2005 Adoption Trip Journal and Photos

Posted: Jan 5th, 2005

Adoption Preparations....

When we adopted Sonya and Nikitta two years ago, we decided during the trip that we would be returning to do it again. At the time we made the decision to return, we knew that there would be many things that we would have to do to be able to go back for more children. We were living in a 3 bedroom house, which was a stretch with 3 children. We also knew that Sonya and Nikitta needed our complete attention as they transitioned into a new life and our family. After we had been home for about 4 months, we were laying in bed and thinking about the things that we would need to do in order to be able to adopt again. The first thought that popped in was the need for a larger house. On a whim we enlisted our realtor, and close friend, Vicki Gorman, to help us find the perfect house for our growing family. She quickly found a house that had been a foreclosure and was owned by a bank. When we went to see it we immediately knew that this was the right house. It had 5 bedrooms and 3 full bathrooms with an unfinished basement for expansion. The yard would need to be completely landscaped. The previous owner had some scary decorating ideas with grapevine kitchen wallpaper and black and white diamond vinyl floors in the kitchen, but we had been watching trading spaces for years and therefore we were unfazed. :) The house was an amazing deal. Julia moved the family single handedly while Wade was being attended to by pretty nurses who insisted that he have his gall bladder removed. Coincidentally, just as the moving process was complete, Wade felt much better and left the hospice to join his family in their new home.

It wasn't but a few weeks before we were tearing up the old yard with a rented skid loader. Sprinkler trenches appeared and rock walls started mysteriously growing. We had planned a trip with the kids to Disneyland and the night before our departure the entire family was laying sod until 1am under the light of every lamp and spotlight we owned.

                                                 Our Backyard Waterfall                                                                   

When we returned from Disneyland, we could no longer live with the vinyl diamond pattern floor and the hideous wallpaper. We started with the wall paper that had become one with the wall, and then we turned our attention to installing a solid maple floor in the kitchen, entry and dining room. A month later.... It was finished. We enjoyed that for a few months. During this time we realized that we could afford to adopt and we had the right house and Sonya and Nikitta were doing exceptionally well, so, we started the paperwork in January of 2004.... During the paperwork rush we got spring fever and that little dirt patch in the backyard amazingly sprouted into an 18 foot waterfall, 23 foot stream and a 22 by 10 foot pond. The pumps had to be massive and operable by remote control because that is the way Wade does things. All that was left to complete was the private lake license to legally stock it with trout and then we would be ready to adopt again. Ok, so we got a little sidetracked, but waiting for the adoption wheels to turn makes you fidgety. After many process delays, and a medical form that had to be redone several times... we received word from Ukraine in late October that we were approved and we could request an appointment date. We shot for the moon and asked for November, but that was too soon for them. We received a letter saying we had an appointment for the 25th of January in Kiev.

                                                                                  Our house after the finished landscaping project

While we were in Ukraine for Sonya and Nikitta's adoption in 2003, we met two girls who were in Sonya's groupa that we fell in love with. These girls were 12 and 13 years old at the time. We watched them quickly bond with Alex in the short week we were there, and they are the reasons that we decided to adopt again. We were not sure at the time that they were available for adoption, but we hired our translator to check this for us about a year ago and she informed us that they were available. Unfortunately, you can never be assured that you can adopt a specific child in Ukraine. So we are returning to Ukraine to attempt to adopt Leeza and Katya, but it may not work out. If they are not available, we will find 2 children who are meant to be part of our family. But because of the relationship we have built with these girls from our time in Ukraine and through subsequent letters, we hope that we can bring them home. We just feel very blessed to have the opportunity to adopt children from Ukraine. We are comfortable with letting the process play out as it did with Sonya and Nikitta and we trust that things will work out. With Ukrainian adoption, you kind of have to take that step into the unknown and understand that things may not always turn out exactly as planned.

Leeza (Left),Alex (Middle), Katya (Right)

Sent Jan 20th, 2005

We are en route! We left Wednesday (19th) in the morning. Our flight arrived in Prague a few hours ago. It is Thursday (20th) morning in Prague. We are anxious to head on to Kiev for our adoption center appointment. We will relax and get acclimated to European time. The internet cafe in Prague is great. It is a very fast connection and I am updating the web site faster than I can at home with a cable modem connection. Our hotel is only about 300 meters to the St. Charles Bridge.

When we left, we were surprised at how we felt. We are much more prepared this time, however, it was really hard to leave the kids at home. On the last trip, we had Alexia with us. It feels like we should have the whole family together on this trip. Instead we have kids at home who are thousands of miles away, and we have 2 children who we are still several days away from seeing.

We are a little nervous about what lies ahead. Hopefully, the adoption center in Kiev will give us a referral for Leeza and Katya, however, there are no guarantees. It will be difficult to deal with if they say no. We have pictured these girls as part of our family for almost 2 years now.

Prague ,       

Old Town Square                                                                Prague Castle view from our tour boat.

Sent Jan 22, 2005

We are set to leave Prague for Kiev tomorrow. We have enjoyed our time here. We have walked for hours around this city. It has lived up to its reputation as the most beautiful city in the world. One highlight was the boat tour on the Vltava River. We also climbed to the top of the Old Town Bridge Tower which was built in 1380. We took some great photos from the top of the tower.

Prague , on the Charles Bridge.

It has been raining and is cold, but not unbearably cold. It is around 33 degrees. We are looking forward to leaving for Kiev in the morning. We are hoping our translator set us up with an apartment close to

The inauguration of the new president Viktor Yushenko is expected to take place tomorrow and there should be hundreds of thousands of people in the square tomorrow celebrating. It will be exciting to witness this historical event in Ukraines history. We are sure our translator will not want us to go to the square, but we are going to get there one way or another. It would be a shame to miss this, so we wont. 

Posted January 24th, 2005

Hi everyone!

We are in Kiev! Our appointment with the National Adoption center is tomorrow morning at 11:am. We arrived in Kiev yesterday (Sunday). One of the first things we noticed was Colin Powells US government plane parked along with dozens of planes from various countries governments parked on the tarmac. We were met by our translator, Nina, and our facilitator, Luda. We had so many donations in tow from the orphanage that our luggage almost didn't fit into Luda's small car. We took the maximum allowable baggage to carry all of the donations from our friends for the orphanage. Nina and Luda dropped us off at our apartment which was downtown. We asked to be close to Independence Square.  We are not as close as we were last time, but a 10-15 minute walk to the square will work. After unwinding for a while we left to go to the square. Ukraine has been in some political turmoil over its presidential elections. The pro-Russian candidate, Yanukovich, was declared the winner almost a month ago. Western election observers reported massive fraud. Yushenko, the pro-western candidates supporters poured into the streets of Kiev and other cities to protest the fraudulent outcome of the election. Independence Square was full of hundreds of thousands of protestors who set up the now famous tent-camp and they refused to leave until the election results were overturned. For some time the world wondered whether force would be used to break up the protests or if Ukraine would plunge into civil war. The protests received world-wide attention and the supreme court of Ukraine overturned the election results based on the proof of fraud and mandated a new election. The election was held a few weeks ago and this time, after some new election laws were passed to prevent fraud, Yushenko, the pro-western candidate won by a large margin.

Ukraine has never really been a free country. After it declared its independence from the Soviet Union it has been run by a powerful president and a parliament that has been very corrupt. Journalists have been murdered, TV stations tow the government line and The corruption has permeated all aspects of the government to a point where Ukraine is listed currently as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. This has hurt investment in Ukraine's economy and as a result it is one of the poorest nations in europe. The average monthly wage is approximately $70 per month. Yushenko promised to end the corruption and move closer to the west and democracy. Early in the campaign Yushenko was poisened with Dioxin. There is much speculation about who poisened him. The theories include Moscow, powerful and wealthy Oligarchs in Ukraine as well as the government of Ukraine that did not want his rising popularity to enable him to win the presidency. Yushenko survived and the dioxin poisoning disfigured his face. The majority of Ukrainians understand what this election means. They finally feel that the people have won and that this represents the first steps to true democracy. Yesterday (Sunday) Yushenko was inaugurated as the new President of Ukraine. A massive rally and inauguration party was held in the same square, called Independence Square, where the massive street protests were held that ultimately changed the course of the country and resulted in the elections being overturned. When we went downtown one of the first things we noticed was the energy of the people. People were smiling and very animated. This is definitely different from two years ago when it was rare for people to break a smile. We also noticed the range of people celebrating. Very young kids on shoulders as well as old men and ladies who were rocking to the Russian Rock music playing on the main stage. It was a very surreal atmosphere because of the expression of excitement from Ukrainians. We will soon have 4 children from Ukraine in our family and since the American born in our family are outnumbered and Russian will be the predominant language in our family for at least the next six months, we feel like this was a great opportunity to witness and be a part of a monumental and historical moment in Ukraine's history. The heritage of our children and future grandchildren and posterity is now part of us. Hopefully, one day our grandchildren will see the pictures and video of their grandparents standing in the middle of Independence Square celebrating the results of an election that spawned an awakening of a true democracy and the re-birth of a nation that has seen decades, if not centuries of oppression. We want our children to remember and understand where they come from and be proud of their Ukrainian heritage. As the hours pass we are more and more nervous about our appointment. In the next 24 hours we will know whether we will be able to adopt Leeza and Katya or if we will be adopting other children that are meant to be part of our family. It is the unknown that is making this really difficult. Our facilitator spoke with the psychologist at the National Adoption Center and was told that they will look for Leeza and Katya's paperwork when we arrive for our appointment. If they can find the paperwork, and it is all in order, then we should have very few problems. If they can't find it, then we ask them to keep looking.

If they still can't find it, we ask again and again. When we are told they won't look any longer, we will ask again and then we will go to plan B which is to accept that Leeza and Katya can't come home with us and that there are other children that are to be a part of our family.

Posted Jan 25th, 2005

We had our appointment with the National Adoption Center today. Don't picture a huge government building with marble floors... This is in an old run down building that is drafty and cold. The center consists of about 7-8 offices. We would guess that there were about 10-15 employees. The hallway outside the office was crammed with adoption translators and facilitators from morning until evening. They wait outside the door hoping to either get in to see someone or to hear some news about paperwork. There were a few other couples there either waiting for an appointment or hoping to get another appointment because they turned down the first referral for a child. We were very disappointed to hear some of their stories. Some couples had asked for two siblings under 3 years old. Ukraine is a tough place to adopt from for those age ranges. The youngest available for adoption must be older than 1 year old to begin with, so to ask for siblings under 3 is really asking for twins. Ukraine is very up front about the limited availability of young children. It seems the Adoption Center is inundated every day with couples who demand babies. And not just one healthy baby, but 2. I do have some sympathy for the Adoption Center workers who have to deal with frantic and emotional couples that are convinced that a referral for healthy twin 1 year olds is sitting in a drawer and the more obstinate the couples are the better chance they have of the referral being pulled out. Anyway, off of our soapbox....

