-hour bus ride from Odessa. If all of that goes as planned (which we are about batting 0 for luck thus far!), we’ll be able to visit the kids on Tuesday!

First thing this morning we headed out to the largest market in Ukraine, which is on the outskirts of Odessa. It is called 7-Kilometer market. We were there for about 3 hours and barely saw 10% of the market. While our Ukrainian friends say they much prefer our local mall for shopping, John and I would have to disagree. It was busy, hectic & crazy – but the selection, spirit and environment there was something to enjoy! Around the outside of the market, there are stalls to purchase fruit, vegetables, cheese and smoked fish and chicken. The interior of the market is really something to see.

There are rows upon rows of goods for sale – clothing, shoes, tools, curtains, household goods, children’s items, lighting, undergarments, furniture, rugs and more. There was even an aisle complete with wedding supplies – suits, wedding dresses, flowergirl and bridesmaid dresses, and accessories! The aisles are made from shipping containers placed side-by-side, open to the aisle. Each container is decorated as individual stores, complete with wood or linoleum flooring, lights, ceiling fans, and covered awnings. The containers are actually stacked two deep and two high, and many of the fancier “container stores” have, in the back of the container, ladder steps to the top container for employee access.

I took several pictures of the market – it was very difficult to capture the market accurately, but hopefully you can get an idea through these pictures.

This picture was taken while walking down one of the many rows of the market. The walkway is narrow, filled with vendors/distributors walking up and down with large handcarts full of merchandise, shoppers, and also individual salespeople selling drinks, homemade goods, and when it began raining - one-time raincovers!

A shop for the "unmentionables".

A shop just for women's shirts. The displays show each style they have at that particular shop and you ask for your particular size. Actually, usually the salespeople "size you up" and pull out the appropriate one for you.

This was one of many wedding shops. It offered wedding dresses, as well as various accessories for hair, and church decoration.

A traditional Ukrainian wedding accessory. The parents of the bride and groom bring bread and salt (the two words on the towel) to respresent prosperity and health. It is placed on this special towel displayed at the church during the wedding.

We found these traditional Ukrainian scarves at the market and bought some to bring home to friends (we were more thinking for table decorations). Lena and Nina decided to dress me up as a Ukrainian girl.

The back of the beautiful scarf.

So, that's it for today! Hope you enjoy the pictures! Have a great day and God bless!

Picture Day!

2004-07-30T04:45:00.000-06:00

I have decided today to figure out how to post pictures on the web. On our computer at home, I have downloaded a fancy little program that does it for me. Without that program, I am a little lost. However, I figured I have an entire day, with nothing else to do, and I am a reasonably intelligent human being, I should be able to figure this out! So, with any luck, there will be only a few words, but lots of pictures today!

Quite some time ago, I talked about shopping at the outdoor market in Odessa. This picture was taken in the fish market section. All the hanging fish were smoked. John and Vladimir bravely purchased and tasted one of these fish, but were quickly turned off by the blue blood in it! Our favorite memory of the fish market is seeing one lady manning her little stand full of smoked fish, with a fly swatter in hand to keep the bugs off her produce! If I could have taken a picture, I would have, believe me! Also at the market are fresh fish - seeing all the fresh fish laying out on the stands in the hot weather, might just convince you to steer clear of eating fish in Odessa!

This picture was taken in the fruit and vegetable part of the market. Everywhere you look there are people (and this was a weekday!). It was hard to capture the size, busyness and character of the market, so you'll just have to take our word for it!

This is the infamous building that houses the National Adoption Center. I'm not sure what else is found inside this building, but the NAC offices were on the top floor.

I took this picture after we left the NAC for the second time, after requesting a referral to the sibling group we chose (and are still waiting to visit!). John's goofy smile reflects the joy and happiness that were in our hearts after that monumental decision. This archway is the entrance to the NAC door off of the main street.

And here we are at the front door of the NAC. You enter through this door, climb about 4 flights of stairs, and then you see...

This picture/sculpture is on the wall (it is huge) as you come up the steps to the NAC office.

So, we'll see how this works! Off to publish....

Ok, back again. It seems with a little tweaking, I managed to figure it out! So, I will add more pictures. I know all these pictures will make your pages slower to load, but I hope you enjoy them. From now on, now that I know how to post pictures, I'll try to post them with the appropriate journal entry, rather than all at once!

A favorite summer activity for Ukrainians is to head to the beach. Last Sunday we went to Ilechovsk with Lena and Vladimir. The Black Sea was beautiful, the sand beaches were filled with people and the sun was hot! Since John and I had both gotten a lot of sun during the previous two days, we decided to just watch, and not swim.

In downtown Kiev there is a beautiful area called "Independence Square". It has a statue and these beautiful water fountains. Kostya and his son enjoyed the cool water fountains after our appointment at the NAC. This Independence Square was built after Ukraine's independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.

So far, we have ridden on the overnight trains twice. There are little compartments on the train cars. Each compartment holds four people. There are two bottom bunks, and two top bunks. Ideally, Kostya has explained to us, you buy out the entire compartment, so you have it just to yourself. However, in the summer, you are just quite happy when you get tickets! John, Lena and Vladimir in our train compartment on the overnight train from Odessa to Kiev.

John and I in our train compartment, ready to head to Kiev for our NAC appointment.

The children in Ukraine have really caught our attention because they are so cute! I took these two pictures on the Black Sea boat cruise.

As you know from our journal, our hosts have been pleading with us "to rest, to relax, to enjoy!" Honestly, we are relaxed, rested and enjoyed out! Last night, after John asked to please help with dinner, and was told once again "to rest - you have many children very soon and no time to rest, you must rest!" he dramatically plopped himself on the living room floor, claiming he felt like a jellyfish, he was so rested out!

"Resting, relaxing and enjoying" in front of a boring (is there any other kind?!) soccer match on TV!

So, that ends the photo album for the day. Our digital camera has an email picture format which, at the same time it creates a 5 megapixel picture, it creates these small-size email-version pictures for posting. They aren't the best quality, but hopefully they give you a general idea. We forgot to "turn on" the email format until after being in Ukraine for awhile, so some early pictures we can't post because they are too big.

However, from here on out, until we run out of room on our server, we will try to consistently post pictures for you to enjoy.

On one more note, our FedEx is getting close to Paris, so hopefully we will see it here in Kiev on Monday!

Rambling Thoughts and Observations

2004-07-29T06:42:00.000-06:00

With time to spare, and only soccer to watch on TV, I thought I would take some time to write a journal entry that gathers together some thoughts, observations and ideas we’ve gathered from Ukraine thus far.

Clothes and DressIt appears most Ukrainians have two sets of clothes; those they wear around the house, and those they wear out in public. When you are out and about in town, regardless of the day or time, you will notice that people are generally quite dressed up. Women have skirts and blouses, or dresses, with sandals or often heels. Men wear slacks and dress shirts. Even young children are typically dressed up – girls have bows and ribbons in their hair and they are almost always in dresses, and boys also have “nice clothes” on. It doesn’t matter if you are going to church, to the local market to buy tomatoes, or just for a stroll through the park, it seems most Ukrainians put on their nice clothes when they go out in public.

As soon as they get home, however, they immediately change out of their nice clothes, and put on their house clothes. It seems that “house clothes” typically consist of one or two outfits that are worn consistently, everyday.

If you are going to be traveling soon to Ukraine, I would suggest that you take this into consideration, and pack accordingly. I packed several shirts that I could mix and match with pants, capris, skirt, skorts, and jumper I brought with me. Even though the shirts are nicer t-shirts, they are definitely too casual in comparison to most Ukrainians. A while ago, we were able to go shopping, and I purchased a skirt, two blouses and a dress, which have greatly complimented what I brought with me. At the apartment here in Ukraine, I wear a t-shirt and shorts. When we go out, I will wear that same t-shirt, or a blouse, along with a skirt. I haven’t even taken my khaki pants out of the suitcase after being here 2 ½ weeks! I rarely wear the skorts because they are too casual feeling. In actuality, wearing skirts is the coolest thing you can wear – so find a comfortable, cool skirt or two, some matching blouses, a comfy pair of shorts and you should be good!

A note about shoes. We only brought one pair of shoes with us – the ones on our feet. John has sandals, which work well with pants and shorts, and I have black slip-on sandals. Just be sure to bring something comfortable because you will walk a lot! When you are in the house, you will probably go barefoot, or wear slippers, if you choose to bring some. It is warm enough now, I can’t imagine putting hot slippers on my feet during the day, and am quite happy to go barefoot.

Another thought about dress. Even though at times I have felt underdressed, we have never been picked out to be foreigners. In fact, we have had to give many puzzled looks and “I don’t speak Russian” comments to people that have tried to engage us in conversation. Dress is not so much the key to fitting in, as is being quiet, observing and doing as the Ukrainians do!

Water IssuesI remember a lot of grumbling and talk about water issues in Ukraine. This is a little of what we have learned and observed. Hot water is produced in a central location in the town/city, and distributed accordingly. Therefore, when the city decides to not have hot water, you don’t have hot water. It is possible to purchase individual wall-mount water heaters. Our friends, and the apartment we stayed at in Kiev, both had individual hot water heaters. You turn them on before your shower, and have hot water. If your apartment doesn’t have that, you are at the mercy of the city policy on providing hot water.

