Sue - Day 1 - Departure

Sue – Friday, October 16, 2009

Well, here I am at 30,000 feet, somewhere over Nevada.

Thursday was quite a day. I started out the morning dropping Falkor off with Pat. Loading the car with his two large tins of food for the 18 days, and his two beds (one for the house, one for the car), his five cans of dog food, two boxes of doggie biscuits, leashes, collar, bowl for food and travel water bowl, and several of his favorite toys. It almost seemed like he was taking more on vacation than I was!! Pat suggested I leave him, go return the shoes that didn’t fit Connor to the shoe store, and then return, so he gets the idea that I WILL return for him!

I stopped and got a 100 foot roll of heavy-duty plastic sheeting from the hardware store, and then to a large department store to get candy for the Ukrainian kids. Four different families who are adopting from the July campers group sent small packages to us to take for their children. Tracy took a photo album for A. of all the pictures from the trip to Disneyland. We had to leave early to come home, so we had no time to get to Costco to print out photos and put them in an album. Tracy took pictures of her looking through the album, which of course brought a tear to our eyes when Jeff and I looked at the photo. When Anastasiya is caught on film candidly, and not “posing”, she has such a joyous expression of little girl wonderment about her, that melts our heart. Then, the times she is pouting (and let me tell you, she is a profession pouter…), cracks us up! She is very expressive in her facial and body language – we can’t wait until she speaks English.

But I digress. So Thursday, when I dropped off Falkor, and picked up the tarp and TONS of Halloween candy, Pez dispenser stuff, and cards for both Connor and Anastasiya, I felt as if a great weight had been lifted! In the afternoon, I switched around the clothing we’re donating to the orphanage into a large duffle-type bag, and re-stuffed the very large black suitcase with the packages for the other kids, and the toys for A. I did – I bought a lot of wonderful toys for her… a Hannah Montana headset and player, and a Hannah Montana wig, so she can pretend she is a rock star (it has buttons for applause and cheering on it, so while you are “singing along”, you can push the applause button – cute. I have Disney princess flashlight, with various covers, so you can display Tinkerbelle and or Bambi on the wall…there are Halloween cookies you decorate yourself with the icing and sprinkles… large bouncy balls for the playground, but I deflated them, and brought along a pump and extra needles, and last but not least, many package of orange tic-tacs and bubble gum. There’s a lot more, but I can’t remember it all, because my living room became a staging area, with three suitcase spread out, and things going into them as you thought of them and/or bought them. We remembered our converter and adapters, so we can charge our cameras and laptop, and use our hairdryers/curling irons/shavers.

Later yesterday, we dropped off the suitcase of Connor’s clothing to Jill, who has Connor next school week. Jeff tried to get Connor’s laptop to work with her system, so he can do homework while there.
Jeff and I also went out into the yard where the storm had blown down a 5 year old plum tree I planted years ago. The trunk was not snapped, so we were able to push it back up – I hope it can recover. The long shoots had not been trimmed, because the weather was so unseasonably hot; we thought we had time in November to trim the fruit trees, but that storm was a little rowdy after such mild weather, and took us by surprise.


When I walked in the house after shopping and errands, and was thinking, “Wow, we are really doing okay with the packing and chores”, there it was, the distinct “boop!” every minute or so. Oh, darn!
So Jeff and I went on a seek and destroy mission to find out WHICH smoke alarm was on the blink… of course, it’s the retreat, which probably got overlooked when we changed batteries last spring. It seems at every turn there is something going wrong, some other chore pokes its head out demanding attention.

What we did NOT get to do was finish setting up all the fog machines and other Halloween stuff for Mary and Taylor.

So then, at 6:00 pm, I am still rearranging suitcases and all the gifts. I want everything to arrive undamaged and in perfect condition. So I packed and unpacked a bunch, until each suitcase was evenly packed. Gee, now it’s time for me to pack MY things… ha-ha… I had already picked out a few blouses, a couple jackets, and had packed the folding clothes days ago, so now it was simply putting everything else into plastic bags and finding a place for everything. Running out of juice – cord isn’t working right on this plane… we passed the Grand Canyon a few minutes ago – it’s stunningly beautiful, even from the air!

Okay, I’m back. Our flight from DFW to London Heathrow left on time, 4:45pm Dallas time. In Dallas we met some lovely people at the Admirals Club, Hugh and Barbara, and a group of people on a missions trip to Peru to spread God’s word. It was a nice stop. We are now about 2 hours from London. It’s 10:00 pm in San Jose, and we’ve been on this flight about 5 or 6 hours. Our altitude is 38,000 feet, and our ground speed is 633 miles per hour. They still give you hot meals on international flights, so after “dinner and a movie” I dozed off with all my earplugs, blinders, blanke,t and neck pillow. It’s better to try and sleep, because when you get to London, its morning, then another flight to Kiev, and getting to the apartment.

We were showing the folks in Dallas pictures of our vacation with Anastasiya, and it makes us excited all over again. She is such a vibrant, interactive, funny, charming, sweet, wisp of a girl! I can hardly wait to see her and throw my arms around her. We brought some games like Uno that you can play without speaking the same language. My understanding is that when adoptive parents are there, and the child’s school day is over, you go into the “green room”, which has tables, chairs, and is apparently quieter than the rest of the orphanage. We get to see the other children that came out on summer camp, and we can give them their packages that we’re bringing from their prospective parents. We are able to spend only about an hour a day with A. and I don’t know if the weather will be conducive to outside play time or not.

Last reports we looked at said it was lows of 31-38 degrees, and highs around 40-45 degrees. By Ukrainian standards, it is not quite winter yet. Winters are very bleak, cold, and have a LOT of snow! It will be fall there now, much like out Northeast. Being a spoiled An Jose resident, I consider anything below 35 degrees to be winter. Up north in Kiev, where we land first, and where the SDA is (the Ukrainian government agency in charge of adoptions) it is colder than the southern town near the Aziz Sea where the orphanage is.

We will get from Kiev to the southern town by an overnight train, which we think is about 16 hours. If we are lucky, we will get one of the sleeping cars, with two bunks so .we can stretch out. We are somewhat concerned about all of the luggage. We have one large workhorse black wheeled suitcase, a medium brown wheeled suitcase, and a large duffle that we checked. We each carried on our smaller wheeled suitcases with out toiletries and at least one day worth of clothes, along with any valuables and electronic accessories. We’re hand-carrying our coats, because it will be cold! With these 5 suitcases, Jeff’s backpack, and my very large traveling purse, it is going to be a challenge on the train, and in the car at the other end. Think little cars, like in France or Great Britain, not large American cars

This is truly an adventure. Jeff and I are excited, a little weary, and very happy that two legs of the trip to Kiev is almost over. We’re getting anxious to see Anastasiya again. The last time we saw her, she was in the security line at SFO with the other children, in her hooded white sweatshirt, with the pink and burgundy hearts on it, looking back at us over her shoulder and waving. That was July 25, and it is now Oct 16th, and we miss her.