We waited for about 30 minutes past our appointment time in the hall and then we were let into the offices. We waited in the hallway for another 15-20 minutes and then we went in to see the psychologist. She asked us to tell her about ourselves. We told her our ages and where we were from. We then pulled out our photo album and started showing her pictures of Sonya, Nikitta and Alex. When we showed her the pictures of Leeza and Katya and told her that we wanted to adopt them because we had come to know them and wanted them to be a part of our family, she stopped us and said that she liked the ages of the girls we were asking for, smiled and left the area for a few minutes and returned with binders from the city of Kharkov where Leeza and Katya's orphanage is. We had hoped we would be given the opportunity to look through all of the books and our translator, facilitator and us all started frantically looking through all of the books. Each page had a small photo attached to a one page profile. The books all contained children that seemed older than about 10 years old. Each book contained about 50-100 children in them. Julia quickly spotted Leeza's photo and we all had a few quick tears and hoped that we would soon find Katya's paperwork. The pages kept going by for the next hour and a half as we desperately searched for Katya's paperwork. While we searched the books, the psychologist took Katya's name to the computer room and searched the computer. The psychologist returned and said that they could not find Katya in the computer. We looked through every book 2-3 times before they told us we had to leave because it was lunch time. At this point we were very worried that this was not going to end well. We went to lunch at a cafe down the street and when we returned the entrance was packed with people again and we had to wait outside. We talked some strategy with our facilitator and translator and decided we needed to get a hold of the inspector in Kharkov that had said she filed her paperwork. We called her and she confirmed that she had filed it several years ago. We obtained a registration number and approximate filing date. Our facilitator went in and gave the information to the psychologist who said that her day was now too busy to allow us more time to search so she said we could come back tomorrow morning at 9:30am.

We left feeling happy and sad. We are 50% of the way there. Several things were accomplished. We found Leeza's file. They seemed to have no problems with us adopting 2 children who were unrelated because they were older. This was a hurdle we were unsure about. Also, they let us search the books ourselves. The only problem is that who knows how many books there are for that region. We searched what we were given. We noticed that there were no younger children in the books we looked through. We think it is possible that Katya's file could be mis-filed in a younger childrens binder.

We have been allowed to return to continue our search tomorrow. So we are keeping our hopes up that we will find the paperwork.

We discussed with our translator the possibility of calling the inspector and having her recreate the paperwork and get it to Kiev. This is still an option, but there is one problem, the law says that the file must be on the books at the Adoption Center for one year before a child is available to be adopted by a foreign couple. We think we may be able to have them accept the original registration number and date, but we are not sure. So there are still some options if our search tomorrow is unsuccessful. We are not giving up easily. The adoption center as been very helpful to us so far. They are working with us to make this work and for that we are very appreciative. They can only do so much because of the law and if they don't have the paperwork, they don't have it. It seems a cruel twist of fate for an orphan's future to hang on a missing piece of paper.

We appreciate everyone's support and emails. We will update you as soon as we know anything. We have good access to an internet cafe here.

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 21:23:44

Whew, what a day! It started this morning with our appointment at the adoption center to continue the search for Katya's paperwork. When we arrived at 9:15 for our 9:30 appointment we were abruptly stopped by the guard at the ground level who started yelling that we could not continue on up the stairs. (Think of Boris Yeltsin.....) After a heated exchange with our translator and facilitator, we found ourselves returning back down the 5 steps we had come. When we asked what that was about our translator told us that the director of the National Adoption Center had decided that today nobody would be allowed to enter unless they had an appointment. Now you would think that we had one, but no, an appointment is a special thing that you get "one" of. It is given to you on a specific date usually a month in advance. Our "official" appointment was yesterday, and now we just had a request to return at a specific time, which is not an appointment. So we waited......

Our translator stopped one of the psychologists entering the building and explained our plight. She said she would go upstairs and look for Katya's paperwork, but that because the director said nobody without an appointment would be let up, she would have to do it and let us know. This was a bit disconcerting because it was now out of our control and we had no way to look through the books carefully ourselves. After waiting for another hour and a half she returned and said that Katya was never registered at the NAC and that adopting her would be impossible. She asked is we still wanted to adopt Leeza and if we would be seeking another referral instead of Katya. We were prepared for this and had spent much of the evening discussing this scenario and what we planned to do. When we left for Ukraine we decided that we were bringing home two children. We knew Leeza and Katya and were very much committed to doing everything we could to bring them both home, but we knew the risks. At the same time, we knew that there are tens of thousands of children in Ukraine without parents. We had spent the last two years preparing for adoption of two older girls. So, it was an easy decision. We let them know that we would like to seek another referral. They told us to come back a little later and we could look through the books of the kids available at the orphanage where Leeza and Katya are located.

We still had more options. We planned to continue to look for Katya's paperwork whle we found another referral. We went and ate lunch at a restaurant down the street. During lunch we ran some ideas we had by our translator and facilitator. We told them that we would continue the search for Katya's paperwork once we were inside, and that we would also find a referral. We also asked them to call the local inspector in the Kharkov region and ask her to expedite the creation of new paperwork for Katya. They called the inspector during lunch and she agreed to expedite the paperwork and immediately submit it. The problem is that once the paperwork is registered and on file the clock starts and children must be registered for one year before they are eligible for adoption. We had decided the previous night that even if her paperwork was not found we were returning to get her once it was all updated. So, the good news is that we will be adopting Leeza and Katya. Leeza will most likely be coming home with us in a few weeks and we will return for Katya as soon as she is available. The worst case scenario is one year from when her paperwork is redone. We brought an extra dossier and we will be submitting that for immediate approval. We are also going to write a petition to the Director of the National Adoption Center to waive the one year wait based on Katya's age and the circumstances of her paperwork being lost. We will bring both of them home eventually, just not at the same time. We are fine with this.

We returned to the Adoption Center and this time the guard was away from his post so we sneaked upstairs. About a dozen other people had the same idea and they were waiting outside the doors as well. We ran into a couple from Tennesse, the Moss family. I won't blow their news for them before they have a chance to tell people that are on our adoption newsgroup, they are the couple standing in the pictures we will send. It was good to have someone to swap stories with.

Occasionally, someone would appear at the door and call out a name and several people would go inside. We waited there until 5:30 pm. (the center closes at 6:00pm). We were finally ushered in and huddled in some chairs and were given several books to start looking through. Of course, we hurriedly went through the books quickly in hopes of finding Katya's paperwork, which we did not find, but we were very excited when we came across the picture of a girl we had met at the orphanage on our last trip named Masha. She is 10 years old and was with Sonya in a dance group that traveled to Kiev to perform. Her and Sonya's picture is actually sitting on our fridge in the US as we type this. When we saw her picture, we knew that we could not pass up this opportunity and asked for her referral. I guess it is going to be 6 kids instead of 5. I think everyone is going to think we are certifiably crazy by now. But we are really excited. We are going to see Leeza and Masha soon. We are not certain that Masha is completely available right now so we are in a little limbo still, but we are excited. We will also be seeing Katya at the same time and we are going to try to get the blessing of the NAC and the orphanage director to let her know that as soon as her paperwork is fixed and the NAC lets us return for her, that we will.

It has been a long and difficult day that ended beautifully. We are very happy with the outcome. It will be difficult to adjust eventually to 6 children, but we will find a way.

Our next hurdle is to ensure Masha is in fact available and to travel to see them once we are issued official referrals, hopefully tomorrow.

Wade and Julia

Sent Thursday Jan 27th:

So we mentioned in our last email that adopting Masha was not a sure thing......

Today our facilitator went to the adoption center to get the referrals for Leeza and Masha so we could travel on the train tonight to see them and begin preparing the documents for court. Well, all referrals now must be approved by the Director of the adoption center. We received a call this morning from our translator who said she had bad news. Apparently, the Director denied our referral for Masha on the grounds that we cannot adopt two children who are unrelated. Of course, people do adopt unrelated siblings. So, after a night of picturing 6 kids, we are back to hoping we at least get the referral for Leeza approved. This process is just crazy. Two years ago we were in and out of the adoption center in 20 minutes with a referral for Sonya and Nikitta and on the train the same day to see them. My advice to other prospective adoptive parents: get one dossier approved, get one referral for a child and choose the child in the first sitting with the psychologist. Or, if you are seeking two children, ask for siblings and for age ranges higher than 5 years old. And one last piece of advice and probably the hardest to follow.... don't fall in love with children while you are adopting and vow to return for them at all costs if you are not ready to deal with walking through a mine field of emotions every hour. Trying to return to adopt children that you have met or other scenarios is just a roll of the dice and a very tough rollercoaster to stomach. We knew this was going to be tough and there was a good chance it would not go as planned, and we were prepared for the risks, but it is very hard to deal with the ups and downs while you are away from your kids and having to make split second decisions about your families future. But having been through this once with Sonya and Nikitta, the benefits are worth every ounce of pain now at least ten thousand fold. We do not want our experience to dampen others excitement to adopt. Adoption is worth it. Not just from the perspective of a child's life changing forever, but for what you get in return. Those of you who have adopted or met Sonya and Nikitta know exactly what we mean.

Anyway, we are back to square one. As of right now, Leeza's referral is pending approval and that is even a possible no. But hopefully, Leeza's referral will be approved by the Director and we can go see her. Our original goal was to get Leeza and Katya. If we can get Leeza now and return in a year or less for Katya we will be very happy with that. We still have a long way to go to make that all happen but we are moving forward and as of right now we think we can still make that happen and the final goal has not been shot down as of yet. For that we are very grateful.

We will update again as soon as we know anything. We may be traveling tonight on a train. We have arranged to have an internet cafe close to our apartment rental in Kharkov so we should be able to update again tomorrow with hopefully good news about us being in Kharkov and adopting Leeza.

Thanks to everyone for their encouraging emails and support. We shed lots of tears at these internet cafe's while we read messages from friends and family every day. We could not do this without your support.

Wade and Julia

Posted: Thursday, Jan. 27th, 2005

Thursday update

Our best hope at the beginning of the day was to get the referral for Leeza completed and approved without hitches and get some train tickets for Kharkov. It is now after 9:00 pm and we are not on a train for Kharkov but we are very pleased with the events of the day. We took a taxi to the Adoption Center at around 2:30pm today to meet our facilitator and translator to get the referral for Leeza. When we arrived, we found the familiar scene of many families and facilitators waiting in the lobby. We took a seat and waited. Our expectation was that we would most likely be waiting until close to the end of the day. The thing that made us nervous was that we heard the director was out for the day and that there was only a chance she would show up to approve and sign the referrals.

As we understood it, the normal process to receive the referral is to just sign for it by one family member showing their passport and signing. In the waiting area, we eventually saw the director come up the stairs and go in so we were pleased that we might actually get the referral. We had been told that this signing was to take place with us directly in front of the Director. We asked our translator if this was normal that we had to talk to the director to get the referral and she said that this was a new policy that started today. We asked our translators if we should take this one last opportunity to plead our case for Katya and Masha. We had never actually had face time with the Director. Our facilitator had advised against this as she is a loose cannon and you can take three steps backward by opening your mouth in front of her. We strategized that once we got the referral for Leeza signed and in our hands we would quickly put it into our bag and then tell her we had some questions and ask if she could answer them. We had planned on both Julia and I being there. Our registration number was finally called, once again around closing, and we went inside. There was one family in front of us and we waited our turn. The first family was in there for an hour and that at first got our hopes up that maybe we would actually get to have a conversation that wasn't hurried, but our hopes were a little dashed as the facilitator of this family left with her family and whispered that they had just had the third degree about everything. As we started to take our seats, the director just started screaming something to our facilitator about only one, only one! They had some sharp words and it sounded like she basically told our facilitator to get out of the office. We were left with just us and our translator as our facilitator left and the door was shut.