There have been a few nights here in Odessa when the city has turned off all water in the evenings. This is a water-conservation method. Apparently, when the water level gets to a certain point, water is turned off in the night to build up the quantity again. Here in Odessa, water shortage is an issue. Many of the city fountains and pools (not swimming pools – just decorative pools in the parks) are empty because of the water shortage.

UtilitiesMany, if not most, people in Ukraine, live in 5,6,7-story apartment buildings – many of which were built during Soviet times. Our friends shared with us that sometimes their utilities are turned off because someone else in the apartment building didn’t pay their bill! There are times when you still note the “collective” mentality, for lack of a better phrase.

Bathing
While I’m sure they exist, we haven’t yet seen showers in Ukrainian homes. It seems most have bathtubs with a handheld shower wand. So, in order to bathe, you sit in the tub, and use the shower wand, as there is no wall mount for the wand, nor is there a curtain around the bathtub.

Security
So far, we haven’t had any issues with feeling unsafe in Ukraine. We have been out walking late in the evening, and haven’t even felt unsure about our surroundings. There have been places that we have been extra careful about pick pocketing, but that has been the extent of our concerns. We clearly feel safer here, even on our own, unable to read signs or understand people’s speech, than we do in parts of Spokane or Seattle. Just a note about packing issues again – John didn’t even bring his wallet with him, as we thought that might be a sure target for pickpockets. We brought our money belts and a neck travel wallet that holds our passports, tickets, and small amounts of money.

Something to DoIf you have been following our journey so far, you know we have had a lot of time on our hands. With any luck, you won’t choose a sibling group bigger than your INS approval, and you won’t have quite so much time on your hands! However, be sure to bring something to do. We brought a card game, Yatzhee and Scrabble. We also brought several books to read. Well, our books are read, are games are played, and we are making great headway in reading through the Bible in a month (instead of a year!) and we are wishing we had brought more to do. Start thinking now about what you never have time for at home. Even if it takes up more room in your suitcase, the little extra work to carry it around will be worth it for your sanity’s sake! As we have finished reading our books, we have simply given them to our Ukrainian friends, so we don’t have to carry them home again.

Another thought – if you belong to a church, check with the denomination’s missionary board before you leave to see if there are local missionaries in Ukraine. They would likely love a visit from fellow countrymen, and it would be something else enjoyable to fill your time with.

Getting OrganizedOne of the best things we brought was a spiral bound notebook. Before we left, I wrote all the contact information for our Ukrainian friends and our translator. I also noted our FedEx account number (which we’ve used!), friends’ email addresses, and work phone numbers for John. If anything is important, it is written in our book. This has been extremely handy, particularly as we have made numerous trips to the “international call center” to make arrangements for our paperwork changes. It is just a simple idea, but one that has been very practical.

When you are preparing your little notebook, be sure to include all the contact information for your social worker and/or homestudy agency, local BCIS office, notary, Secretary of State’s office that does the apostilles, and FedEx (or whatever international shipping business you use). We didn’t have these items with us, and while we were able to track them down, it would have been quicker and easier to be able to just look in our notebook.

One more thought, and many of you adoptive parents who are reading this are beyond this point, but when you are doing your homestudy, get approved for the maximum number of children you could ever see yourself accepting. When we did our homestudy, we had heard the recommendation to get approved for one more than what we were thinking. I’m not sure if we would have had our homestudy written for the number it now states, but had we done that, it would have saved us a 8-10 days of boredom, frustration and heartache.

Packing
We would highly recommend using the Packmates bags (or something similar). We bought them through their 800-phone number and just bought their “adoptive parent special” – 15 medium bags for $30. We probably only used half of the bags, so could have easily shared the package with another family.

Using the Packmates, we were able to pack all of our clothes in a small carry-on bag. We checked two large suitcases that were completely filled with donations we were bringing with us. So, on our way home, we will only have a small carry-on, plus two empty suitcases for souvenirs, gifts and items for the children.
In addition, I would hazard a guess that you could find pretty much anything you might need here. While we haven’t seen contact lens solution, we could easily purchase a wide variety of shampoo, conditioner, hair styling items, makeup, lotions (Avon is very popular here!), toothpaste, etc. This isn’t to say – don’t pack any of that stuff. But, maybe just pack a travel size, and when you run out, it will give you something to go do that day!

Well, I just moved over onto the fourth page, so I will close. I realize this wasn’t very exciting for our friends and family to read, but I hope it gave some of you parents waiting to travel to Ukraine some good ideas to think about.

I’m off to post this journal entry, and then check on the status of our FedEx package.

Have a great day!

Still in Ukraine, and Still Waiting

2004-07-29T03:13:00.000-06:00

Is Carbohydrate-Overdose a Suitable Cause of Death???!!
(John’s suggested title for today’s entry)

Yes, we are still here in Ukraine. We tried desperately to fly home for a week, but couldn’t find any tickets. There was only one ticket to be found that was in first/business class for $5000! So, since we couldn’t leave the country, we took it as a pretty good sign that we were supposed to stay here.

We also looked at flying to St. Petersburg to visit for the weekend. It would have been only $45 roundtrip for each of us. But, as it turns out, we need a visa to visit Russia. So, that too was out.

While we were spending time online searching for airline tickets, my mother-in-law was spending her day in Big Sky, Montana desperately trying to find a faster way for our documents to be sent to us. We had arranged to use FedEx, but kept thinking that surely there must be a faster way…we tried to use air cargo with NWA (they don’t accept new shippers after 9/11 terrorist attacks), UPS, send them as government documents….Joanne even was thinking about buying a ticket for Patrick, my brother-in-law, to bring them over himself (no tickets!)!

We ended up using FedEx, and so are now tracking the shipments. They missed the cut-off time in Boise last night, so won’t be sent out until today. The FedEx European office assures us our documents will be delivered the day after they arrive in Europe. And, so now we wait!

And while we wait, our gracious Ukrainians hosts have trouble understanding why we do not enjoy our time of resting and relaxing. They won’t even let us help prepare or clean up from meals, and keep instructing us “You must to relax, to rest, to enjoy”. We have watched more sports in the last few days then we’ve probably seen in a year. It seems sporting events are the one thing that we don’t need to understand the language for on TV. You would know it’s bad if you saw us watching soccer matches like we did yesterday!

That too, brings us to John’s proposed title for today’s entry. If we don’t die of boredom or too much resting and relaxing, then it might well be from Carbohydrate-overdose! We have really enjoyed Ukrainian food, but keep laughing that it would never fit well in today’s low-carb diets at home. Last night for dinner, for example, we had baked potatoes (plain), rolls with butter and cucumber/tomato salad (a staple – we’ve had it every night we’ve been here).

Our plans for this weekend are to go back to Kiev, if we can get tickets. The trains seem to be constantly sold-out, and so we might have to fly (aw shucks!). A hot 10-hour train ride vs. an enjoyable 1-hour flight!! No question!

Thank you so much for your prayers. They have been getting us through. The nights are the worst, as the day of sitting, waiting, resting, relaxing, missing kids, feeling “stuck” compounds on itself. But, we pray the end is in sight, and soon we will be able to visit our children.

We have begun talking about plans for the children again, as it seems like it might really happen. The last few days when we were in such limbo, we haven’t dared to utter the kids’ names, because we didn’t know if it would ever work out to visit them! So, in between soccer matches, games of Scrabble and Yatzhee, and our high-carb meals, we have begun planning bedroom configurations, vehicle needs, schooling ideas, and more!

Bad News from the NAC

2004-07-27T11:49:00.000-06:00

Just when we thought things were looking up, the NAC has now decided to not grant us permission to visit the children until our notarized, apostilled copies arrive from the US. Kostya was at the NAC for over an hour trying to convince them otherwise, with our approval from immigration for the increased number of kids, as well as documentation from the Embassy indicating the increase was based on receiving an appropriate addendum. Apparently, the NAC officers who issue permission to visit children showed him another family’s documents that were in a similar situation as us. They had been approved for 2 children, chosen 3, and were first granted permission to visit their children after all documents had arrived from the US.

So, now we have to wait for FedEx to arrive. It won’t likely be here until Monday or Tuesday, meaning we won’t be able to see the kids until Wednesday or Thursday. Over a week of just waiting, with nothing to do.

We have two thoughts – one – if anyone happens to be flying from Boise to Kiev, they could hand carry the documents – that would save us a couple of days. Or two, that we actually fly home for the week. We could see the kids, celebrate Anabella’s 2nd birthday, get work done on the house and prepare for bringing home the children, and fly back when all the paperwork is done and finally accepted.

We talked to John’s mom tonight, and she suggested we come home as well. Before she suggested it, we had discussed it, but there are several concerns we have…First of all there is the cost involved. Secondly, we will be flying a total of 4 days, with 4 days at home. There is also the challenge of making plane reservations from here in Ukraine – all of the online ticketing sites we typically search won’t issue tickets outside the US. But, maybe it would be worth it.

