Mary here,
Well, we are not leaving today. It is a long story, but basically dates got mixed up and so we are in a holding pattern for a couple of weeks.
We will update here as soon as we know anything.
Thanks for following.
Mary
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Mary here:
Jim and I both had busy days today getting things ready for our departure.
My job today was to pick up the cash we needed. I ordered it Thursday, to be picked up today. I specified that we needed all crisp, clean, preferably new 100 dollar bills. They told me the only time they get brand new bills is at Christmas time. That is fine as long as they are all crisp and clean, no tears, folds, markings. I went to get it, and less than 1/10 is useable! I stopped at various other banks, and not one of them would change even 1 100 dollar bill for a "non-customer". So I went to a bank that we refinanced our home through last year. Waited for an hour for the woman who "sold" us the loan refinance, and told her what I needed. I had spoken to her on the phone a couple of months ago about this, so it was not new to her. She placed 1 phone call, and 10 minutes later told me to come back tomorrow after 10am and she would have all of the money I needed in brand new bills! We are changing all of our accounts to this bank. (Bank of America is the bank that helped, for those who want to know)
Tomorrow, there are just a few things left to do, and then Wednesday, we should be leaving!
I can't believe it is real.
Jim and I both had busy days today getting things ready for our departure.
My job today was to pick up the cash we needed. I ordered it Thursday, to be picked up today. I specified that we needed all crisp, clean, preferably new 100 dollar bills. They told me the only time they get brand new bills is at Christmas time. That is fine as long as they are all crisp and clean, no tears, folds, markings. I went to get it, and less than 1/10 is useable! I stopped at various other banks, and not one of them would change even 1 100 dollar bill for a "non-customer". So I went to a bank that we refinanced our home through last year. Waited for an hour for the woman who "sold" us the loan refinance, and told her what I needed. I had spoken to her on the phone a couple of months ago about this, so it was not new to her. She placed 1 phone call, and 10 minutes later told me to come back tomorrow after 10am and she would have all of the money I needed in brand new bills! We are changing all of our accounts to this bank. (Bank of America is the bank that helped, for those who want to know)
Tomorrow, there are just a few things left to do, and then Wednesday, we should be leaving!
I can't believe it is real.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Today was divided between getting ready to go and watching our teams advance, or not advance, in the March Madness NCAA tournament. Xavier looked GREAT! Go X. UC, well, it WAS 2nd round after all. Next year!
Some have asked for my packing list. It looks very similar to Jim's-2 pair of pants, 3 or 4 shirts, 1 skirt, 1 pair dress shoes to pack, black gym shoes to wear, socks/stockings, necessary undergarments-3 (we are used to hand washing and prefer to travel light). I take an extra T-Shirt and pair of shorts for sleeping/bumming around an apartment, and a bathing suit-just in case. We share a toiletries kit with separate toothbrushes, and I took a little make-up. I usually don't wear make up, but I thought I may want to look a little dressier there. I am borrowing Marie's 3/4 length black leather jacket, and I'm all set. We have a couple of books to read, and we share the laptop and all of that entertainment. I'll stash a prayerbook and an extra rosary in my purse, and I'll be set.
From our list, it seems we would not have many bags. But we have other things to take with us-requested items for our facilitator and his family, plus donations that we have collected while here to take to the orphanage. The only way I am able to get out the door with all of these bags is by reasoning with Jim that we only really have one carryon size suitcase and one personal item each-the rest is all stuff to leave there. We have one very large suitcase packed full of diapers/diaper wraps and infant clothing, thanks to to the wonderful families in our local homeschool group. I used those "suck the air out of everything" bags, and that suitcase is really, really full. Plus another box full of these things. Once we are there, we will drop these things off, and have an empty suitcase in which to put the kids' clothing and all kinds of goodies to bring home! And there will be plenty of room in our suitcases once we remove the gifts we have in there.
I can't believe we are actually going to be on our way. I'm making lists of things to do, making sure everyone has necessary papers (child care authorization for kids here) and phone numbers in case of emergencies.
Tomorrow will be more of the running around stuff. Hopefully Tuesday will be a restful day-then we leave on Wednesday.
Yippee!
Some have asked for my packing list. It looks very similar to Jim's-2 pair of pants, 3 or 4 shirts, 1 skirt, 1 pair dress shoes to pack, black gym shoes to wear, socks/stockings, necessary undergarments-3 (we are used to hand washing and prefer to travel light). I take an extra T-Shirt and pair of shorts for sleeping/bumming around an apartment, and a bathing suit-just in case. We share a toiletries kit with separate toothbrushes, and I took a little make-up. I usually don't wear make up, but I thought I may want to look a little dressier there. I am borrowing Marie's 3/4 length black leather jacket, and I'm all set. We have a couple of books to read, and we share the laptop and all of that entertainment. I'll stash a prayerbook and an extra rosary in my purse, and I'll be set.
