Temporary Insanity

First, some pictures: James and his ever-growing Play-Mobil collection
Here are two of our boys with 3 of Kevin's nephews: Caleb, Brandon, James, Tyler and Andrew (who is graduating from high school this week)

Getting that last document apostilled before heading to Ukraine

Celebrating 3 June birthdays prior to traveling to Ukraine: Caleb will be 5 on June 14, James will be 11 on June 8 and Billy will be 15 on June 18.

Here's James and his dinosaur cake

Caleb and his Winnie-the-Pooh Cake

Billy chose dolphin decor

Caleb enjoying the party

Escavating for dinosaur bones on our coffee table

Teresa was the first to get her dinosaur put together

Some of the presents

A lady in our church was so excited about Teresa going to Ukraine that she brought her a suitcase with all sorts of goodies, clothes and just fun stuff for the journey

My wonderful parents

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I'd better put some news on here since it's quite relevant to our adoption.

Monday night we got home from an overnight trip to visit relatives in Boise. (Note: this turned out to be our last time to see Grandma Bryson alive) Imagine my total shock when I read the following note from our facilitator:

Hello Joy, We just found out today that Ukraine might impose moratorium on international adoptions next week. Alexey talked to the judge about it and she told him he needed to provide proof by the end of this week that I-171 is truly the document that allows the adopted child to enter USA (it is Ukrainian law requirement). If we can get it to her by the end of this week she will reschedule court hearing to June 1, next Monday. It will be the main hearing and you have to be present. Please, check and possibly book tickets to be in Ukraine this coming Monday and we will try to get the judge proves she needs tomorrow as well. She wants papers from US Embassy and SDA. We need to work together to work all of this out, even if Ukrainian Parliament closes adoptions next week. It is very unexpected and we all are in total shock. Best wishes, Nastya

Oh my! First, because here in Idaho--perhaps this varies from state to state or country to country??--there are only 5 days from Monday to Saturday when my husband, myself and our daughter, Teresa would need to be taking an extended international trip and when the kazillion details of providing for our other 4 children's care in our absence would need to be completed. I guess you'd think with waiting so long for this adoption to actually happen that I'd have all the details taken care of and would be ready to just throw my toothbrush into my already-packed bags and travel with great dignity and poise to the airport. Any of you who actually know me are now laughing hysterically because I do not really operate at my full potential until the last minute. Absolutely true story. I could also imagine God laughing because of all my whining and complaining about how long this adoption has taken--He's probably up there cracking up and saying, "OK Joy, is THIS fast enough for you?" Yep. I'd have to say this is definitely fast enough.

And OH MY! secondly because the thought of adoptions possibly being stopped--even temporarily--in Ukraine is just too awful to consider. I have so many friends who are also in the midst of adoption right now and I have no idea how this could affect any of us. Apparently a very important vote is supposed to be made on June 2. All you prayer warriors--please keep praying!

So anyway I have been bustling around all week trying to get something crossed off of my mile-long list. Yesterday was especially goofy with a trip to Boise to get a Power of Attorney form apostilled so I can complete adoption paperwork even after Kevin comes home, then stopping at WalMart, ShopKo and K-Mart looking for birthday presents for my 3 boys who all have June birthdays, picking up the 3 cakes and 3 kinds of ice cream and getting to our house about 40 minutes after the joint birthday party was supposed to have started. My Dad who had been watching the kids was ready to admit himself to the funny farm, the house was a disaster in spite of my directions to have it all cleaned up and vacuumed . . . BUT the party turned out to be a lot of fun. The two friends of James who were able to come were very well-behaved and fun to have around. Everyone-including a friend of our daughters who joined in on the party-enjoyed the activities James had selected: trying to excavate these tiny plastic 'dinosaur bones' out of very hard "dinosaur-egg"- shaped clumps of plastery stuff and also putting little capsules in warm water and watching foam dinosaurs 'grow' We also had dinosaur-decorated drinking straws but forgot to use them. As you might guess James had dinosaurs on his cake; Billy had dolphins and Caleb had Tigger and Piglet. Crazy day that ended well.

This morning I am kind of bummed to get this message from our facilitator:

Hello Joy, Alexey is just back from second preliminary hearing. The main hearing is 100% scheduled for next Wednesday, June 3. The judge said she needed to find out one more thing from SDA, but the hearing is already scheduled for 3 pm on Wednesday. You can decide whether to come on Sunday as planned or postpone until Tuesday. Have a good weekend, Nastya

I, of course, emailed my concern about the vote being on June 2 and our court on June 3 and she responded:

Even if the vote is positive, it is very unlikely the president would sign it the very next day so you should be OK time wise

Please don't stop praying--not just for us but for Ukraine and for all adoptions. We are still planning to fly out tomorrow and arrive in Kiev late Sunday night.