The best day

Today was a busy, but good day. The kids got up early today, but they were very good. We were all getting a little cabin fever today because we can't take the kids out as it rained and everything is wet. With only a couple changes of clothes, that isn't a good thing. We did get out the balloons that they got at McDonald's the other day. Usually, they get pretty wild with balloons, but we needed a distraction and the older kids were watching a movie with Korey. So, we played that for a while and we had lunch of mashed potatoes and sausages again. That is getting a little boring, but the kids like it. Katya and I took a nap, the rest just had quiet time. Finally, it was time to go to the embassy. I thought we just had to pick up the visas, but it was more of a process. They took the rest of our papers and sent us to the waiting room with toys. There were two other adoptive families there, each adopting one girl - I think there were both about 8 yrs old. One family was from Indiana and their SDA appt. was a few days after ours and they are going home tomorrow. One was a Ukrainian woman married to an American who has been here two months, her husband went home a month ago. Their new daughter had brothers or sisters that had to be separated and that is a lot of paperwork and delays. It was really nice visiting with people who are going through the same thing as we are. We were lucky in that we dropped off most of the paperwork the day before. They had been waiting more than 3 hours and nobody told them what was going on. The kids behaved awesomely today. They are shy and are really quiet around new people. I guess they are just not shy around us!!! Then, the other two girls started talking to them and playing. They finally brought out the paperwork and did all three families at the same time. We all signed each paper (papers X4 in our case) and then moved on to the next one. Then, he said he had to go back and make sure everything with everyone's visas were okay. Breath holding time again - then he came back and they were all okay and they were printing and it would be about 30 minutes. They brought us the kid's passports with visas, our sealed envelopes for immigration in Chicago and the papers were need for customs in Ukraine. This is it!!! We finally got all of our papers!!! This is the best I have felt the whole time we have been here!! We are done a day early and can come home Saturday morning as planned!! After we got home from our visas, we went to McDonalds with Bogdan and Alyosha. Now, it is time for bed, so I need to finish for today.