Post for Thursday: Embassy today

Things are going rather well here, considering the situation. The girls have behaved rather well, but have had a few problems here and there. Brushing teeth is still a struggle with Anastasia so we just get a couple done each time. Eventually we will have covered the whole mouth or gotten her used to the idea. Today was shower number two and after yesterday’s experience the girls were scared to death at the beginning. They both eventually calmed down and survived the shower without losing power and hot water!  We were able to meet Paula and Elizabeth at TGI Fridays again last night so they got to meet out girls before we leave. Our flights are scheduled to leave here at 6:45 am Friday with us needing to be at the airport 2-3 hours early. We are mainly concerned about the 7 hour layover in Charlotte, NC, but were told by Golden Rule to try to get bumped to an earlier flight. We have not had to deal with travel agents in the past, so maybe our expectations were too high, but we have not been fully satisfied with our experience with Golden Rule. For those of you heading over, they have a policy that they will not call their clients internationally (not Skype, etc….). This has left us in a crunch lately because we do not have internet to email and the Ukrainian cell phone has unlimited incoming, but the outgoing goes through your prepaid minutes like crazy. We could have had a 2.5 minute conversation with them and used all of our minutes last night. Courtney had to call them, then us, then them, then us, etc… until we were able to resolve our flight schedule. We just felt they could have Skyped us for very cheap and billed us the call! Would have been a lot more user friendly for us, the client. We just wanted to mention this so the other families will know in advance that they may have difficulty communicating from over here when time to schedule return flights so have a plan. Today we are going to the US Embassy to get the Visas taken care of for the girls. We will be packing up tonight and flying out tomorrow. Yes, our process has been exceptionally quick. Key word: Exceptional. Families coming over and even going to the same region do not need to plan on such a quick trip. It may happen, but it may not. Everything is subject to change without a moment’s notice. What went quick for us, may not go as quick for the next. Prayers that it will, but just don’t plan on it in case you are disappointed. There are a lot of precious children in the orphanage the girls were living. All of the kids deserve a family, a chance, a life. If you are not called to adopt, please be led to pray for these children. Pray for all of the orphans around the world. Oh… and for us, prayers the flights go well and we are able to get the earlier flight so we don’t have 7 hours to kill in N.C. airport with 2 little girls who will be exhausted by then.
Letter to Home: Hey Courtney, Shelby, Abby, Romney (and everyone else)! We miss you and love you very much! Shelby, we hope school is still going good for you! We wish we were able to be there with you now, but soon we will be home! Courtney, if you go shopping, Anastasia could use a ‘shape sorter’ toy. Her motor skills are not very good. She is a lot ‘younger’ than Sophia at this point in time. She will greatly benefit from therapy. We were told both girls favorite things are the toy phones, dolls and building blocks. They have loved the board books and crayons/coloring books as well. Abby and Romney, we hope you are still being good! Save our kisses for us when we get home… we need them all! We love you all and will see you as soon as possible!!!! Hugs and Kisses!!!!