Day 2 in Dniprodzerzhinsk

Hello,

One point that Andrea forgot to mention in her post was that we were asked before leaving the orphanage yesterday whether we wished to pursue the adoption of the twins. It took us all of about 5 seconds to look at each other and say "YES". So this is where the story takes off for today (Friday).

Another point A forgot to mention was that Olga arranged an apartment for us through the pediatrician at the orphanage. The doctor packed her bag and rented her place to us for $50/night (not bad considering it is three bedrooms has air conditioning and a washing machine).

So...Olga, Andrea and I left this morning at 8:45 to go to the state notary in town. We needed to get a application to adopt form and have it notarized. One would think this would be a relatively quick and painless procedure BUT it was anything BUT!! 5 minutes after arriving Olga began to tussle with a local who was upset that we were invited into the notaries office before him. This near melee was quite a sight to see - I didn't know whether I should jump into the fray or just let Olga handle it - it ended up that Olga can handle herself just fine. Through all of this it ended up that we needed to have the notaries assistant type a bunch of stuff so we were unable to get in quickly - in fact it was 5 1/2 hours later before we got the paperwork we needed. During this time we sat out in a dusty parking lot in the biggest pollen storm you could ever imagine!! Needless to say we were all frustrated and ready to get out of there as fast as possible.

Now with the paperwork in hand we headed back to the inspector's office and then to the orphanage - this should have been one simple trip as well but this turned into another 3 hours of activity.

Finally at 4PM after grabbing a quick and cheap pizza lunch we headed to the orphanage to see the boys. They were ready for us with big smiles and wearing their girly bonnets (which "Pappa" is going to get fixed ASAP). Andrea and I bought them some cookies and juice boxes along the way, which they promptly started squeezing and squirting all over everyone. Yevgen has this coy little smile when he thinks he is getting away with something. Daniel just looks over the table at his brother and laughs at him.

Anyway to make a long story short - after two hours we were exhausted and filthy!! I don't know who was dirtier Yevgen or me!! Somehow Daniel and Andrea stayed much cleaner than us. That will change in the days to come. Olga was told that she needs to take 12 impromptu pictures of Andrea and me with the boys by next Friday.

That is about it for now - paperwork is in motion as is the bonding with boys. We are continually warned that this is a slow region and after our experience at the notary we completely believe it. Rumor has it we may be in town for about three weeks until we get to court. After court we will still have another couple weeks in Ukraine to get all of the other things done. We'll see in the coming days how this all plays out. By the end of next week we should have a better idea about what the timeframe really will be.

Thanks Dan, Angie and Ed for jumping on that paperwork snafu today!! Much appreciated!!

Talk to you in a couple days - take care.

Chris & Andrea