We are done for now here in Kiev. We are going to fly to Simperfol this evening and be in region tomorrow; we hope to then meet the children. This region isn't an easy one for foreign adoption. They never waive the 10 days and passports take awhile. We'll see if we have inet access once we are in region.
We also wanted to say thanks for all the comments and suggestions, they truly are appreciated.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Appointment Time
19Oct2008
12 Hours and Counting
Just under 12 hours till our appointment at the SDA. Only those that have been here know how this feels. The realization keeps peeking in its head every now and then. For Virginia, think the big moment will come during the appointment when we actually will meet our children on paper (today at the SDA). For me, it’s been sneaking in at various times, ie just as we were taxing down the runway, I became overpowered by good emotions. Though I’ve known all along that this was going to happen, it’s taken a long time and sometime despair rears hi ugly head. Now, there is no despair, no question as to if our kids are here. FYI, it’s now only 2 hours and counting; I fell asleep at the keyboard last night when I started this update.
We spent the day wandering old Kiev. This is a beautiful town with lots of old, ornate buildings. We finally walked through the underground mall so I could look for an adapter for our computer. It’s just another mall, just very high priced by Ukraine standards. I’m sure that will be our last mall visit till we have our children, then very limited with them if we do go. We walked past the presidents residence, Chimera house (see pictures when I can post them) and then down to the Dnipro river. It was a leisurely day.
They close the street down in front of Independence Square on the weekends for various events. We were walking along and Irina pointed out a large bronze horse and asked if I was going to get a picture while on it. I asked her twice if I would get arrested and she said no, so up I climbed onto the statue for a picture. She didn’t think that I was serious and that I would actually climb up there. It did draw a number of chuckles from the crowd. I wasn’t too worried because you could see where quite a few people had actually been up there before.
As I mentioned before, we mostly eat at these Ukrainian cafeteria style places and we’ve been trying nearly everything. We’ve enjoyed most of what we’ve tried with few exceptions. The price is always right as well. We’ve been eating out 2 meals a day and it’s costing us about $12US per meal. And, of course, my eyes are always larger than my stomach and I’ve been eating way too much but enjoying all the new flavors. For those liking American fare, there are lots of McDonalds around. TGIF’s is right in Independence Square and they have a Papa John’s pizza in the food court of the mall.
We met the other couple that is trying to get out of here. We hope their passport comes today so they can finish the process. We had a wonderful time with them. We took their adorable little boy down to a park by the river and let him play while we talked up a storm. It’s always a pleasure to finally meet the people that you’ve been in communication with. We hope they have a quick and safe return to home.
20Oct2008
I gotta stop this now so I can get ready for our appointment.
Were back from our appointment and we made a selection of siblings from the Crimea region that we are going to visit. I won’t say much so we don’t jinx the process, but we feel good. We were shown several sets of siblings, most were healthy and older. The gal helping us in the SDA was very nice and helpful. Though I’ve read lots of blogs on the process, I was surprised by the process. I expected that they would have pulled several files of children and we would have selected from those. Instead, we got there and explained what we were looking for and she went through the books pulling files as we talked. We liked the first set she showed us but wanted to look at more. It seemed that she continued to show us files until our hour was running out and then we had to pick from those that were pulled. We selected the first set of siblings we were shown. This is just an observation on our process and it may be different for many families.
We may be leaving either tomorrow (Tuesday) evening or Wednesday morning for region. We’ll then spend some time with the children before the final decision is made. We’ll give more information once we know that the process is going to go through.
We found out that the orphanage is in a village. We don’t know yet whether we’ll be staying there or in a nearby city and drive back and forth each day. What this means is that we may not have internet access for periods of time. As it is, we probably won’t have access after today for a couple of days so don’t think we fallen off the face of Ukraine. We’ll update as soon as we can. We’ll be writing each day to track the events and then post all we have when we can.
My apologies for the possible lack of updating. I know when I was following other families during their travels, I was always waiting for their updates. I won’t post pictures of the kids until after the court date; at least that’s my intention.
