Another anniversary

Today is exactly 2 years from the day that we met Olesya Mazilina (now Alyssa) for the first time.   The day before, we saw her picture at the adoption center in Kyiv.  In her picture, she was just a little 3 month old.  She was so cute!!  (picture to the left)

We left to go to Simferopol at 12:30 am, so we would get there by 10am.  We rode with our WONDERFUL driver, Leo, who we consider to still be one of our dear friends.  Leo is a great guy, but he likes to drive like he is in a video game...........Chris LOVED it though!!!!  We made it to Simferopol in one piece, thank goodness, but we didn't get any sleep the whole ride. 

To make a VERY long story short, we met Alyssa for the first time that afternoon, and she was just the sweetest thing we ever saw! (picture above-very 1st pic we ever took of her) She was so shy and would smile at us a lot.  I fell in love right away!  Her haircut was so bad that we kept it in pigtails pretty much the whole time (picture above) :) 

These past 2 years have been the best years of my life!  Alyssa is the sweetest, most loving child!  She has the kindest heart of any child I have ever known.  She adjusted to life in America and into our family so well that you would never know that she lived any other way.  She has my whole heart and I love her more than I could ever imagine loving someone! (recent picture above)  Alyssa has changed so much!  She has comletely transformed into a beautiful little girl! 

Her "gotcha" day is coming up on September 8th.  That is the day that we went to court and the judge officially declared her "ours".  What a wonderful day that was! 

As for our current adoption...........

I feel so bad for Dina & Sergey.  The lady who I mentioned previously who is our "angel" who took the pictures of the kids that we posted a couple of weeks ago, she checks up on Dina & Sergey for us evey now & then.  Some of the other orphan children have asked her if she was Dina & Sergey's Mama, and she told them no, but I guess some of them still assumed that she was.  She hadn't been to the orphanage in a few weeks because she was away at camp.  When she came back last week to check on them, some of the other children saw her.  They ran inside and told Dina & Sergey that their "Mama" was here.  Dina and Sergey ran outside excited, but when they saw that is wasn't me they started to cry.  That just broke my heart to hear that.  :(  Poor things.  I can't wait to get there to hold them in my arms!!  Atleast now, they know when we are coming for them.  Before now, they thought we would be there anyday.  I know the waiting is MUCH harder on them than it is for us.  It won't be long my sweeties because...........

the chain is getting shorter!!!!  WoooHooooooo!! :) Alyssa tore another ring off of it this morning.   31 more days!!!!!!!!!!!!  Exactly one month from today we will be boarding a plane to go to Ukraine!!!!!  I can't wait to ge to the airport in Atlanta.  Just getting there will be the first big step into our journey to our children.  I am so excited!!!!!!  :) :) :)