Dear Family and Friends,
Our family is all together again! We had a wonderful reunion on Saturday night at LAX. You can't fully tell from this picture, but Kim, Kaitlyn and Brody were all completely wasted after over 24 hours of travel. Kim said it came right down to the end that she wasn't sure that they were going to be allowed to go. Kim and I still have some older versions of passports. I believe the technology changed the year after we received our new 10 year passports in 2001. So whenever we travel there is usually some kind of delay. In Ukraine, they were very perplexed as to whether ours are even real since the technology on them is so different. So, there was a long delay about that. Then the passport control in Kiev wanted adoption papers, but would not tell her which adoption papers they wanted. Kim kept asking them which papers and they just kept saying, "Adoption Papers". She finally pulled out all of her adoption papers and kept showing her one after another until the lady said which one she wanted. Very nerve racking! She was praying the whole time that she would get through and on her way home.
In our excitement as a family and Kim being so tired, we didn't check her bag carefully and we grabbed one that was almost identical. At 11 pm we realized that it was not her bag. Her bag had my name on it and this bag had a Robert as the first name too. Well, we solved that in a hurry by calling this other Robert and then going for Kim's at the airport and taking Robert his bag at a hotel near the airport on Sunday morning.
The kids were absolutely ecstatic to find their room and bed all ready for them. Kaitlyn loves light blue and Kelly loves clouds, so their room has exactly that painted on the wall. Brody has taken over Kevin's old bed that has a ladder up and has a desk underneath. After unpacking their bag and putting what little they have into their dressers, they showered and then everyone went to bed. It was a very relaxing Sunday for us as we did some things around the house, played chess and took them on a long walk to keep them awake. Tiffany was with us on Sunday and then we took her back to school later that night. She played Speed with Kaitlyn too. We think the bonding is going well for now. By 7pm on Sunday they were ready to crash, but we kept them up longer in order to beat the jet lag.
On Monday Kim and I took Broden at 8am to his first appointment with the pediatrician. She was extremely helpful and looked him over well. She was concerned though about a sound she heard in his heart that she couldn't really distinguish. She will eventually have us see a cardiologist about it, but she wasn't too concerned yet. We'll take her an x-ray of his chest that we forgot the next time we go in. Please pray that we'll be able to determine his meds really soon, find out how to obtain copies of medical records and exams that the Ukrainian doctor failed to provide for us and that his heart sound will not be serious. Praise the Lord we were able to get him home and started on this process. The whole family is both overjoyed and also getting used to having us all together. The Lord has truly continued to show us He is our Provider.