Virginia wants to add that if you have problems sleeping on pillows other than your own, bring your own. She sleeps with a tempurpedic pillow at home and is having problems with the apartment pillows. Be prepared to do lots of walking. High heels are definitely the norm, but can be quite treacherous on the old cobblestone streets.
We spent the day today seeing some sites of sites of the city again. We visited one of the large churches here. Quite magnificent!! We took the underground and metro trains around town. The underground is quite deep and quite crowded. We also took some busses topside which weren’t nearly as crowded as the trains. The underground (subway) is quite clean as is Kiev at large. Overall, I’m quite impressed with Kiev and would like to spend more time here as a tourist. The driving is pretty fast for a city, but not as bad as I thought it would be. They don’t like to stop for pedestrians, but will when push comes to shove and you walk in front of them.
I now need some time to format the pictures for posting so I’m signing off for now. We’ll catch as catch can.
Some of our pictures can be viewed here:
http://www.pbase.com/higgmeister/adoption
We were hoping to check email from here but can't. We'll keep trying from another location. They won't let Vista systems connect in this cafe.
12 Hours and Counting
Just under 12 hours till our appointment at the SDA. Only those that have been here know how this feels. The realization keeps peeking in its head every now and then. For Virginia, think the big moment will come during the appointment when we actually will meet our children on paper (today at the SDA). For me, it’s been sneaking in at various times, ie just as we were taxing down the runway, I became overpowered by good emotions. Though I’ve known all along that this was going to happen, it’s taken a long time and sometime despair rears hi ugly head. Now, there is no despair, no question as to if our kids are here. FYI, it’s now only 2 hours and counting; I fell asleep at the keyboard last night when I started this update.
We spent the day wandering old Kiev. This is a beautiful town with lots of old, ornate buildings. We finally walked through the underground mall so I could look for an adapter for our computer. It’s just another mall, just very high priced by Ukraine standards. I’m sure that will be our last mall visit till we have our children, then very limited with them if we do go. We walked past the presidents residence, Chimera house (see pictures when I can post them) and then down to the Dnipro river. It was a leisurely day.
They close the street down in front of Independence Square on the weekends for various events. We were walking along and Irina pointed out a large bronze horse and asked if I was going to get a picture while on it. I asked her twice if I would get arrested and she said no, so up I climbed onto the statue for a picture. She didn’t think that I was serious and that I would actually climb up there. It did draw a number of chuckles from the crowd. I wasn’t too worried because you could see where quite a few people had actually been up there before.
As I mentioned before, we mostly eat at these Ukrainian cafeteria style places and we’ve been trying nearly everything. We’ve enjoyed most of what we’ve tried with few exceptions. The price is always right as well. We’ve been eating out 2 meals a day and it’s costing us about $12US per meal. And, of course, my eyes are always larger than my stomach and I’ve been eating way too much but enjoying all the new flavors. For those liking American fare, there are lots of McDonalds around. TGIF’s is right in Independence Square and they have a Papa John’s pizza in the food court of the mall.
We met the other couple that is trying to get out of here. We hope their passport comes today so they can finish the process. We had a wonderful time with them. We took their adorable little boy down to a park by the river and let him play while we talked up a storm. It’s always a pleasure to finally meet the people that you’ve been in communication with. We hope they have a quick and safe return to home.
20Oct2008
I gotta stop this now so I can get ready for our appointment.
Were back from our appointment and we made a selection of siblings from the Crimea region that we are going to visit. I won’t say much so we don’t jinx the process, but we feel good. We were shown several sets of siblings, most were healthy and older. The gal helping us in the SDA was very nice and helpful. Though I’ve read lots of blogs on the process, I was surprised by the process. I expected that they would have pulled several files of children and we would have selected from those. Instead, we got there and explained what we were looking for and she went through the books pulling files as we talked. We liked the first set she showed us but wanted to look at more. It seemed that she continued to show us files until our hour was running out and then we had to pick from those that were pulled. We selected the first set of siblings we were shown. This is just an observation on our process and it may be different for many families.
We may be leaving either tomorrow (Tuesday) evening or Wednesday morning for region. We’ll then spend some time with the children before the final decision is made. We’ll give more information once we know that the process is going to go through.
