Dear Friends,
How is everyone this great Lord's Day? We are doing well. It's 7:15pm here (11:15am in Alabama). We're sorry it has been so long since we have posted, but I was trying to wait until we had our official first meeting with the boys on Monday. We felt like you all would like to hear from us and we would love to hear your comments and sweet words, so I went ahead and wrote. We did go to the orphanage yesterday (Saturday), but it was not an official workday so we did not get to meet the inspector yet. Our meeting with the inspector will make it 100% official that we are pursuing adoption of these boys. However, this is Sasha's home town, so he felt confident that we could at least meet the boys. We went to the orphanage director and she allowed us to meet the older boy (Slavic--for now). Let us just say, he is absolutely precious and gorgeous. I cried a little, but didn't let him see. There were 2 other little boys out there with us and they just grabbed our hands and pulled us with them. We played for a moment on the playground while Sasha and the director talked. But, our short visit had to end and we took them back inside. Then, we were leaving and he was outside with his class. They all ran to us and asked who we were visiting. So, I told them we were there to talk to everyone. But, Sasha got down on Slavic's level and spoke with him and asked if he liked us and he said "Da!--yes!". Then he asked if he would like for us to come back and he looked at me and said "Da!--yes!". So, we are so excited! Today (Sunday) we got up and packed up and left our room in Kiev! We drove to Zhitomir and met up with Sasha's friend Sasha. Seriously. That is a very popular male nickname in this part of the world. He had found us a house to rent! We really did not know what to expect, but the house is absolutely great. It is really large and brand new. The owners built it for an investment to rent it out. And the next 4 weeks here will cost us less than 1 week at the hotel in Kiev did! (we hope we don't use it all-hee hee) Praise God from whom all blessings flow! He has truly provided above and beyond all our expectations! We ate a delicious dinner...I mean it when I say I have loved the food and I think Greg, Jackson, and Carol have all enjoyed it too! We just want to tell you all how wonderful Sasha has been to us. He has spent so much time and energy making this go as smoothly as possible and we really appreciate him and his staff. Well, we will sign off for now. I will post tomorrow afternoon after our first official meeting with both boys! Love to all!

It is 8:26pm Friday evening here (12:26pm Friday afternoon in Alabama for those of you confused by the time differential) and we just got back from dinner at a cafeteria whose name I cannot spell or pronounce! It was mostly traditional Ukrainian food and we actually enjoyed it...even Jackson. Funny story, Jackson and I were in the cafeteria line getting our food. We were being helped by a girl with very limited English....she told us that a small bowl of something that sort of looked like salmon-colored cream cheese spread was "salad". So Jackson, being a lover of salad, grabbed it up. We took it to the table and all tried it and it was actually good....but not at all salad. We all liked it so what did it matter? Jackson even liked it so much he said he could eat it all day every day! Well, Ben came and met us to visit and we were telling him about it and he said some Ukrainian word sounding like "sah-lahd" and we had thought she was saying "salad". Anyway, it is some kind of pork fat spread that you put on bread or meat sandwiches. Sounds gross...but we liked it, so we put it on some bread and it was even better! I thought once again how Jim Lazenby and Keith McDonald would be suffering for the cause over here! HaHa! Anyway, we had a pretty laid back day today. We did go to the SDA and got our official paperwork for the referal. We will get up tomorrow morning and head out to Zhytomyr(Zhitomir--pronounced jee-toe-meer)...directly to left of Kyiv (Kiev) on our blog map. There we will have an opportunity to meet both boys and interact with them a little bit. We are praying for a clear sign from God as to how to proceed from there. Jackson and Carol will be hanging out here for the day as we will need the first time to be just me and Greg. We will be back late tomorrow afternoon, though, and will let you all know what happened. I wanted to jut let you know that we are feeling much better/happier today as we are just so glad to have our Heavenly Father preparing our way. Every step of this trip has been pretty much exactly how we would want it....he might just be giving our little family a different look than we were prepared for! I was trying to make this blog a little shorter, but I wanted to at least give you all a little Melanie and Greg humor so you would know we are okay! Love to all!

