Productive Week

We have had an incredibly productive week! Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday involved lots of running and taking care of necessary paperwork. Alla flew through the details and with God's grace things came together very well. Tuesday was a rather hectic day as we started out around 6am traveling over two hours one way to the district office of the village where Cole was born to obtain his original birth certificate and then have it changed with his new family information. The woman helping to process this paperwork was filled with lots of well-wishes for our family - it was neat to hear what she had to say to us. Back on the road again we went to government offices in Simferopol to register Coleman's new birth certificate, change his ID number to his new family name and hopefully make it to the passport office by 5pm. It was a close call as we got to the office just past five, but the right person that Alla needed to speak with was still in; and we found out what we needed to do to take care of Cole's passport in hopefully a timely fashion. We hope to have this document back to us on Monday so that we can then fly back up to Kiev to take care of applying for Cole's VISA and take him for his medical examination . . . and hopefully HOME on Friday!

We were so excited to take Cole in the car with us on Wednesday to get his photo taken for his passport, VISA and medical examination. It was such a joy to see the expression on his face as he looked around and was seemingly excited to be with us. As silly as it sounds, we were so looking forward to this time with him. We needed to pull over twice as he indicated that he was feeling bad - but no throwing up thankfully. While we were in the car he said without being prodded or asked, something like 'I know I'm going to America. I'm sure I am.' It was music to our ears to hear him say such words!

We asked Alla for an opportunity to ask questions of staff from the orphanage about Cole's schedule, behavior, development and progress, food, personality traits, how they comfort him, fears, artwork/schoolwork to take with us, etc. We spoke with a psychologist and one of his teachers who were very helpful in answering our many questions. We value this additional information we were able to obtain. We want to put the pieces together of his past as much as we are able to do so for his benefit and ours.

Today we also video recorded the path we have taken many, many days now from our apartment to the orphanage as we pick Coleman up to play. It will be neat to look back on this.

Mallory and Coleman have been rather playful together this week and it's been so good to see their relationship developing more and more. Mallory took his hand and wanted to walk together down the path with him today. It will be great when we can get home and move into our new normal way of life together as a family.