Mom, I was thinking about something for you to do and thought about calling Mimi, Na, and the rest of the family. They always ask about you when I see them. The numbers are in the black book on the top shelf of the computer room by the window. Na's number is on a scratch piece of paper in the book. You will have to look for it.
Alison, Happy b-day, soory I missed it. Love ya lots and miss you.
Mikie, Please go visit Grandma, she misses you. Love ya.
Monday, July 28, 2014
7th day:
Today I have been missing home. I miss my son, friends and family . I know he is in good hands but I miss being able to talk to him and pick on him. (Hi Shawnie!! I love ya). We miss the food, ice cream, MOUNTAIN DEW, having water pressure in the shower, washing machines and many simple things we take for granted everyday. The only thing we don’t miss is the cold weather, it has been in the high 40’s here with some sun.
Jack, Yes the kids like dogs. They seem to be very interested in Bella because they have never seen a white German Sheppard. Pavel wants a cat. Jack and Noah be prepared Maxim is very good at legos and loves the build new ones that he has never seem before.
We got up at 7:00 am to go to see Vera (Executive of the Department of Children) so we could pick up some documents she made for us. Last night we got a call from Sedgwick FMLA about our claim. They want documents we cannot give them until the end of the adoption as proof of what we are doing, they also want papers on placement date of the children. We do not know any of these things. Like we need any more stress! We explained to George our situation, that without these papers Shawn could loose his job because none of the time he has had off will be excused. He called Vera at home and asked if maybe she could help. She started working on the document from home and we agreed to meet in the morning to review and hope that she could find someone to sign the document. George left about 8:00, we left at 8:30 to meet him in Vera’s office. When we arrived they were still reviewing the document and trying to word it properly, there are words in the Ukraine that do not translate to English and vise versa so if a document needs to be translated it can take some work to make it work out. When the letter finally was done Vera had to see if she could find someone to sign. When she returned we had to wait because she had left the letter with a favorite and trusted employee of her Chief so we could guarantee that the letter would get signed. When she received the letter we found that there were mistakes and the letter had to be rewritten and signed again. This process took 2 hours and that was very fast for them. They have no fax, e mail, and things are walked from building to building for signatures and approvals. Things can take a lot of time. Now we needed to find a place to fax the letter. In the city square there was a “store” that was set up with booths that had phones, wifi and a fax. George explained what we needed and the letter was faxed to Sedgwick as well as Shawn’s HR department. Thank you Mike Andrews for getting us the fax numbers we needed! Next we were off to court to drop off some more documents and then home. George has to catch a bus at 11:15 to make it to his train so he can go to Kiev and finish paperwork at the SDA for court for us. He also has to help finish up another adoption he has in process. He hope to only be gone for 4 days but as you can see nothing has any definite time line. We will visit the children as scheduled with the driver and see some sights until George gets back to Kerch. George dropped us off at the apartment left for the train about 11:00. We decided to walk to the internet café so we could e mail Mike Andrews and Kim DeForest about the fax they should be receiving and that a copy was sent to Sedgwick. We also explained what has been happening and asked if maybe they could help us. Back to the apartment to get a snack and take a nap. We had until 4:00 before the driver (Andre’) would be here to pick us up to go see the children. When we woke up and was getting ready to go for lunch Kim DeForest called and said that she received the fax and was going to fax it to Sedgwick and talk to our caseworker’s boss about the situation. She said not to worry she would take care of the problem. Thanks Kim! Now we can relax again, it is hard to think about bringing home 3 children and having one more at home and not having a job. Went to lunch and used their wifi to post.
Just to let everyone know, the pictures are all from different days but the children always wear the same clothes. I think they bath and change clothes on the weekends. We bought legos for Maxim and a small doll dressed as a bunny for Sasha. We also found a book for Russian children to learn English. They are always very happy to get gifts. They are so surprised and happy it is amazing to see their faces. Maxim is very interested in the electronics. They go to the library with their class rom time to time and do know how to use computers. He spent most of the night playing mine sweeper and solitaire. He is very good. English #’s and Ukrainian #’s are the same but with different names 1 is adeen 2 is dva… They look the same, add, subtract etc. the same, just different names. Sasha spent a lot of time taking pictures, at the end of the night she worked in the English book we bought. She was tracing the letters of the alphabet very well and saying the names of the pictures in Russian and then in English. Shawn and Sasha spent quite a while on this project. They also worked out of a book on colors we bought. After the computer ran out of battery Maxim put together his lego fighter plane. He was so interested in this that he refused to go to dinner with his friends. They looked very sad but left without him. It was a really big project and very confusing (to me) and he had it finished before we left. We were very surprised because in the beginning we thought it would be too hard for him. One of the caregivers came in to tell us thank you (in English) for the gift we bought for Sasha’s groupa. It was very nice because she does not speak English. When we left Pavel was waiting to tell us good bye. We are assuming that he is not able to come into Sasha’s groupa because he is sick and we hope he can return to us soon. We are happy to see that he is out of the hospital, but we do not know about Vitaly. Pavel was very happy to see us and seemed to want to tell us something, this language barrier is so hard sometimes. We said good night and left for home.