The directors demeanor changed somewhat for the better and she began by asking us if we knew that we could complete adoptions in Ukraine without the use of a facilitator. I replied that we did not speak Russian well enough to be comfortable with that. She replied that a translator is all that is necessary and we should consider just using a translator. The first question she asked was why are you considering adopting someone so old as 15? She said we looked like a young couple. We replied that we had two 12 year old girls at home. I then took the opportunity and pulled out the photo album and began talking about how we adopted Sonya and Nikitta 22 months ago and had met Leeza and Katya. I showed her the picture of Alexia with Leeza and Katya at her sides. It is the same picture on our website on the main page. The Director brought up Masha and said that we seemed like a very sincere couple and she would like to help us. She said we needed to write a letter saying that we wanted a second referral and that we should bring it back in the morning. We also would need to write a letter to the US Embassy and make them aware of our request for a second referral. And at this time she finally said yes to a referral for Leeza. Once she approved it, she left the desk and went to the other side of the room. We were very happy at this point, however, we knew we had some unfinished work for Katya. We really had to get our courage up because this was it. We knew it was our last chance for Katya. I stood up and asked her if we could ask her another question. She kind of rolled her eyes and slowly walked back to the table. Our eyes were welling up as we opened our photo album and pointed to Katya and told her that we had met Katya at the same time we met Leeza. We told her that Leeza and Katya should be together as sisters and that we had asked the orphanage director if they were both available to adopt two years ago. We told her that the orphanage director had assured us the paperwork was submitted and they were available. We then said that we had hoped to adopt them both and that we had found Leeza's paperwork, but not Katya's. At this point, we were thrilled that she was even engaging us in this conversation and we hoped that maybe this would set the stage for our return trip and possibly speed up our return to get Katya. She replied that she was aware of Katya, she then turned to the psychologists who were both standing there and asked if everything had been done to locate the paperwork. They described their activities and she told them that there was more that could have been done. She said they would call the regional office and the inspector in the morning and request the paperwork they had on file be sent to them and they would verify that it had in fact been done years ago. Suddenly, we realized that Katya was possibly back within reach. We knew already that the paperwork had been done as we had seen a copy of it. And we knew that if they actually did the research they would find what we had already found through our translator. She then asked us for a letter that would have to be written in the next 30 minutes and translated and then registered asking for permission to adopt Katya. This is in no way a done deal, but we have new hope.

This may result in our bringing Katya home this trip and it may not, we just don't know yet. However, even if we can't bring her home now, this gets the ball rolling for her like never before. Everyone there is aware of her. They are looking as the director mandated it. We are not sure what will happen even if they find the regional file, but we know that this could aid us in getting her home quickly.

We have Leeza's approved referral and nobody could pry that loose from our hands. We are going to return in the morning to the Adoption Center to find out about Katya's status. So we are still here in Kiev and not on a train. We will let you know how things turn out tomorrow.

Thank you all for everything.

Love,

Wade and Julia

Sent Friday January 28th, 2005

Ok, we are dead tired. It is almost 11:00pm here and we just got to the internet cafe to check email and write an update.

We are satisfied right now with how things have turned out. We are taking an overnight train tomorrow (Saturday) night to Kharkov. We won't be able to get to the orphanage until Monday morning because the administrators are gone for the weekend, but we need Sunday to unwind and relax anyway.

We took a taxi to the Adoption Center this morning at 9:00am. It is bitter cold here today with a good six inches of heavy snow on the ground. We had an appointment to register a letter to the Director officially asking to allow us to adopt two unrelated children. This is required in case they find Katya's paperwork. Our translator was caught in traffic and did not get there until after 10:00. We had written the letter and emailed it to her the night before so we couldn't do anything until she arrived. This stressed us out a little. She arrived and we took them the letter. We also had been requested to send a letter to the US Embassy to ask them to write a permission letter that it was ok from the US perspective to adopt two unrelated siblings. We called the embassy after delivering the letter and they told us that they had received our letter and would quickly write a letter on our behalf. They commented that this was a first for them as they don't normally intercede in adoption situations. But they were definitely willing to confirm what has always been US policy to accept any child adopted according to Ukrainian law. We took a taxi and picked up the letter and then returned it to the adoption center at the appointed time of 3:00pm. This whole paper chase was bizarre. The current talk among the translators and facilitators in the waiting room of the adoption center is that this is the worst time in the history of the NAC. Never has it been more unpredictable and difficult to process adoptions. The speculation about some of the recent changes in the past week deal with the Director being a Yanukovich supporter and that since the election went the other way here, she is going to be ousted as would be a normal change of ministerial positions in a new administration. People think she is afraid of prosecution for political reasons. It was interesting to note that she is now subtly wearing orange in a few of her accessories. Orange is the color of the Yushenko political party that just won the election. Her orange earings and orange stripes in her shirt seemed to contradict the portrait of Yanukovich that hangs on her wall, according to our translator. Her inflexibility and decisions that seem to contradict the normal processes seem to be centered around the letter of the laws. We somewhat sympathized with her plight for about ten minutes once she agreed to look into Katya's paperwork yesterday. We felt bad about using such harsh words in our last email.

Anyway, we delivered the papers and then waited in the lobby again to find out the decision. We were let in to see the director around 5:00pm. We had a little hope with Katya that they could figure out what happened to her paperwork, but we also realized that their fax machine was not working there and that it would be difficult to get information from the regional offices to look at on the same day as the request.

When we went in her demeanor seemed very distant and cold. She was very terse and stated that she received the information she had requested. She then said that there was insufficient time for them to determine if Katya was in fact available and so the answer would be that she is not available right now and all information pertaining to her could no longer be discussed and that our time was finished with her.

We think that they didn't have the time to take care of looking into Katya's paperwork. There is nothing more we can do to reverse this so we will travel to Kharkov. Leeza is the only certain thing right now. We need to get to Kharkov and understand how long it would take to get Katya's paperwork registered with the Adoption Center. We are going to return for her, we just don't know when we can. It may be quick or as long as a year. The longest we should have to wait would be one year as that is the waiting period by law once a child is on the books at the Adoption Center and we plan to talk to the local inspector to hopefully get her paperwork registered quickly.

This week has been an amazing learning experience. After having been through it, we have realized that everything that transpired required us to come here and experience it first hand. Had we tried to do more to know their current status before we came, we could never have been absolutely sure without actually looking through the records ourselves. Leeza is coming home and we know what it would most likely take to eventually bring Katya home and we are very comfortable with the options. We are going to see what we can do about Katya once we are in Kharkov and can talk to the orphanage and the local inspector. Our channels with the Adoption Center are closed until she is officially registered and available for adoption. So we can only work the local level right now.

We appreciate everyones thoughts and prayers. We are excited to see the girls. Leeza has no idea that we are here and to see her face when we ask her if she wants to be part of our family will be an amazing experience.

Wade and Julia

Subject: In Kharkov

Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 20:15:08 +0000

We are in Kharkov. We arrived on Sunday morning. We went to our apartment and relaxed. I had it all set up to have internet at our apartment as I wanted a place that we could keep in touch with people from. However, the internet has not been working and it took us several days to get time and find an internet cafe. I don't have a lot of time right now so we may have to provide more details later. In short.... We went to the orphanage this morning. We met with the Director and were told that Leeza was in the hospital for a stomach ache? She had been there for two weeks. She said she was to be released today and so we could just go pick her up. We had our driver take us to the hospital. We were very nervous as we went into the hospital. It was very old and cold. Our translator went in and gathered her things with her and we hid out in the hallway. I had the video rolling as she came out of the room. She was very surprised to see us. I'll have to send that in a short clip video. It was amazing. We didn't tell her why we were there. We just said that we knew she was sick and came to see her. We then went to the orphanage and Katya had come home from school and we found her in the hallway and had a some big hugs and tears. We were able to take them into a room alone and let them know why we were there. I can't describe this moment. It was beautiful. It was bittersweet because we can't take Katya. Katya has had 14 years to learn to deal with disappointment in her life. We told her that we couldn't bring her home now, but that we would do everything we could to bring her home as soon as possible. We prepared her for a year or longer and also let her know that laws could change and it may not happen. We told her that no matter what governments and other people say, she was adopted in our hearts two years ago and no matter what may happen that she would always have a mama and papa. She cried, but her tears turned to smiles as she knows now that she has a mom and dad. She will wait. And we will do whatever is possible to get her home as soon as possible. We will never give up. We had a fun afternoon with the girls. They are so excited. Words cannot describe ours and the girls happiness that was shared in that orphanage today. We will send pictures tomorrow. These girls are very special. I think as our family and friends get to know them they will understand more about what we are doing trying to bring these girls home.

More to come tomorrow.... Today was great!

Wade and Julia

Subject: Wade and Julia here...

Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 18:29:55 +0000

Today was a fun day. We spent the morning relaxing and then we headed to the orphanage to be with the girls. We were able to see Katya first as she comes home early on Tuesday. We watched some additional home videos that we had brought. More and more kids started arriving from school and soon they were hustling around getting their room ready for a party. It was one of the girls birthday. When Leeza got home we had them pick out some presents from ones we brought so they could give their friend a birthday present. Julia and I were witnesses to an amazing birthday party. We learned a lot about our kids upbringing and traditions today. We were impressed with the attention the birthday girl was given. These kids are very well taken care of and make their own happiness. There were only a few simple presents, but it was the little things that made the party. Around the table of about 25 kids, many of the kids stood up and gave a toast to the birthday girl and everyone drank juice. It was really funny to watch. The youngest girls in the groupa had prepared several shows that they performed. They also played some games. Julia won one of the games and her prize was she got to sing a Britney Spears song. No worries, I have it all on video. The family atmosphere there was amazing. All of those kids with no families have created one of their own. We have video of the party and when we get home we will gladly show any of you and encourage anyone who wants to, to watch the video for a whole new perspective on life. These kids with so little, having more fun toasting each other than you could ever buy at Chucky Cheese. It was surreal. We have no idea how the rest of the world lives. We have too much.

We have to return to Kiev tomorrow to sign some papers at the adoption center. We will return again tomorrow night on the overnight train so there will be no update on Wednesday.

We are really enjoying the time we spend with the girls. We are bonding so quickly. The two years of writing letters and the time we spent with them last trip has brought us very far along in our relationships. They are so excited to come to America. Katya's friends keep asking her when she is leaving. It is really hard for her because she has no answer. She had a few tough hours today. This is going to kill us to leave Katya. We are trying to spend as much time with her as we can.

I'll send some pictures in an email to follow.

Wade and Julia

Sent February 4th:

We are sorry we have not been updating as much, it has been hard to get access to the internet. It was supposed to work in our apartment in Kharkov, but it hasn’t been fixed yet. In any event, we have some exciting news, here is what is going on…..

When we were planning this adoption in 2003, we asked our translator that we used when we adopted Sonya and Nikitta to check on the availability of Leeza and Katya. She checked with the orphanage director as well as with the local education ministry official, known as the Inspector, as to whether Leeza and Katya would be available and registered at the National Adoption Center in Kiev.

The inspector was the person who actually prepared Leeza and Katya’s paperwork 6 years ago and she knew it had been sent to the regional administrator who would send it on to Kiev. Based on this information, we were certain both girls would have been available when we arrived, but we always knew it was not an absolute certainty.

