We are here, we are exhausted, but we have met Sasha (Alek)!
Day 1 and 2-We left from Omaha, Matthew was very disappointed and mad. For some reason he thought Grandpa Melvin and Grandma Lynne were coming with us to Ukraine....I have no idea why he thought this, other than the fact that they took us to the airport. On the plane to Minneapolis Matthew got to sit by the window, he loved it. He should become an airplane quality inspector, he tested, retested and tested again every bottom, switch, window shade extensively. But to his disappointment none of us had a window seat on the flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam. He reminded us of this fact the entire 8 hours, exept for the three he slept. We have decided that someone needs to invent a strap that hold your head to the airplane seat as you sleep. Jeff slept and hour, I slept about five minutes. Matthew did watch and enjoy Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. And you won't believe this, the airline served us chicken curry for supper, Matthew told the flight attendant that it was the best chicken EVER! We arrived in Amsterdam boarded a flight to Kiev, to our surprise we weren't served beer for breakfast like last time--this time we got extremely oniony potato salad. YUK! Matthew was exhausted and slept for the entire flight right on top of me. Our facilitator picked us up-I took a dramamine so I won't get sick with the crazy drivers here--but I didn't sleep at all because of the stupid pill-which made day two with no sleep for me, Oh and Matthew and I both got fevers on the way to Minneapolis that didn't go away until today. But other than that it wasn't too bad
Day 3-Appointment Day
We had a 9:15 appointment and the SDA (state department of appointments). We were up and ready to go. We walked to the appointment-the architecture here is beautiful. Our appointment went well, we saw pictures of the boys when they were a bit younger, learned that Sasha's birthday is March 29, 1998, and the record said Vasya was born in 1994 not 1993 like we were told-so we aren't really sure which is right. But we will find out when we meet him.
After the appointment we walked around a bit and went back to the apartment for some sleep--no luck for me but Jeff and Matthew slept. We went to some notaries, which take forever and don't really appreciate a four year old running all over their office. Then we went to Cilatino's for Pizza-my favorite-then back to the apartment to load our stuff for the overnight train to Odessa. Matthew was so excited, he kept saying " I LOVE THIS TRAIN, I LOVE THIS TRAIN!" Then he fell asleep while I was reading to him and I did too but only for a couple hours, I woke up to him peering through the ventilation grate in the door into the hall. I watched him for an hour doing that before we both fell asleep.
Day 4-This was a crazy today (today)!
The train arrives in Odessa at 6:12 am so we got going, went to the missionaries apartment until the offices opened. Then the fun began because the boys are in different orphanages in different districts of the city we had to visit two seperate Inspectors/social workers. One was easy to deal with-the other not so much. Plus Matthew was tired, hot and hungry so he was hard to deal with. We went to see Sasha at 1:00, his teacher said he was jumping up and down when she told him we were here. He ran out to see us and hugged us both, tried to hug Matthew and then became shy. He showed us the orphanage dogs and played with Matthew. He was very protective of him, it was funny. If you know Matthew, you know how he climbs and jumps off anything. Sasha stopped him from jumping of the bottom step of a playground toy. It was about a foot off the ground, Sasha gingerly lifted him and set him on the ground. We spoke to his teacher about him. He has been there since October of 2005, which is when we were in Ukraine but was unavailable for adoption until sometime recently. He is healthy, and has a slight strombosis (sp) which is what Matthew has/had. Sasha has glasses that he wears during school, she said we would actually get those when we leave (that was surprising). Sasha is actually one of her favorites. She was nice to us, but when she learned that Matthew was his biological brother and that we are adopting Vasya as well, she was extremely nice to us. Sasha hugged us goodbye and headed out for more paperwork. We finally stopped around four for some pizza and juice. Matthew fell asleep in my arms at the pizza place. So we came back to the apartment and will go visit Sasha tomorrow, and hopefully get the papers we need to see Vasya.
Sorry I am to tired to proofread or spell check so you are getting the rough version. Cara