We found out that the orphanage is in a village. We don’t know yet whether we’ll be staying there or in a nearby city and drive back and forth each day. What this means is that we may not have internet access for periods of time. As it is, we probably won’t have access after today for a couple of days so don’t think we fallen off the face of Ukraine. We’ll update as soon as we can. We’ll be writing each day to track the events and then post all we have when we can.
My apologies for the possible lack of updating. I know when I was following other families during their travels, I was always waiting for their updates. I won’t post pictures of the kids until after the court date; at least that’s my intention.
Virginia wants to add that if you have problems sleeping on pillows other than your own, bring your own. She sleeps with a tempurpedic pillow at home and is having problems with the apartment pillows. Be prepared to do lots of walking. High heels are definitely the norm, but can be quite treacherous on the old cobblestone streets.
We spent the day today seeing some sites of sites of the city again. We visited one of the large churches here. Quite magnificent!! We took the underground and metro trains around town. The underground is quite deep and quite crowded. We also took some busses topside which weren’t nearly as crowded as the trains. The underground (subway) is quite clean as is Kiev at large. Overall, I’m quite impressed with Kiev and would like to spend more time here as a tourist. The driving is pretty fast for a city, but not as bad as I thought it would be. They don’t like to stop for pedestrians, but will when push comes to shove and you walk in front of them.
I now need some time to format the pictures for posting so I’m signing off for now. We’ll catch as catch can.
Some of our pictures can be viewed here:
http://www.pbase.com/higgmeister/adoption
We were hoping to check email from here but can't. We'll keep trying from another location. They won't let Vista systems connect in this cafe.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
First Impressions
18Oct2008
We are here!!!!
We don’t have any internet connectivity at our apartment so we'll be posting these from an Internet cafe. I’m not sure how I’m going to get photos into the blog, but I’ll do what I can to get you access to them.
Can you believe we were late for our flight. We arrived at JFK 3 hours early because we had to check out of our room by 1pm. We were working on our Russian in the food court and decided to get to the gate about 50 minutes before takeoff. We were thinking that boarding would be about Ѕ hours before takeoff but we were wrong. When we got to the gate, it was nearly deserted and they rushed us onto the plane. We finally got off the ground 45 minutes late, but not due to us leaving the gate early. The flight itinerary said it was a 10.5 hour flight and the pilot said it was only an 8 hour flight. We got to Kiev 1 hour early so no worries. FYI, we flew Delta.
Customs note for those waiting to travel: The limit for undeclared cash is now 10,000 Euros, not US dollars.
Anatoliy (our facilitator) and Irina (translator) met us at the airport and brought us to our apartment. There’s a convention in town so many of the apartments were already occupied. We’re in a studio apartment but we have a kitchen, washing machine and microwave. The price was quite reasonable for being several blocks from Independence square (Moose, google earth it).
We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon getting the layout of downtown Kiev. Anatoliy stopped by the SDA and found out our appointment is at 10am on Monday (YEAH!!!!). (For family, Monday morning is an ideal time for the appointment because new children become available). We had breakfast at a cafeteria style Ukraine restaurant. Yum-Yum. I can tell borscht is going to be a regular with me because I really like the stuff. Even Virginia enjoyed the borscht which she didn’t like at our hometown Moscow Deli. Then again, this was much better (not just accounting for the location). OK, I went on too much about the food, but it’s nearly always about the food.
Irina and us then spent a few hours walking to Independence Square, the underground mall and showed us a few sights. We walked in a large circle to do a little shopping. I brought a heavy jacket which is too warm for Kiev right now so I needed to pick up a lightweight jacket. It seems my lack of a jacket on a rather cool, overcast day was making our hosts a bit cold. Good news for us is that Irina will be with us throughout the journey. Both she and Anatoliy are very hospitable and we’re glad we have them both.
Since I didn’t think to bring my camera on our shopping trip, I’ll be a shutterbug tomorrow. We’re going to meet another couple that we’ve been in contact with as they process out. We’ll make more observations of Kiev when we have some pictures to go with it. This is already a bit long since we can’t even post it till tomorrow (Sunday) so I’ll sign off for now. Just imagine that this was just a quick update. Wait till I actually have something important to say…
We are here!!!!
