I had my first worried moment of our trip. I was trying to stay awake while Aaron was napping, so I decided to flip through the Ukraine Handbook from RR. I saw the page about the “Immigration Card” that we needed to fill out at the airport today. And it says how you must hold on to it and give it to them when you leave. Um, we never saw this card. But in the RR handbook and my google search, it sounded important!

I posted about it on the RR yahoo group about it and fortunately, Meredith Cornish got back to me. In September she had to fill one out, but this trip, they told her that she did not. And told her husband, who traveled separately, the same thing.

If you don’t know who Meredith is, you should! She used to be the director of the Ukraine program for RR, but she just recently stepped down from her position with RR, as their in the process of adopting their 7th and 8th children from Ukraine right now.  They have a very interesting story about their daughter Aleksa who they’re in the process of adopting. Go read her blog.

I think we might meet up with them tomorrow. It will be nice to see other Americans! It has been a little bit hard since we got to Frankfurt… we never know what language someone speaks. I’ve already had a few odd language encounters– in German and Russian. And another guy who asked me where I was from, and when I said Kansas, he said “Missouri?”, “Kansas”, “Missouri?” And, we were done.

We’re alive. We’re sitting in our apartment which has internet access, slow internet access via ethernet, but YAY! We’re pretty tired but no sleep until at least 7pm, to help with the jet lag. Maybe I’ll write more later…

Tomorrow. We leave in less than 13 hours. I am kind of a mess right now!

I am caught up on blog invites. We still have about 15 left. If you want one, please email me or comment with your email ASAP. I am going to be posting on that blog exclusively or almost exclusively once we leave the country.

I have never been one of those people who packs more than a day or two in advance. Until this trip. So much stuff to remember.

Embassy forms. Photo book. Baby carrier. Winter coats. Toys and media for the trip home. Money, lots and lots of money. Ear plugs. Laundry stuff. Camera.

I had a kind of funny day today. Last week, I was not sure how we were going to get to the airport. I researched all of the options, like taking a shuttle or renting a car or how much it would cost to leave our car there while we were away. We decided to ask some friends who we aren’t so good at keeping in touch with, but are totally awesome. Yes, they said they’d take us! YAY! Well, then, today, I got an email from my sister-in-law, who lives about 3 hours away, saying that they’d be in the KC area this weekend and asked if we still needed a ride to the airport. Then, my aunt called less than an hour later to ask if she could help, specifically giving us a ride to the airport!

I have found it so interesting throughout the adoption to think about which people are the ones who help us and how different people have their preferred ways of helping. How some people are constantly looking for a way to help and some people are so eager once you just ask. Some people are very upfront about their efforts and others surprise you.

If you’ve asked for a blog invite, you should have one. I haven’t intentionally ignored anyone, so if you missed you, please ask again. We still have about 30 invites left. I am still blogging here, obviously, but once we leave, I’ll be blogging entirely or almost entirely at the private blog.