The Adventure Begins

As all of you know, we started our adventure a year and a half ago, when we agreed to host a little girl from Ukraine. My sister Shelli was the host of a Ukrainian Culture Camp and I had agreed to help her. When she asked us if we would host Nastia, Brian told me I absolutely could not adopt. However, before she was even off the plane, he was the one who caved.

We bonded immediately, and I remember thinking how brave these kids were, to come across the world and stay with a family that they had never met. She is the bravest kid I have ever met. She jumped right in with Tate and Reaghan, riding bikes, playing soccer and just being silly. Before she left to go home, we had a birthday party for her. Her birthday was the day that the kids flew back, so we decided to invite cousins and neighborhood friends for a party. I will never forget her face when she realized that the party was for her. I will also never forget that she slept with the cake top that night.

Flash forward and year and a half and we have already had quite the adoption process. This has absolutely been a leap of faith, as Brian is a newer attorney and we have three girls to raise already. Everytime I have ever had doubts about this step, God has immediately erased these fears and let me know without any doubts that he is leading us down this path.

It was Brian's birthday yesterday, and we were busy with kids, and court etc.. and had not checked email. Lisa called me and left a message saying call at once. I called her back to find out that she had a travel date!! Hurray!! While she was on the phone, I checked email only to find our date had arrived and it was two months earlier that we had anticipated. We were excited, terrified, and scrambling to get everything together to travel in three weeks!! Let the adventure begin!!