We don’t have any internet connectivity at our apartment so we'll be posting these from an Internet cafe. I’m not sure how I’m going to get photos into the blog, but I’ll do what I can to get you access to them.
Can you believe we were late for our flight. We arrived at JFK 3 hours early because we had to check out of our room by 1pm. We were working on our Russian in the food court and decided to get to the gate about 50 minutes before takeoff. We were thinking that boarding would be about Ѕ hours before takeoff but we were wrong. When we got to the gate, it was nearly deserted and they rushed us onto the plane. We finally got off the ground 45 minutes late, but not due to us leaving the gate early. The flight itinerary said it was a 10.5 hour flight and the pilot said it was only an 8 hour flight. We got to Kiev 1 hour early so no worries. FYI, we flew Delta.
Customs note for those waiting to travel: The limit for undeclared cash is now 10,000 Euros, not US dollars.
Anatoliy (our facilitator) and Irina (translator) met us at the airport and brought us to our apartment. There’s a convention in town so many of the apartments were already occupied. We’re in a studio apartment but we have a kitchen, washing machine and microwave. The price was quite reasonable for being several blocks from Independence square (Moose, google earth it).
We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon getting the layout of downtown Kiev. Anatoliy stopped by the SDA and found out our appointment is at 10am on Monday (YEAH!!!!). (For family, Monday morning is an ideal time for the appointment because new children become available). We had breakfast at a cafeteria style Ukraine restaurant. Yum-Yum. I can tell borscht is going to be a regular with me because I really like the stuff. Even Virginia enjoyed the borscht which she didn’t like at our hometown Moscow Deli. Then again, this was much better (not just accounting for the location). OK, I went on too much about the food, but it’s nearly always about the food.
Irina and us then spent a few hours walking to Independence Square, the underground mall and showed us a few sights. We walked in a large circle to do a little shopping. I brought a heavy jacket which is too warm for Kiev right now so I needed to pick up a lightweight jacket. It seems my lack of a jacket on a rather cool, overcast day was making our hosts a bit cold. Good news for us is that Irina will be with us throughout the journey. Both she and Anatoliy are very hospitable and we’re glad we have them both.
Since I didn’t think to bring my camera on our shopping trip, I’ll be a shutterbug tomorrow. We’re going to meet another couple that we’ve been in contact with as they process out. We’ll make more observations of Kiev when we have some pictures to go with it. This is already a bit long since we can’t even post it till tomorrow (Sunday) so I’ll sign off for now. Just imagine that this was just a quick update. Wait till I actually have something important to say…
Friday, October 17, 2008
On our way :)
Just a note for new readers. Here begins our travels to adopt our two children awaiting us in Ukraine. The previous portion of our blog is geared more towards pre-adoptive parents and contains our journey just to get to this part.
Well, our first segment of the trip was uneventful. We arrived in NYC at 11pm, baggage carousel was broken down for a spell and we finally got to our hotel at 1am. Two very tired people, even this morning.
There’s no time for any sightseeing and we even got a late checkout so we could rest a bit longer. Rest wouldn’t be so critical, but we didn’t get to bed till after 4am with only a few hours sleep before we had to be up and ready to travel. Yawn!!!
OK, so there isn’t much to report at this stage. I have to say we weren’t impressed with JFK. It took us awhile for Virginia to figure out where we needed to be for catching the hotel shuttle. We’re not looking forward to bringing two tired children as well as a couple of tired adults through here again, but that’s what we’ll do.
We take off today on a 4:20 flight from JFK to Kiev and will arrive Kiev at 9:05 Saturday morning. We are not going to use the VIP service because that would have run us $130 and figured well just hoof it. Our facilitator and an interpreter will meet us at the airport, from there we really don’t know what to expect. They’ll get us into an apartment, hopefully by Independence Square so we can do some shopping.
