It's hard to believe how much you life can change in a matter of 10 hours. Thursday night at 9:00 p.m. we were packing and at 7:15 a.m. on Friday Brad is on the phone with our coordinator here in Winnipeg, who has just gotten an e-mail from the facilitator in Kiev that there is a problem with our paperwork and telling us not to come. We are still not 100% sure what the problem is, think it has something to do with the Canadian embassy. Anyways, needless to say yesterday was a crazy day. What do we do about our flight? Do we change it to the next Saturday and hope that they can get everything straightened out and that we can get another appointment? Well we changed our mind several times. After speaking to out coordinator after she had an e-mail conversation with the facilitator in Kiev, that our best decision was to request and appointment for January 15-31. All things considered (work, Brad's business) it's a much better time for us. As I always tell my friend Karen (and she now tells me) that everything happens for a reason, and this is Gods plan for us. We believe our children are in an orphanage somewhere, but are not available for adoption. Soooo at this point we are back to where we were 6 months ago, once again waiting to here from the Ukraine when our appointment will be. Please continue to pray for us and a January 2006 appointment as well as our children and the others stuck in the system. Please continue to check back as we will continue to post as we know more. Your thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated. No, we are not unpacking. I have spent way to much time packing and organizing. Right now I am going to take out what we need, writing everything down that I take out so it we easier to pack, and shove the rest in the big suitcase and put it into the closet. Done deal!!

What a day!!! and it’s not even noon. To summarize, there is a problem with our paperwork with the Canadian Embassy. All that I know for sure is we are not leaving tomorrow. I have rebooked our flight to leave next Saturday, October 29, 2005. We are praying, hoping, praying, hoping, praying that everything will be straightened out this week and the National Adoption Center will grant us another appointment on/about November 1, 2005. If they do not, who knows when we will go. We may not end up getting to go until the new year! Needless to say we are not happy, but know this is out of our control and our agencies’ control. It’s just so frustrating.

Well if anyone is reading this right now, it’s 8:35 a.m. and we have a huge problem with the Canadian Embassy in Kiev. There is a problem with our paperwork. Darla received an e-mail at 7:00 a.m. from our facilitators in Kiev about the problem and to tell us not to come right now. This is a NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew things were going to well. So I am on hold with Northwest Airlines as I type to change our flights. The worst part is that we don’t know when we are going to be able to leave. It might be one week, it might be two.

46 hours till take off and about 46 hours of work to do, guess I am not sleeping. O.K. it’s not that bad, but my mind is racing. Laundry, packing, moving the furniture back into the family room and setting it up. Guess going out of our aniversary is just not going to happen…..

5 days till we leave. It’s unbelievable. We started this journey 18 months ago and if all goes well, we will be done and back in Canada by the end of November. It’s becoming more and more real all the time. Even though I have been getting ready to pack for a few weeks, I actually started to put stuff in our bags yesterday. The original plan was to take one carryon and one small suitcase. Well, that’s just not going to happen. Looks like it going to be two carryons and one large suitcase with a duffel bag stuffed in it to use on the trip home. I have tried to condense everything as much as I can, but one small suitcase for two people is just not going to happen.
Brad and I would just like to thank everyone who has supported us and thank you for your continued support. It’s so nice to read the comments and e-mails from our friends and family who are supporting us from Calgary to Toronto/Belleville, to Virginia to Arizona and Mexico as well as everyone in Winnipeg/St. Andrews/Selkirk!! When we are 6,000 miles away and frustrated it will be a nice dose of reality.

It’s been a very strange week. Things are finally setting in. My boss said today that she is going to do a mass run to change all my clients to Claire (she is doing my ½ of Ontario when I am gone). It was weird. Made it feel so final. Made me feel a little sad…my clients. Claire said she is a little sad to…but for a different reason – she get stuck with my clients.
We went to see Darla (our adoption coordinator) on Wednesday night along with Dolores (who is going 2 ½ weeks after us) to go though some final details. Brad looked like he was going to throw up! He is way more freaked out by this trip than I am. But the end of the night I was getting pretty freaked out as well. Darla says I have to be the "rock". Nice try, we are going to be quite the pair.

I guess that all we can do if hope that things continue to go as well as they have. I said to Darla and Dolores on Wednesday that every thing has gone perfect for us so far. It can keep going perfect or crash.
1. I said that I wanted my registration letter in my mailbox when I got back from Mexico. Well I got home a day late and low and behold it came that date.
2. I said I wanted my appointment by November 1st and we got an appointment on October 25. On a side note, one couple that got their registration letter a couple of weeks before us and one that got theirs a day or two after we got ours, their requests for an appointment got lost. They had to resubmit the letters and did not get an appointment letter. Instead they got a letter stating that they were booked up for the year and would be receiving a letter in December 2005 or January 2006 advising them of an early 2006 appointment.
3. The "optional" 30 day wait period to bring the children back to Canada (after the court date) has been changed to a mandatory 10 day wait. Before some judges were waiving the 30 days and some where imposing it.

All we can hope for is out luck to continue.

1. We have a safe, uneventful flight from Winnipeg to Chicago to Amsterdam to Kiev.
2. We get a referral of a health boy and girl on our first appointment.
3. The referral is for an area that has five happy faces and not one happy face and four sad faces! Five means it a "good" area (to deal with).