The Countdown has Officially Started!

Saturday - 10; Sunday - 9

It doesn't seem possible that we are finally to the last days before going home. Court was exactly one month after our SDA appointment. It didn't seem like our court appearance lasted as long as the first one. They didn't ask us near as many questions as when we adopted Karina, but they asked Tamara a lot of questions. Probably because she told us 'no' the first time. She did very well, though. She calmly answered the questions and it was obvious that she definitely wanted to come with us this time. Of course that made us feel good. The prosecutor said that she was satisfied that our decision to adopt Tamara was well thought out because we came back to adopt her. It probably helped that we met her two years ago and still kept in contact. I'm really glad she didn't ask us a lot of questions. She seemed very stern the first time, but was much more relaxed this time. The thought crossed my mind that we might be turned down to adopt Karina because of all the questions. I'm sure it helped Tamara make her decision when she visited us at Christmas and saw that she would keep in touch with several of her friends that have been adopted. We keep in touch regularly with two of their friends. We go to their birthday parties and vice versa. The others, we see as much as possible, but they live so far away and we all have such busy lives. I've heard that all Tamara's friends are all excited that she is coming to America. We'll have to have a big reunion with them again!

As for us, it looks like we will visit the orphanage every day until Tuesday, July 21. Yes, I have already counted the days. It works out perfectly because one of the offices we need to go to is closed on Mondays. So, first thing Tuesday morning, the judge has already informed her assistant that she is to have our court decree ready for us. We will then go to the birth certificate office here in the same town, then after that, we will go the the passport office, still in the same town. We have learned that they have some of the old passport forms here in this region, so we have decided to pay the fee to have the one day passport. Tamara has a passport already and the director says she has it. We had trouble with Karina's passport because the director lost her passport. The director had to go to the police office and file a stolen passport report. I think that took a couple of days. Then, later we learned that they lost either all or some of Karina's paperwork. We don't want to wait a month like we did for Karina's passport. We are ready to go home. Please pray that all goes smoothly and quickly and we are flying out of Kiev at the end of that week.

PS - For those who know her, we met K's mom today at the bus stop. We rode on the same marshrutka. We were very pleased to meet her and glad that she is trying everything she can to get all her rights re-established. We feel that K will have somewhere to live once she ages out. K's brother rode the marshrutka with his mom. He looked good. He had on much better clothes than any of the orphans wear.