Court

Had court today. Everything went very well. We were worried at first because the social services director was really late and it was getting close to closing time. But she made it with about 30 minutes to spare and the judge started us up. He hurried everybody along asked a couple of question and said you are approved. So Sasha is OURS. I leave Monday back to the states and Caroline will remain until about the 10th of May to finish up the immigration work. Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes

Waiting

Hi friends. I know it has been a while but we really haven't had anything new since the last court date. We have been sitting around and visiting Sasha everyday. Our next and hopefully final court date is on the 19th. Then I will go home and Caroline will stay to finish up the process. I will flood the internet with the videoas and pictures when I get home, our connection here is not great and videos won't load so I have just been saving them and will load them ASAP. Sasha is doing well and she is excited to see us everyday. She still introduces us to everybody as her Mama and Papa. We have bought here alot of new clothes and some nice dolls for the trip. She is a wonderful little girl. The orphanage she is at is very good and they pay alot of attention to the children. There are several children here who need adopting so if you are in the state of mind to do so it is very rewarding.

Court

We had our first court date yesterday. Things went well. The judge seemed nice and supportive. He was concerned that we get all the paperwork correct so he can proceed. We scheduled the second court date for Thursday the 19th. We should have all the Ukrainian documentation done by then. I will then go back to the states and leave Caroline here to complete the process.

Vannista

We leave on the train to Vannista Sunday at 6PM. 3 hour train ride. To bad it will be dark would love to see the country side. Posting some pictures on my FB account of the Kiev Down Town.

DAP Meeting

Met with Yulia, Serge and Ludemilla for the SDA appointment. We got some updated information about Josephine. Her real name is Alexandra Sasha, she was born November 15th 2005 and has been in the orphanage since then. We will travel to Venista Sunday with Ludemilla and see Sasha Monday. I am posting some more pictures of her. We will take a tour with Ugene tomorrow of the historical areas of kiev. This is actually a very beautiful old city and have very positive feelings here. I am glad to see that Kiev really has embraced western life and left the Soviet lifestyle behind. They are friendly and kind. It is not nearly as intimidating as we originally thought it would be.

Ukraine

We are in Kiev now. We landed yesterday and made it to our apartment. Niko our driver was excellent and speaks very good english even though hes claim it is his third language. He has been working with the adotion agencies for 7 years so he is very understanding of our process and needs. Went to a Ukrainian food market, quite a change from want we are used to, but the food is good and the beer is better. The flight was good Lufthansa is an excellent airline and really take careof the passengers while inflight. Newark airport was not the best as expected. The gate folks made us check our carry ons which had our coats in them, We didn't t much about it because everything is indoors while flying......wrong. When you land at Kiev airport there are no gates or jetways. You park out on the tarmack and have to walk to a bus and then to the terminal. Temperature was 0 C and drizzly, poor Caroline nearly froze. We will spend Wednesday getting our body clocks lined up with the time change. Thursday is our SDA appointment. Stay tuned for more updates and videos to come. Skype name is cutlerfamilyadoption is you want live videos of Josephine.

SKYPE

If you want to see us on occasion while in the Ukraine we will use SKYPE to do video calls. It is free and I will be happy to connect to you a couple of times while we are there. Our SKYPE name is CutlerFamilyAdoption and you can search under James Cutler. Cutlercontracting@gmail.com is our email.

3

3 Days and counting. Getting excited and nervous and happy and sad and worried and excited and excited and excited.

Excited-Coming to the end of the road
Nervous-Long Flight
Happy-Going to Josephine
Sad-Leaving the kids behind
Worried-About the kids staying home
Excited-New country
Excited-First trip with wife alone-ish
Excited-Bringing home BABY

7

7 days and counting.......

Traveling on the 26th

We leave on the 26th and land on the 27th. Our SDA date is the 29th. Monday following get Josephine and wait for the court date. Outstanding.