We did take others advice about packing light…well, kind of. Our necessities take up a carryon, small suitcase and light garment bag. We have a large, heavy suitcase filled with kid’s cloths (thanks Claudia) and toys. Luckily, most this stuff will stay in Ukraine at the orphanage.
Again, we hope to update the blog daily, but that will depend on our Internet access.
Cheers All.
Thanks Sis, Sis and Moose for helping us get ready.
Well, our first segment of the trip was uneventful. We arrived in NYC at 11pm, baggage carousel was broken down for a spell and we finally got to our hotel at 1am. Two very tired people, even this morning.
There’s no time for any sightseeing and we even got a late checkout so we could rest a bit longer. Rest wouldn’t be so critical, but we didn’t get to bed till after 4am with only a few hours sleep before we had to be up and ready to travel. Yawn!!!
OK, so there isn’t much to report at this stage. I have to say we weren’t impressed with JFK. It took us awhile for Virginia to figure out where we needed to be for catching the hotel shuttle. We’re not looking forward to bringing two tired children as well as a couple of tired adults through here again, but that’s what we’ll do.
We take off today on a 4:20 flight from JFK to Kiev and will arrive Kiev at 9:05 Saturday morning. We are not going to use the VIP service because that would have run us $130 and figured well just hoof it. Our facilitator and an interpreter will meet us at the airport, from there we really don’t know what to expect. They’ll get us into an apartment, hopefully by Independence Square so we can do some shopping.
We did take others advice about packing light…well, kind of. Our necessities take up a carryon, small suitcase and light garment bag. We have a large, heavy suitcase filled with kid’s cloths (thanks Claudia) and toys. Luckily, most this stuff will stay in Ukraine at the orphanage.
Again, we hope to update the blog daily, but that will depend on our Internet access.
Cheers All.
Thanks Sis, Sis and Moose for helping us get ready.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
It's 3 am, do you know where your kids are?
OK, I just couldn't help myself.
It's nearly 3 am and I'm still not asleep. Just got done looking thought about 4000 photos (digital) to pick a few for a photo book/scrapbook that we can show the children. We still need to take a few pictures around the house for them as well. We picked up a scrapbooking program and it looks like it will do a nice job of putting our digital pictures into a format that is interesting. Of course it will take some nudges from us to get it looking the way we want it.
We have two days to go and still have a house to clean, clothes to wash and loads of junk to move from the garage to our now completed shed so we can park our car in the garage while we are gone.
We are nearly done collecting goods for the trip. Tonight, we went shopping for a few items and picked up 3 jars of peanut butter (not for us, but to give away while there), a playdough kit with plenty of extra playdough and some other little toys. We figure whatever toys/games we take, we will leave with the kids that have to stay behind; just a little something for them.
It's hard to believe that the time has actually come, or nearly so. We've been working towards this for quite some time. In the mid 90's, we were stationed in Germany and looked into adoption while there, but couldn't even come close to affording it on military pay. When we got settled into civilian life in 2000, we started a local adoption. To make a long story short, we got lost in the paper shuffle as did many others which made us look overseas for children. After looking at many different countries, Ukraine tugged at our hearts the most; we also liked the process of Ukraine over any of the other countries. I know, it sounds wierd that someone would want to go blind, but after the failed local adoption, we didn't want to attach to a piece of paper and video just to have the children possibly not be adoptable. With Ukraine, we will see and learn about our children a day or so before we meet them. Emotionally, we both feel it's easier on us this way. And now, all the waiting is nearly done; the waiting has to be some of the hardest parts of this journey.
We've been pretty open about our adoption and most people react very positivily to it. We've had numerous individuals and businesses help us in getting things done. I believe that being open about the adoption has helped us get things done quicker and easier. If we were to ever do this again, I think we would be just as open as we've been about this adoption.
Yes, we have preconceptions of some of the things we would like to see. We openly discuss these with family and friends and of course their responses are as varied as there are colors in a rainbow. We might not always agree with their suggestions, but we listen and keep them in mind because at this point we just don't know... We're on a train that has no track; it'll be interesting to see where we end up at the end of the day. We are both positive and excited about the impending changes to our lives.
