Wednesday

There was a big ice storm in the area of Valya's orphange, Andreyevo, and we had not been able to go back there until Wednesday. We were anxious to go because there was one last document we needed for our packet that needed to be sent to the SDA for court approval. Mark has caught a cold, so we decided that Nancy should stay home with Mark.

We left at 9:30, and I was only expecting to spend as much time with Valya as it would take our facilitator to fetch a document from the Inspector in Mikolaevka, about an hour or so. Valya and I practiced English, played Uno and Dutch Blitz, then we got kind of bored and I decided to let her take pictures. By this time, the kids were out of classes so we headed over to her dorm where she came alive. She had a great time with her friends being silly for the camera.

The extra time with Valya came at the expense of trouble for our facilitator. The document she needed to pick up had some mistakes in it that needed fixing, so it needed to be drawn up again. This took quite awhile. And to top it off, the mayor over there decided that she needed to ask me some questions personally, so they raced back to Andreyevo to get me, then we all returned back to Mikolaevka. We sat in the Inspector's office for about 15 minutes, then the mayor changed her mind and just signed it. What a waste of time.

We got back to Odessa as fast as we could. We needed to get these documents on the train to Kiev so that they would arrive the next day. We are trying to get SDA approval for court and time is of the essence.

After I got back home, I wasn't feeling too good. I ended up with the stomach flu and chills. We had been invited to an American family's place for a Christmas Eve party, but we missed it because I was so late arriving and then I got sick. It was a bummer of a way to spend Christmas Eve. Thankfully, I felt fine in the morning.

Here's a few pictures from the day.


The road to Andreyevo. You can see branches on the ground. There were workers busy removing trees that had fallen down across the road. In the second picture, you can see the little valley that Andreyevo is in.



Signing her life away. Valya signs a document in her own hand that states that she agrees to the adoption. Children 12 and older must agree to the adoption.



Pictures from Valya's dorm. She and her friends got very silly. It was fun seeing her be herself. Later, we went up to her classroom to wait for our facilitator to pick me up.






Christmas Eve supper for Nancy and Mark. I was sick and in bed already. We were planning to go to a party but we weren't able to go. I am getting good at saying Gavayskaya bolshaya at the pizza place, which means large Hawaiian.