On the way home we got a call from Sedgwick FMLA stating that our claim had been approved, the paperwork was sufficient. They gave us until the 26 of December to return to work. They stated that they did not get the fax from us but did get the information form Kim for the approval. Thanks again Kim! Now we can sleep.
Today I have been missing home. I miss my son, friends and family . I know he is in good hands but I miss being able to talk to him and pick on him. (Hi Shawnie!! I love ya). We miss the food, ice cream, MOUNTAIN DEW, having water pressure in the shower, washing machines and many simple things we take for granted everyday. The only thing we don’t miss is the cold weather, it has been in the high 40’s here with some sun.
Jack, Yes the kids like dogs. They seem to be very interested in Bella because they have never seen a white German Sheppard. Pavel wants a cat. Jack and Noah be prepared Maxim is very good at legos and loves the build new ones that he has never seem before.
We got up at 7:00 am to go to see Vera (Executive of the Department of Children) so we could pick up some documents she made for us. Last night we got a call from Sedgwick FMLA about our claim. They want documents we cannot give them until the end of the adoption as proof of what we are doing, they also want papers on placement date of the children. We do not know any of these things. Like we need any more stress! We explained to George our situation, that without these papers Shawn could loose his job because none of the time he has had off will be excused. He called Vera at home and asked if maybe she could help. She started working on the document from home and we agreed to meet in the morning to review and hope that she could find someone to sign the document. George left about 8:00, we left at 8:30 to meet him in Vera’s office. When we arrived they were still reviewing the document and trying to word it properly, there are words in the Ukraine that do not translate to English and vise versa so if a document needs to be translated it can take some work to make it work out. When the letter finally was done Vera had to see if she could find someone to sign. When she returned we had to wait because she had left the letter with a favorite and trusted employee of her Chief so we could guarantee that the letter would get signed. When she received the letter we found that there were mistakes and the letter had to be rewritten and signed again. This process took 2 hours and that was very fast for them. They have no fax, e mail, and things are walked from building to building for signatures and approvals. Things can take a lot of time. Now we needed to find a place to fax the letter. In the city square there was a “store” that was set up with booths that had phones, wifi and a fax. George explained what we needed and the letter was faxed to Sedgwick as well as Shawn’s HR department. Thank you Mike Andrews for getting us the fax numbers we needed! Next we were off to court to drop off some more documents and then home. George has to catch a bus at 11:15 to make it to his train so he can go to Kiev and finish paperwork at the SDA for court for us. He also has to help finish up another adoption he has in process. He hope to only be gone for 4 days but as you can see nothing has any definite time line. We will visit the children as scheduled with the driver and see some sights until George gets back to Kerch. George dropped us off at the apartment left for the train about 11:00. We decided to walk to the internet café so we could e mail Mike Andrews and Kim DeForest about the fax they should be receiving and that a copy was sent to Sedgwick. We also explained what has been happening and asked if maybe they could help us. Back to the apartment to get a snack and take a nap. We had until 4:00 before the driver (Andre’) would be here to pick us up to go see the children. When we woke up and was getting ready to go for lunch Kim DeForest called and said that she received the fax and was going to fax it to Sedgwick and talk to our caseworker’s boss about the situation. She said not to worry she would take care of the problem. Thanks Kim! Now we can relax again, it is hard to think about bringing home 3 children and having one more at home and not having a job. Went to lunch and used their wifi to post.
Just to let everyone know, the pictures are all from different days but the children always wear the same clothes. I think they bath and change clothes on the weekends. We bought legos for Maxim and a small doll dressed as a bunny for Sasha. We also found a book for Russian children to learn English. They are always very happy to get gifts. They are so surprised and happy it is amazing to see their faces. Maxim is very interested in the electronics. They go to the library with their class rom time to time and do know how to use computers. He spent most of the night playing mine sweeper and solitaire. He is very good. English #’s and Ukrainian #’s are the same but with different names 1 is adeen 2 is dva… They look the same, add, subtract etc. the same, just different names. Sasha spent a lot of time taking pictures, at the end of the night she worked in the English book we bought. She was tracing the letters of the alphabet very well and saying the names of the pictures in Russian and then in English. Shawn and Sasha spent quite a while on this project. They also worked out of a book on colors we bought. After the computer ran out of battery Maxim put together his lego fighter plane. He was so interested in this that he refused to go to dinner with his friends. They looked very sad but left without him. It was a really big project and very confusing (to me) and he had it finished before we left. We were very surprised because in the beginning we thought it would be too hard for him. One of the caregivers came in to tell us thank you (in English) for the gift we bought for Sasha’s groupa. It was very nice because she does not speak English. When we left Pavel was waiting to tell us good bye. We are assuming that he is not able to come into Sasha’s groupa because he is sick and we hope he can return to us soon. We are happy to see that he is out of the hospital, but we do not know about Vitaly. Pavel was very happy to see us and seemed to want to tell us something, this language barrier is so hard sometimes. We said good night and left for home.
On the way home we got a call from Sedgwick FMLA stating that our claim had been approved, the paperwork was sufficient. They gave us until the 26 of December to return to work. They stated that they did not get the fax from us but did get the information form Kim for the approval. Thanks again Kim! Now we can sleep.
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