Lyuda returned to Ukraine last week, at the end of winter hosting. I didn’t blog too much this winter, so I figured I’d do a quick recap and share some photos.

While we were all very excited to have Lyuda her again, it was not an exciting hosting in the day-to-day. This time it was more about living normal life and having Lyuda here for that. It was, at times, definitely boring, definitely cabin fever with four kids at home over winter break.

However, seeing Lyuda’s gratitude for our simple life reminded me how much we have to offer. Our home is far from spotless, but it’s warm and has indoor plumbing. The food isn’t gourmet, but it’s plentiful and lots of options. She shares a room with Lena, but she has a warm bed and a safe place to store her possessions. She will have three siblings, which means our attention is divided between them, but it also means that there’s always someone to play with or give you a hug.

One of her first days here, we went to Tallgrass Prairie. It was their annual Christmas celebration there. We also hiked for a bit.

Another day, we went and made s’mores at a local park. I wanted to grab a Christmas card photo, and I thought this would be a fun activity to center it around.

She doesn’t usually enjoy sweet foods, but she liked her first s’more.

She dotes on him… and he loves her.

It was a truly uneventful hosting… and it was good. She experienced our ordinary days. She drove by her future school and took English lessons. We did grocery shopping, and cooking, and all sorts of boring things. To her, it wasn’t so important what we were doing, but that we were doing it together.

See you in 9 days, Lyuda.

It’s not too late if you want to follow our in-country adventures and need the password– just shoot me an email or leave a comment.

We will be in Ukraine in just over two weeks, which still seems a bit hard to believe, although our tickets have been purchased and our apartment for the first few days booked.

I thought it would be good to give you some background/an outline of the process, to hopefully answer some common questions I receive.

What We’ll Be Up to on This Trip

We will spend our first few days of the trip in Kyiv, the capitol of Ukraine. Here, we will visit the SDA (State Department of Adoption)– you may also see it called the MSP if you read other Ukrainian adoption blogs. Our agency uses an even longer acronym, but I like to keep things simple.

The SDA is where we will accept Lyuda’s official referral. We will sit down with a social worker, who will review her file with us, and give us her full background as they have it listed. There may be an older photo. I plan to bring some current photos and beg them to trade older photos with me, or at least take a picture. I also plan to take photos of Reed and Lena, and ask if they might dig out their old photos for us (this isn’t my first time trying– they probably won’t). Anyways, we sit down and discuss her history, and officially accept her referral/permission to visit her.

We need to wait for the actual paperwork, which is granted the following day at 4PM. You might remember from our previous adoption– this is where thing got absolutely nuts. Our facilitator was extremely late, we (and the other family we were with) really weren’t sure that we’d be able to pick up the paperwork, and right from picking up the paperwork at the SDA, we turned around and grabbed the overnight train to Donetsk. It was ALL kinds of stressful.

So, anyways, we visit the SDA for her referral, the following day, we go and pick up the paperwork. Since Lyuda’s region is within driving distance, we will wait to travel to her region until the following morning. This will dramatically cut down on the stress of this experience with Reed and Lena’s adoption, I think.

Lyuda was at an orphanage just a few hours from Kyiv until this school year (starting in September), where she was transferred to the middle of nowhere. We will have a 4-5 hour drive to her region/orphanage. We will likely be staying in the closest “big” town, which is 15,000 people. This will be a stretch for me. We’ve had the luxury of adopting from large cities where we always had the ability to go down to McDonalds, Chilis, etc. Three weeks in Donetsk, we only ate at McDonalds once, but we enjoyed the local restaurants with familiar cuisine, like the Irish pub or Cherry Pizza.

Anyways, two days after the SDA appointment, we will make our way to her region. We’ll sit down with a regional social worker, who may tell us a bit more about her, but will mostly likely ask some questions about us. The social worker will be one of the people responsible for testifying in court, stating if he/she believes that this adoption is in Lyuda’s best interest. The social worker will probably also observe us at some of our visits with Lyuda.

After we meet with the social worker, we will visit the orphanage. Again, we will sit down with some officials, like the orphanage director and orphanage psychologist, who may give us another history of Lyuda. She has not been there long, but they’ll probably tell us what they know. Then, we should get to see Lyuda.

My understanding is that this orphanage is one that’s more “locked down”. We’ll probably be given a room to visit in, and be told to stay there, not to go looking around the rest of the orphanage. This was the case with Reed and Lena’s orphanage as well, although I believe that the reason their orphanage had such restrictions was to prevent spreading germs.