It's now well after 3 am and it's time to close these tired eyes. Sorry for the lack of information in this post, it's just the musings of a tired and excited PAP. Good Night :)
It's nearly 3 am and I'm still not asleep. Just got done looking thought about 4000 photos (digital) to pick a few for a photo book/scrapbook that we can show the children. We still need to take a few pictures around the house for them as well. We picked up a scrapbooking program and it looks like it will do a nice job of putting our digital pictures into a format that is interesting. Of course it will take some nudges from us to get it looking the way we want it.
We have two days to go and still have a house to clean, clothes to wash and loads of junk to move from the garage to our now completed shed so we can park our car in the garage while we are gone.
We are nearly done collecting goods for the trip. Tonight, we went shopping for a few items and picked up 3 jars of peanut butter (not for us, but to give away while there), a playdough kit with plenty of extra playdough and some other little toys. We figure whatever toys/games we take, we will leave with the kids that have to stay behind; just a little something for them.
It's hard to believe that the time has actually come, or nearly so. We've been working towards this for quite some time. In the mid 90's, we were stationed in Germany and looked into adoption while there, but couldn't even come close to affording it on military pay. When we got settled into civilian life in 2000, we started a local adoption. To make a long story short, we got lost in the paper shuffle as did many others which made us look overseas for children. After looking at many different countries, Ukraine tugged at our hearts the most; we also liked the process of Ukraine over any of the other countries. I know, it sounds wierd that someone would want to go blind, but after the failed local adoption, we didn't want to attach to a piece of paper and video just to have the children possibly not be adoptable. With Ukraine, we will see and learn about our children a day or so before we meet them. Emotionally, we both feel it's easier on us this way. And now, all the waiting is nearly done; the waiting has to be some of the hardest parts of this journey.
We've been pretty open about our adoption and most people react very positivily to it. We've had numerous individuals and businesses help us in getting things done. I believe that being open about the adoption has helped us get things done quicker and easier. If we were to ever do this again, I think we would be just as open as we've been about this adoption.
Yes, we have preconceptions of some of the things we would like to see. We openly discuss these with family and friends and of course their responses are as varied as there are colors in a rainbow. We might not always agree with their suggestions, but we listen and keep them in mind because at this point we just don't know... We're on a train that has no track; it'll be interesting to see where we end up at the end of the day. We are both positive and excited about the impending changes to our lives.
It's now well after 3 am and it's time to close these tired eyes. Sorry for the lack of information in this post, it's just the musings of a tired and excited PAP. Good Night :)
Friday, October 10, 2008
Stressed to the MAX
Less than a week to go and we are nearly there. We're leaving on the 16th and will arrive in Kiev on the morning of the 18th. There are so many small things to put into place when the length of travel is this long. It seems like as we get some things checked off our list, new ones crop up.
As for the actual trip, we have most of what we need (and then some) but just need to organize it and get it packed. It took me several weeks to acquire all the monies in clean bills. We back with a small credit union and they don't have control over what bills they receive from other institutions. They were helpful in that they would order the money for us and presort through it for the good 100's, but it still took longer than expected to get all that we were going to take.
Though other couples didn't have any problems carrying all that cash, we feel very uncomfortable about it. I'm not sure what other options we have so we'll do what everyone else has done.
So, with the 20th nearly upon us, do we feel ready? No...and YES!! Could we spend more time with the minute details here, sure, but then again they never end. It's been a long time in coming and we are more than ready to get into this. We are very excited, not only with the adoption, but the travel as well. I would love to have more time to work on our Russian, but I figure we'll get along fine. As a last minute purchase, we picked up an iTravl translator from Ectaco. We'll let you all know if the purchase was worth it. We're hoping it will be of use with the children once we get home as well as our travels. Knowing the luck we've had so far, we'll probably end up in a Ukrainian speaking region :).
Not much else to report on but just going crazy with excitement and stressing over the small stuff. I do promise to update this on a near daily basis while we are travelling. It's our link to family and friends. I hope to post lots of pictues.
Until next post, have a wonderful day.
