Our Court Date

August 17th- Hanging around our flat

We got up around 8:00 feeling that we made it through the weekend and just had to hold on for the next three days. We are staying close to the flat until our court appointment on Thursday. Sergei and Lena are spending this time with their families. We turned the TV on and watched several American shows: "Still Standing, dubbed in Ukrainian. We've seen "According to Jim" and an Ukrianian version of "The Nanny". They are kind of fun to watch. The TV in this flat only gets a few channels and only 2 come in clear. Each morning the children text us, "Good Morning". Sasha is still texting in English and sometimes Kristina will text us in Russian or a mixture of both, English and Russian. It makes our day when we hear from the children. Sasha and Kristina are a delight. They make us feel like we were always meant to be here for them. We kept hearing over and over again that we will have the children that God has planned for us and not until we met Sasha and Kristina that things became crystal clear. We had crepes for breakfast filled with some kind of sweet cheese and added blueberry yogurt on top. They were very good and a little different than having eggs or cereal for breakfast. We worked our blog until about 2:30 when Natasha called us to let us know she had been talking to Kristina. Kristina was concerned since she would not be seeing us for a few days that we did not forget to come to court on Thursday. Natasha told her of course we would not forget and that we would be there 30 minutes early! We were not expecting that from Kristina and felt so happy that our little girl wants us as much as we want her. We had received a text message from Sasha, "How are work?" He knew we had spent so much time doing the paper work for court and believed we were still doing paper work. We replied "Work is fine". We continued working on the blog until around 7:00 and took a break to heat up some left over pizza from the night before. A few days before, Lena had helped us with some shopping at the market. She pointed out some bargain ice cream and told us it was very good and we should try it. Tonight, we tried the vanilla ice cream along with sliced bananas and nutella. What a treat!! This is something we will fix for the children when they are finally ours, but we needed to try it out for ourselves, first. Doug was checking on line, about the school schedule back home to get some information. We were told by the assistant directors that both children were neglected by their birth mother and she had not even registered Kristina's birth and kept them out of school for 2 years. The orphanages told us they both were doing very well in school. Doug thought the children needed to be registered in the same grade as they are in at the orphanages now; until emailing Bob Fuhriman who advised us to register both children at the grade level appropriate for their ages. He let us know that is what he had done with his adopted children, their circumstances were very similar, and after a lot of hard work his children are doing great in school. Before turning in for the evening we left a text message to the children, We love you! Goodnight. Mama and Papa. We turned in for the night sleeping on the hide-a-bed like sofa to see if it was any better than the regular bed.

August 18th- Two more days until court

We awoke about 8:00. We both agreed that we had slept a little better on the sofa than on the bed. The bed we were sleeping on is about a foot of the ground and hard as a rock. Amy tries to pad the bed to make it more comfortable but it only helps a little bit. We got a text message from Sasha wishing us a "Good Morning". Sasha is now back at the orphanage and we believe he may have access to more books that may be helping him with his English or he's just an exceptional child. We returned his text message saying, "Good morning son. We Love You! Mama and Papa. A short while later he responded by saying "I also you Love". The message made us feel emotional. Our son was trying to communicate with us. We sent a "Good Morning" text message to Kristina but didn't hear anything back. We fixed ourselves some breakfast and afterwards I tried to access Amy's email at her work. We both checked our emails and Doug had gotten some responses from the Canyon's School District who asked him for some more information about the children. Around 11:30 we received a call from Lena to let us know that the landlady was sending someone over in an hour to fix the internet. About 5 minutes later we heard a knock on the door. Knock Knock, Who's there? The landlady and the repair guy. We didn't think it was funny either. The repair guy got the internet in the apartment working within minutes. We had been blogging and checking email on a USB modem Lena had loaned us, since we were having trouble with our internet at the apartment for almost a week. For the next hour we were reading blogs and emails from back home. We had some lunch and we did some mundane household chores including the laundry. Washer but no dryer. Thank goodness for those apartment dryer racks. We fixed dinner about 6:00. After dinner we started responding to the emails we had read earlier in the day. We sent the children a text message about 7:30 and forwarded the message to Natasha. A few minutes later Kristina text us back "Have good night @ pleasant dreams". Sasha just text us "Goodnight". We watched some fine Ukrainian television programing at got ready for bed around 10:20.

