Court Approval Submitted

Early Tuesday morning our translator left for Kiev. She was taking the express train so she could submit our court approval papers to the Adoption Center. She called us after she arrived and submitted the papers. The good thing is the Adoption Center is still open for business and processing papers. This is good news. We should be able to get the court approval back by Thursday. If we do get them back then court should be next Monday. There is still the slight chance that the Adoption Center could close down before then, but we are confident it won't. So, after Thursday, whether or not the Adoption Center closes down should no longer affect us. We will have the court approval. Everything else can be done in the Kharkov region.

My parents left for the airport early Tuesday morning. They are scheduled to arrive in Kiev today at 4:20 pm. Our translator is meeting them at the airport. They are going to do a quick Kiev tour and hopefully catch an overnight train. If no tickets are available, they will stay at our translators apartment and then take a train in the morning.

We went to the orphanage Tuesday evening. Katya's english is great. She has really worked hard all year. She is fully able to carry on conversations. She understands much of what we say. Last year, when we adopted Leeza and Zhenya, they could not understand anything. Katya is younger and will have a head start because of what she has learned in the last year. And seeing how well Leeza and Zhenya have done with english in the year since they have been home makes us think that at this rate, Katya may not have an accent within a couple of years.

It is now Wednesday morning. We are going to do lots of laundry today and go scout out some more places to see once my Mom and Dad arrive. We found a war museum and a monestary that will be fun to see.

We are encouraged by how things are going. We have pictured Katya walking through our front door about a thousand times, and now, after 3 years of knowing her, every day we get a little closer and our confidence grows that it will actually happen.