Court Date and Judge

We got our court date for the morning of April 19th,  and we have the same nice judge as last time.  Yea! That date is perfect except for the fact that our 10 day wait finishes during the Labor Day holiday, and we'll be trying to pick up the birth certificate during the Victory Day holiday.  Oh well, no complaints.  It's all good and proceeding on schedule.

Today Malvina wrote her letter agreeing to be adopted -- twice actually.  Tamara, the orphanage director signed the first one, but Oleg said it's the city inspector who needs to approve it now, so Malvina got out of school a second time to write another letter.  Just for the record, she had two opportunities to change her mind.  I asked Vera if she seemed hesitant to write it.  She said Malvina's so happy for herself but so sad for her friend, Julia, who no one wants to adopt.  I'm not sure when she turns 16, but she's a darling girl, and I'll post some pictures of her.  (And just to reassure my family, eight is enough.)

I went to the orphanage at 5:30 to give Malvina time to finish her homework, but she had so much to do, she worked right through dinner until 8:00 when I left.  I'm all about being responsible and hard-working, but this is ridiculous.  The other kids felt sorry for me and asked me to come eat dinner with them at the orphanage.  I was impressed with the meal -- really buttery mashed potatoes, a tender breaded chicken cutlet, bread and butter, tea and juice -- and of course a pickle.  It was actually a better meal than we get at the Bistro.  And it was free ---- well, sort of.

Eli got back safely from Dzhankoi, and it was great to have someone to speak English with, but my relationship with the boys is different here.  They're more independent and certainly have the home court advantage.  But they're also a bit less affectionate, I suppose because they're getting so much affection from their "orphanage family."

Dinner at the orphanage

Malvina doing homework.  I don't think she realizes she probably won't even get a grade for all her hard work this quarter.  Even if she does earn "A's," she probably won't get any physics, literature or geometry 9th grade credit because she's only in the 8th grade in Ukraine.  She turns 16 in June, so I'm planning to start her in 10th grade.

It's really hard to get a good picture of Eli.

Pictures

Our apartment

Christina and Allison at the orphanage

Alex with his older brother Costia at the Bistro

Allison and Nastia

Allison and Me

Alex at the market showing off his new Ukrainian clothes

"Now I look cool."

Our apartment

Nastia and Me--Notice the wild swans in the sea

Weekend Without the Boys

Saturday, April 7
I brought Malvina to my apartment and had her start doing Rosetta Stone.  Then we watched the Mormon Message, "A True Friend," starring Ladda, our darling friend from the ward in Kiev.  Your kids will love it if you haven't already watched it.  Then we spent the afternoon trying to find new clothes for her.  We found some really tight jeans she liked (what a surprise) but couldn't find any Sunday dresses either of us liked.  We finally got tired of looking and took an ice cream break.  Eli called to say he was having fun at his aunt's. 

Sunday, April 8
Since church is a 2 hour bus ride to Simferopol, and it was just going to be a re-broadcast of general conference, I decided to invite Malvina and a few of her friends to my apartment to watch some of the talks from the YW session.  Only Nastia and Malvina came, but I was glad because Nastia had asked me lots of church questions the day before.  Like why don't we eat seeds?  I explained it's just I'm just not talented at cracking the shells with my teeth. I'm sure they were relieved that's not a part of the Word of Wisdom.

I had a Russian, "For the Strength of Youth" booklet here, so they read the Word of Wisdom and Dress Standards sections out loud.  A good thing we quit there.  Malvina (Allison--having a hard time getting used to calling her that) has to write her letter stating she wants to be adopted tomorrow.  I hope she doesn't change her mind now.  It's a pretty big deal to give up tea and coffee and Ukrainian clothing. Perhaps I overwhelmed them.  I guess I'll find out tomorrow.  I can see the reality of many life changes settling in and weighing on her. 

We went for a long, quiet walk by the sea. There was so much we needed to discuss, but communication is a real challenge with Google Translate on a phone while you're walking. 

We returned to the orphanage where Nastia, Allison and 6 others practiced singing for some kind of a performance they're giving on the 17th in Simferopol. 

Then we watched a Russian movie about a dog. It was good for me to sit through both conference and a movie all in Russian.  It will remind me what Malvina's going through when she looks bored to tears in a few months. I tried not to snore as I kept nodding off. 

Tomorrow I'll spend the day at the notary with Vera correcting the documents we sent to Kiev last Friday. Apparently some things are wrong. 

I miss Eli and can hardly wait to visit with him tomorrow night.  Alex came back safely tonight but didn't share much about his visit. He was too busy texting his new girlfriend at the orphanage. Oh my. 

Nastia, Julia, Nastia and Christina

Documents All Submitted

It was a beautiful day again, but I spent most of it inside the Inspector's and Notary's offices.  I'm not complaining because now all of our documents are submitted to the court.  On Monday we'll be assigned a judge (by a computer), and then the judge will assign us a court date.  There are 7 judges.  I'm told 6 of them are good, but 1 is very mean and does not approve of foreign adoptions.  He's even been known to assign the court date 3 months out.  We're praying not to get him.

