WE HAVE STAS!!!

Another crazy day or two... it's now Thursday and we are in Kiev and I'll try to recap what has happened the last two days - quite the emotional roller coaster...


Tuesday night we had dinner with two other couples in the adoption process both finishing up there first visit here. We really enjoyed getting to know them as we have a special bond

Dinner Tuesday night in Kherson

Wednesday - We hit the ground running once again going from the passport office to the lawyers office to the courthouse back to the passport office then to the tax office and by 3pm, we still hadn't received the passport which was a little concerning because everything was hinging on this. We decided to try to save a little time and go pick up Stas at the orphanage and sign all the release papers and say our final goodbyes. We unfortunately only had an hour there, but did get a few pictures..

Stas and his buddies..

Our new buddies Jamie and Kelly with their soon to be daughter Masha

Roma and Kola

Vova Jacobsen

When Stas went to Italy this summer, he picked up a backpack and some clothes. The orphanage allowed him to bring that back to America with him... we thought he might have had Kola in there

In the car, leaving the orphanage

goodbye orphanage!

I did get to see Elyi and a couple of the other older boys but they were in the middle of soccer practice so we couldn't talk for long.. just a quick hug and hello.  It wasn't that sad leaving the orphanage as everyone seemed pretty happy for Stas and knew that he was heading for a better life.

Once we picked up Stas, we rushed back to the passport office, paid our $600 expediting fee (also known as a bribe) and got the passport just at 5:00 pm before the office closed.

Next up was dinner with the grandparents and that deserves it's own blog...