August 19th- The day before court

We woke up about 8:40 and we had tea and cookies. We received a text message from Sasha wishing us a "Good morning". He always remembers to text us every morning. What a thoughtful son. We fixed mushrooms and cheese omelets for breakfast. We got ready to head out to the market to pick up a few things including some more MTC phone minutes. We started walking to the market when we received a call from Natasha. She informed us that it would be necessary to hire a second driver for our court date because officials were coming from two different orphanages. We were expecting the additional expense but were not happy about it. She also informed us of a new wrinkle, we would now have to obtain a Criminal Background Check on Sasha, required for all children over the age of 14. She said that the Criminal Background Check could take up to ten days to have done. At the market we bought a few things for the children to give them after court. We came back from the market and started making dinner. We had picked up some frozen dough, tomato sauce, mushrooms and cheese to make our own pizza. After dinner Doug called Lena to check on the schedule for picking everyone up from the orphanages. We were told the second driver would be Ed and he would go to Krasnodon to pick up Shasha, a Social Worker and the Inspector. Sergei would be picking up Kristina from Shaste along with the same group of official for her orphanage. Sergei would also be picking us up by 9:00. Amy started to get our court clothes ready for the next day. We spent the evening discussing what we might be asked in court and Amy expressed concern for having such an inexperienced Judge who hadn't presided over an adoption hearing before. We were still disappointed about our preliminary hearing, because we couldn't combine both hearings the week before and now had to wait nearly a week longer for this hearing. Amy didn't know how to read the Judge and was worried about getting the Criminal Background Check done in time on Sasha. Needless to say Amy didn't have a very restful night.

August 20th- Our Court Day has Arrived!

At 4:45 am our cell phone rings. We both woke up and Doug answered the phone and Lena was on the other end. She didn't have her key and was standing outside the apartment door. Doug let her in and we both tried going back to sleep, without much success. Amy got out of bed at about 5:15 and Doug at 6:15. Doug had a little breakfast. Amy to nervous to eat anything. Amy spoke with Lena who let her know that Sergei would be picking her up at 8:00 and then driving to Shaste to pick up Kristina and the officials from her orphanage. Sergei would return to pick us up by 9:00. Our hearing was scheduled to start at 9:30. After putting on our court clothes Doug checked the email and there were several messages from friends and family back home wishing us good luck on the hearing. Kristina and the Social Worker arrived with Sergei and Lena at 8:50 and we were ready. Kristina was in the back seat wearing her new clothes: skinny jeans, teal top and red patent leather shoes. The Social Worker sat in the front seat and the four of us were in the back seat with Kristina on Amy's lap. We arrived at the Court House shortly after 9:00 and waited outside. Soon thereafter Sasha, a Social Worker and the Inspector from Sasha's orphanage arrived in his car. There was no Ed. Kristina ran to Sasha and they both embrace by the Inspector's car. Sasha was wearing his new clothes an Armani top, jeans and shoes. The children both made comments to each other about how nice each looked in their new clothes. Lena translated that this was the first time they had seen each other wearing brand new clothes. We had some time to take a few pictures outside the Court House.