When we did this research, we were made aware that Leeza had an older brother named Zhenya. The Zh is pronounced like the s in pleasure. We were told that Zhenya had turned 16. As he was older than 16, we thought we understood the US immigration laws prohibited us adopting an orphan that was older than 16. This is one of the reasons why we were in such a hurry to get Leeza out of there as she is 15.5 years old. When we were at the Adoption Center, we saw his paperwork on file and were able to look at it. We were disappointed at the time because we were reluctant to split Leeza and her brother, but we didn’t think US law would let us adopt him. He has constantly been on our minds since we have been planning this adoption.

While we were dealing with the US embassy to get the second referral, we decided to inquire specifically about Zhenya so we could understand what the possibilities were. When we called, we were told that while it is true that the

US would not allow someone older than 16 years to immigrate through adoption, they could, however, if they had a sibling that was younger than 16 who had previously been adopted or who was being adopted at the same time. This was great news for us. As soon as we heard this we knew that we needed to consider adopting Zhenya and we planned that when we met with the orphanage director we would ask if we could meet him. When we called the director to let them know we were coming, we asked the orphanage director about Zhenya. When she heard that we were interested in Zhenya she got very excited. She told us that he is an exceptional boy that is very responsible and very well respected by his teachers and caregivers at the orphanage. She told us that Zhenya is very good at mathematics and physics and that he is so self motivated that he travels across town on weekends to take physics courses from a university. She said that Zhenya is a child who is determined to take advantage of every opportunity he is given and that he has always done this. She said that despite his circumstances, Zhenya is determined to make a good life for himself and that she was very happy that we would consider adopting him.

After we had seen Leeza and Katya on Monday, we set up a meeting with Zhenya and Leeza for that evening. Our first meeting with Zhenya occurred in a dark hallway. We sat down and introduced ourselves. He seemed cautious about us and his choice of words showed that he was very mature. He told us that upon graduation from high school, he was planning on attending the University. He said he is good at mathematics and told us about his courses he was taking on the weekends. He loves sports and says that he is very good at basketball and soccer. We asked him how he would pay for the University there. He said that his grades qualified him for free tuition and board for five years, and that the government would give him $18 per month for food, but he still had to pass a very difficult exam in order to qualify. He said he was very nervous about being on his own and going to the University. We were very impressed with how he was able to be so open with us about his fears and hopes. At the end of our discussion, he said something that really touched us. He knew that Leeza wanted a family more than anything. Of course he assumed that a family would not be interested in adopting him because he was older. He did something very selfless and to he told us not to worry about him, that Leeza would be very happy with her family in America and that he would take his opportunities here and make a good life for himself and that he and Leeza could write to each other and stay in contact. In essence he was saying, "don't let me be the reason that you do not adopt Leeza."

That was the end of the conversation and Julia and I left for the evening and went back to our apartment. We discussed Zhenya and realized that the decision was simple and unanimous; we decided to ask Zhenya to become part of our family. We had not met with Masha at this point and decided that the best thing to do would be to get a referral for Zhenya. We were told by the orphanage director that Masha had visited a family in the US for three weeks and that they were coming to see her in May and that most likely they would be very disappointed if she were adopted because she thought they would. (January 2006 Update…Masha was adopted by a family from New York. She was adopted along with another girl named Ira)

Zhenya, without a mother or a father, and just a sliver of hope for something, had grown up and earned the respect of the entire orphanage staff. He was giving up his weekends to better himself. What kind of a person does it take to rise above the challenges that he was faced with? We would be very blessed to be his mother and father and show him the love and opportunities that he deserved. We are excited about Zhenya. He is a very special person. We can’t wait for our extended family and friends to meet him. Nikitta will have the brother that he begged us to find when we left for Ukraine. Our kids will have the perfect older brother to look up to.

We told the orphanage director that we had decided to invite Zhenya to be a part of our family. We were very nervous that he would not want to come and we desperately wanted him to say yes. We knew this would be the right thing for our family. We met with him again and told him that we would be very happy if he would join our family. He told us right away that he would. He told us that he hoped he could live up to the responsibility of being the oldest child in the family. We discussed his hopes and dreams a little more and told him more about us. He told us that computers were his life. We shared with him what we do for a living and a little about our technical backgrounds. We realized later when discussing this conversation with our translator, that he most likely loves computers vicariously through his friends at school, as regular access to a computer was not likely. I showed him my laptop computer and his eyes lit up. He was so easy to talk to and was not hiding his excitement. He was at the birthday party we went to at the orphanage and we were so excited about how he interacted with all of the kids. They looked up to him and respected him. Leeza, Katya and Zhenya went with us after the party to the art room. On the way to the room, we stopped in a room full of 2-3 year olds. Zhenya was mobbed by the kids and he played with them for a few minutes.

This trip has been full of surprises, but we see our complete family coming together. Leeza and Zhenya are coming home with us, and Katya, who is now our daughter as well, although not yet by Ukrainian law, will be coming home as soon as the government will allow. Leaving Katya in Ukraine AGAIN, will be the hardest thing Julia and I will ever do. We have no choice right now. Our family will bear this burden until she is home and we will finally be a complete

family. In order to adopt Zhenya, we had one more hurdle. We would have to return to Kiev and face the Director and get a referral for Zhenya. We took the express train on Wednesday morning. We called ahead of time and told them we wanted a new referral for Zhenya. They told us to come in the afternoon and they would have it prepared. We took a letter we had written and translated to the director, just in case, that explained why we were doing this. The last time we asked for a referral she had us write a letter of explanation, so we were prepared just in case. When we got to Kiev after the 6 hour train ride, we went to the adoption center by taxi. We arrived around 2:45 and waited. More and more couples started showing up to pick up their referrals. Everyone waited until close to 5:00 when they started calling names. Our translator had checked when we arrived and was told that the referral was being prepared and we should wait until our name was called. All of the couples over the next hour went in and close to 6:00 our translator went in and asked if there was a problem. She was told that we needed a letter from the Inspector in Kharkov. We arranged to have it faxed in the morning. We asked if this would be sufficient and were told that a fax would be fine. Thursday morning the fax was sent from the inspector and we called the adoption center and they said that now the director had decided we needed the original. So it is being sent on a bus and it will get here late Thursday night. We are spent another night here. We took the required paper into the Adoption Center fully expecting to wait all day to get in again but surprisingly this time we were able to go right in and get the referral for Zhenya. We are returning to Kharkov by train tonight so we can spend the weekend with Leeza, Katya and Zhenya.

We should have court and be done within about 10-14 days and be headed home. We will forward some pictures of all the kids as soon as we can. We are also making some short movie clips to send as well. We will be visiting the orphanage almost every day and we will tell you more about our great kids as we learn more about them ourselves. :)

Wade and Julia

P.S. We want to wish Julia's Great Grandma Lucy a happy 100th birthday!! We wish we could be there for the celebration! We want to let her know that we are trying to add to her posterity as fast as possible.

Subject: New Update from Wade and Julia

Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 18:23:16 +0000

We typed an update yesterday, Sunday, but when we went to send it the email locked up and we had a taxi waiting so we had to run. We will try to get it sent this time and make up for the missed post.

Saturday and Sunday we spent with all three kids. They are great. Zhenya continues to impress us. He can't contain his excitment about coming to America now. We had so much fun. We started watching Harry Potter 3 in English on our laptop DVD Sunday night with our kids and before we knew it there were about 20 kids packed around us watching. We can't believe we have gone from 1 child to 6 in the space of 22 months. It is really an awesome feeling. These kids are amazing. They are so sweet, humble, gracious and appreciative. You can't say that about too many US teenagers.

We bought a cell phone in Kiev to keep in touch with our translator while she is running around doing paperwork, etc. We got the idea that we would give the phone to Katya when we left so she could call us and then we could quickly call her back at a pre-determined time each week. We decided to show her the phone on Saturday and tell her about our plan. She was so excited about the phone. If you could imagine buying a 16 year old a new BMW, that was Katya with her cell phone. We were just going to show it to her and then explain our plan and we would continue using the phone until we left Ukraine, but that all got lost in translation and it is her phone now. We are just going to buy another one. We were so worried about how she would take having to wait for up to a year before we can bring her home, but after this weekend, we feel like she is understanding and will be ok. Not good, but ok. We, on the other hand are not doing so well with this situation. With every minute we spend with her the reality of how hard it will be to leave her here grows. We go back to our apartment every night and look at her picture and just cry. We would do anything to bring her home right now. This trip is so bitter sweet. We love the time we are spending with the kids, but the thought of leaving her here makes us ill. This coming year is going to be hard. How do you leave a 14 year old child that is now your child in your heart, in the custody of a foreign government. We realize that we put ourselves in this situation, but how do you turn off your love because you might get hurt. That love is why we are here in the first place.

We spent the day Monday running around Kharkov with our driver and translator doing paperwork. We had to get several documents from different places including the kids medical report, and the local permissions. We also had to create a document to request permission to adopt the kids and we had to get that notarized. Notaries here are interesting. They have big offices and everything has to be notarized. We were able to see the kids this evening and we spent the time practicing English. All three kids read English and can pronounce everything very well. If you speak really slow they can understand much of what you say. They just need to expand their vocabulary and practice conversations. We are excited about how far along they already are. We don't need our translator with us when we are with them. We communicate in a combination of broken Russian and English. Sometimes our sentences are half and half as we use the words we all know in each language. It works.

We settled on names for Zhenya and Leeza. Zhenya's full name will be Zhenya Ryan Weston. Leeza's name will be Leeza Reanne Weston. Katya wants to be Kathryn, but we don't have to finalize her name until we come back. They are excited about their names.

We forgot one thing in an update a while back that we want to share. Last week we were telling Leeza and Katya that we wanted to adopt them, but that we had some paperwork problems and Katya couldn't come home with us now and it would have to be later. Katya became upset and Leeza said to Katya " you go, I will stay". This is coming from a girl that wants a family more than breath. They are too good.

We are possibly going back to Kiev this week to submit a new dossier for Katya. We are desperately trying to get it in before some of our paperwork starts to expire. Unfortunately, we may not make it in time. Our translator is telling us that since some of our documents expire in less than a month, they may not accept this dossier and we will have to start a new one. We are going to turn it in anyway and see what happens.

Tomorrow we will send another update. We appreciate all of the emails of support. We get so many funny looks in the internet cafe while we sit here and cry while we write emails and read them. Expressing emotion is not something Ukrainians really do in public. They are pretty stoic.

Wade and Julia

Sent February 9th, 11:00am

It is now Wednesday morning. We ran around with our translator for several hours yesterday doing paperwork. We met the local inspector again. She is the lady that actually prepared Katya's paperwork 6 years ago and sent it on to the regional office where it was lost. She is the person who gave us a copy of the submitted paperwork. She has really been a great contact. She knows how badly we want to adopt Katya and is the official in charge of submitting the paperwork to get the kids registered. She isn't the person who lost Katya's papers. That happened at the regional office. She gives us lots of useful information and has spearheaded getting Katya's paperwork redone. Technically, providing information about unregistered orphans is illegal in Ukraine. She has gone out on a limb to get us the information we needed to know about the status of Katya's paperwork. It is good to know that we have at least an ally in the government somewhere, although she is not as high up in the chain as we would like to make something happen for Katya now. We invited her to dinner this week and we plan on showing her our family photos and videos and talk about how much we love Katya. We then plan on asking her if there are any other possibilities to do something to get Katya home sooner. If there is a way, she will know and she is sympathetic to Katya's paperwork being lost.