We don’t know what to do. We have about gone out of our minds over the last 4 days with nothing to do. Looking forward to another 8 days like that hardly seems doable. Kostya has invited us to his home, and while that would be very nice, it still would likely be a very long 8 days.

Please pray that we will know what direction to take. I am leaning towards coming home, but I know a lot of that right now is because I miss my kids and would love to see them….

Unsure how to proceed,

Kristen

Answered Prayers

2004-07-27T02:36:00.000-06:00

Our adoption journey already has been a long litany of answered prayers. It has been a faith-building journey, where we have been forced to come face to face with what we really believe, and what we just say we believe.

We all say God is in control. That God will take care of us. That God will work everything out. That God is trustworthy and faithful. But, for us, we haven’t had to rely on only Him. Sure, there have been times when we turned to Him, but there was still a part we could play. These last couple of days, we have come to the end of ourselves, and forced to make our faith more active and real then ever before. There have been times when there was nothing we could do ourselves – it had to be all God.

And you know what? He is indeed faithful and trustworthy. He has taken care of us. He is working everything out. He is ultimately in control.

When I was crying and missing my kids terribly Saturday night, my in-laws called and we were able to talk to Lillia. When we shared our struggles with paperwork and asked for some volunteers to handle the running around, we not only got volunteers, but also had 3 churches in Moscow, 2 in Kiev, 1 in Georgia and 1 in Florida (that we know about!) praying for us. When we prayed for our social worker, away on vacation, to somehow check messages, she not only checked her email, but immediately sent a wonderful note of encouragement and our homestudy addendum. When we prayed for our local immigration office to process our paperwork quickly, they handled it in one business day, and the cable was waiting this morning at the Embassy.

That is the type of God we serve. That is the type of God that loves us all dearly and draws us near to Him

God Bless you all. Thank you for continued prayers. God truly answers prayers and we are so blessed that you have joined us on this journey. If you haven’t already, please take the time to sign our guestbook (click on guestbook link above). Everytime we get on the internet, the first place we go is the guestbook to see if there are any new entries.

Things are Looking up in Odessa....

2004-07-26T13:56:00.000-06:00

God is indeed faithful. As you know, we had a wonderful response of volunteers, and more importantly, many prayers, from our last journal entry. They have indeed made a difference.

As you know, we had people lined up to handle all the paperwork, but no paperwork to handle! But, when we checked messages this morning, our social worker, away on vacation had checked her email, and immediately written an addendum!

So, now two things need to happen with this paperwork: Immigration needs to revise their official form (I-171H) which states how many children we are allowed to bring into the country, and cable it to the US Embassy in Kiev. We have faxed it, called and left messages, and are praying that it happens quickly! Our prayers are that tomorrow morning when we wake up (it is currently 11 PM Monday night in Odessa), the Embassy will have the cable, as immigration will have processed it today.

The second thing that needs to happen is to have it apostilled in Boise, and FedExed to us in Ukraine. All the details for this happening have been taken care of, and should happen. Thank you so much to Jennifer Hoogsteen who will do all the Moscow running around, and Ron and Susan Seaman who will hand-carry our papers to Boise Wednesday morning.

And so, things are looking up. We know that you are all dying of curiousity about this mysterious sibling group we have only generally been referring to. We will fill you all in on the details after we meet the children, and decide whether to proceed with the adoption. According to their paperwork, it appears they are healthy both emotionally and physically, but we want to meet them and interact with them before making a final decision.

For now, I will share with you that they are in an orphanage in the Odessa region (Odessa is a "Oblast" (state), as well as a city), in a small town of about 30,000 people. Sounds like Moscow! They have been in the orphanage for a relatively short amount of time. They are a strong family unit, as they refuse to be split apart.

Until a later time, that is all we will choose to share. As soon as we feel comfortable, we will share more. If for some reason we have to turn down this referral, it will be very difficult for us emotionally. And for that reason, we have chosen to just keep the specific details about the children private.

As we have in the past, we will conclude with specific prayer requests. I know we have said it before, but you have no idea how much your prayers mean to us. They are literally what are getting us through each day, as we sit around, unable to do anything more than pray and wait and wonder. Please know that God is answering your faithful prayers, as already this journal can attest to. We have no doubts that we will continue to see amazing answered prayers throughout the remainder of our journey here in Ukraine, and when we arrive home with our expanded family.

Our prayer requests are:
* That BCIS immigration office in Yakima quicky processes our paperwork and cables our new I-171H to Kiev today. We have specifically contacted Robert Lyon who was very helpful in getting paperwork quickly processed in the past. Please pray for him specifically.
* That the National Adoption Center allows us to visit the children with just the new I-171H, rather than forcing us to wait for the apostilled addendum.
* Time, patience, clarity and blessings for Jennifer as she completes all the Moscow-paperwork steps on Tuesday.
* Traveling mercies and blessings for Ron and Susan Seaman as they drive to Boise Wednesday AM, and hand-process the paperwork at the Secretary of State's office.
* Speedy travel for our apostilled docments as they are mailed via FedEx to Ukraine!
* Prayers for our translator Kostya, as he interacts with the Embassy and the National Adoption Center on our behalf. He has been a wonderful cheerleader and supportive prayer partner with us throughout each step thus far! Prayers of blessing to for his wife Olga and son Nikita who we had the opportunity to get to know while in Kiev.
* Finally, prayers of blessing on our friends Vladimir and Lena Anderson, who have so wonderfully opened their homes to us. They have allowed us to use their computers, email access, telephone and home as we have tried to deal with all of these challenges.

God Bless!

Love, Kristen and John

Our Kids (An email we received from Joanne about Lillia and Anabella)

2004-07-26T13:20:00.000-06:00

Greetings to all our faithful readers! We have been really missing our kids these last couple of days. As long as we are progressing in our adoption, and feeling like each day is one day closer to coming home, we have been ok. But, since Friday, we have been sitting around, making no progress on the adoption. And so it has made missing Lillia and Anabella that much harder. So, for a change of pace, we decided to include here an email we received today from Joanne (John's mom) about our girls. They seem to be doing just fine (much better than us!).

From Joanne....
Good Morning, at least it is here in Big Sky:

Just read your last posting, how discouraging. As you wrote only God can work things out the way they are intended to be.

We went to Lillia’s favorite store yesterday, Costco, however she did tell us that Home Depot was also her favorite store. We were privileged to have Anabella throw a temper tantrum. It was actually quite hilarious, however it did not get her what she wanted, which was to be carried. She only wanted me to carry her and I can only do that for a short period of time, she is rather heavy. Gramps eventually took her to the truck. She is quite the little character. She is getting a little bit of a cold and is really sleeping a lot.

Nate Bartlett stopped here overnight and Lillia was totally thrilled. She jabbered away to him and he just nodded his head from time to time, as he couldn’t understand a word she was saying. We are doing fine with her speech, most of the time we can both understand her. Lillia helped me bake a BD cake for gramps this morning and now she is outside helping him put the posts on the front porch.

Anabella has discovered a great fun thing to do, feed Nika her food piece by piece. Last night I thought she had done so well with dinner, her plate was totally clean. I was on the phone to my parents and Gramps was watching her, however she had fed what she didn’t want to the dog. She thinks it is quite fun. This morning she started to feed her the cornflakes one by one. From now on Nika will be outside when we eat. Both girls are being really good with the dog and she is being super good with the girls.

John, Dad would like to know what is supposed to be happening on your house, who should be there, etc. We may go over in a couple of weeks and check up on things. We are kind of waiting to see what your plans end up like. Lord willing you will know by the end of the week what is happening and how much longer you will have to be over there.

Well must run and get a few more things done before Anabella wakes up. Have a great day. Love M & D, Lillia and Anabella

Stuck in Odessa (aka A Big Thank You!)

2004-07-26T07:23:00.000-06:00

Thanks to everyone who read and responded to our last journal entry. We so appreciate the prayers and offers to help. We have several people who have volunteered to help, and even someone driving down to Boise Wednesday!

So, God has put all of these people into place, and we are just waiting (not so patiently) for God to work out our homestudy portion of the paperwork problems. The agency director currently is in charge of a large group of Japanese exchange students this week, and is busy with them, and therefore, unable to write our addendum as we originally thought. We are still holding out the hope of getting ahold of our original social worker, although her answering machine indicates she will be unavailable until August 3rd.

So for now, we are hopelessly stuck in Odessa – tired of being tourists, missing our kids, and unsure how to proceed forward. We keep thinking that since God put all the other pieces into place within one day of our asking, that surely the homestudy portion will be forthcoming. At this point, it would definitely have to be a God-thing, because we have done all we can do.

Thank you for your prayers. We ask for specific prayers that either our homestudy addendum gets written so that it will be hand-carried down to Boise as we have arranged, or that our hearts are turned away from this sibling group, and we are emotionally prepared to go back to the National Adoption Center for another appointment to choose other children.

Signing off, bored and extremely frustrated,

Kristen and John

Calling all Moscow and Boise ID Readers!

2004-07-25T06:48:00.000-06:00

Ok guys – we know you are out there! Many of you have chimed on and signed our guestbook (thanks by the way, we love reading your notes you leave for us there!) that you enjoy reading the updates.