We’ll spend the remainder of our time in Ukraine visiting the orphanage and signing official paperwork to proceed with her adoption. We will be in Ukraine this trip for a total of 10 days.

A few weeks later, we will return for our court trip, where we will stand before a judge and officially request to adoption Lyuda. We will go home, and a couple MORE weeks later, we will return to pick her up, get all of her paperwork in order, get her visa to the US and COME HOME.

Luda to Lyuda

You probably also noticed that I’ve changed the spelling of Lyuda’s name. While Luda is the more common spelling, she prefers Lyuda. It’s still pronounced Lou-dah, with emphasis on the second syllable. We’ve gone back and forth a ton about encouraging her to pick an easiest spelling, but ultimately, we decided that it’s most important to give her control over all aspects of her name.

Questions? 15 days until we’re on our way and I’m so excited!

We received our first adoption travel dates on New Year’s Eve.

Aaron and I will be traveling to Ukraine to officially get Luda’s referral at the end of January. We’re so excited! It was great to give Luda a specific date when we’ll see her again!

Like I’ve done in the past, all posts while we’re in country will be private. You will need to enter a password to read them.

I do not limit this exclusively to friends and family, but I do need to know who is reading. If you’d like the password, please leave a comment and introduce yourself OR shoot me an email– my email address is at the right.

2015 is not the year I would have chosen for myself, but somehow, it was all good. Really good. It was a year with challenges, uncertainties, and hard work. Hard work often looked like showing up to live life fully each day, trusting God and his good work, and hanging on to hope.

I said goodbye to 2015 with a stronger faith, the trust that we can make it through the hard times, and knowing exactly who I can count on. I’m thankful for all of the incredible people in my life, who’ve supported me throughout the year.

I’m eagerly looking forward to 2016.

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Now, for my tradition… a favorite picture for each month of 2015.

January: I thought about a family picture, but as I looked through my pictures from January, these shots jumped out at me. Lena and I had a lot of fun in front of the camera together and I treasure these shots of us together.

February: This is one of my all time favorite pictures I’ve ever taken. It was a fun moment– he was loving trying to catch the snow on his tongue. I also think it’s magical… and classic.

March: This is a self portrait I took back in March. Photography is mostly about documenting our lives and how I see the world. Sometimes, I also use it for introspection.

April: At Tallgrass Prairie in April, one of our favorite places.

May: I knew May needed to be a camping photo, but it as hard to pick one. There’s a lot “technically” wrong about this photo as a photographer, but I love it as a mom. It was one of our most fun days of 2015.

June: I had to pick a photo from Rocky Mountain National Park for June. One of my friends called RMNP more magical than Disney World, and while I’ve never been to Disney World, I have to guess this is true. The mountains, the wildlife, the incredible view of the stars… I never wanted to leave. I am hoping we can go back in 2016.

July: Our time with my favorite in Pennsylvania is always a favorite for me. The kids love time spent at the pool with their cousins. I often wish we weren’t so far away, but even though we are, my kids still have the opportunity to know their cousins well.

August: N’s summer with us is one of the things I don’t yet have closure about for 2015. I am still praying for a great ending to her story. That being said, I’m glad I could give her this… photos that make it easier to advocate for her and help her be “known”, and all that we learned about her this summer that might help her find a forever family.

September: Another favorite weekend of 2015 was when we went to Colorado without the kids. This is my favorite picture of Aaron ever. He is completely in his element, and obviously comfortable in front of the camera (a rarity). We did a ton of hiking this weekend, so it was exhausting, but being without the kids and doing exactly what we wanted, it was also very relaxing.

October: We took a camping trip in October. I love this photo instantly… and it ended up winning a photo contest this fall. That made me extra proud!

November: This was another photo that I look and instantly loved. It’s hardly posed… the kids’ clothes are coordinated, I wasn’t planning on the dog photobomb. We were just out for a walk and I said “stand right here for a picture!” This is one of our favorite places, sunsets are one of my favorite things, these are some of my favorite people, and two thirds of my favorite dogs… I love it.

December: December was hard because there are so many photos I loved, having Luda back for Christmas and all of the magic of the season. I chose this one of all four kids, which I also used on our Christmas card. They don’t always get along, but for siblings, they do awfully well. I love them and how they love each other. So often, we think of family and life as what we’re given, but they remind me that it’s what we make with what we’re given.

Happy 2016!