Update from Region - Lugansk

To all,

Getting to the internet is a challenge in it's self. We have been to the Orphanage on Monday and visited our son (yipppppeee). His given name at birth is Vlademiere (yet to settle on permanent name) and we know his first name will be Jackson (in honor of one of the most awesome Dad's). Jackson is blond as blond comes with baby blue beautiful eyes just like his Dad. Jackson is really the spitting image of Andy - I guess I am not surprised. We will be in the region for at least several more days doing some requisite paperwork. Note that the Orphanage is in the region called Lugansk in the most Eastern part of Ukraine we are just over the border from Russia. This community is a very small farming town and there are no Internet Cafes (I am on the next door neighbor's computer and will not be checking work e-mail till we get back to Kiev).

I am not clear on the timing and anticipate that we will be back in the states late next week.

We are all very well and feel blessed that the process has been so effortless. Jackson looks forward to being acquainted with all really soon.

Okay for now. Will try to get back on the internet once in Kiev later this week.

Much love,
A squared + Jackson

Update now in Kiev Ukraine

Let's see we added another 2 hour flight and another time zone and have arrived safe and sound in Kiev. However, I almost did not get thru immigration as I could not understand a thing that the woman officer was yelling at me - thank G-d for the calm one Andy as he understood all the hand waving and made out that we need further paperwork filed out. I think one of the requirements for the Immigration workers is to wake up on the wrong side of the bed and stay there all day long. The rest was a cake walk and once we cleared customs and all the folks waiting our translator walked right up to us (thank G-d).

It is now 2 in the afternoon on Thursday and we have already had our appointment at the NAC. We have a referral to see a 3 year old boy in some region which I have yet to see the English version of on the Russian border. We have something like a 14 hour train ride to get to the region once all the appropriate paperwork is completed.

I will say this is an expierence and nothing anyone said could have prepared us for the days events today. We will have more stories to fill Andy's bag of tricks for future story telling session (stay tuned).

We will update tomorrow with further details as they become clearer to us.

Thanks for all the e-mails and know that we are very thankful for all the good wishes and blessings coming our way.

Much love,
A squared

We believe that all the fortune of today will continue thru our trip.

In Prague

Well after 13 and half hours of flying and nine hour time change we are safe and sound in Prague. We arrived yesterday morning at 7am. Needless to say the town was relatively dead at this hour.

We had a stop over in New York en route and visited for breakfast with my twin cousin and another cousin.

Yesterday in Prague we walked around in the rain and had a delightful day. There is more art on the bridges and buildings here than in most museums. Today we went into Church for Catholic services to a Church originally built in the 1100's. It was an amazing structure and the services were backed with mostly locals and the prayers were in Chex.

We will hopefully be able to find a internet cafe were we can post some pictures as I am very impressed that we easily loaded the pictures onto the laptop.

We leave on Wednesday for our ultimate destination to Kiev Ukraine.

That is all for the moment.

Mucho love to all,
A squared

Mom, call Zyra in the event that you have not already chatted.

The Journey

As most of you already know we are getting ready to go to Ukraine for the next step in the journey of adoption. We leave from LAX on June 25, 2004 and will be stopping in New York and then Prague enroute to Kiev, Ukraine. We have an appointment at the National Adoption Center ("NAC") in Kiev on July 1, 2004. This appointment is with a psychologist were they will provide us with bios and medical history of children that are currently available for adoption. Once we identify a child or sibbling group that we would like to visit arrangements are made to go to the orphanage in the region were the children are located.

We are really excited to be at this stage and thank all the wonderful friends, family and co-workers who have contributed to making this a sucessful endeavor.

We will be updating this website as we go thru our travels.