Thursday in Kiev

We had our SDA (State Dept of Adoption) this afternoon and all went well. It was a little intimidating at first cause the woman was asking ALOT of questions, well we later found out afterwards that the lady that normally does these appointments was out sick and we had the "headhancho" for ours. She was the director for the adoptions. Now we understand, Yulia (our facilitator/translator) said this woman has 2 friends with children w/ DS and she wanted to make sure that we take care of them in the US. We reassured her that in the US, children and adults with DS prosper and have an opportunity to go to school, work, etc. All she did was give us a HUGE smile and wished us well.
Bryce ( well otherwise known as Ivan- as we found out today is his biological name) We are not sure where Vanya came from and I was so excited leaving I forgot to ask. I'll find out tomorrow. Tom and I are thinking its a stage name. His parents were 29 (mom) and 26 (dad) when they gave him up at birth. He has a sister that lives with them.They gave him up due to the DS,knowing that in the Ukraine, they just don't have resources to take care of him. We were told has a perfect clean bill of health from several doctors, which was good news!

Kiev is definitely a big city...everyone walks fast, moves fast and certainly the driving here is crazy. I thought driving in NYC was nail biting, doesn't even compare to the driving here. And certainly no speed limits. LOL! We managed to get some things from the market here, my little bit of Ukrainian is getting us by plus "cherades" helps. Everything here is VERY inexpensive. We had lunch today at McDs and the value meals, cost $3.50 total for two. Our taxi ride this morning, and let me tell you it took at good 25min through traffic and that only cost $3.38. It's AWESOME!

Tonight we are meeting another RR family here at TGIF for dinner. Very excited to meet another couple in our shoes and can speak with us! Please say prayers for them as they are having some paperwork issues. Hoping for it to be cleared up tomorrow. The only good thing is that we will both have each other until Monday. Yes, unfortunately since the referral for us won't be ready until tomorrow afternoon, we won't be able to go the orphanage until Monday. Thankfully, it's only 1.5hours from here in car.
Here are some pictures since we've gotten here.

picture of Bryce from earlier days-They love to layer on the clothes! They had a recent picture of him in overalls, super cute. Was unable to get that one.
One of many beautiful churches-outside SDA
Tom and I in front of the SDA office


bedroom
living room
kitchen
bathroom

Well keep you all posted as we move along!