We need a Moscow (or Pullman) person and a Boise area person, or better yet, someone flying/driving to Boise this Wednesday.

If you are regular reader of our online journal, you recall that we have “paperwork problems”. We think we are making progress in processing this important paperwork but have some Moscow-based and Boise-based running around that needs to happen. We thought of contacting many of you individually, but know everyone is busy and don’t know what everyone’s summer schedules are this week. If you have time this week for doing some running around, please contact us ASAP!

In general, this is what will need to happen. We should be receiving in our mail, at our house in Moscow, two letters (the addendums to our homestudy). They should be mailed first thing Monday morning from Caldwell up to Moscow, therefore arriving Tuesday afternoon (we’re guessing). So, the Moscow person would need to pick those letters up and get them notarized that same day. Steve Busch at Moscow Title has been extremely helpful in getting all of our items notarized up till now. While the Moscow person is waiting for the mail to arrive, they would need to go to Kinkos, pick up a FedEx envelope and international airbill and address it (we will direct you exactly how to do that). They will also have to get a money order for $20 made out to the Secretary of State (we’ll pay you back when we get home!). And finally, get an envelope ready to mail the notarized letters and FedEx envelope to Boise Secretary of State office.

This is where a Boise person comes into play. At best, we would have someone able to personally bring the notarized letters into the Idaho Secretary of State’s office Wednesday AM. The letters need to have an “apostille” attached to them, and they process walk-in paperwork when you are there. (An “apostille” is basically like a state-level notary – it is something required by international countries.) If no one contacts us about flying or driving to Boise, with time to spend going to the Secretary of State’s office, then we will just have to use the mail….

So, if that is indeed the case, the Moscow person will mail everything to the Secretary of State’s office, and your work is done!

So, in a nutshell, that is it. It shouldn’t take too long, but it will involve some running around, and needs to for sure be done immediately when the letters arrive. If the letters are getting mailed back down to Boise (instead of hand carried), they need to go out in Tuesday afternoon’s mail.

We are trusting in the Internet to bring forth a wonderful volunteer for us (or two!). If you want to help, but can’t dedicate your Tuesday afternoon to doing so, we completely understand. We trust that someone out there can. But, if you can do this, please email me directly, and immediately, at marblefamily@idahovandals.com. I am writing this journal entry at 3:40 PM, Sunday afternoon in Odessa. It is 5:40 AM Sunday morning in Moscow, and 6:40 AM in Boise. As soon as I get a volunteer to help us out, I will post a new journal entry indicating as such.

Thank you so much for your help! With love, thanks and a lot of hope we’ll hearing from someone soon,

Kristen and John

P.S. Not to issue any sort of bribe (!!), but anyone who helps will be the kids' honorary Godparents!!!

Venturing out on our Own

2004-07-24T08:58:00.000-06:00

With an entire Saturday ahead of us, John and I decided to explore downtown Odessa on our own. We took the bus downtown and enjoyed several hours of walking around. In the garden area, close to the Opera House of Odessa, there is a little art-market where local artisans display their handwork (embroidery) and artistic skills (painting). While clearly for “tourists”, we enjoyed the opportunity to venture out on our own and look at the beautiful items. We have been interested in purchasing some artwork from this area, thinking that would be a special memory to bring home with us. However, with unknown costs ahead of us, including possibly bringing home more children than what we had planned (budgeted) for, we decided to wait. We did manage to purchase some ice cream and drinks, and I even understood when the lady said how much our purchase added up to! When it came time to come home, we found the bus stop, waited for the correct bus, bought our tickets and even managed to get out at the right stop! Not bad for two small-towners who can’t read Russian or Ukrainian!
John and I spent most of the time sitting in the shaded park talking. This has been the first real opportunity for us to spend time together – just the two of us. We enjoyed talking through the upcoming details and decisions that await us when we can finally visit these children. Although we can hardly remember their pictures from the referral sheets (I only recall the youngest child’s picture – John can’t remember any of them), and we only have their names and birthdates, we seem to becoming attached to them. Our talks centered around “when” they come home, not “if”. We have tried to be careful not to become too attached, as we haven’t even yet met them, and might still not accept this referral. It is indeed difficult to remain unattached, however. We trust God, and that He will direct our hearts and minds to the correct thoughts and feelings. If these are not our children, but rather for someone else, than we trust God will show us, and prepare us for that.

Paperwork Hurdles

2004-07-24T08:57:00.000-06:00

Some good news today on the topic of our struggles with paperwork. As I wrote before, we need an addendum written to our homestudy, upping the number of children we are approved for. However, our social worker is out of town until August 5th. This morning when we awoke, we had an email from the agency director, Kimberly, indicating she would, in this circumstance, write the addendum herself.
The change will cost us quite dearly price-wise, but at this point, we don’t really have much of a choice. We are thankful that it appears we will be able to overcome this first (and rather major) hurdle.
So, thank you for praying. Please continue to pray that Kimberly will be able to quickly complete the various steps necessary to prepare this addendum (notary, apostille, BCIS approval, fedex mailing….). We are sincerely hoping the Embassy in Kiev will receive our new BCIS approval Tuesday morning (Kiev time), and the NAC will accept it as enough for us to visit the children. Kostya is concerned they may want the notarized, apostilled, translated copy of the addendum in-hand, but will try his best to have them accept just the new BCIS form. It appears at this point, the Embassy will also try to help us with the NAC as well!

Birthdays, Picnics and Cold War Bombers

2004-07-24T08:56:00.000-06:00

Friday, July 23 was Kostya’s son’s 4th birthday. Kostya’s wife Olga and son Nikita came to Kiev so they could celebrate the special birthday together as a family. We had the privilege of joining them in the celebration.
Early Friday morning, Nikita waited patiently for us to wake up, for you see, his birthday presents were hidden somewhere in our room! He found them quickly, and was transformed into Spiderman, complete with mask, gloves, sword and cape. He also enjoyed new Nemo, Tarzan and Buzz Lightyear books. We knew it was going to be Nikita’s birthday, and so brought small gifts for him as well. He seemed excited about the children’s Christian story and song CD, and the Legos (big kid kind) we brought!
After Nikita had spent some time enjoying his new treasures, we all left for a pond/lake on the outskirts of Kiev. A driver picked us up, stopped by a grocery store on the way to pick up picnic goodies, and then brought us to the pond. It was a natural pond, complete with the finest, softest sand beach and bottom you have ever seen. The pond was quite warm – warm enough that even John went in! We spread out our blankets, enjoyed a nice picnic, went swimming, played a game of Scrabble and just enjoyed ourselves. We were there for about 4 hours. The weather was gorgeous – warm and sunny! It was indeed a special day for making new friends and forming special memories.
It was while we were at the pond that Kostya received the “problem” phone call from the NAC. Being surrounded by wonderfully supportive friends made the hurdle seem doable, and since it was the middle of the night at home, we couldn’t do anything but enjoy ourselves anyway!
This trip has been a real opportunity to just “let go, and let God!” We’ve heard that so many times in the past, but this is the first opportunity when we have had no choice but to do that 100%! Take riding in a car – no seatbelts, and the lane lines, traffic signs and rules are “mere suggestions” taken into consideration at times! Imagine if everyone in a large city drove like New York taxi drivers. Add to that swarms of pedestrian traffic, non-stop public transportation and beat-up, pothole-ridden streets, and you might have a general idea of what it is like! An interesting experience to say the least!
When we arrived back at the apartment we had a nice rest, dinner, and began working on solving our paperwork problems, without much luck, I might add. A driver picked us up at the apartment and brought us out to the airport.
The children we chose to visit are in the Odessa region (not in Odessa city). When Kostya tried to get train tickets for us to Odessa, all the trains were full. Apparently, many Ukrainians try to get to Odessa region during the summer for holidays, in order to enjoy the Black Sea. Kostya asked us if we would be willing to fly to Odessa; he was concerned we might not, as he indicated many Americans don’t like to fly within Ukraine. We said “sure!”.
After a trip to a travel agency, we had tickets in hand to fly from Kiev to Odessa – a short 50-minute flight (about $50 each, one-way – but Kostya paid for this, as part of our all-inclusive package). We could hardly complain about a 50-minute flight, compared with a long, stuffy 10-hour train ride!
And so, Friday evening we were off to the airport to check in for our flight. We checked 3 bags, and carried on 2. Security at the airport was minimal at best – the bags went through x-ray machines, but the operator was over away from the monitoring screen talking to someone else! We received our boarding passes, and proceeded into a waiting room for our flight.
About 25 minutes before our flight was to leave, they announced general boarding for the flight (in English, Russian and Ukrainian) – no one moved. Five minutes later, they announced they were closing boarding for our flight. We moved, simply because we didn’t want to miss the flight, but we were the only ones. We proceeded to the exit door, but it was locked. We tried to sneak peeks at others’ boarding passes to see if this entire room of people was maybe waiting for another flight (they weren’t – they were all headed to Odessa like us). We figured the plane wouldn’t take off without all of us, so just decided to wait. Finally, about 15 minutes before our departure time (5 minutes after they indicated they were closing boarding time!), 3 employees came over to the door. One unlocked the door, while the others watched. We all loaded onto a large bus that brought us across the airstrip to our parked airplane.
And then came the largest surprise of the Flying-in-Ukraine experience. The plane we were to fly on was a converted Cold War bomber – complete with a glass-nosed front (for guiding the bombs, John informed me!). We were happy to find the interior of the plane had been pleasantly converted to a “traditional” passenger plane! I do have to say, although I was a little nervous about flying on a Ukrainian plane, hearing it was a converted military plane, I actually felt better. I rationalized that surely the construction details would have been closely guarded and perfected for a military plane, so we must be in good hands.
The Aerosvit Airlines flight into Odessa was a wonderful flight. It was smooth and actually quite enjoyable. I count that all because of your prayers – a few weeks ago I would have never imagined agreeing to, nonetheless enjoying, a Ukrainian flight! We were served cute little lunch boxes – complete with candies, cake, trail mix, juice box and a cup for coffee or tea that they served straight from the teakettle! (Coffee here is only instant – we have never seen brewed coffee.)
After landing in Odessa, we descended the steps and boarded another bus that took us to the entrance gates of the airport. We exited the gates and began looking for Vladimir, all the while wondering where and when we’d pick up our luggage. As we looked around, we noticed a large majority of people waiting inside the gated area, and assumed (correctly!) they were waiting for luggage. So, we simply walked back into the gated area, and waited along with them. After a short time, a small luggage truck pulled up to the gate, and we unloaded our bags directly from the truck. The entire process was very laid back and comfortable.
Considering Odessa is the second largest city in Ukraine, the airport was closer in size to Lewiston, Idaho. In fact, after everyone left the terminal area of the airport, they locked the gates and turned off the lights. Apparently, we were the last flight in or out that night! For those of you traveling to Ukraine to adopt in the near future, we would highly recommend flying if you wish for quick, reasonable and quite delightful travel.

