Road Trip

We arrived in Omaha at 2:00 am, Monday, February 4. The next couple of days consisted of shopping and introducing the kids to their brother Geoff, Gail's mom and some people that Gail and Steve work with. Thursday, after Steve got off work, we piled into the van and drove three hours to Cozad, NE to introduce them to their other Grandma, Steve's mom, Gen. After lunch Friday, it was back into the van for a six hour drive to Alva, OK to see their niece MaKenzie (age 6), take part in the Miss Northwestern Pageant in a dance routine and as an escort for one of the contestants. They also met big sisters Amy and Alysson and nephews Weston (age 3) and Wyatt (age 1) and brothers-in -law Corey and Matt. Another three hours of driving to Woodward, OK and back to Alva to see Corey, Amy and MaKenzie's home came on Saturday.

I am posting this from the motel in Alva, OK as we are getting ready to go to church with Matt, Alysson, Weston and Wyatt. After church, we will have lunch and make the six and one half hour drive back to Omaha. The kids haven't even been in the US for a week, and they have been in four states, Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. They go to school tomorrow for some placement testing and then start on Tuesday. I think that they are ready, but a little nervous. Masha said that she is ready to meet new friends.

I will post some photos of this road trip when we get back to Omaha.

The Day That Never Ends

As Michelle says, the trip back to Omaha is the day that never ends. We definitely know what she means. We woke up Sunday morning in Keiv at 3:30 am (that would be 7:30 pm Saturday evening Central Time) so we would be ready for the driver to pick us up at 4:30 am. We got to the airport and got in the passport control line. Of course, it was the slowest one. When we finally got to the front, it only took a few minutes. Our flight to Munich left at 6:50 am and arrived at 8:40 am (Munich time) and the flight to Chicago left at (9:00 am). When we got into the terminal a man was waiting with a sign that said Chicago and our flight number. There were seven passengers connecting to that flight and he walked us to the gate, which was at the other end of the terminal. He walked at a very fast pace. I kept up fairly well as we strung out behind him. Gail and the girls were practically running. We went through the passport control for first class and he escorted us to our gate. We boarded and took off within a few minutes. After a nine and one-half hour flight, we arrived in Chicago an about noon. We had been told to go to the US citizens line at immigration, so we went there, only to have the immigration employee direvting traffic tell us in less than perfect English that we should go to the "black line" for immigrants. I think he saw the immigrant visa holder forms that we filled out for the kids, which the agent at the blue line said we didn't need. I told him that we were told to go to the "blue" line. He replied, " I told you go to black line." So we did and the lady there sent us back to the "blue" line. After a couple of minutes we had been checked through and went to collect our luggage to go to customs. We gave the agent our packet with the customs declaration and the sealed packets for the kids that the US Embassy had given us. After a few minutes, he asked if we had any additional passport type photos of the kids. The Embassy or the medical clinic had glued one set of to one of the forms. He was to move the photo to a different form. Gail remembered putting them in a suitcase that morning. After about 10 minutes of searching, Yulia found it in my camera bag. Then we took all the bags through customs and re-checked to Omaha. Our Omaha flight was scheduled to leave at 8:15 pm. So the eight hour wait began, nearly as long as the flight from Munich. About 5:00 pm the ominous "Delayed" went up on the board. Isn't it strange that they never say it why it is delayed. At 7:00 pm, it began to snow. The prospect of spending the night in Chicago, after being up for 24 hours, was not attractive. The departure time changet to 9:30, but the plane hadn't arrived from Providence, RI. Several more schedule changes and the plane arrived. We boarded at 10:00 amid rumors that the snow may get worse and flights stop departing. Once on board we had to wait for de-icing. They let planes that were traveling to airports with curfews depart first, so we waited. The kids were sleeping the entire time and we were napping off and on. We finally left at 12:30 am and arrived in Omaha at 2:00 am Monday about 32.5 hours after we got up. There were 18 people waiting to greet us, from church and other adoptive families. That was really special and the kids were thrilled to see friends from Odessa.

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I still haven't gone to bed. It is 6:55 am. I am going to take a shower and go to work, so that I can take-off in the afternoon, if the the kids ever wake up today. So two months after we left Omaha, we end this part of the journey and the next great adventure begins. Thank you all for your prayers. Stay tuned.

Arrival Time

We have our flights confirmed to arrive in Omaha Sunday night at 9:51 pm on United flight 343 from Chicago. Not much to tell. It will be good to be home. Thanks for all the prayers. Don't stop!

We Have Visas

We picked up the visas this morning. It only took about 45 minutes. We are now finalizing the airline arrangements for Sunday. Will post again when they are final It was a beautiful day in Kiev. Probably about 40 degrees and sunshine.