Our courtdate was sucessful!

Sorry, these posts never made it on our jump drive to before we went to the internet cafe. I apologize for such the long post.

Day 8 – Monday, September 17^th – Today we made our 10^th and 11^th visits with Veeka. Every time we are there with her, she opens up to us more and more. I am thankful for our time here so that we can have those times to bond. Both visits today were outside and we loved being outside for a change. She loves the slide and swinging the most. There has been a couple from Georgia who has been here with us and it has been nice to get to know them. They got to play outside both of the visits as well. They are left this morning to go back to America for a week or so. We are definitely going to miss the English conversations with them. They have another son who they adopted from Belarus in 2004.

Day 9 – Tuesday, September 18^th – Today was our court date; something we pray about long before we ever get here. Our family and the couple from Georgia both had our hearings today. Every thing went well and Monty did great speaking on behalf of our family. The judge decided it was best for our family and in the interest of Veeka to come and be apart of our forever family. Yeah!

Because of the hearing, we didn’t have much of our normal schedule in the morning. Our hearing was scheduled for 11am, but it wasn’t until 12pm or so. We had time for a quick lunch and then back to the baby home for visit number 12 and to tell Veeka the good news. It was so nice outside again that we got to spend all of our time with her playing on the playground.

Every time we get the opportunity to go outside for our playtime with Veeka, we always start out with her group. They usually start by walking the small road that is around their property. All throughout the Ukraine there are crops of one thing or another wherever there is an empty plot of land. We are talking any size: 2’x 2’ to acres of land. At the baby home, they have probably 10 apple trees and 15 walnut trees throughout their grounds. One of the things the kids like to do is hunt for walnuts that have fallen. All of those little guys just love it. It was so fun to watch them hunt for the walnuts. It was like it was Christmas. They would eat those nuts as fast as they could get them shelled. After the nut hunt, we went off by ourselves and played. More swinging and sliding.

Day 10 – Wednesday, September 19 – Veeka was had a great today. This was our 13^th and 14^th visit with her. We are so lucky to get to be with her so much. Our morning visit with Veeka consisted of playing in the standard play room and then it got exciting…we went on a field trip. All of the children in her group got to go see how their laundry was done.  We looked at the baby home washers and dryers and talked to the lady that did the laundry. It was so funny and we had a great time. Our afternoon visit was really nice because we got to go outside again. It was cold out, but mostly sunny. We hunted for walnuts again and again and again. We found some really good ones and some really yucky ones. Those little guys can find them so easily. They know what they are looking for. I bet she found 10 or so and ate them all.

We like to bring food and/or a drink for her, like we did for Caleb. Today we tried a juice box and poor thing didn’t really know what to do with it. The straw thing was too confusing. I could squeeze on the box and she could get some juice, but I don’t think she ever caught on about how to suck from the straw. We will keep on practicing. We will probably start the sippy cup earlier than we thought. I remember what an experience it was to teach Caleb how to use a sippy cup.

She is learning so much of what we say. We can tell her to give us her hand and she does. Today she learned how to open and let us see if there was food still in her mouth. Ahhhh!

We have met some really nice people from Spain that are adopting from this same baby home. They speak really good English. It is nice to get to

know them.