Hey everybody! It's about 8:35pm Kiev time here. I think our posting time doesn't show up correctly, so I will always try to tell you what time it is here as I am posting. Well, we have had a long day of emotional highs and lows. Greg and I hardly slept last night (Carol and Jackson said they both slept well at least). We didn't know if it was due to excitement, nerves, or just being so off our schedule with the 8 hour time change. Anyway, we woke up early to get ourselves ready and have breakfast with Carol and Jackson before our appointment. Ben and Sasha came to pick us up about 10:15am this morning. We made it to our SDA appointment early, so we had lots of time to chat with them and really feel like we know them a little better now. Anyway, we got into the appointment and the first file offered to us was an 8 year old twin girl and boy. Both were so beautiful and healthy, but we were trying to get a younger child. So, she kept pulling out files, but all the while she and Sasha were speaking to each other in Ukrainian and all we knew were there were lots of "niets" (no's). So, finally she pulled out a file of a beautiful 4 year old little girl. Our hearts soared. But, then Sasha began to share with us how there had been problems previously with two other families who had visited her. I will share all the details later....but, our hearts plummeted. Then, she brought out a file of 2 beautiful little boys, ages 4 and 6. Obviously this was not the way we pictured our family...but, we did not want to limit God in any way. So, after some tears were shed (mine) over all the files she showed us of kids who need parents so badly, we realized that God knows the plans for us and we are going to try to let him lead us to our kid/kids. The orphange where the boys are is about 60-70 miles from Kiev, so we are going to drive there on Saturday without Carol and Jackson (we think) and just visit them. We will see how they respond to us and how God leads us to respond to this referal He has provided. We will keep you all posted as to how things go that day. We did ask Jackson how he would feel about 2 brothers and he really didn't give us too much....for all of you that know our boy, this is not really surprising. We asked Carol what she thought about 2 more grandsons and she said she loves little boys...clearly since she has 2 of her own. Our hearts were thinking a girl would be a wonderful addition to our little family, but I know we would love some little boys too! Please pray for us. We had really hoped this decision would be easier to make. We prayed that we would know instantly in the appointment and maybe this is God's idea of us "knowing" His plans and following through with them. Either way, we are certainly acutely aware of what a blessing this opportunity is and we know that you all will support us with so much love for whoever God adds to our family! Thanks for all your comments....keep them coming please. It really makes us feel like you are here with us!

Howdy folks! About 6:08pm here and we are discussing dinner. Hope everyone there is doing well....we miss you all terribly! We are having a good time, but we need your prayers. Jackson was sick with a cold before we left and Greg and I have both caught it. We don't feel great and are just stuffy headed. Please pray for us to get better...it's kind of sapping our energy right now. We did go out for a while today with our new friends, Chris and Ellin Cosper. They are also here adopting and are even staying in our same building. They were here a day ahead of us and have helped us so much with their experiences. We did a little bit of sightseeing today and ate pizza at the food court at the mall. Not quite like ours, but very good nonetheless. We met another facilitator today named Ben. He was very nice and answered a ton of questions for us. He is very familiar with Brook Hills and knows a lot of people who worship there, so we had a lot to talk about outside of the adoption, too. We woke up to snow this morning and it was so beautiful! We all feel like we are staying warm and you all know how hot natured I am, so I have even been too warm at times. Unfortunatly, the boots Carol (Grandma) bought for our trip are not waterproof, so her feet got wet. She may try borrowing mine or might buy another pair...we'll see how it goes. Finally, I want to ask you all to pray for our big SDA appointments tomorrow morning. This is where we will get our referals, so it is a very important day for us. The Cosper's is at 9am and ours is at 11am. That will be at 1am and 3am your time, so please lift us up before you hit the bed tonight. We'll let you know how it goes. Have a great day everyone!

Hey everyone! We're here. We had a pretty good journey and Jackson was excellent. We had to say some quick prayers at the Paris airport because we got held up to re-check our carry-ons. Jackson and I ran to the gate while Greg and Carol continued putting our bags all back together. Thankfully they held the plane for them and we made our flight. God was in control all along. Alexi and Sasha took wonderful care of us at the airport in Kiev. Then, Sasha brought us to our home away from home. We have two rooms and they are very nice. We are blessed. Now we are going to take a little rest because we have slept about an hour since Sunday night!

Good morning, everyone! So, it is finally here.....6:50am on Feb. 2nd. Happy Groundhog Day! I guess I will always remember this date for more than one reason. Anyway, Greg's mom Carol will be traveling with us and we are so excited to start our journey this morning. Carol (Grandma) and Big Rand (Pops) will be here to pick us up at 7:30. Just wanted to say one last goodbye and tell you all how much I love you. We will post about our trip and arrival as soon as we can!

Hey everyone! We are in the final stages of packing for our journey. Thanks to all who have loaned, given, bought, etc. stuff to us for our trip. We are blessed to have such wonderful friends and family to walk through this with us. If I don't have time to post again tomorrow morning, I will post as soon as possible after arriving in Kiev! We love you all and please pray for us. We know God has our trip all planned out already....He just has to take us on it!