Videos From First Visit and Other Stuff

Well here are the other videos you have been patiently waiting on. Again I can not even begin to thank you enough for all of your prayers and support through out this entire process.  Those of you that know me know that I am NEVER lost for words but the day has come.  All I can keep repeating is that God is good and I am regretful for all those times that I allowed myself to question Him over the years.  Whatever happened happened was because it was His plan and not mine. 

Nadya, our beautiful and funny translator - I can not tell you how many times she has looked at me like I had five heads LOL ..... she is the sweetest thing - said she was going to have to carry around a notebook when she was with me so that she could write down all the stuff I come up with so I do things on purpose just to make her laugh. After we left Ivanna it was very quiet in the back seat just absorbing every second of what happened and then I finally tapped her on the shoulder and said "Nadya...did I tell you we got to see Ivanna today?" She just laughed. Then when I left my purse - that was a hoot - Oleg, our facilitator pulls up at the notaries building at 1:30 - they don't reopen from lunch until 2. Well....they never bothered to tell us that he was "dropping us off" and leaving so I left my purse/bag in the back floor board. So we walk down to McDonalds (I was in heaven!) and the first thing that happened we got up to the counter and the menu was in Ukrainian - well I recognized Big Mac but hubby wanted a quarter pounder so what do I do???  I tell her a quarter pounder and then realized they don't even do pounds so of course they wouldn't have it listed like that on the menu so I was standing in the middle of all of these people laughing.  So we get to the table and she was like "What was that you wanted again?" so had to explain.  Then her phone rings.......she looks to me and says Oleg says you left your purse in his car do you need it?  I said no if I do I can just walk out and get it ...... Ummmmm surprise.....Oleg left.  I was rolling then I went on this tangent of how my camera and video camera was in there and I would not turn that a loose.  So everytime she would change the subject - I would go right back to "Did I tell you that my camera and video camera is in the back of Oleg's car?".  Poor thing - I so pity her having to put up with me but what else can you do other than have a great time!  So she talked to Oleg and since he lives on the other side of the city he had a taxi bring it to me - it was photo albums, Ivanna's toys and camera and flip inside but very important stuff you see....  Guess you can tell we got it!!!!

Hope you enjoy the videos.  I plan to capture much more over the upcoming days.

Momma feeding baby girl a banana and talking as usual.  Ivan/Igor is in these pictures whose mom will be going to get him very soon.  That little boy will bring another family so much joy.  He cried because he wanted her phone and she was not parting with it period.  We had Nadya tell him that we would bring him a phone on our next visit so he stopped crying.  OH how it breaks my heart when a child is upset.

Daddy playing with Princess Ivanna.  She loved her Ballerina bear that Aunt Tristina gave her for a minute but when the Princess Phone came out - it was all over for anything else we brought her to play with because it was all about the telephone.

At a resteraunt eating and our first time to meet her mother - she is even more beautiful in person.  She was wearing her necklance we gave her that reads "forever in our heart".

This video was when we had just arrived and we were dumping suitcases all over the place trying to locate the stuff we and brought for Ivanna's biological family to send back with Yuri.