Happy Anniversary and Referral Day!!

It's been a few days since my last blog, and I apologize! We've been exploring and traveling, and it's been so much fun!! I'm going to back up a few days and share the things that have been going on!!

Thursday, July 5 was a very special day! This was the day we celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary! God has blessed us so much these 9 years! Not only was it our anniversary, it was our first appointment at the ministry for adoptions, the SDA. Our appointment was at 10am, and as soon as we got there, we were whisked away upstairs into the office where we sat down with a young lady! She was very beautiful and very serious! We had to tell her a few things about ourselves, like our name, what we do, our biological children, what type of child we want to adopt, and how we met her! She then goes and pulls her file, where she tells us about our sweet Yulia when her parents' rights were diminished. We saw a picture of Yulia at 10 years old, and she looked much the same, yet so much younger! My heart ached at seeing such sweetness and youth that I'm sure was heartbroken as she was placed in the orphanage.

We finished up, and were told to come back the next day between 3 & 4 to pick up the referral! It took about 15 minutes, and was so much easier than I could have imagined....if only everything would be this easy! Of course having Natasha hold our hand every step of the way helped tremendously with this!! She has been like "mama Natasha", and we appreciate her so much!!

Here is a pic of us following our appointment after they said we could pick up approval, we are outside the SDA!! And here is our wonderful Natasha!!

Later that day, we decided to walk and learn more about the country! It was another day of walking about 5 hours, but I can't believe how much of the city we could see walking!! There are so many things to talk about, but I'll limit them here! More pics can be found on facebook to see more of our sights!!

We walked through another beautiful park, it's unbelievable how much the government in Kiev tries to take care of the city, and the way it "looks". Because it was our anniversary, Natasha took us to the bridge of love. It's a short bridge, and it's filled with locks. When a couple gets married, they place a lock on the bridge. Or if someone is in love, they tie a ribbon around it symbolizing their love for one another! It was really sweet to see, as I'm such a visual person! We didn't add a lock to it, although we should have!!

We decided to take a tour of the water museum in the park! It was a very neat tour to find out about how water is moved throughout the city to homes, and when it started, etc, etc, etc!! It was a neat tour, and at the end there was a place to play! Now I think about my children and how much fun they would have had in this part!! So........Natasha and I decided to have so fun, lol!! Here we are enjoying bubbles, who wouldn't want to catch a bubble and be caught up in one, right,  and sitting on the throne!! Of course, the throne Jarrod had to take part in too!!

Our friends, Rachel and Scott, had shared pictures of a yummy looking restaurant to try, and we figured this would be the perfect day as a celebration meal! I've been so proud of us, trying some different things while here!! This was a very yummy dinner, followed by yummy dessert! It was a treat for us, and we went all out, of course it was our only meal "out" for the day, so we had to make it great!! We're thankful for Natasha helping us to order, so we know what in the world we are getting, lol!! Many restaurants here have menu's in Russian and English, so I can read them! Even then, we need help sometimes!

Here is pictures of our food and dessert! And of course, here's the love of my life, celebrating 9 wonderful and blessed years of marriage!!

After dinner, we decided to walk more and explore! There are many different artists throughout this region, and it's neat to see their take on things! Some are a bit humorous, while others are just plain beautiful! We went past a beautiful playground, which my children would LOVE to play on! Even I wanted to play on it!! Then Natasha took us down to the bottom of the hill, to the most beautiful part of the city! It is a very old part that they are renovating and it is absolutely beautiful! I've decided that I want to invest in an apartment here one day! One advantage would be to help other couples have a place to stay when coming to adopt, but also for me to come and visit whenever!! So enjoy the pics here and the beautiful artistic creativity!!

So our anniversary was a "one of a kind", one we will never forget! I'm thankful that not only is God blessing our family by giving us another child, but He sent us on a trip of a lifetime!! He is so good, and I will give Him praise always!! If you want to see more pictures, go to my facebook page! I will have more information on all of them soon!! Be blessed my friends! More blogs soon to come!!