Home Sweet Home

Ruslan and Ann at home


Ruslan and guys wearing souvenir hats picked out by Ruslan

Family and Friends at the airport

Stephan and Ruslan reunited

The whole family at the airport

Well, for those of you that don't know. WE ARE HOME! Most of you have heard by now but we arrived home Saturday night after about 25 hours. We left our apartment in Kiev at 3:00am on Saturday morning and flew from Kiev to Frankfurt Germany. After a five hour layover we flew from Frankfurt to Denver Colorado. That is a LONG flight. Anyway, the folks at the Embassy in Kiev told us Ruslan would automatically become a citizen when we touched down in Denver. We have to admit it felt very good to be back in the good old USA.

Some of you may be wondering what happened to us and why the posts just stopped. We really didn't want to stop posting, but given some complications and a set of circumstances that we weren't controlling and that were quite complex, we felt it best not to post anything on the Internet. Needless to say, we had some trials, but in the end it all worked out.

One thing we will mention, we thought we were going to have to use a new computerized system to obtain the new birth certificate, but as it turned out, technology was a little slow. When we arrived the morning of December 2nd to start this new process, we received the good news that the government needed more time to implement the new system so we got the birth certificate the old fashioned way, SAME DAY!! For those of you that might be going later, it will probably start on December 20th. Sorry. After we obtained the birth certificate the next step was a new passport. After that it was on to Kiev for medical exam and a visit to the U.S. Embassy. The final step was returning to the Embassy the next day for a final interview and issuance of the visa. Then it was over. What a process!!!

We have to say the goodbyes at the orphanage was emotionally gut wrenching and not something we were not totally prepared for. The kids certainly didn't want Ruslan to go. He is family to them. We know how difficult it was for us to experience, we can only imagine the pain that Ruslan was going through. All we could do was hug him and reassure him we loved him and were there for him. Ruslan seems to be adjusting fine in our family. So far so good. He is studying English now everyday with Rosetta Stone. He knows a lot of English, just has a hard time verbalizing it. It will come with time.

The airport scene was almost magical. It certainly was emotional. Special thanks to the Richardsons, McBeths, and Fuhrmans who were kind enough to bring their children to the airport to see their Poltava classmate come to America. Ruslan saw those three kids and he ran to them and hugged all of them. When we looked over, he had a giant smile on his face. Thanks to all of you that followed our little journey and posted your comments along the way. They sustained us!

An extra special thanks to our children. While we were having a life changing experience, they had their own little experience here at home. Thanks so much for being the people you are. We never doubted that you all would handle our absence with class and work together to support each other. WE LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!! It certainly feels good to be home.

Working Through the Process

Most common car, with one "r" in Ukraine


Apartment Keys. One on left is to steel outside door. One on the right is to our apartment. It is kind of like an old jail key and just about as big.

Apartment Double doors

Ann, Ruslan, and Jeff at dinner at a local restaurant

Well, here we are still working through the process. We ran around today with Natasha doing paperwork for most of the day. A couple of observations. A lot of doorways here in Ukraine have a threshold. Some of the thresholds look like a 2 x 4 across the bottom of the doorway. Trying to wheel luggage over them was a challenge. Additionally, many doors are smaller so it is kind of like moving through a submarine door. One last comment on doors. Sometimes there are two doors together within a couple feet of each other. Heaven help you if you are claustrophobic and get caught between the doors when they close! We included a picture of our apartment door which has a double set so you can see what we are talking about. Very interesting. Notice the lock, we feel like we are sleeping inside Fort Knox! And the keys are huge and look like an old jail key.

An observation about traffic here. The traffic lights here are interesting. After the light is red and before it turns green, the yellow light appears with the red light to signal drivers to prepare to move through the intersection. And do they get ready. Some of our taxi drivers are halfway through the intersection before it actually turns green. The other light has turned red prior to getting a yellow so everything is usually okay, but it is a different to start through the intersection when the light is still red! We probably have mentioned about the competitive nature of driving here. Every trip is like the Grand Prix. A couple of times we have required two taxis, and it sures seems they race to the destination. As Natasha says, there are two kinds of pedestrians here in Ukraine, the quick and the dead.

One last observation about the cars here. There are about every brand you can image, but the one that seems to be most popular, and certainly looks the oldest is Lada. They look like an old Datsun or Toyota from the 1970's, very boxy in style but our understanding is they are very good cars. All of the cars are manual transmissions which adds to the flavor of Formula One driving through the streets of Poltava.

Well, that is enough for now.