We made it to the orphanage about 5:00pm last evening and were able to spend a couple of hours with the kids. We are amazed at how well they know the mechanics of English. They are shy to speak in conversations, but they are very good at reading and comprehending what they read as well as their pronunciation. Zhenya and Leeza had to come home from school to write a letter to the local court stating that they understood the adoption and were not opposed to it. We were not there but our translator said that Leeza wanted to write all kinds of things including that she thought her Papa was really funny. The orphanage lawyer talked her out of putting that in the letter and told her to keep it simple. She is so excited she can't contain her excitement. Zhenya and Leeza told our translator that their marks in school have gone down in the last few days because they can't concentrate and they don't see the point of doing their Ukrainian language lessons. They do pay close attention in English class.

We have a running joke going. One of the first things I said to Leeza and Katya was "No Boys." They figured out I was joking after some nervous glances at their mom, but since then whenever they see us the first thing they say is "No Boys." Sometimes they will just blurt it out and start laughing. They can laugh now but I feel these very protective feelings coming on and they may have to deal with a very strict Papa.

We have some playing cards that we brought and we were trying to teach them to play Go Fish. They didn't get it, so they tried to teach us a game. We were just throwing cards down. We didn't get it. For a while, they had no clue that we were totally lost. The rules seemed to change every turn.

Katya has a little note book that she showed us. She said she started writing in it the day after we arrived. She had written all of the names of our family and had written, "My Family" in next to our names. She had written her name in English over and over. In those moments, we realize what it means to these kids to have a family. In just a few short days we feel like we have known them for 10 years.

We haven't been as diligent with the video camera this time around. Last trip we took almost 17 hours of video. But much of that was out a taxi window as we were in shock. This trip seems more routine as far as culture shock goes. Ukraine has changed significantly in the short 22 months since we were here. The storefronts have actually appeared. Previously, you would go through a dark, unlit doorway and enter a store. Now, they have signs and windows so you can actually tell that there is a store there. The internet is generally faster than it was 22 months ago. It isn't hard to update the website. We are doing some shopping today so that we ensure Katya is the best dressed kid in school until we return. The kids that live in the orphanage attend regular schools. We sent Katya and Leeza some new clothes for Christmas this year and when we arrived we were shocked to see that they still had the tags on them and that they had not been worn. They were just so excited to have new clothes that weren't hand downs that they wanted to keep them new just to show that they had brand new clothes. We brought more clothes for them when we came. They wore them to school, but we noticed that the tags were still tucked inside the shirts and still intact.

We are missing Alex, Sonya and Nikitta. It looks like our court date here is set for the 21st. We should be able to travel home within 2-3 days after the court date. Things here can change as we have learned so it isn't set. We are working on getting the court date moved up and we may be able to leave a few days sooner. But then again, the sooner we leave, the less time we have with Katya, so either way it is not necessarily a day we want to come quickly.

We are working on taking more video and pictures. We will get some sent and posted soon. We love coming to the Internet Cafe and reading mail from our family and friends. We appreciate everyone's support.

Love,

Wade, Julia, Zhenya, Leeza and Katya

Sent Friday, February 11th, 2005

It is Friday today. Yesterday we were lucky enough to get to take all of the kids, Zhenya, Leeza and Katya, out of school at about 1:00pm. We walked from the orphanage to the school and arranged to have two taxis show up at the school to take the kids, us and our translator to a photography place to get pictures for the Passports. The orphanage director also allowed us to take Katya as she supposedly needed some photos taken. We think that the orphanage director is starting to realize that Katya is already our child in our hearts and is sympathetic to letting us be with her as much as possible.

We walked between several apartment buildings and found the courtyard of their school. The school was smaller than we imagined. But it was a decent building. It looked as though it had a greenhouse complex close to the school, but the building was old and had no roof. We went inside the school and waited for our translator to take the directors permission paper to the office and send for the kids. The lobby of the school was a little dark, but other than that it was clean. We could hear the sound of a gymnasium and the sound of a basketball. I kind of meandered in that direction to see what a Ukrainian school gym looks like. Leeza was actually in her gym class at the time and playing basketball with her class. They were all dressed in their normal clothes and they were playing full court boys vs the girls basketball. The court floor looked like it had seen better days. The floor was wood and looked like a normal basketball court floor, except if you could imagine an American school gym floor never being maintained for 30 years, that is what it would look like. It seemed to be a little warped in areas and had long since just been painted. But even the paint was worn off. The baskets were functional, but the backboards were made of large and square plywood rather than glass. I took some video of the kids playing basketball and soon Zhenya and Katya had been rounded up and we headed for the taxis. The kids were excited that we came to get them from school. We had permission from the director to get their pictures taken, but we figured they would be missing lunch and we didn't want them to be hungry, so after the photos were taken we took them to a really nice Ukrainian restaurant in a nice hotel. The bathrooms in the hotel drew some puzzled looks as they tried to figure out the faucets, hand dryers and soap dispensers. We were reminded of Sonya and Nikittas reactions, but we didnt realize that teenagers would have the same limited experiences. Dinner was fun because we were the only people in the restaurant, other than a couple of business men who came in at the end. Our waiter gave us his full attention and was very attentive the whole time. When he brought out the main dishes the plates had the covers on them to keep them warm and he made a big deal about the presentation of taking of each persons cover. It brought out some verbal sighs from the kids. It is going to be so fun to take these kids to New York on the way home. It is like living the Princess Diary movie, but on a different scale. The kids are so grateful and gracious. They do realize that America is the place to be and they know it will provide more opportunities, but we don't think they fully comprehend the kind of life America can offer them.

We were able to walk home from the restuarant as it was only a few blocks from the orphanage. Recently the temperature here has been so cold that it just goes right through you. The Ukrainians make fun of my American coat. The direct translation of how they describe it is "fish fur." And this is the coat I use to go snowboarding in. That is how cold it is here. Even in the middle of the day with the sun out it doesn't get above 25 degrees. And once the sun goes down it is really cold. People here spend much more time outdoors when its cold. They walk and take public transportation everywhere so they bundle up with huge, thick coats with lots of fur.

The kids have a dance at school tonight, Friday, so we are not going to see them today. We are going to spend all day Saturday and Sunday at the orphanage. Our translator is going back to Kiev to do some paperwork. We have started to realize that we interact much better with the kids without a translator. Everyone is more comfortable without her there and everyone works harder to communicate. The kids seem to speak much more English when she isnt around. So it will be fun. We just have to figure out how to communicate with the taxi drivers to get us there and back each day.

I am getting into editing our camcorder videos into short MPEG clips so I will send more. I am going to try to send clips of the things we describe in the letters and more of the kids so everyone can see their personalities as we see them.

During the day while the kids are in school we are working on both the current adoption paperwork with our translator and also trying to make sure we get everything together to submit the dossier for Katya's adoption before we go as well as to get the contacts we need to help get Katya home. We have such good friends at home who have been helping us get some of the paperwork done so that if something happens for Katya on short notice we can make it happen. We dont want to miss this opportunity to submit our dossier for katya while we are here so that the time frame to get her will not be impacted by our paperwork delays. We appreciate the support of our friends and family. It has been great.

Love,

Wade, Julia, Zhenya, Leeza and Katya

Sent: Saturday, February 12th, 2005

Here are some fun pictures of the kids that were taken today...

The kids have a channel on their TV called "fashion tv" that shows runway fashion shows 24 x 7. The kids kept saying they wanted to do fashion tv and strike poses while we took pictures. The attached pictures are some of the ones we all liked the best.

Leeza is now like the kid in the back seat on the way to Disneyland that keeps saying, "are we there yet?" She wants to know when we are going to America. It is really hard to be excited for Leeza and so depressed about Katya at the same time. Katya is doing much better than we are. She has a Mama and Papa now and she can't hide her excitement about that, although we are sure there is some fear inside her that we won't come back. Living your life without a family, and especially a Mom or Dad would probably create doubt like that no matter what we did. Zhenya has his own profile on Papa's windows XP on the family laptop now and you would think that he just won the lottery. The techie Papa has already learned some things about his computer that he never knew before. Zhenya is still attending his Physics and Math classes at the University this weekend despite knowing he is going to America in a week. He is one driven kid. He said that it doesn't matter if he is leaving in a week. He says Physics and Mathematics are the same in Ukraine and America. He could skip the class and play with Papa's laptop all day, but he would rather take a bus across town and sit in a class. We are so proud :)

Sent Feb 14th, 2005 Monday

Happy Valentines Day! We miss everyone. We are learning so much about Leeza and Katya and Zhenya every day. They are exceeding our expectations by so much. They really are amazing kids. Luckily, these kids seem to be in the best orphanage in Ukraine. The more time we spend at the Orphanage, the more we realize it is more like a boarding school with caregivers that really do love the kids. We liken the caregivers to Aunts. It would be like being raised by one or two of your Aunts with 10-12 kids in the family.

Leeza is really outgoing and fun. We remember her as shy, but she is definitely not shy. We keep wondering if it is due somewhat to her excitement about finally getting that family that she always wanted. On Saturday we brought the kids some cookies. Unfortunately, Leeza is on a special diet and can't eat any sweets. She was released from the hospital the day we arrived here and has been on a special diet since then. She has been really good about what she is supposed to eat, but the cookies were too much. There was a song that Zhenya had queued up on the computer and Leeza started making up new words to express her need for a cookie. It was so hilarious. We had the video rolling and we will make a clip for you.

Zhenya is a really good big brother. We had a serious discussion with all three kids about the US not being just a Disneyland playland, and that they would have to work extra hard in school, etc. Zhenya jumped in and gave his advice to the girls and said that he was going to take advantage of every opportunity and focus on school and that they should do the same.

Katya is really quiet and mellow, but so affectionate. It must be on her mind that our time with her is short. She clings to us every minute we are there and she likes having us just sit and talk to her and hold her hand.

Yesterday, Sunday, the girls groupa made valentines cookies. They have this little metal box that plugs in that was actually a small oven. It was army green and about one foot square in size. It could do about a dozen cookies at a time. Ukraine has adopted so many of our traditions. The cookies were sugar cookies that they were going to decorate.

It is blowing and snowing really hard today. We are just going to stay inside and make some video clips to send and organize our pictures. Our translator should be back from Kiev tomorrow with the permissions for the local court. The orphanage is having a special Valentines day program after school. We are going to go and take some video and see the kids later today.

Sent Feb 15^th

Today is Tuesday, Feb 15th. We had a long and down day today. Our translator is in Kiev right now and was working on several different things. She was going to go the the National Adoption Center to get the permission at the National level for the local court to proceed with Leeza and Zhenyas adoption. We are also submitting our dossier (or paperwork) for Katya's future adoption. Also, our facilitator had set up a meeting with the National Adoption Center attorney to discuss Katya's registration and the possibilites of adopting her sooner. This meeting was really a last ditch effort to make something happen.

We struck out on all three. The lawyer said the paperwork and permission for the local court was all signed and ready to go, but the director would not let anyone pick theirs up until Thursday. They have 5 business days to complete the permissions and although they finished it earlier, the director wouldn't give it out until Thursday. This is a little bad for us as the local judge goes out of town on Thursday and won't be back until Monday. We had hoped to move the court date up a few days, which won't happen now, so court is still on for Monday the 21st. On a good note, this gives us the entire weekend with the kids. We may get to check them out of the orphanage for a day and do something fun.

