Getting Closer....

Dearest Family and Friends,

Here's our update in a nutshell. We spoke to our facilitator, Yuri, yesterday. He gave Lamar and I a list of new documents we needed to collect and send immediately to Ukraine. Yesterday we scurried about collecting signatures and notaries for these documents and then traveled to Richmond to have them all Apostilled. This essentially is a process where you are notarizing the notary for international documents. We sent the package Fedex in the last pick up of the evening. We did NOT think we would get all of it done in one day and were thrilled to finish hopefully our last paper chase state side.

Once the red hen lands on the purple shed and the chief reads the smoke signal (once Yuri receives our documents in Ukraine and translates them to Ukrainian), he will present them one last time to the SDA. We are slated for a September 3rd (of this year!) appointment date to "pick" a child/ren. That means we will fly out of here on August 31....one month from today!

This date will not be confirmed and set in stone until they receive our paperwork, but Yuri thinks there is little to no chance of this date changing. We are being reserved with our celebrating. I'm very fond of answers written in stone. Once we have that, Lamar and I will crack open the bottle of champagne we have been saving for a VERY long time. Yuri tells us we should know probably sometime next week. (Yeah- more waiting!)

In the meantime, the boys and I plan on driving down to FL for a couple of weeks to visit our families. We are very excited about this vacation and happy we didn't have to cancel it. I will also be taking a Physical Therapy course while I'm there to keep my license current.

We will let you know when we receive a final invitation...

Love ya'll,

Kris and boys

Still Waiting....

We REALLY thought we would get the call last night. We have Uncle Dennis and Aunt Cory visiting with us and we were hoping to celebrate with them. We have champagne chilling in the refrigerator and the boys have special Popsicles they will be able to have no matter what time it is we get the call. The boys came in and out of our bedroom all night asking if we got "The Call". This morning they are moping about because they are so disappointed it didn't happen. This waiting is tough on all of us. Last night I slept (on and off) with the phone in my hand. We are right in the window of our expectant call. This painful waiting is very similar to when I waited for my water to rupture with both boys when I was pregnant. You just don't know when it will happen. (The only difference is, you know you are starting off with a newborn. It's weird having no idea what to "expect".)

The good news is we are staying busy. Today we are taking Uncle Dennis and Aunt Cory to the Air and Space Museum. I am extremely happy for this pleasant distraction, because if they weren't here I would be sitting and staring at the phone all day willing it to ring.

Thanks to all for your returned emails and comments on the blog. I look forward to sharing the word with you sometime within the next 4-5 days.

God bless you all,

Kristina

We got the first call!

Monday morning, July 20, 2009, at 5 a.m., we received a call from our facilitator in the Ukraine, Yuri. He sounded very happy about the appointment he had in Kiev to present our dossier. He said there was a 99% chance we will be accepted. We'll take that!

The next step is waiting 7-14 days for "The Call". This call from Yuri will be with an invitation for us to travel into Ukraine to adopt a child or two. We have been waiting for this call for almost 20 months now. We can hardly wait! He told us to be prepared for an August or September travel date. This is finally becoming very real to us...

I know we have called upon you very often during this long journey to pray for us, but now, more than ever, we call upon our Prayer Warriors.

We look forward to keeping you updated through this blog and hearing anything you may have to share.

Love to all,

Kris