For some reason we're never told when the deadline is to choose a new name until 30 minutes before the document has to be submitted to the Inspector and the Notary.  Vera called in a panic to see what our new name is, and I told her we'd just started suggesting a few names to Malvina yesterday.  I thought I had another week to decide.  If I'd known we had to choose it by noon today we would have been thinking about it carefully yesterday.  I told Vera I wouldn't choose the name without Malvina being a part of the decision.  We raced to the orphanage to pick up Malvina so she could choose from the 7 names I very quickly narrowed it down to.  Within 10 minutes she had narrowed it down to her two favorites.  It didn't help that Vera kept saying, "Quickly, quickly.  Just  choose one.  We must hurry!"  For heaven's sake, she's going to be called by this name for the rest of her life.  You don't just flip a coin to make that kind of a lifelong decision.  She finally decided to combine her two favorite names, so she'll be known as "Allison Rachel Kimball."  I had a feeling Rachel would be part of it after seeing her offer to carry two buckets of water into the orphanage for the cook yesterday.  That and the fact that I had to go through a long adoption process to finally end up with another daughter---kind of like when Jacob wanted to marry Rachel, but had to marry her older sister and work for 7 years first.  It's all good, and I can't imagine life without my two sons.

Yesterday Igor, Eli's best friend who is no longer at the orphanage, came to Feodosiya to spend the day with Eli. They had a grand time together and  shared many gifts with each other.  

This morning Alex's brother, Costia, came to spend the day, and they will travel to Dzhankoi tomorrow to spend the weekend together with their sister who has a 6 month old baby girl Alex has never seen.  Eli is traveling with them to Dzhankoi to surprise his Aunt on her birthday.  His aunt is his mother's identical twin, so she shares the same birthday as his mom who has died.  I would love to see her face when she see's him standing at her door.

This is a picture of Eli with his buddy Igor.

So that leaves me alone with Malvina tomorrow.  We're hoping to have fun together, but I wish I had someone to translate for us.

Awesome Reunion!

We arrived in Feodosiya today after a very long train and bus ride, but never have two boys been more eager and excited to see their old friends.  We arrived at the orphanage shortly after the kids had come home from school, and as soon as I was spotted, a couple of girls screamed and came running to hug me.  It made the long rides a small price to pay.  My boys hadn't told anyone they were accompanying me, so when they were seen a few seconds later, absolute pandemonium broke out.  High fives, handshakes, big hugs, and smiles everywhere.  We were stormed by 15-20 kids we had grown to love last spring.  

Then someone yelled for Malvina to come.  I was kind of nervous and didn't quite know what to expect after not seeing her for almost a year, but when she emerged, she looked absolutely stunning and ran into my arms with a huge hug.  It was perfect.  I couldn't stop looking at her all evening and thinking how gorgeous and classy she had become.  The year from 15 to 16 is a big one, and it definitely agreed with her. 

Eli couldn't be torn away from his friends, but Alex, Malvina, Vera (our translator) and I went to lunch at the Bistro and had a marvelous visit.  The excitement between Alex and Malvina was delightful --- even though Alex had acted kind of hesitant and funny lately about seeing her again.  As soon as they hugged each other, it was as if they had never been apart, and they acted like very close siblings for the rest of the night.  

I'm so excited Malvina's joining our family.  It will definitely change things up, but in a good way I think.  She's a sweet and special girl, and her thoughtfulness was shown repeatedly by presenting with a gift wrapped Teddy Bear, finding me a warm coat to borrow, carrying my packages, and bringing me a cup of tea to warm up with and then an alternate cup of juice when Alex explained I don't like tea or coffee.

She doesn't speak much English yet, but she can it read quite well and doesn't even speak with much accent.

Several of us had fun playing volleyball until she said she needed to go inside and do homework.  For me that was the icing on the cake.  Either she likes to study, or she's just very responsible.  Honestly, she seems quite nearly perfect.

We're Back!

We arrived in Kiev yesterday, and same as last time, could not find anyone who'd been sent to pick us up at the airport. No problem. We knew a Marshrutka would take us from the airport to the train station where we could take a subway to our apartment--if we could just find out which apartment had been booked for us. We weren't getting through to Natasha on our phones, but finally reached Oleg. We were booked at a familiar apartment near Independence Square. I couldn't remember for sure which metro stop, but with Eli's help we guessed pretty close. It was a half mile walk, pulling suitcases in cold, windy weather, but we finally arrived. The boys were anxious to call their relatives so we bought minutes for our phones at the first MTS booth. Alex had brought only a sweatshirt and had an infected "finger" on his foot, and Eli was wearing shorts, so they were especially happy to find our apartment. I told them to pack light, but I didn't mean that light!

Our landlord had been told we'd be there in 20 minutes instead of the 2 hours it took us to arrive. Needless to say, she did not give us a warm welcome, but it was a warm apartment, and it felt great.

Today I had my appointment at the SDA, and all went well. It was still windy, cold and snowy, so the boys didn't want to leave our apartment. They're not interested in sightseeing and think Kiev is boring because they don't have any friends here----but they had a great time talking all day on their phones. I went shopping and provided "room service" for them.

Tomorrow evening we'll take the 17 hour train ride to Simferopol and then catch a bus for the final 2 hour ride to Feodosiya. It takes just as long to get from Kiev to Feodosiya as it does to get from Salt Lake to Kiev, but I enjoy the overnight trains much more than the overnight planes.

I can hardly wait to see Malvina on Wednesday. I'm sure she'll be relieved to see we've actually arrived after canceling at the last minute last December. It's been a long wait for her to finally have a family. She's an only child and her mom died in January. She'll turn 16 in June.

The timing worked out well because it coincides with the boys' Spring Break and school trip. They'll miss the last 4 weeks of school, but we'll be doing plenty of studying in our apartment.

My son, John, received a mission call to Sydney, Australia (Cantonese speaking), so we need to be back by June to help him get ready for his July 5th departure.