A day at the NAC

2004-07-23T15:23:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was the big day - our first real day of adoption business in Ukraine. Our train from Odessa arrived in Kiev at 8:32 AM and we met Kostya for the first time. He took us to the apartment, where we had the opportunity to shower and get ready for our appointment, which was scheduled for 11:30.

The NAC was a short walk from our appointment (short by Ukrainian standards, anyways - we walk everywhere, and a 20 minute walk is nothing!). We arrived about 10:45, just to be early, in case anyone didn't show, or they were running ahead of time.

We waited outside the actual office, on the wide stair landing. There were several chairs, and when we first arrived, there were two other couples also waiting. The one couple, Eric and Shannon, a lovely pair from Florida we met on the our Amsterdam-Kiev flight, was back to finalize their referral. Their appointment had been the morning before. However, the NAC workers couldn't get ahold of the orphanage director for the children they had chosen, so they had returned to get final information to make a decision about going to visit these children (which they did decide to do). The other couple was not from the US - if I had to guess I would say France, but I'm not sure. While we were waiting, another US couple and a couple from Spain arrived as well.

During the waiting time, Kostya kept going in and out of the office several times to check on the progress of appointments. At right about 11:25 we were invited inside, walked down the hallway to the meeting room of the NAC. We waited only long enough to look at the various pictures of children families had adopted in previous years and months.

We then were invited into the room. It was a large size room, with three desks. There was a NAC counselor sitting at each desk. We sat at the desk closest to the window, and as we sat down, the counselor asked if we minded having the AC turned on! Apparently, she told us, some Ukrainians don't care for AC, so she always asks! We were quite happy to have the AC on throughout the entire appointment.

Our counselor was a very nice young woman. I would guess that she was probably 25 years old and was extremely personable. She started out by mentioning that we were so young (looking!), and then asked if we were brother and sister. We made our introductions - we showed her our photo album (some of the key pages), listed some of the things we enjoy doing as a family, and then said we hoped to adopt a sibling group of 2-3 children. She asked about the ages of the children, and we explained that we were hoping to find a sibling group that would keep the age gap small between Lillia and Anabella.

After a few moments of thought, she told us we could start by looking at the sibling books (brought 2 over), the young child book (to see if any of them had siblings, but hadn't been switched to the sibling book). She also asked if we had two dossiers, and when she found out we did, she said we could start with siblings, but then also possibly look at two unrelated if we didn't find what we were looking for. She seemed to go out of her way to be helpful and kind and really assisted us in looking for children. She kept going between her desk and the cabinet of binders to pull out other pages. She also asked the other counselors if they had any thoughts on what group might fit our choices.

We were at the NAC looking at binders for two hours, and had to leave because it was past her lunch break. When at one point, we were feeling stressed about making a decision, she said "take your time, look". Only at the very end, when it was past her lunch break time, did we feel some sense of urgency. She did tell us however, that we could come back after she was back from lunch.

Looking through the binders of children was very difficult. We had a very broad range of children that we had in mind, so it was difficult to narrow down the sibling groups. There are many children that are within the 8-10 age range. Two groups of children we were initially interested in, were both vacationing in Spain for the summer, and wouldn't be back until September.

It was amazing to us how much our counselor knew about so many of the children. She would just see the picture, and know information about them right away. She also kept thinking of specific children that might fit our specifications, and would work to find them in the various binders.

We went to lunch with our pile narrowed down, but not a real sense of who to go visit. Lunch was a long affair, as our minds were burdened with a real decision. We really thought the children that God intends for our family would "jump out" at us, and the two groups that seemed to do that were in Spain! We were in a real quandry as to what to do, and I'm sure we were very bad company as we muddled through everything we had just experienced. We weren't very prepared (although I'm not sure how you could be) for the difficulty in choosing children from the binders. There are pages after pages, and the pictures begin blurring together. While you don't want to rashly make a decision, a decision must indeed be made.

As we left the NAC for lunch, we had two different sibling groups we had somewhat narrowed it down to. The counselors were going to call the orphanage directors to get more current information for us, when the returned from lunch. As we talked, however, another group that we had actually been told about first from Eric and Shannon, then from Eric and Shannon's faciltator, then from our counselor, then from another counselor, kept coming back to mind. This group was also from Odessa region, which we had discussed several months ago might be nice, as many of our Ukrainian friends are from Odessa. So, we made a decision as we returned to the NAC. Kostya went inside to tell the counselor, and the weight lifted immediately off our shoulders. It was all I could do not to cry, and once again, the smiles and joy returned when we felt our decision was right.

Today, however, Kostya got a phone call. There was a problem at the NAC with our paperwork. Our homestudy only approves us for a certain number of children, our the sibling group is one more than that. They will not give us permission to even visit the children until they have an amended homestudy and corrected BCIS (immigration) form. We waited until late this afternoon to call our social worker. She has been amenable and wonderful through the entire process, we thought surely it would be no problem...

Her answering machine said she was out of town until August 5th.

We called the director's office of the agency who wrote our homestudy. No answer.

So, now we are at a crossroads. We cannot visit the children until we have the update. Do we request another appointment and look through the binders, thinking that these children weren't intended for our family - after all, aren't all these problems a sign? Or, are these roadblocks simply a test for us, and we are stay strong and persevere? We have already, in some regards, become attached to these children. We have their names and birthdates in our book, and have talked about them so much already. Letting go of them even now seems difficult...

And, so, we close this journal entry requesting your prayers. Please pray that we overcome this paperwork hurdle quickly. Of, if these children are not the ones God intends for us to bring home, pray that God removes the love and attachment that are already forming for them.

Thank you! God bless!

With love, Kristen and John

Experiencing Odessa

2004-07-21T12:06:00.000-06:00

What a fun day! We spent the day at the local market, the Privoz, - you name it, we saw it! We went to the fish market, meat market, cheese and milk market, vegetable and fruit market, and then of course the everything-else-market! This large-scale farmer's market is open 7 days a week from early in the morning until late at night.

I had the opportunity to purchase a dress, watch, skirt and 2 shirts at the market. Most of the time Vladimir was with me, helping with numbers and negotiating. Buying the dress was quite the experience - there were all these little stalls, each manned by a different person. When you find something you are interested in, you simply go to the back of the stall, they hang or hold a piece of clothing over the front of the stall, and you try on clothes. They then hold the mirror for you to see yourself! It was so much fun to see the spirit and "real life" of Odessa.

Our friends had "warned" us about the market experience, saying it was loud, busy and just not a great place - John and I smiled throughout the whole experience, and couldn't get enough (except maybe seeing them skin a cow head on the table at the meat market!).

In just a few minutes we are off to the train station to board our overnight train to Kiev. This will be our first time since landing in Kiev that we will be on our own in Ukraine. Of course, it will only be for a short time, as our translator/facilitator Kostya will meet us at 8:30 AM when we arrive in Kiev. Tomorrow morning after we arrive, we head to our appointment at the NAC. Please pray that we will be shown our children that God has chosen for our family. Pray also that we will clearly know which children He intends for us. I am not sure when again we will be able to access the internet, but will as soon as possible!

Talk to you soon, and perhaps, we will have news about our new, larger family!

John kicked out of church!

2004-07-20T13:09:00.000-06:00

Enjoying a cruise on the Black Sea.

A Ukrainian flag flying off our ship.

