Celebrating America's Birthday

Caleb (wearing blue jeans) and Steven (blue shorts) leaving the yard with Daddy to go watch the 4th of July parade

Caleb, Steven, Kevin and James in front of our old-but-fun motor home

Caleb with his bottle of water. Bottled water is given to all parade-watchers by our church reminding everyone that Jesus is the water of life.

Our church float: Scheri was the Statue of Liberty; Teresa and Billy riding along
They were advertising our upcoming Vacation Bible School

Steven and Caleb sitting out on the park lawn beside Daddy

Steven, probably our town's newest American citizen, holding Old Glory

I can't believe I actually got this many pictures of Steven's face! Usually I end up with fuzzy shots of the back of his head

Caleb and Steven enjoying hot dog, fries and pop lunch at our City Park

Teresa and Scheri enjoying lunch with young friends from church and community

Hot, sweaty, red-faced Billy sitting beside his Grandpa. Billy had been pushing a stroller all over the park pretending like he was mowing the lawn.

Kevin and Joy's Mom seated on chairs, Steven and Caleb in front

Our first family pictures as a family of eight:James, Teresa, Scheri, Joy, Billy standing; Kevin seated with Caleb and Steven on his lap

Caleb and Steven buckled in for the block-long ride back home from America's birthday party

Home

One very tired little boy in the Kiev airport getting ready to travel to his new home and new family in America

Teresa has a cure for the very-early-morning snack attack

Sharing with her new little brother

On board Flight XXXX from Kiev to Frankfurt scheduled to depart at 5:35 am

A second breakfast at the Golden Arches in Germany. We had about a six-hour lay-over at Frankfurt.

Since our stroller died from a fatal blow apparently suffered at the hands of the luggage handlers on our flight to Kiev, we resorted to using a luggage carrier while whiling away our long stay in Frankfurt. Please don't think too hard of me for using the "leash"--I was afraid Steven would dart off in the crowd and get lost or hurt.

Just another quick note to let you all know we are home safe and sound. We had to meet our taxi driver about 2:30 am so I'm guessing I had about 2 hours of lay-down time and Teresa not much more. I'd just put Steven down to sleep in the red and white striped shirt that I wanted him to be wearing when he became an American citizen so just had to slip on pants, socks and shoes. Steven did WAY better than I had imagined on the long flight--ate well (this little guy is so skinny that his size 3T shorts were sagging on him yesterday) slept well. Just maybe 2 or 3 times that he got a little loud but people around commented what a good traveler he was. One guy that we met in the airport gave him a bag of assorted licorice candies in honor of his special day. Though I really do love Kiev it was wonderful to return to American soil in Denver and wonderfully wonderful to see my family in Boise. 30 hours from leaving our apartment in Kiev we walked into our house in Idaho--all of us home together at last.

Thanks again to everyone who has supported this adoption in any way. I can hardly believe it is really me saying, "It is finished!"

Have Visa, Will Travel

I really was not sure this day would ever come but we have completed this adoption process and are scheduled to leave Kiev in the morning.
We got the visa shortly after noon and then were driven to our 4th apartment. We spent most of the afternoon repacking stuff. Then this evening we introduced Steven to the Metro and McDonalds. We even got to introduce him to Lyndi and Boston.

Thanks everyone for standing with us through all of this. Without your prayers I honestly do not believe this day would have ever arrived.

FINALLY We Have Steven

Hopefully I will have time sometime soon to share the details but about 6 pm on Wednesday evening Teresa and I AND STEVEN walked out of the orphanage gate. Our visa is supposed to be ready on Thursday and we are getting ticketed for a flight early on Friday morning. Will probably leave the apartment about 2:30 am. It looks like we are going to have to change apartments AGAIN for those few hours.

THANK YOU for ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL of your prayers. It looks like there'll be a new little US citizen celebrating the 4th of July in Idaho.