4 Days Until Jason Goes Back To Ukraine

It has been a busy week of getting ready for Jason to go back. I am focusing right now on packing the kids suitcases of everything they will need...making sure there is clothes, toiletries, entertainment, meds (just in case), and snacks. Jason is back at work this week until Friday. After much prayer and thought, it looks the plan will be that Jason will fly out on Monday and when in Ukraine meet up with Sergey and they will begin the paperwork and finish out the procedures needed to bring the kids home. Jason and Sergey will be making visits to the orphanages also. Then, when all of this is finished, he will fly out from Ukraine to JFK in New York and Grant and I are going to attempt to fly and meet him at JFK (on a airline buddy pass from my brother) to help with the kids as soon as they arrive there and then we will all fly back to Atlanta together and then drive home. We really would love to fly Sergey home with us and hold him hostage for about a month, but not reality :) Grant and I are going to miss our friends there and boy, would we like to be there to see the kids, but this seems to be the best decision for now. Grant will be finishing 1st grade and catching up on all of his test while he was in Ukraine and if the estimate of time is right, Anna & Vitali may arrive home right when school is out. We are ready for a summer of swimming in our pool!!!! Grant and I are going to be getting our home ready and the kids bedrooms ready while Jason is gone. Anna will have her own bedroom and Grant is excited to share a bedroom for now with Vitali.

Ok, something I keep forgetting to share....this is for Niki, Trish R, and Jennifer Common (Ya'll will appreciate this most of all). We were eating at a Pizza Parlor in Zhytomyr in between paperwork and they had of course Ukrainian music blasting throughout the restaurant. All of the sudden, the next song up was Mary Mary's "Shackles off my feet" in English...and of course, we had to bust a few moves. Don't worry our facilitator joined right in with us!

Tina: Unfortunately, I have no idea how to set up a online photo album, so I will be trying to post as many pics as I can on the blog with each post and on the slide show above. Also, one day I am going to get all these mounds of photos printed...hopefully, before they are in college :)
Pics:
1. Mel, Anna, & Grant
2. On our visits Anna started watching out the window at the time that we usually arrived and before we could make it in the building (which is a little hike to the back of the building) she would surprise us and run out to meet us. This is a pic of her sprinting down the path to meet up with us and we always got big hugs when she arrived.
3. Jason & Mel in the Zhytomyr Region.
4. Vitali playing
5. This is the day that we took Anna to Vitali's orphanage.