And so we begin a new chapter in our short lives – that’s right, John getting kicked out of church! Last night our friends took us to a local Russian Orthodox monastery. We had to prepare ahead of time – no shorts, skirts below the knee, heads covered with scarves for the women…As we were looking around, the outskirts of the church were surrounded by monks dressed in long black robes, many with equally long beards. The reverence and opulence of the area was something to see, although the worship itself seemed to be more of icons, monks and legalistic rules rather than Jesus, Himself.

As we were looking around, a monk came up quite hastily to John and yanked John’s hands out of his pockets. He also quickly indicated John needed to turn around, as he disrespectfully had his backside to an icon. Of course, as our friends pointed out, it was impossible to stand anywhere in that church, without having one’s back to some icon, as they were all over! John turning around didn’t seem to satisfy this monk, so we were thrown out of the church and yelled at by him. Vladimir informed the monk he shouldn’t be so rude and a few other choice remarks, including he would never be back to the church again.

A couple interesting points from this experience:

First of all, he thought John and I were Russian, and therefore became even more inflamed when John didn’t respond and speak to him. He wouldn’t believe that we weren’t Russian – so I guess we don’t stand out too badly as Americans!
When our friends visited our local Christian Life Center church in Moscow (Assembly of God denomination), they were shocked at the joy, laughter, smiles, fellowshipping and relaxed attitudes of all the worshippers and pastors. They told us that something like that would never happen in their churches at home. Now we see the difference! Instead of enjoying the freedom found in Christ, they are sadly stuck in rules, formality and somberness. While the Orthodox sense of awe and fear of God might indeed part of healthy worship, they seem to miss the joy and happiness as well.
This experience was the first time I have ever really felt afraid in a church – my heart was pounding and I was quite nervous over the entire situation. It is too bad that so many people equate this type of strict rules and authoritative power with church and God. While local missionaries may struggle initially by not having the gold-laden opulence found in orthodoxy, the simple joy found in Christ must indeed have its own power. Our hosts, having experienced true worship longed to be a part of that, and kept asking and wondering “why” the rules, formality and somberness were required.
Coincidence or not, I’m not sure; but this event happened just when I was praying for the monks, the church, the worshippers and the Orthodox denomination that the true Spirit of God would fill the place. So, pray along with us for the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches that the Truth will be known, celebrated and worshipped.

After our church experience, we enjoyed ice cream in an outdoor café – complete with live music and dancing. Our hosts hardly seemed impressed by the local folk music, although we enjoyed the experience!

We spent today touring around the historical downtown Odessa. We were able to visit the insides of two palaces. The first, now basically abandoned but for children’s activities and occasional performances, belonged to the Governor of Odessa. One room was of most interest – the oval room. This was the office of the Governor, and where citizens wanting to travel to other countries must come visit and gain permission. Apparently, and now we want to check our history books at home, the White House oval office was modeled after the Odessa oval office. Having seen the Odessa one, and numerous pictures of the US one – they are indeed identical. And, with the Odessa oval office built in the 1700s, the timing certainly seems to be correct!

We have felt so fortunate that be able to see so many beautiful places. Both palaces that we were toured through were done so by women that appeared to be “door guards”. When we first entered, we were quite closely scrutinized and observed. For whatever reason, the four of us gained their favor and were given the full tour throughout the place, including being allowed to sit on various pieces of furniture and to take pictures. At the governor’s palace, the woman actually locked the front door, disallowing any other visitors to come in, while she showed us around. Relationships are indeed quite important here.

While we were out, we stopped by one of numerous McDonalds around Odessa and had a Coke. One of Vladimir’s university students was working there, and thus prompted an interesting discussion. Apparently, university students receive a stipend every month of 45 Grivnyas – approximately $8 (the current exchange rate we saw today was 5.2 Grivnyas equals $1). Because this isn’t enough to live, most students are required to get a job, and working at McDonalds is one of the best you can get. Apparently, it is quite competitive to be hired at McDonalds, and the pay is excellent, by Ukrainian standards. Employees must work 6 hours a day, 7 days a week, and earn upwards of 500 Grivnyas a month. Vladimir shared with us that this salary is even higher than associate professors earn at a university!

It has been so interesting to hear our Ukrainian friends explain things, as their history affects so much. So many things are described as “before revolution” or “after revolution”, or “in Soviet times”. In Kiev, for example, the Metro was built 100m underground (that is quite the escalator down!). It was built by Soviets to be safe from nuclear war. Street names have been changed, monuments taken down, put back up, destroyed. Churches have been destroyed and are now under reconstruction. History is alive and meaningful in Ukraine – without understanding it, you lose perspective and meaning of so much you see here.

Back again for a quick update....we just came back from touring the beautiful seaport of Odessa. We took a boat cruise around the port for about an hour. It was indeed beautiful, and if we can upload a picture, you might also be able to see! We sadly didn't see any dolphins, but are told that they are quite a common sight at times.