Chris and Virginia
As for the actual trip, we have most of what we need (and then some) but just need to organize it and get it packed. It took me several weeks to acquire all the monies in clean bills. We back with a small credit union and they don't have control over what bills they receive from other institutions. They were helpful in that they would order the money for us and presort through it for the good 100's, but it still took longer than expected to get all that we were going to take.
Though other couples didn't have any problems carrying all that cash, we feel very uncomfortable about it. I'm not sure what other options we have so we'll do what everyone else has done.
So, with the 20th nearly upon us, do we feel ready? No...and YES!! Could we spend more time with the minute details here, sure, but then again they never end. It's been a long time in coming and we are more than ready to get into this. We are very excited, not only with the adoption, but the travel as well. I would love to have more time to work on our Russian, but I figure we'll get along fine. As a last minute purchase, we picked up an iTravl translator from Ectaco. We'll let you all know if the purchase was worth it. We're hoping it will be of use with the children once we get home as well as our travels. Knowing the luck we've had so far, we'll probably end up in a Ukrainian speaking region :).
Not much else to report on but just going crazy with excitement and stressing over the small stuff. I do promise to update this on a near daily basis while we are travelling. It's our link to family and friends. I hope to post lots of pictues.
Until next post, have a wonderful day.
Chris and Virginia
Friday, September 26, 2008
Not too much new to report
Soon after we received our notice of appointment, we received a fax of our appointment letter in Ukrainian. Though we couldn't read it, we were still excited by the fact that we had it. So, it's official that we will have our appointment on the 20th. We already have our plane tickets and will be leaving Reno on the 16th and arriving in Kiev on the morning of the 18th. It's hard to believe that this day is almost upon us.
The stress levels are running high since it seems that is so much to do and so little time to do it in. We're busy trying to get some items as well as the clean bills. We back with a small credit union and we aren't getting all the money we need. Then again, we are trying to scrape up a bit more cash because the flights were more that we had hoped. So, I'm writing this while away on a business trip and beginning to feel panicked about time left. I know it will all fall into place, but it hasn't happend yet!!
As for travel, we decided to use a travel agent the Virginia works with through the company she works for. The Aerosvit prices were more reasonable but the savings weren't all that and the schedule wasn't all that favorable for us. We are breaking up the trip into two parts since we are on the West side of the states. We'll overnight it at JFK and catch the afternoon flight to Kiev on Delta and do the same on the return. We figured the kids would like to stretch their legs after an 11 hour flight to JFK and I know we will want to as well. As for the adoption fares with Delta, they weren't even close to competitive with just doing a RT and pay for the changes. We'll also book RT flights for the kids and trow away the return trip as it's half as much as a one way ticket. All said and done, it'll run us just over 5K for all of us to get there and back. Are there cheaper ways to go, yes, but not by much and the JFK to Kiev is a straight though shot.
I'm hoping to catch up on some blogs tonight since I haven't had much of a chance lately.
Cheers,
The stress levels are running high since it seems that is so much to do and so little time to do it in. We're busy trying to get some items as well as the clean bills. We back with a small credit union and we aren't getting all the money we need. Then again, we are trying to scrape up a bit more cash because the flights were more that we had hoped. So, I'm writing this while away on a business trip and beginning to feel panicked about time left. I know it will all fall into place, but it hasn't happend yet!!
As for travel, we decided to use a travel agent the Virginia works with through the company she works for. The Aerosvit prices were more reasonable but the savings weren't all that and the schedule wasn't all that favorable for us. We are breaking up the trip into two parts since we are on the West side of the states. We'll overnight it at JFK and catch the afternoon flight to Kiev on Delta and do the same on the return. We figured the kids would like to stretch their legs after an 11 hour flight to JFK and I know we will want to as well. As for the adoption fares with Delta, they weren't even close to competitive with just doing a RT and pay for the changes. We'll also book RT flights for the kids and trow away the return trip as it's half as much as a one way ticket. All said and done, it'll run us just over 5K for all of us to get there and back. Are there cheaper ways to go, yes, but not by much and the JFK to Kiev is a straight though shot.
I'm hoping to catch up on some blogs tonight since I haven't had much of a chance lately.
Cheers,
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