The second issue was that of submitting our paperwork to get us registered to be able to adopt Katya as soon as she is available. There was a line that formed of facilitators that were there to submit dossiers yesterday. Monday is the designated day of the week for American families. The director came out and saw the line and hand picked several facilitators and told the rest to come back next week. As is our luck, our facilitator was not picked. So, we will try again next week. We are scrambling to get some paperwork updated as some of it expires in a month and the adoption center needs a month to review the paperwork and none of it can expire before the review date is done. (Special thanks to our wonderful friends who have been running around gathering documents and visiting fed-ex on our behalf, Bret and Trisha, Ruth, and Shawny)

The third thing happening was the meeting our translator set up with the lawyer at the NAC. This was our last and best hope for Katya. We prepared our facilitator with a list of questions. The meeting yielded some good information, but not necessarily what we wanted to hear. We did learn a lot about the process. Adopting 5 kids and being in Ukraine for almost 3 months through two different trips can help with the learning curve. We have one more contact inside the Adoption Center that knows everything about Katya’s situation and is sympathetic. We also found out how we can track Katya's registration. Once she is registered and we are registered, her paperwork will be attached to ours and we will receive a formal invitation to return on the day she comes available which will probably be around March 1st of 2006. We also asked about any and all possibilities to get the one year waiting period waived. There are no options. Unless a child has a terminal illness, we were told we would have to wait. So, while we prepared ourselves for this information, it was a difficult day as the reality set in that we are not going to bring Katya home now, or even in a few months, and it will be another year before we can. Actually, a year from when she is registered, and that is still pending, which frustrates us. But the lawyer said Katya should be registered within 14 days and then the 1 year waiting period would begin. Julia has been clinging to a hope that she will come home with us this trip. She is asleep right now, and would probably be mad that I am writing this, but she is heartbroken. She loves Katya so much. We feel like there is something we could have done differently that would have yielded all three kids coming home with us. But as we look at how this all transpired, we have realized that this is the only way we would eventually had all three kids home with us. When we came to Ukraine, we were only approved for 2 children in our INS paperwork. Zhenya would be unadoptable at a later date. Because he is already older than 16, the only way he can be adopted is at the same time as a younger sibling that is under 16. Either he is adopted right now, or he can never be adopted. Leeza is 15.5 years old. In 6 months, she would not be adoptable. Katya, at 14, is the only one of the three that could have had problems with her papers and still have time to get it fixed and come home.

We originally planned on bringing Leeza and Katya home with our approval for two kids. As it turns out, Zhenya is meant to be in our family, and if Katya were available right now, we would never have considered Zhenya as we were only allowed to adopt 2. This way, all three will eventually make it into our home. And as of right now, all three are our children. If Leeza or Zhenya would have had paperwork issues, it would have been too late for them. Katya is the youngest and we can remedy her situation with time. We don't have to wait for the 21st for court or wait a year for Katya's day in court. They are all our kids. They all have a new family. And this is the only way it could happen. But..... with that said, leaving Katya here is incredibly hard.

Love,

Wade and Julia

Posted Friday, Feb 18th 2005

Hello everyone! We are doing well. We have our court approval in hand as of last night at the end of the day, so court is confirmed for Monday, Feb 21st. Leeza and Zhenya will be attending with us at 10am. Normally kids don't attend court here but the judge requested that they be there because they are older and can understand. This is the same judge that gave us the decree for Sonya and Nikitta. We know her well. She scared us to death the last time. She looks like Peg Bundy from that horrible show, "Married With Children." She is an odd fit for a court room, but after some tense moments of asking whether I would be forced to serve in Iraq and killed by terrorists, she did finalize the adoption for Sonya and Nikitta. Apparently, when our translator made the court appointment, she remembered us and wanted us to be sure we brought our pictures along so she could look through them. So maybe she is more bark than bite. Our translator told her that we just loved her the last time and were really looking forward to seeing her again. We will forgive her for her little white lies.

Our airline tickets had a return date of today, Friday the 18th. We knew when we bought the tickets that we would have to eventually change our tickets as you can't really guestimate a return date when adopting from Ukraine, however, we put the date so far out there that there that we would just have to move it up if we moved it at all. Well, now we are in a dilemma, as we have to specify a return date when we are changing the tickets and unfortunately, there are still some things to be done in Kharkov like getting original birth certificates and passports, as well as then going to Kiev to get the kids a medical exam and a visa from the US embassy. They only have flights out of Kiev on our airline on Fridays or Wednesdays. It is going to be tight to get everything done so we can leave next Friday, but it is risky for us to make Friday the change date on our airline tickets as we would have to pay another change fee if we couldn't get everything done by then. But then again, we can't afford to wait clear until the next Wednesday to get home as we both need to get back to work as soon as possible. So, we are going to go for next Friday as the day we leave Kiev for home next week. Hopefully, we will have an easier time getting everything done by Friday. And that is also assuming we can get confirmed seats for Leeza and Zhenya on that flight with us and it isn't full. That is still pending until tomorrow morning. So right now, our exact return date is a little up in the air. Our last trip took 3.5 weeks. We expected the same for this trip but ran into some nasty snags with the Adoption Center and their politics. But with the court approval in hand now, they are behind us and we don't deal with them anymore.

Tomorrow is Saturday and we were lucky enough to get permission from the orphanage director to take all three kids out for the day. We are planning on going to McDonalds and shopping. This will be our first trip to a McDonalds this trip. We have really been into the Ukrainian food. While our translator has been in Kiev this week, we take a taxi from the orphanage to a Ukrainian SuperMarket and then home again. In two years these stores have come a long way. It is like a Super Walmart, except that it is about 1/5 the size. They have a fairly nice deli, although the mayonaise salads seem pretty glossy...we eat them anyway. I have seen that in most American deli's so it can't be that bad, right? They eat lots of different and interesting salads. Most of them are made with hard boiled eggs, cabbage, beets, cucumbers, etc. We have to take taxi's home and carry everything, so we have just been getting enough for two days at a time. We had our translator write the addresses to our apartment as well as to the orphanage, so we have been able to get around ok. Food is very cheap here. As are the taxi rides. It takes about 15 minutes to drive from the orphanage to our apartment and the taxis charge between 2.75 and 4.00 dollars. Although, some of those rides are pretty scary as many of the taxis are russian made cars that were built in the 80's and are held together with lots of tape and wire. No seatbelts or airbags here. A loaf of bread here is about 35 cents. They have these little stores, much like a convenience store attached to a gas station. They usually have about 4 people behind glass counters. All of the items for sale are behind the counter. You have to tell the person what you want, then they get it and ring it up. There are some refrigerated display cases out in the middle of the store, but you can't open them up and ! retrieve the items or they start yelling. You have to tell them you want a particular item and then they come out from behind the display or tell you you can retrieve it. All of the items are divided between the four people, so many times if you want deli items or bread or dairy products, you have to wait in line at each place to buy those items. This system makes it very hard to shop when you don't speak Russian very well. We have figured out that they have no frame of reference for people that are learning Russian. They have no immigrants. There are no foreign tourists. The people here have no experience with people who are learning Russian. So when you tell them you don't understand and that you are American, they just keep talking to you like you understand, because you told them you didn't understand in their native tongue. So not understanding means that by repeating it over and over really fast, you should be able to get it. Everybody has dealt with English as a second language in the states. Where we are in Ukraine, this is the first time most of them have ever met or seen an American in person. To Americans, when you meet someone that is struggling with the language, you respect that person for attempting and trying to learn an unfamiliar language. Here, they just start talking faster and assume that will help you with your understanding, or they just don't get that someone can't speak Russian very well. Repeat after me, as fast as you can.

Leeza and Katya were making fun of my Russian as I am just throwing every word out I can think of to practice. I don't really care what I sound like because I can't learn it with my mouth shut. You have to see if people understand it when you say it. We had to explain to them through our translator that I am not learning Russian because I plan on speaking it every day of my life. It is because I desperately want to communicate with them as best I can to help them with their transition. So laughing at Dad's language skills and saying that he sounds like an idiot is off limits. That is one thing that we are so proud of Sonya for. Within a few weeks of coming home she was saying some really intersting combinations of words, but she was not afraid to just throw things out there. She had the right attitude to learning a language. You kind of just have to swallow your pride. Zhenya keeps giving us the thumbs up on our Russian, so at least we are impressing someone.

Speaking of Zhenya, we started going to visit his groupa a few days ago and having Leeza and Katya join us over there instead of vice versa. We were astounded at the boys groupa. They were quiet, reserved and polite. They spoke in low tones and the groupa was like a well oiled machine. There were kids tidying up, setting the table, doing dishes. Other kids were sitting at desks quietly doing homework while others were doing puzzles, etc. It was such a stark contrast to the girls groupa and we expected just the opposite. These are some very well behaved boys. After having observed them for several days, we actually think the older boys are better behaved than the girls. And for some reason, this is really surprising to us. Zhenya's friend is actually the president of the school. He is 16 years old and played St. Valentine in their Valentines Day performance. He and Zhenya are the obvious leaders of the boys groupa. They work together with the Mama to keep things organized. The younger boys respect them and the older boys are really good to them. Some of the boys are 8,9 and 10 years old and the older boys are really nice to them despite the age differences. I'm not sure how it all works so well, but it seems that when you are dealing with such humble kids, everything works differently. They don't have designer clothes. They share everything. A boy was wearing a polka dot, purple sweater that should have been in the girls groupa. But nobody had any reason to laugh at him. Because tomorrow, that might be the shirt left in the hamper for them. Zhenya has been in that orphanage since he was 5 years old. I am confident that he will learn English quickly, study hard in school and do amazing things. In many respects, we think that the circumstances he has grown up in are better than for a child that wants for nothing in America. He knows humility. He has learned respect. He is structured, grateful, gracious and hopeful. He thanks you for bringing him a bottle of juice like he just won the lottery. The only thing that we can see that he missed out on is a Mama and Papa that loved him. He had family. He grew up with a sister. He had unrelated orphanage brothers that he shared every thread of clothes and toys with. He also had several surrogate Mama's that truly loved him and cared for him. And now the final piece to his puzzle is complete and he will have had it all. And we think we can make up for the missing puzzle piece quickly.

Another of the older girls had a birthday today. We thought we would bring a cake so we bought two of the fanciest cakes we could find at the supermarket and bought about 25 bananas and some pop. It was a big hit. The kids played games, but the party was definitely unique from the last one we attended. The games were different. But the spotlight was definitely on the birthday girl and the mamas went out of their way to ensure she felt very special.

The more time we spend in this orphanage, the more we think the US foster care system stinks. These kids want only for a mom and dad to call their own. They have everything else they need. Not everything they want, just everything else they need. They eat really well. We know because we ate the orphans food and realized that it was better than what we were cooking at our apartment here. Julia keeps telling me the kids are going to be really disappointed that they don't have their meals served at the same time every day. They actually eat in courses here. They have appetizers and main courses and desserts. We were very impressed. The first trip we were here we took a picture of what we thought were raw potatoes. We didn't spend enough time with the kids to realize how well they eat in the orphanage.

