Heartbreaking News

Well everything was going pretty good. Jolynn, Brianna, Caleb, and Reece went back to Wisconsin after court. Kathren has attached to everyone. She kisses and hugs us all. She loves lala ( baby). We had court and our 10 day waiting period was up on Thursday August 21st. We got our papers from court and were off to get our birth certificate. It is quite a process. We had to go from Berdanske to Zaphoriah to Pology to Marispol back to Zaphoriah and back to Berdanske. It is 2 hours between towns. It was to do with where she was born and where her original birth certificate made and where it needs to be registered at. The region is closed on Monday August 25th for their independence day. Here is the bad news. We need to get Kathren a passport and the Ukraine has started a new passport system. The Ukrainian people need to get new passports. They use their passports like we use our drivers license. They are way behind on making passports and now they have closed the factory because they are going to move it. It is in Kiev currently. I don't where they plan on moving it. They plan on reopening it on September 3rd. I have had experience with them to know what they say and what they do are not necessarily the same thing. There is no guarantee. If they do open on the 3rd, I don't know how long it will take to get the passport. They are currently saying 3 to 10 days. Jim and Haliey are probably coming home on August 29th without Kathren. Unless we know for sure we can get a passport early to next week. Haliey needs to start school and Jim needs to get back to school. If they come back without her, we are hoping that the lady helping with the adoption can get the passport and bring her to Kiev so Jim will just need to do the physical and the embassy and be on their way back. Maybe he can fly out on a Sat. get there Sun. do the embassy and physical on Monday and be on their way home on Tues. and be back to work on Wed. Please pray that we get a passport soon so our family can finally be all together. There are some old passports you can get next day, but they are not legal and they are very hard to get. We are praying for a miracle.

Meeting our daughter

Well we finally found the internet to get you all up to speed. We had a good flight and all the kids traveled well. We got to Keiv on Saturday about 2:00. We had a very nice apartment in Keiv. We took the kids to see some of the main interests in Keiv like the underground mall and the nice parks and markets. We ate a McDonald's the first night. It didn't go too well. Haliey wanted a cheeseburger with just ketchup. She got a bun with cheese and ketchup, pickles, onions, and mustard on it. Jim didn't get anything in the first order. Then he ordered again and got an all ice coke. We found a market and I cooked after that. We did eat at Fridays before leaving on the train for Berdyansky.



The train ride went well. Jim, I, Caleb, and Reece in one car, and Brianna, Haliey, and Irena (our translator) in the next. We had to change trains in Zaphoriahia. We got here at 3:00 on Wednesday. We had to do paperwork before we could go to see Katerina. It is a little different process here. Partly do to being in a different region, partly do to her being older and in a boarding school, and partly because things change here all the time. We finally got to see her on Thursday about 3:00. When they told her I was going to be her mamma, she came right to me. I thought she would be shy. Not so! We went and got the kids and came back to see her again. She gets excited to see us and comes running. We see her everyday from 9:00 to noon and again from 4:00 to 6:00. She loves everyone. Of course the baby is a big hit. She also really likes Haliey and sits on her lap alot. Everyday she runs to meet us when we come and hugs a different person each time. She loves to run and squeel just like Caleb. They both run and play. We brought her bubbles which she loved and Brianna gave her a big stuffed Minnie Mouse.



It looks like we are hoping to get court a week from Tuesday which would be August 12th. It is summer here too and a lot of people are on vacation. Our translator is good for hunting people down and getting them to do things on their time off. Our judge is on vacation and she is looking for a different judge so we can get out of here as soon as possible.



Our apartment is small but close to the orphanage so we don't have to take the bus. It is close to the sea also. Jim, Brianna, Haliey, and Caleb went swimming in the sea on Friday. They loved it. We are no where close to the internet or the grocery store. We will try to update when we can. This is a town of 300,000, which they think is small so there is not access to the internet like in Keiv or Zaphoriah