Meet Kyle!

Hello everyone! This is the first opportunity that we have had to get online since Kiev. Our SDA appointment went very well. We were shown a few files, and chose to go and visit a little boy in the Donetsk Region. We are about 60 miles from the border of Russia. The orphanage is very well kept and there are about 60 children total.

We met Vlademir on Friday and are very excited! He is such a sweet little boy and is usually always smiling! We were in the Orphanage Director's office going over his records, and then a care-taker brought him in the office. He was SO cute. He was not sure what was going on, but still was smiling. He quickly warmed up to us when we took out a matchbox car. It was like Christmas to him! He quickly came over to Ken to play. He kept saying "vroom, vroom"! he speaks only Russian, but over the past few days we have been working with him on English words using flash cards. He also says "mama Joya and papa Ken"! We are still working on him saying just "joy", but I though Joya was cute!

Our visit today was great! We get to spend a couple hours everyday with him which is really helping with him feeling comfortable. We asked him what he wants us to bring him tomorrow, and he uses his fingers to say that he wants banana, apple, juice, car, etc! These are such simple things, but they are important to him. He did not want us to leave which made me very happy! He did not want to go back to his "groupa" but wanted to stay with us. This is a good sign, especially after only a few days of knowing us!

We have decided to name him Kyle Vlademir Rae. We wanted him to keep his name so that he can always remember his roots! Court date is on Monday November 26th November 26th. We are hoping everything goes well!

We will post again soon with updates. Thank you for all your comments and e-mails. We are limited on the amount of time we have for Internet use, so we don't have a lot of time to respond. But it is very nice to hear from everyone at home!