We are looking forward to our weekend with the kids. The orphanage director was really good about letting Katya come with us on our outing. Technically, they don't have to let her even spend time with us. But our translator, Nina, sat down with her and showed her the paperwork we were filing to get Katya and let her know that we really wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before we left. She trusts us enough that we are definitely coming back for her that she is letting us spend lots of time with her. And this is one of the most important things that we needed to have happen in our favor before we left. We are just happy that eventually, all three of these kids will be under our roof in Colorado.

Julia keeps saying she can't believe she has six kids now. She keeps doing the math of having 6 kids within 9 years of each other. We thought it would make us feel older faster, but hanging out with three teenagers for two weeks seems to have turned back our clocks. We will see how fast our clocks move when we are running the kids to all their activities after school. :)

Love,

Wade and Julia

Sent Monday Feb 21st, 2005

Our weekend with the kids was perfect. We took them out shopping for new clothes and went to McDonalds one day and a Cafe the next. Katya is now officially the best dressed 14 year old in her school. Some of our pictures we will send should tell the story.

Today, Monday Feb 21st, Leeza Reanne Weston and Zhenya Ryan Weston officially were declared the children of Wade and Julia Weston. We didn't need the Ukrainian government to put it in writing for us though. We just needed to get the court decree so we can legally get our kids passports and bring them home.

The kids took a taxi to the courthouse with the orphanage lawyer and the education ministry inspector. Zhenya was dressed in a nice suit coat and pants. I was in my cargo pants. :) We had to wait for a while after our appointed time of 10:00am. It was almost exactly like the court experience we had with Sonya and Nikitta. It was the same court room. The same judge. The same people. The only thing different was that Zhenya and Leeza were there. The judge asked nicer questions this time. Most likely it was because the kids were there. She didn't ask me if I was going to die in Iraq soon, or anything like that. She had the kids answer some questions like, did they really want to go to America? And she asked them if they liked us. They didn't seem too nervous. They had been practicing saying their names for a week as the orphanage lawyer had them all worked up about potential questions.

After court we took some pictures with the judge. She is a big topic of conversation around our dinner table because of the way she just drilled us with strange questions with Sonya and Nikitta, so I was determined to get a picture with her. We try to describe her to people but pictures always do a better job. She had toned down her looks from two years ago. Her hair wasn't as Marge Simpsonesque as it was before. And she was much nicer this time around. At the end of the court hearing the orphanage lawyer was crying which kind of surprised us. People just don't show emotion here. But she has known Leeza and Zhenya since they were 5 and 3. Overall, it went better than we expected. But as our luck would have it, the computers had some problems and they couldn't get the court decree to print for the judge to sign so we had to sit in the lobby for an hour. Eventually, we just left and took a taxi to McDonalds with the plan for our translator to return later in the afternoon for the court decree. Another issue came to light as our translator was getting ready for the next step. Apparently, Zhenya has been registered with the Armed Forces in Ukraine, much like boys register for the draft in the US. Boys who are older and have been registered for military service cannot get passports for foreign travel unless they get a clearance from the military. I guess this is to cut down on boys fleeing the country to avoid the mandatory military service. So now we are really scared because we suddenly have thoughts of Zhenya being forced to enter the military for two years and not being able to get him out of the country. He is not a US citizen until he touches US soil. So right now he is Ukrainian. After some frantic checking and phone calls, our translator said we will have to fill out several forms and get them to the military and they will release him from his obligation so we can get passports made. The bad thing is that this is going to take about 6 hours tomorrow. Those are an extra 6 hours that we didn't plan on. We are also uncomfortable with the idea that we are now going to ask the military to release him from his obligation. The way things go here, who knows???

Our translator says there should be no problems. When we came to Ukraine, when we would express any concerns to our facilitator and translator, we kept hearing them say, "but you have a special case as you are adopting older children. You will have special privileges and your case will be much quicker than those seeking younger children." That has just not been the case. So we will see if Zhenya being older requires a couple extra years in the military here. No worries, we were promised that this is not a big deal. We just don't know what to expect anymore.

We went to McDonalds and ate lunch. McDonalds didn't feel right with the news about the clearance from the military as well as we were without Katya, so it was a little somber, when it should have been a fun celebration.

We took a taxi to the orphanage and waited a few minutes for Katya to come home from school. We had prepared Zhenya and Leeza that we needed to spend the entire afternoon with Katya alone as Mom and Dad needed some one on one time with her. They were very gracious about it. I think they realized that the court decree made this a done deal and they know they are coming home. They both understand how hard it is for us to leave Katya here.

We spent almost 2 hours with Katya. We explained in great detail exactly what happened with her paperwork and showed her the copy of the paperwork that was lost. We explained everything we had done to get her home this trip. She was fine with this and I think we realized that she is going to be much more patient than we are. We set up call times and explained to her how many people had been and are trying to help us get her home. The rest of the evening we spent with the girls groupa. All the girls pulled out their personal picture albums and we looked through them. Interestingly, most of the girls had copies of the same pictures. Most of the pictures were from summer camps they had gone to. These girls don't deserve to be in an institution. Even though this place is run very well and the kids are well taken care of, and we find it hard to figure out what it is they need, rather than want, they do need to know the love of a Mom and Dad or at least that someone out their cares about them. That is all they hope for and dream about every day. We went out to dinner on Saturday night with Irena and her husband. She has worked at the orphanage since the girls were little. She said that every girl there dreams of a family. She said that Leeza has been praying for us to come and adopt her since we adopted Sonya. She said that Sonya was the first girl ever adopted from their group, and although she was 10.5 at the time, it gave them all hope that some day they might get adopted. She begged us to show people the pictures of the girls. The stereotypes that people have about older kids in an institution are unfortunate. Someone said to me in passing once that they were considering adoption. At the time they said it to me they didn't know that we had adopted Sonya and Nikitta at the ages of 10 and 6. I asked them if they had considered adopting an older child. They looked at me funny and said that they wouldn't want to be killed in their sleep. This is what people, normal everyday people think. I'm sure there are people reading this right now that are shaking their heads thinking that we are crazy for adopting older kids. Kids are resilient. They are shaped by their experiences, but also by the challenges that they overcome. Half of the children in the world right now, over 1 billion of them, don't have either a roof over their heads, enough food to eat every day, access to clean drinking water, or are without both parents. I'm going to say one thing before I step off my soapbox.... How this world treats and cares for its children is in my humble opinion, a true reflection of where we stand as a civilization. Please don't take me wrong with this, we went into adoption because we wanted more children. We didn't do this because we felt like we had a responsibility to take care of children without parents. This is not an altruistic adoption story. They usually aren't. We wanted more children because having children in our home makes us happy. But in doing this, we have been exposed to needs that can be met. This is so hard, because this trip we are realizing that we can't keep coming back. Our house is going to soon be full. But we can best help those that we leave behind by being their advocates in some way and the amplifier of their cries for help.

We have the names and pictures and birthdays of the older children in the Slinko Street Orphanage in Kharkov Ukraine. If you would like to get to know one of these children for care packages, letters, birthdays and Christmas, we are going to start a care group to just simply provide the kids at this particular orphanage with a better life. We can put you in contact with one of the 24 older girls or 21 boys and you can write letters, send care packages and help them feel that they are cared for. And maybe starting small with letters and care packages for these kids will turn into something bigger for them like a family falling in love with them and possibly adopting them. Not all of these children are available for adoption, but we did get an opportunity to look through all of the books and we know which children at that orphanage were registered at the adoption center. We will send more out about this after we get home, but we have to do something as the kids that we have come to know and we are leaving behind deserve better and we know that people want to do things for kids in these situations, but they just need some way to connect with them, and hopefully we can help facilitate that as these kids are just amazing individuals and deserve better.

We may leave Kharkov with the kids tomorrow night on the train or we may be delayed one extra day here with Zhenyas military issue. We will let you know. Hopefully, the delay won't affect our leaving on Friday. In any event, Julia is most likely going to fly home with us or without us as she needs to get back to work. This has us more stressed out than whether Zhenya's military issue will get resolved timely. It's never easy... but it is worth it!

Wade and Julia

Sent Wednesday Feb 23rd

Well, the last few days were an amazing ride. Because of Zhenya's age, there are many issues. Most of the issues were because of the rare circumstances we found ourselves in that our translator and government officials had never dealt with someone Zhenya's age being adopted. I will write more details once we are home, but here is the somewhat short version of the story.

We had a tight timeline to get everything done in Kharkov. Once we had a court decree signed on Monday, making the kids ours legally in Ukraine, we had to get original birth certificates with their new names, and then use the birth certificates to get international travel passports. We would then rush to Kiev to fly out Friday morning.

Zhenya had an in-country passport (not an international travel passport) that he had made when he was 16 and was registered for military service like all boys are in Ukraine when they reach a certain age. Keep this in mind. So, we went to the birth certificate place, and got new birth certificates with few problems. We then went to get the passports made. We were told when we arrived that because Zhenya was registered with the military, he would have to get a letter from them releasing him. Also, he would have to get a notarized letter made that said he was not opposed to coming to America with his mom and dad. We thought this wasn't too big of a deal, but we were running out of time for extras as we had train tickets for that night (Tuesday) for Kiev. We made some calls and our translator was able to get the military issue taken care of without a visit to the military office. His in-country passport was stamped saying that he was released at the passport office. The only thing left was a simple visit to the notary to get a letter drafted and signed for his release to come to America. We sat down with the notary and she drafted the letter and then looked at his passport. She said that there was a problem. The in-country passport had his old name on it and the letter had his new name. The letter had to be in his new name, so the only thing we could do was to get a new passport.

So it was late, we missed the train and we had to start again the next day to get a passport. We show up at the passport office. The official looks over the paperwork and then says that he cannot issue a new passport. Because he is no longer an orphan due to the court decree, he is not registered. Being registered in Ukraine means that you have a physical address that is registered as your domicile. He would not issue a new passport without the registration.

Registration can take months because everyone in the place he lives has to sign notarized documents that they are not opposed to that person being registered there. Zhenya's old passport became invalid with the name change on the birth certificate. So now, he was a Ukrainian citizen, adopted by Americans, no longer an orphan, with no place in Ukraine to be registered to, and stuck in no mans land without the ability to get a passport. To tell you how serious this

was would not due it justice. Our translator was brainstorming ideas with us like he could live with her and her husband for three months until he could be registered, and then we could come back and pick him up. It was very serious.

We decided to go to the original passport office that issues the international versions and basically tell them they created a catch 22 and that Zhenya was basically in no mans land. We went back to that office and we were finally able to speak to a high ranking official that said she would instruct the passport office to create a new passport. We were able to get the passports done today. That is definitely the short version. I will add things later about how the

power at the passport office went out and how we were there at closing time and our translator had to get a copy of a document made and ran out the door telling us not to let anyone leave for home until she got back. Julia and I sat in

front of the door and tried to be as American as possible so people would not leave because they didn't know how to get rid of us from their doorway. The power went out so we were signing the paperwork by candlelight. I had an idea to use my video camera light and just for kicks I recorded the event for fun. I don't have time right now, but I promise I will fill in the details. A book could be written on the crazy events of the last two days. It all worked out.

We finished the final international passports, confirmed our flights and caught a train to Kiev this evening. Right now I am in an internet cafe in Kiev. We have doctors appointments for the kids in the morning and then we see the US

embassy for visas in the afternoon and then we fly home Friday morning and arrive home Saturday night. (lots of layovers and plane changes on the way.)

Now to the sad part.....