Shortly after 9:30 we saw the Judge going into the Court House. She briefly looked over to us before continuing inside. The Judge was wearing the same white pants she wore at the preliminary hearing and a white sequin top with her sunglasses on her head. Her hair color appeared to be much darker. We all followed the Judge inside the Court House and showed our passports to the attending officer. We all waited out in the hall most of us had to stand the sparse amount of seating there was had been occupied. The Judge went into the Court Room and shortly thereafter left the Court Room and locked the door behind her. She returned a short time later and unlocked the door and we were then ushered inside by the Judge's Assistant. In addition to everyone that had attended the Preliminary Hearing there were now two Jurors. Because of the additional people there were not enough seats for everyone so Sasha had to share a seat and Kristina sat on the Inspector's lap. The Judge asked Amy and Doug to stand with Lena and she asked us why we were adopting? Doug was the first to speak and he told the Judge that we had found these children through pictures we saw at the SDA office. He told the Judge that we had to travel by train from Kiev to Luhansk to meet the children at their respective orphanages and immediately began to bond with them. He then told the Judge it seemed like God had brought us to these children to become their Mother and Father. Amy was getting very emotional and Doug encouraged her to say something. Amy said that she already felt like she was their mother and that she loved them and wanting to be with them always. We looked over at the children and Kristina had tears in her eyes. Amy grabbed both of the children's hands. The Judge than asked Sasha to stand up and state his full name and birth date. The Judge than asked Sasha if he wanted to be adopted by us and he answered "Dah". Then he asked him if he knows that he will have some struggles ahead, learning to speak English and just living in America. Sasha again answered by saying "Dah". Lena said Sasha knew this is what he wanted and that he was very sure of his answers to the Judge. When the Judge asked him how oftn we communicated with him he told her everyday. The Judge asked Kristina to stand and state her full name and birth date. She then asked Kristina if she wanted Amy to be her mother and Kristina answered "Dah". Of course Amy and I were thrilled with the children's answers to the questions they had been asked. Who knew the word Dah could sound so beautiful. We both are very proud of them. Lena then informed us that the Judge had come to her decision and asked if we wanted to know now what her decision was. We both told her that we would like to know now. Lena told us that the Judge's decision was positive. The Judge approved the adoption and Lena congratulated us. The Judge then adjourned the proceedings and all of the orphanage officials wished us congratulations. There were many hugs and kisses from everyone. The celebration continued out in the hall. We hugged each other and our children and Amy even hugged the Judge's Assistant and in broken English told us to "be happy". The entire hearing was over in less than 20 minutes. Lena told us it was the fastest adoption hearing she had ever been a part of. We went outside and I asked Sergei to take a picture of our new family outside the Court House. The Inspector, Social Worker and Sasha said goodbye and they all headed back to Krasnodon. The rest of us left to head back to Shaste with Kristina and her Social Worker. As we about to leave Luhansk Doug reminded Lena about doing the paperwork for Sasha's Criminal History Report. Lena assured him that she remembered and she knew where she needed to go and what to do. Without saying anything to us Sergei pulled the car over and he and Lena got out. We all waited inside the car for almost a half an hour until we saw the Inspector's car carrying Sasha and the Social Worker. They started walking up the street and when Sasha saw us he walked over with the Social Worker. She motioned with her hands that they had been driving around in circles. It appeared the Inspector was trying to reach Lena on her cell phone. We noticed that there were several uniformed members of a Marching Band starting to gather near the base of a monument. Soon after a large processing of Police Officers started marching toward the monument. We watched the Inspector and the Social Worker walk toward the processing. It was then we saw Lena and Sergei gathered with them at the corner. We locked the car up and walked over to everyone standing on the corner.



We found out that it was "Police Day" in Luhansk. Doug thought it to be just a little ironic that we were doing criminal background paperwork on "Police Day". Lena took Sasha took him over to another building on the opposite side of the street, he apparently was needed to sign the paperwork. After the processing broke up we walked back to the car and the two Social Workers walked down the street and returned a short while later with pretzels and cookies for everyone. We waited for Lena and Sasha to return and when they did she let us know that her and Sergei needed to go to a bank in order to pay a fee and acquire a receipt to expedite Sasha's paperwork. While waiting for their return we took some more pictures of us with the children. Upon their

return Lena informed us that she needed to take Sasha back across the street to finish the paperwork. We all sat by the car eating pretzels and crackers for about another half an hour waiting for them to return. Now that it was approaching lunch time, everyone was hungry. The pretzels we had were vert tasty and a lot less salty than American pretzels. Doug ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which Amy had fixed for him that morning and we gave Kristina some snacks and juice. When Lena finally got back with Sasha the Inspector and Social Worker got in the Inspectors car and took Sasha back to the orphanage. The rest of us headed back to Shaste with Kristina to bring her to the orphanage. After dropping the Social Worker off on her street nearby we then tool Kristina back to the orphanage. Kristina took us upstairs where there were many preperations taking place getting things ready for the new school year. Paninting the halls, clearing and cleaning out all of the rooms, etc. Kristina showed us a framed plaque of students who had done exceptionally well in school. Kristina was recognized for doing well in her class the past school year. We then walked to the front of the school where Sergei had pulled his car up and we said our goodbyes. We told Kristina we were very proud of her and that she had done very well today. We all hugged and left for Luhansk. Upon our arrival we stopped at the train station to allow Lena to buy a train ticket. We waited in the car for quite a long while for Sergei and Lena to return. When they finally did we told Lena we needed to get a few things before she left. We went into downtown Luhansk and stopped at a pharmacy to pick up some multivitamins. Doug needed some additional minutes put on his SIM card and we changed some currency for smaller Americal bills. Lena and Sergei dropped us off at the apartment and left to get something to eat. We choose to stay and eat in. Lena returned at about 4:15 and told us she was taking the train to Kiev to meet with Natasha. She left a short time later. We changed out of our court clothes and into more comfortable clothes and fixed ourselves some pizza. After dinner we relaxed and started replying to all of the emails we had received that morning. We then watched some American television shows on the computer, using hulu, before crashing at around 10:45.