Greetings from Odessa

2004-07-19T10:07:00.000-06:00

I am writing today from Odessa. We are out our friend's apartment in Odessa and already I am worrying about forgetting some details of our time here. I'll try to get the highlights and my thoughts noted here before I forget anymore.
Sunday morning we said a tearful goodbye to my wonderful host family in Amsterdam. Although the time with them was short, it was still a special time to renew friendships and build memories. We strongly encouraged them it was their turn to come visit, so perhaps in the next years we will soon be able to welcome them to our home.
Checking in for our flight to Kiev we were told they didn't have any more seats for us, but that was their problem, not ours. Turns out, we got placed into business class, and what an experience that was! There were 2 1/2 rows of business class seats in the plane, and thank goodness we were sitting in the last row! It gave us the chance to watch and figure out exactly what and how we were supposed to do things. Having never flown in first/business class, it was a definite eye-opening experience! I remember when we were younger, my sister and I would often joke about the airline staff closing the curtain between economy and first class - that somehow the first class passengers didn't want to be seen. Well, we found out the real reason for the curtain on our flight! We figured if the economy class saw what all we got as far as service and food, there would be a serious mutiny on the plane. While the people at the back of the plane (where we should have been) got pretzels and drinks, we were served a meal that you would expect to receive at the nicest 4-star restaurant - complete with china, real silverware, and even warm washcloths before the meal.
Arriving in Kiev was an emotional experience. As the plane came under the cloud cover, and we could see the landscape, I was overcome with emotion and joy. Here was the land that our future children will come from. What a beautiful, green area it seemed to be. I fought back tears as we landed, for the first time, in the country we will forever be linked to.
Immigration control and customs went so smoothly. Before we landed, the airline staff passed out immigration control cards - they have almost identical blue and yellow sections to be filled out with name, birthdate, citizenship, passport number, visa number and type, flight number and our signature. The top blue section was for arrival information, and the bottom yellow half was departure information. We simply filled out both sections and had those in hand as we departed the plane. Proceeding to passport control, we had to walk up some stairs. There was no other way to go, so getting lost was basically impossible (since we got off as one of the first, we didn't even have a large crowd to follow, but it was still very easy). We then stood in line for passport control, proceeding one at a time to a little booth. You give your passport and the completed immigration control card to the worker. It appeared they were entering the information into computers from each card. The lady who processed my card asked me a question (in English) that I couldn't hear - something about Kiev. I sort of nodded, and she was satisfied, returned my passport and immigration control card (with top blue section torn off, leaving the yellow-departure section), and waved me through. It took perhaps 2 minutes, and the majority of the time was spent with her entering my information. John proceeded just as quickly through as well.
After walking through passport control, you enter the baggage claim area. There are computer monitors in the passport control area that list each flight that has recently arrived, and which carousel your bags arrive on. The monitors switch between English and Ukrainian, and therefore it is quite simple to find which carousel your bags are on. Also in the baggage claim area are little kiosks with customs declaration forms. These are 8 1/2 by 11 pieces of paper - with one side to be filled out, and the second side with simple instructions. There were forms in English, German, Ukrainian and French. While the first kiosk didn't have any more English forms, walking further down the baggage claim area, I found additional English ones without a problem.
We filled out the customs forms - they were very simple. By the mere fact that we had over $1000 cash with us, we were directed towards the red lanes. On the forms, you designate how much exactly you have in each currency with you. Since our cash was divided between John and myself in our money belts, and I didn't know how much each of us had individually, John took off his money belt and gave it to me. That way, I completed my customs form listing all of our money, and John actually had nothing to declare and could have gone through the green lane. We picked up our luggage and went towards the exit. There is a small baggage x-ray machine you put everything on, pick it up on the other end, and then wait for a customs officer that is open. While John should have gone through the green lane, he had suitcases that they directed him to put on the x-ray machine, so ended up in the red lanes. I went up to the desk, gave the man my passport, immigration control card and customs declaration. He looked it over and asked me if I had any gifts with me. I answered yes, and told him I had some gifts that were worth maybe $50. He smiled, wrote something down, gave me back everything and I was free to go. John was right behind me, and he must have known that we were together because he simply waved John through - didn't even look at his form! It was so simple! And, this was with bringing in two huge suitcases of donations that we had picked up from garage sales, clearance sales and donations from our local hospital.
Interestingly enough, as we came up the stairs from the plane, before entering the immigration/passport control area, there were several people standing with signs of people's names. We assumed they were the ones who had elected to use the VIP service. As we were leaving the customs area, the people who had chosen the VIP service were still waiting. The total area of customs and baggage claim was very small - even smaller than the Spokane, Washington airport - hardly the size you would expect from a main airport of a country.
Leaving the customs area, there was hardly a walking path to get through, as there were throngs of people waiting! We quickly spotted our friend Vladimir, and next to him, our driver, Alexander (Sasha) with a "Marble" sign in hand. Kostya had set up a driver to transfer us from the airport to the train station, even though we wouldn't meet up with him until before our NAC appointment on the 22nd. Once we were past the waiting crowds we quickly and easy walked out of the airport and to our waiting van. We knew it had to be a good sign when the van that had been arranged for us, was the type we were looking at and admiring in Amsterdam - we thought it will be a perfect new vehicle for our growing family!
The only problem we "realized" as we were leaving the airport was when John gave me his passport back (I have been the keeper of the documents). He had thrown away his immigration control card (with the yellow part that must be surrendered when we depart) - he had thought it was garbage. But, he had thrown it away in the customs area, and we couldn't get back in, so have to simply hope we won't need it too much to leave! John just figures he might have to stay here for longer.
The drive into Kiev took about 30-40 minutes. We passed some beautiful buildings, over a nice bridge and saw some of the sights. Our driver had a friend with him and she explained various places to us in excellent English. As we arrived at the train station, we arranged with Sasha to have him keep our two large donation suitcases, as we wouldn't need them in Odessa. Vladimir did all the talking and arranging with him in Russian, so we are hoping there is no problem and we see our suitcases again Thursday morning! Vladimir, John and I went into the train station, and dropped of our extra luggage at a baggage holding area. Vladimir suggested that we not leave our valuables at the baggage area, but rather take them with us.
With only a camera and backpack with us, we then took off to see the sights. We took the metro to downtown and walked along Kreshzatik Street - a very wide main street that was completely closed to traffic, as it is every Sunday. The mass of people everywhere was incredible. There was live music, people with animals, people selling wares along the sidewalk, people walking, running, playing, strolling, laughing, sitting, watching...After looking at Independence Square, we walked up the hill on the right bank of the Dnieper River to a beautiful park. A wedding party was there taking pictures. The view of the city was breathtaking. While there was much more to see, we had an invitation for dinner at 6 PM, and so we were once again off to the metro station.
Our dinner invitation was from Chad and Mandy Smith - missionaries in Ukraine from the US. They lived on the left bank of the river, and the metro took us within a 15-minute walk of their apartment. The Smith family is cousins of our friends Sam and Jen Hoogsteen, and we were graciously welcomed into their home. They had 25 month old twins, and seeing them made me miss our little ones at home a little, but thinking about the strenous trip thus far, didn't at all question our decision to leave them home with the grandparents! We had a pleasant time and delicious dinner with them and finally left at 9:30. It was interesting to hear of their work in Ukraine, including working at the first orphanage managed by a church. Many of the children at that orphange are not available for adoption, as they are street-kids, run-aways; what an outreach and mission it is though! At 42 beds, they are completely full, and praying for possible expansion. Even though they cannot house any more students, they still actively go into the streets to spend time with, and feed, these children. Chad shared with us how much of a problem there is with street children in Ukraine, or at least, in Kiev.
As we returned from the Smith's, the metro was packed. There was hardly an extra inch of standing room! Arriving back at the railway station, we picked up our bags, and boarded the overnight train to Odessa. In a 4-person sleeping compartment, we took up 3 of those beds. The 4th bed was taken by a woman in her 50's. She was quite gracious, and kept trying to communicate with me in Russian. Sadly, I never did really understand her, even with her repeating the same words over again! She "actively" shared her bag of cherries with me (they were quite tart - perhaps pie cherries). As I finished (or not even quite) chewing one cherry, she pointed at the bag and told me to take another. If I wasn't eating them fast enough, she took to giving them directly to me!
The train was somewhat noisy, rocked and rolled, but we did fall asleep and slept quite well. In fact, I didn't wake up until 9 AM, just about 50 minutes short of arriving in Odessa. Each sleeping bed was provided with a blanket, pillow and mattress pad. As the train employee came around after departing, he collected the tickets and money for sheets. Shortly thereafter, he delivered our sheet set to us - complete in sealed plastic bag. In the bag was a pillow case, two flat sheets (one to cover the mattress pad, one for putting over us), and a washcloth. The toilet was right next to our compartment, and while it wouldn't rate at the Sheraton, it wasn't too far different from many bathrooms we use when we are camping in the US. If perhaps there are those that have never stayed in anything but 4-star hotels, then perhaps it would be a shock to your system. We would suggest a quick camping trip to a state or federal campground to prepare yourself. Certainly the pit toilets of those campgrounds are far worse than this toilet!
And so now, we are in Odessa. After arriving at the train station, we took a small bus to the stop nearest our friends apartment. We have had a quiet day, resting, getting settled, showering, and now it is about dinner time. Our friends are preparing a delicious dinner for us, and we just met Vladimir's mother-in-law, who lives in the same building, just one floor below us. After dinner, we will be heading to the Black Sea - a short 15 minute walk from Vladimir's apartment.
Landing at Kiev has not been the only emotional time throughout our first days in Ukraine. Various sights will bring on the tears and emotion of what we are here for. For as many people as we have seen, there have not been a lot of children. But, there certainly have been some. They are always well-dressed, often with bows in their hair and dressed in fancy dresses, or sporty and cute boy's clothes.
If you are still with us through this very long post, we ask for your prayers for us over the next several days. Our appointment at the NAC is coming up, and also think of Eric and Shannon, a wonderful couple from Florida we met on the flight from Amsterdam. Their appointment is Wednesday the 21st. They too, are hoping for siblings. They don't have any children themselves, so pray for them as they head to the NAC. Our time difference between here and Moscow (Pacific time) is only 10 hours. It used to be 11, and so it seems that when we "sprung forward" for daylight savings, they didn't. So, we will be at the NAC on Thursday around 9 AM. Please pray for us from around 7 PM until 11 PM Pacific time Wednesday night!
Signing off for now from Odessa! Dinner is over, and we off to the Black Sea!

Hello from Amsterdam

2004-07-17T08:20:00.000-06:00

Greetings from Holland! We are currently in Amsterdam, after flying from Lewiston to Seattle and then into Amsterdam. The flights were great - the only complaint was that we couldn't sleep very much because they kept feeding us! We were given 3 meals, drinks the entire way, an additional pretzel snack and watched two movies, plus a news-style show.

Our flight to Amsterdam was 9 hours long and took us "over the top" - we flew over the southern tip of Greenland and Iceland.

After landing in Amsterdam, we passed through passport control (just looked at our passports), collected our luggage and were out to greet my host family. There was no customs, or anything!

We drove from the city to the Olympic Stadium (1928 Olympics), parked and took the Strassenbahn (street car) into downtown. The weather was beautiful and we were able to walk around and see several churches, the Ann Frank house, beautiful gardens and more. We also took an hour long boat tour through the canals of Amsterdam.

Now we are at Dennis' apartment (my host sister Britta's boyfriend) which is about an hour from Amsterdam. It is a classical Dutch house - very narrow with steep staircase. It wouldn't even come close to meeting our building standards for stairs, but what character we miss!

We will fly to Kiev tomorrow morning, leaving at 11:15. We will arrive in Kiev at 3 PM, meet our friend Volodymyr, tour around the city for awhile, have dinner with our friends' cousins who serve as missionaries in Kiev, and then get on the overnight train to Odessa.

Not sure when we will be able to check in again, but will as soon as possible to update everyone! We are enjoying our little 10th anniversary vacation before our adoption begins. I think it is starting to sink in that our adoption is finally happening. On the Seattle-Amsterdam trip, we sat next to the cutest little 2-year-old girl. She was so well behaved! I kept thinking Anabella wouldn't ever have done that well, and how difficult it must be to travel long distances with children. Then, in the next thought, I realized that we might be doing that with up to 3 children within the next month!

The nervous and excited butterflies are definitely growing stronger as our NAC appointment approaches.

We are off to get some sleep. Both John and I pulled all-nighters (the last time we did that was college!) getting ready to leave on Thursday night. So, it is now Saturday morning according to our time clocks, and we have been up, with only minimal cat naps since 5 AM Thursday!

Love and greetings to all!

Kristen and John

2004-07-16T02:09:00.000-06:00

Ice-cream cake wishes for a great trip! Bud zdorov!

2004-07-16T02:08:00.000-06:00

Enjoying a farewell family dinner. Clockwise from the bottom - Lillia, Joanne (mom-in-law), Anabella, Wendy, Kendi, Richard (dad-in-law), David (dad), John and Patricia (mom).

2004-07-16T02:06:00.000-06:00

Lillia helping Mommy pack for Ukraine!

A final farewell...

2004-07-16T01:50:00.000-06:00

It is early Friday morning and we are putting the final touches on everything around the house and at the office. The bags are mostly packed, the girls are packed to go spend time with NeeNee and Pops and then Nana and Gramps, and the lists are made for everyone who will hold down the fort at home.