We said our goodbyes at the orphanage on Tuesday night and took Zhenya and Leeza to our apartment that night. We spent most of Tuesday with Katya. She knows we are coming back, and we will not let her forget. There were lots of tears. We spent many hours with the girls and boys groupa in the past 23 days. We basically just had a two hour cry fest. Julia and I kept saying that if we had a hotel we could buy, and a lottery to be won, we could move this whole groupa to America and we would take every single one of them. They are truly amazing kids. We wish everyone could meet them. They wouldn't be there for very long if people had a chance to talk with them for a couple of hours. They would all find families. They yanked our hearts out and we have no doubt they would do the same to anyone. We love all those kids so much. Please, if you are even considering adoption, come over, meet our kids and watch our videos and ask us anything you want about the specifics of these kids. We have lots of pictures and information about all of them.

Well, this will have to be our final update from Ukraine as we are so busy in Kiev for the next 27hours before our flight. On Sunday, I will update more and once I have access to my high speed internet I will post dozens of pictures and more details on some of our experiences on our website. Thank you all for taking this journey with us. We can't wait for everyone to meet Zhenya, Leeza and Katya.

With Love,

The Weston Family - Eight of us....

Sent Saturday Feb 26

Well, we are still in Kiev. We had planned to take a flight out on Friday, but we got word there was a problem with our tickets late Thursday, which we were unable to rectify prior to the flight leaving. We had to change our flight to Monday morning. We arrive Monday night at 10:48pm on Delta from Atlanta. Our email stopped working. Thank Comcast for that, so we have been unable to get or receive email for several days. This trip has been just the opposite from our first trip. Absolutely nothing went wrong the first time around. The second time around, anything that could go wrong, did. But, had it been the other way around, we probably would not have come back the second time and if we had not, we would be short about three kids. So, it all works out in the end. Leeza and Zhenya are bouncing of the walls here. We are staying in downtown Kiev. We are enjoying the down time with them. They are full of life and keep us laughing. We are excited for everyone to meet them. We text message Katya on her cell phone about 10 times per day. We miss her badly already, and it has only been 3 days. This delay in getting home really puts a squeeze on us as Wade is expected back on the 1st, which means straight to work, do not pass go, don't fall asleep driving to work, get off the plane, stop for breakfast at home, say hello to kids, go to work. Julia returns the 3rd, so getting the kids in school is going to have to be done really quickly.

We will post additional updates on the website once we get home and finally have access to our high speed internet connection, rather than the 128k max we have in Ukraine. Until Monday night....

Wade and Julia

Sent Sunday, March 6th

I promised some updates with lots of pictures once we got home, but finding the time has been hard. The pictures will be posted on our website within a few days. We are back to work and trying to get over our jet lag. That has been difficult to do.

When we arrived in Newark on Monday afternoon, there was a huge storm. Our flight to Atlanta had been cancelled. They put us on an earlier flight to Atlanta that had not left yet. It was delayed once again and this put our connection in Atlanta in jeopardy. When we arrived in Atlanta, we ran off the plane and found the board to find our connecting flight. The board said the flight was closed. We decided to run and see if we could catch it anyway. We ran down the terminal and as we approached the attendant asked if we were the Westons. They had held the plane for us as we already had boarding passes and they looked up our connection and found our plane had landed. So it took about six weeks for luck to go our way. This was the first thing that went our way the entire trip. Despite all the setbacks on this trip, the end result was a good one. We brought Leeza and Zhenya home. How that happened with all the problems we hit is unbelievable to us.

The flight from Atlanta to Denver was empty and we all sprawled out on three seats each and fell asleep. Grandma and Grandpa Weston were at the airport along with Great Grandma Myrtle, Wade's grandma. Bret and Trisha Herrod were also there with their children, Lia and Mindy, as well as our good friends Kris and Clarke Stoesz with their children Amanda, Alex and Natalie. Natalie was adopted from Ukraine at the same time Sonya and Nikitta were. We visited with everyone for awhile. It felt good to see familiar faces and to be in Denver.

Leeza and Zhenya were so excited to finally be in Denver. The only real hitch on the trip home was the immigration people in Newark. Four male immigration agents took Leeza into a back room to be fingerprinted. Our objections to this were not heeded. They returned when they realized that she could not speak English. They then allowed one of us back there to translate, obviously because after six weeks in Ukraine we just ooze Russian. We just thought it was very inappropriate for four very intimidating male imigration officers to take a 15 year girl into a room alone and not allow their parents to accompany her. They then said she would get her green card in about six months. When I heard that I thought for sure they had not understood how to process her paperwork. I told them that she was an American Citizen once she touched the ground in America. I asked them to double check and make sure they processed her correctly. They put the right stamps no her passport. We think they just misunderstood the law. So despite what they said, we know better, Leeza and Zhenya are both American Citizens by virtue of a law passed during the Clinton years that states that foreign adopted children, whose parents are citizens, become citizens upon entering the United States if they enter with an IR3 Immigrant Visa.

Anyway, we made it home. We have done some extensive shopping with the kids. We have also registered them in school. Zhenya's transcripts worked great. The school counselor said that basically he is done with everything in high school except his English. He has three English classes and the rest are electives. She was astounded at his transcripts and thought it was amazing he had taken physics in eight grade. His English classes are also English Second Language, so he is graded on his progress, and not by grade level. So basically, his hard work in Ukraine will pay off here. He just needs to enjoy school and learn English. Once he is proficient enough in English he can also start taking AP classes to earn college credit in the subjects he knows well like Math, etc. Zhenya's ESL teacher that he has for three English classes every day is also the soccer coach, so Zhenya is pretty happy about that.

Leeza was much more difficult to get enrolled. We wanted to put her in 8th grade. Our thinking there is that 9th grade counts. Any grade received in 9th will show up on transcripts. We did not want to insert her into 9th grade in the middle of the semester with little English skills. We figured that finishing the 8th grade, along with the summer, would give her more time to prepare for high school. Also, we knew that she would need 4 years of credits. So she would most likely repeat the 9th grade if she entered it now, at the latter part of the year. We decided we should put her with the kids she would be graduating with. Well, the middle school didn't like that idea. The principal didn't want her in 8th grade because of her age. We pushed it and after a conference with the principal, school counselor, ESL teacher, school social worker, and school psychologist, they finally relented. But they only did it because we told them that we would take it to the top if we had to, because we knew this was the best thing for her. What is it with school administrators that seem to know better than the parents what is best for the child?

Grandma Weston and Great Grandma Weston left on Thursday evening. It was a sad goodbye as they had spent 6 weeks taking care of the kids. Grandma did an amazing job. Getting the kids to all their after school activities is very difficult as many things like Nikitta's wrestling and the girls swimming overlap. Grandma also did so much one on one work with Nikitta's reading that we were astounded at how well he could read when we got home. We kind of wish we could have them just stay permanently. But they had to go home as grandpa Weston was feeling very lonely back home. We are so grateful for their help. We could not have pulled this off if it weren't for them. The kids loved having them and we felt so comfortable while we were in Ukraine that they were being well taken care of.

Leeza starts swimming with Alex and Sonya on Monday. We weren't going to have her do it, but she watched them practice on Thursday and asked if she could swim too. Zhenya and Nikitta are so good for each other. They have spent many hours kicking soccer balls around and playing basketball. Zhenya has also been introduced to XBOX by Nikitta.

We are now settled. Things are going well and the kids are really having fun. But being as old as they are has unique challenges. They are very set in their ways. Food is difficult. American food is not too popular with them. The language issues seem to frustrate them a little. Suddenly not being able to communicate basic things at times is very difficult. They are survivors and they will work through it. They don't just have to learn English. They have to master it and that will not be easy. Russian and English are very different languages. We will all just take it one day at a time. We will write another update after their first week of school.

The pictures we will post in the next few days should tell the story better than these updates can.

Our letter writing to Katya has begun in earnest. If you would like to write her, we will post her address on our website.

Love,

The Weston Family

Posted March 10, 2005

Hi everyone!

Things are going so well now that we are home with Leeza and Zhenya. They love school and think it is so casual and fun!

We have talked on the phone with Katya several times. Wade found a way to send text messages to her cell phone over the internet and she can respond to us. We are very excited to be able to communicate with her real time. Every word from her is precious to us during this waiting period.

These are a few of her message back to us:

from Katya: I so happy can sen d message to you too! Say to my fa mily hallo! I dont want sleep and want write messages to you! papa i love youù

from Katya: I want be with you soon...i miss you! I no go to school now.I love you papa

from Katya: in Ukraine is morning !loves katya!mama i miss you veri mucha

Katya's address is on the website. It is written in Ukrainian. If you want to send her something, print it out, then tape it to an envelope.

You can type a letter at this web site and the translation is free. It is not a perfect translation, but it is understandable. Specify English to Russian. Please send the Russian and English versions to help her understand it better.

www.freetranslation.com

If you send just a letter and couple of pictures (under 1 oz) it is 80 cents for airmail. If you send anything more, you have to fill out a customs declaration at the post office.

She would love to hear from you.

Much Love,

Julia

Posted March 11, 2005

We have now been home for 10 days. Leeza and Zhenya both tried swimming with Alex and Sonya. Leeza loves it. She is a bit of a water spaz, but she will catch on quickly. Zhenya is a great swimmer. His freestyle is very powerful and he has good technique. He will need lots of work on the other strokes, but he has really enjoyed it. He loves playing basketball too. I took him to one of my games and they let him play with us. He loved it. He did great, although he was a little intimidated by all the old fat guys. On Wednesday night I took him to the young men's program at the church and as soon as he walked in all the kids mobbed him and told him they were really happy he was there. He also got to play basketball with his buddies there for an hour. He is having a hard time understanding that there is a basketball court in the church. It is a little different in Ukraine.

The kids have really enjoyed going to church. Leeza was very religious to begin with. She prayed every night in the orphanage and had some cards with pictures of Russian Orthodox Saints on them that she kept by her bed. She also has a Russian Bible that she received at a summer camp. Zhenya is a little less intense, but they both consider themselves Christian. They told us they couldn't believe how casual church was. Their experience with church consisted of summer camps run by Christian groups and an occasional holiday Mass at the local Orthodox church. Zhenya said church in Ukraine is very cold and intense. They have to wear special hats. Zhenya commented that he really liked church in America because the adults were so nice. He said they are good people. He says that in Ukraine, most adults just yell at kids.

We also got a number of comments on the school system. They can't believe how relaxed it is. The first thing they noticed were students sitting on the floor eating their lunches. Also, the dress code was a little surprising to them. And they can't believe they can eat and drink in class. Zhenya also laughed because during one class the teacher said it was ok for the kids to sleep. Isn't it surprising that he also commented that Leeza's 8th grade math was 3rd grade level in Ukraine. I wonder if there is any correlation?

Leeza had a little trouble one day at school because the person that was supposed to escort her to her next class either didn't show or told her wrong, so she was lost. She ended up wandering frantically around and eventually found her way to the office and someone from her class came and got her, but it was a little traumatic for her.

Things are going well. Leeza and Zhenya are just amazing kids. Very loving, well mannered, funny, happy and full of life as well as grateful and humble. Which seems very typical of most of their friends they left behind in the orphanage.

This weekend we are planning to take a drive through downtown Denver and then up the canyon to see the mountains. We are also going to see a movie.

See our Blog for updates on Leeza and Zhenya and how they are doing....