Look What We Found!

Ok, now that we have your attention, we are not adopting a baby! This is our friend Lori's baby Leo! I have to say he is one awesome baby. Unfortunately, Lori and Leo will be leaving tomorrow and headed back to the States. The Director refused to sign our papers and everyone elses again today and it does not look like he will do so before the 10 day time period. Lori has two other young childrten at home so she is flying back to Michigan and then returning once she and her husband Todd get a court date. We are waiting it out, hoping the director signs our papers in the next few days. Due to the delays, it appears we will be here longer than we had hoped. The director has 10 business days from last Thursday to sign our papers approving the adoption. Once he signs, your Court date gets set within the next 10 days after that. The court date is where the local Judge asks some questions of the mom and dad and child about their intent to adopt. Once he approves the adoption, there is another 10 day day waiting period (calander days) where you can have no contact with the child. This gives either side the opportunity to change their minds and is when Judi and I planned to come home. After the expiration of the 10 days, I will fly back to the Ukraine alone to pick up Vova and take him home. The final process takes about 8-10 days. We had hoped the Director would sign the first day (which they almost always do) but there have been some problems with this Director (which I will not go into) which have resulted in the delays.

Judi at the outdoor market (needed a paragraph break). We are losing our other traveling companion Jason Bolden, who has completed his adoption of his beautiful 12 year old daughter Geniia. They also leave for the States tomorrow. We will really miss Jason. I really enjoyed sitting down with him at the end of the day, sharing a cold one, and bitchin about everything involving the adoption process. It was awesome and made the frusterations bearable. We hope to look him and his wife Miranda up in the future when this is all over. God Speed my friend. We will miss you. Congratulations!

So Judi and I are on our own. We will wait however long it takes. Why? For Vova and kids like these: Vova II (I call him Crazy Vova), Dima and Yuri. At the end of the day, we are just plain worn out by all the kids. But it sure is a great feeling! We continue to try to find a way to get Suzzanne adopted by someone.

She is such a great kid. So loving and thoughtful. Unlimited potential. She has taken a liking to Judi and I. She gave Judi a flower when we arrived on the playground today. We wish we could adopt her, but unfortunately, it just is not in the cards for a number of reasons. There are some other plans in the works, but they have to remain just plans for now.

Judi playing with Suzzanne. My last photo is of a little boy named Vitalyi, who is Volari's younger brother (our orphan translator mentioned in earlier post). It was his birthday yesterday, and Jason bought him a skateboard.

For the past 2 days, Vitalyi has been riding that skateboard while his friends push him around, hoping that he will let them ride it for a little bit. Today, Vova was training for his upcoming boxing match, so we did not see much of him. His coach came up to me today and said (the best that I can tell) that the championship will be held during some festival on May 1, and invited us to attend. We accepted. Then again, he could have been inviting us to a Ukrainian folk dance festival and I would not be the wiser. I guess we will find out on May 1. Keep the prayers coming and pray that the Director sign our papers asap. Thanks and much love, Jake and Judi