Incredibly Blessed

This has been an amazing weekend. OK, weekends don't usually last from Friday through Tuesday, but this one has. The shopping trip, the time with the kids doing jigsaw puzzles or just kidding around, it all was indescribable. As I watched the kids interact with each other and with us, I was overwhelmed by the incredible blessing that God has chosen to bestow on us. Experiencing this adoption journey is totally something else. We are so glad that we found out about Igor's availability this past summer, so that we had time to complete a revised home study approving us for adopting three children.

Court was scheduled for 3:00 pm today (Odessa time). At 2:51, the taxi driver pulled over to the side of the road and took out a map. We definitely did not take this as a good sign. Driving on the trolley tracks to get around a traffic jam is definitely an interesting experience. Gail told the kids to forget how people drive in Ukraine.We arrived at the court building at 3:03 and waited nearly 30 minutes to be called into court. Thankfully, our judge was not on time. We were told that they never are. The room was quite full with two persons from Ilichovsk, two from the orphanage, one from Odessa administration, Oles, our facilitator and the five of us. There were also four persons from the court, including the judge. With 15 people and 13 chairs, Yulia and Masha were standing for the entire 30 minutes of court. When Gail was describing how we decided to adopt three children, that we began by deciding to adopt Masha, but didn't want her to be alone, so we decided to also adopt Yulia, then found out that Igor was available and wanted to keep brother and sister together so we decided to adopt all three, the judge and other court members were all smiling and he asked if Masha had any more friends.

So, now we have three more children. More waiting for paperwork, so we can send copies to USCIS in Omaha and apply for their Ukraine passports. We should be home in another month, maybe a little sooner. We opened gifts and Masha has already worn out one set of batteries in her digital camera. The other two have each taken a few pictures. We enjoyed having dinner with Lisa and Betsy at their apartment, going Christmas caroling and watching the movie "Happy Feet" in Russian, with English subtitles. It is already December 26 here, but we realize that we have just experienced a wonderful and totally unique Christmas Day that will forever make the day even more special than it already was. Merry Christmas.