Our local daily newspaper featured our adoption story on the front page of the newspaper today! What's fun is they will possibly include weekly updates on the progress of our adoption as we go through the process - so welcome to all the local readers from Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington areas!

For a final farewell dinner, we had both sets of parents, the kids and our two college students, as well as our Ukrainian friends. My mom picked up a icecream cake from Baskin Robbins and had them write "Bud Zdorov" in Ukrainian. My mom searched on the internet, and it was supposed to mean "goodbye", but our friends said it really meant "good health"! Either way, a wonderful send-off and a special time to say goodbye.

Putting the girls to bed tonight was a bittersweet time - probably the last time it will just be the four of us. As John read the story to the girls, I kept trying to imagine him reading nighttime stories to our bigger family. We have been so blessed already with our family, and it is amazing to think that we will again be blessed with new children. As we prayed together before the kids went to bed, Anabella (who really doesn't talk much at all) folded her hands and began praying. We caught the words "Dear Jesus", "Lillia", "Momma" and "Amen". She went on and on quite awhile, and when she stopped, John started praying - turns out she wasn't done yet! So, she continued. Even after Lillia went in to lay down on her bed to be tucked in, Anabella still stood there and kept praying - hands folded, reverant voice (to know Anabella, you know this is definitely out of character!). It was touching, and I have no doubt God got her message!

Next time we journal we will be somewhere on the way. Hopefully we will be able to say hi from Amsterdam and then in Odessa. Pray that our luggage doesn't have a problem being too heavy. We have two large suitcases to check - all filled with wonderful donations. We are bringing about 30 pairs of shoes, 20 pairs of shorts, 20 shirts, 20 winter hats, toys and scrubs. Thank you to all the nurses at Gritman hospital that donated the scrubs for the orphanage workers! Since most of our suitcases are filled with donations, our clothes and personal items are all in our two little carry-ons! On the way home, we will definitely be traveling light! Even though it will be a lot to lug around the country, we are happy to do it because we are thrilled to be able to bless the children and workers at our children's orphanage.

Final preparations are waiting my attention and so I must close for tonight. If you wish to comment or ask us questions while we are on our trip, feel free to sign the guestbook!

Good night and see you in Europe!

Kristen

A Borscht and Pierogi send-off!

2004-07-12T22:05:00.000-06:00

Our friends Olga and Evgeny from Lvov, Ukraine gave us a wonderful early-send-off dinner. Evgeny cooked all day and we were treated to Borscht, Pierogis and Crepes (can't remember, and can't even begin to spell the Russian or Ukrainian word). It was a special dinner - a great way to spend one of our last meals before leaving Friday morning! If all Ukrainian food is as yummy as tonight's dinner, we might have to go shopping for bigger clothes while we are in Ukraine!

2004-07-11T23:21:00.000-06:00

Anabella and Lillia - Our two little dolls, who are quite excited about Mommy and Daddy leaving for Ukraine to bring them home a brother and/or sister!

Our last Sunday in church

2004-07-11T22:57:00.000-06:00

What a special day it was today. Our new friend, Brian, joined us at church. We were called forward and everyone prayed for us, our trip, our children and the entire process. The support and love we have felt from our church has been tremendous. They told us today they want to have a welcoming reception when we get home for our entire family!

The Pastor spoke today on Pray-Prepare-Pursue, and while he was specifically talking about our upcoming church building project, I couldn't help but think it had also to do with our adoption. Here we are, just a few short days away from flying to Kiev. I have had adoption on my heart for so long, I can't remember when it wasn't there. John and I have been praying about this for 4 years. And, we have been preparing for an entire year. And now, it is time for us to pursue. God has been faithful in every step of the process so far, and we have no doubt He will continue to walk with us, and bless our family as we pursue His plans and purposes.

I have to share an awesome testimony of how God has been at work providing for our adoption. Just 3 short weeks ago, we were very nervous about the financial aspect of our adoption. We were still short $9800. That amount of money seemed overwhelming and we were getting to the point that if it didn't come in, we wouldn't be able to go. The next week, we were blessed with a sizable, anonymous donation. What a blessing that was! It was completely unexpected and we had no idea until we opened our mail one day.

So, last week, our remaining money to be raised was about $4800. John is a realtor. He has been working some friends, who are also adopting, to find them a house. So far, nothing seemed to fit their wishes, or when a house did seem to fit, it was already sold. Late last week, they looked at a house that already had an offer on the table. Our friends loved the house, made an offer, had it accepted, and the sale will close this Wednesday! Sales simply don't close this quickly. They are usually 30 days out, at least. And, the God-part of the whole thing, John's commission, which hadn't been figured into our budget, meets almost to the penny, our remaining needs!

Isn't God awesome? We can all be part of God's adopted family. Adoption is His idea, and what a blessing it has been already to be called to this ministry with our family!

God bless you all!

Kristen

P.S. One more note on answered prayer. Last Thursday we were despairing over finishing our addition before we left. The drywall was hung, but we didn't have anyone to finish it. Late Thursday night we met with some drywallers who agreed to work this weekend on the project. Well, God once again answered prayers! They finished the taping and texturing this morning, and John is upstairs painting right now!

2004-07-08T21:37:00.000-06:00

Lillia and Anabella enjoying their cousin's 3rd birthday party!

2004-07-08T21:29:00.000-06:00

A family picture from Easter, albeit not a very good one of anybody! Anabella is sitting on my lap, and Lillia is sitting on John's lap.

2004-07-08T21:27:00.000-06:00

John pouring concrete for pantry/laundry room.

Whirlwind day

2004-07-08T21:01:00.000-06:00

What a crazy day. As we finished eating dinner, both John and I couldn't hardly get up to get the kids headed to bed. It seemed like everything happened at 70 miles an hour all day!

John poured the concrete for the foundation today. It went well, and it looks like we might actually really have a laundry room after all! Before today it was just a big hole in the ground, that meant we couldn't walk to the backyard. We also had sheet rockers here tonight who will work this weekend, and finish by Sunday all our taping and texturing! That means we have 4 days to paint, run flooring and trim, and maybe even gets beds set up before we leave.

Speaking of leaving, I finally got our tickets purchased today. When I called NWA/KLM to make reservations, one leg of the trip, the important leg (Amsterdam to Kiev) was full. So, we are flying out on July 16th instead. That's ok - it is one more day to work on the addition before we leave!

It was quite the hassle to get our tickets paid for. We transferred money into checking for the tickets, and tried to use our debit cards. But, it kept getting denied because the charge was higher than the daily allowed use for the debit card. Once we got that all figured out and fixed, then it was no problem! Our tickets are being sent out 2nd-day-air with FedEx - thanks NWA!

So, our itinerary is as follows:

July 16th fly out of Lewiston at 8:20 AM, arrive Seattle 9:33 AM, depart Seattle for Amsterdam at 1:15 PM

July 17th arrive in Amsterdam at 7:50 AM. My German host family (from way back when I was a junior in high school in 1988!) will be meeting us in Amsterdam. We will spend the entire day with them and then leave the next morning.

July 18th depart Amsterdam at 11:15 AM for Kiev, arrive Kiev 3:00 PM. Once we arrive in Kiev, we will meet with Vladimir, a good friend from Odessa. We will sightsee in Kiev for a few hours, and then take the overnight train to Odessa.

July 19th arrive in Odessa at 9:50 AM. We will then spend the rest of the 19th, 20th and the 21st with Vladimir, Lena and Nina in the Odessa region. On the night of the 21st, we will board the train again for Kiev...

July 22nd arrive in Kiev at 8:32 AM, get picked up by Konstantin (Kostya), our facilitator/translator and head to the National Adoption Center for our appointment! From there on out, it will be a surprise and adventure as to what will happen!

Keep checking for updates and be sure to sign our Guestbook to let us know you're checking up on us!

Love and thanks to all for your support, love and encouragement through our adoption adventures!

Kristen

2 weeks and counting!

2004-07-01T14:28:00.000-06:00

Here it is July 1st and we leave for Ukraine two weeks from today! This is so hard to believe - we have been working on this adoption for over a year now. We first contacted Kostya, our wonderful facilitator on June 28, 2003!

Our "To Do" list is huge still! We are in the middle of adding onto our house and right now it is only at the plumbing and electrical stage. Hopefully the drywaller will start next week! We were hoping that everything would be completed before we left, but I'm not so sure that will happen now.

I put in an "order" at our local back for them to hold back new, clean, crisp bills. It is so great to work with a local bank - the teller actually asked today about our adoption and when we were leaving! So, it was really easy to bring up the fact that we needed a lot of new bills.

Anabella, our little 2-year-old, (or she will be on August 5th when we're gone!) has decided it is time to potty train herself. She keeps taking her diaper off and going and sitting on the potty. She actually went in it yesterday! Just in time for us to leave - oh well, maybe her grandparents will get her completely trained by the time we get home from Ukraine!

I'm off to get our letter that we want to send out to family and friends in the mail. But, I wanted to get a post up here before we sent that out! 14 days and counting...

Kristen