From our list, it seems we would not have many bags. But we have other things to take with us-requested items for our facilitator and his family, plus donations that we have collected while here to take to the orphanage. The only way I am able to get out the door with all of these bags is by reasoning with Jim that we only really have one carryon size suitcase and one personal item each-the rest is all stuff to leave there. We have one very large suitcase packed full of diapers/diaper wraps and infant clothing, thanks to to the wonderful families in our local homeschool group. I used those "suck the air out of everything" bags, and that suitcase is really, really full. Plus another box full of these things. Once we are there, we will drop these things off, and have an empty suitcase in which to put the kids' clothing and all kinds of goodies to bring home! And there will be plenty of room in our suitcases once we remove the gifts we have in there.
I can't believe we are actually going to be on our way. I'm making lists of things to do, making sure everyone has necessary papers (child care authorization for kids here) and phone numbers in case of emergencies.
Tomorrow will be more of the running around stuff. Hopefully Tuesday will be a restful day-then we leave on Wednesday.
Yippee!
Saturday, March 20, 2004
Mary’s Journal:
Happy Spring! It will certainly be a happy spring for us. The past couple of days have been a flurry of activity as we are preparing for Ukraine. I thought we had most everything done, but when crunch time comes, lots more things “pop” up. We have traveled overseas before, so we are somewhat familiar with packing light, travel wardrobes, etc… But now, considering we will be coming home with 2 GREAT souvenirs of our trip, well, it takes on a much deeper meaning!
For those who don’t know us, we are Jim and Mary. We have 5 great bio kids ages 20 to 13. We have decided that we want to add to our family, and decided that adopting from Ukraine is for us. We began the process last summer, (2003) by researching and starting the mountain of paperwork. And now, we are ready to go. We specifically want to adopt older children, as we have done the “baby thing’ and while it was great, it is great to be past diapers and bottles! Through email loops we found 2 children, bio sibs, who we feel would fit perfectly in our family, and we are praying that the NAC will agree with us. We are doing this independently, which basically means that other than our homestudy, no adoption agency is being used. Actually, this is the only way the Ukrainian system works-all adopters are independent. If you have an agency, they hire an independent facilitator for you once there. We decided to do the research on our own and hired that facilitator ourselves. We had some indispensable help stateside from Dr. Conaty at www.ukraineadoptionhelper.com in preparing our dossier and getting mentally ready for this trip. And now it is us, our facilitator/translator and the Ukrainian government. We will have an adventure!
Be sure to check back often, as we will do our very best to update our journals daily, with words and pictures. And pray that everything goes well.
Happy Spring! It will certainly be a happy spring for us. The past couple of days have been a flurry of activity as we are preparing for Ukraine. I thought we had most everything done, but when crunch time comes, lots more things “pop” up. We have traveled overseas before, so we are somewhat familiar with packing light, travel wardrobes, etc… But now, considering we will be coming home with 2 GREAT souvenirs of our trip, well, it takes on a much deeper meaning!
For those who don’t know us, we are Jim and Mary. We have 5 great bio kids ages 20 to 13. We have decided that we want to add to our family, and decided that adopting from Ukraine is for us. We began the process last summer, (2003) by researching and starting the mountain of paperwork. And now, we are ready to go. We specifically want to adopt older children, as we have done the “baby thing’ and while it was great, it is great to be past diapers and bottles! Through email loops we found 2 children, bio sibs, who we feel would fit perfectly in our family, and we are praying that the NAC will agree with us. We are doing this independently, which basically means that other than our homestudy, no adoption agency is being used. Actually, this is the only way the Ukrainian system works-all adopters are independent. If you have an agency, they hire an independent facilitator for you once there. We decided to do the research on our own and hired that facilitator ourselves. We had some indispensable help stateside from Dr. Conaty at www.ukraineadoptionhelper.com in preparing our dossier and getting mentally ready for this trip. And now it is us, our facilitator/translator and the Ukrainian government. We will have an adventure!
Be sure to check back often, as we will do our very best to update our journals daily, with words and pictures. And pray that everything goes well.
YAY!! Approved. We travel on Wednesday. Been preparing like a fool today.. You think that since we have been waiting for this for the past 3 months we'd be ready----NOT! Packing list for me (jim)
2 pair of black pants
3 shirts
sweater
3 changes of socks and undies
1 pair shoes
Purell
Zonebars
small med kit
small toiletries kit to share
after that it looks like a best buy ad:
Laptop
Digital Camera
Video Camera
Power and phone converter
Iriver-- dang I forgot to buy that!
all to fit into one carry-on-- a backpack if I did not feel the need to be a geek
more later--- Go UC--GO Muskies!
jim
2 pair of black pants
3 shirts
sweater
3 changes of socks and undies
1 pair shoes
Purell
Zonebars
small med kit
small toiletries kit to share
after that it looks like a best buy ad:
Laptop
Digital Camera
Video Camera
Power and phone converter
Iriver-- dang I forgot to buy that!
all to fit into one carry-on-- a backpack if I did not feel the need to be a geek
more later--- Go UC--GO Muskies!
jim
Saturday, March 06, 2004
we are still waiting for an appointment. for some reason we thought this process would go much faster. We are heading into our 5th week since the paperwork arrived and NAC and was translated. You can see the pre adoption timeline on the main page. Check out the links section too. hopfully we'll be traveling in the next 30 days and we will do our best to keep everyone updated!
jim
jim
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