A great day indeed...

Hello from rainy/partly sunny Ukraine. I won't keep you in suspense. We arrived at the SDA (2 minute walk from our apartment) at 2:15. Luba arrived shortly after and we spent time talking about what to expect in our appointment. At 3:00, a very nice young lady greeted us at the door and explained that she would be our translator for our time there. Luba waited for us outside. She took us to a room and introduced us to our "'psychologist". She was another young woman who was also very nice. She asked us a few questions about Lucas and what we were looking for (age, health, gender). After we answered her questions she brought out a few files. She went through each one, explaining age, location, known health, and known family history, etc. She answered any questions we had with each child. All the files were of girls ranging in age between 2.5 and 6. We narrowed our choice down to 2 (the two oldest) and we had some difficulty deciding between them. We asked Lucas but he wasn't much help...he kept picking "this one"..."no wait, that one". So, we talked as a family and made our decision. We chose to visit a little girl in Nikopol, age 5 (almost 6). The whole appointment took no longer than 45 minutes and we felt very happy when it was over. There are many more details that I really can't go into but I will tell you that we are very, very happy. Actually, relieved is probably a more appropriate word to describe how we are feeling right now. We will receive our referral paperwork tomorrow evening and then we can travel to Nikopol either by train or by car...we haven't decided yet. So, if all goes well, we could meet this little girl on Friday.

I need to give props to Lucas for a moment. We were really worried that this trip might be a bit much for him but much to our surprise, he has handled himself better than we could have ever imagined. We must have walked at least 6-7 miles yesterday and we expected him to complain about being tired (like at the mall!!) but he would only say "Let's sit down and take a rest". We found several playgrounds on our travels and he has had a blast playing on the old, metal slides and equipment. He has also been cracking us up constantly. Everytime he sees the Ukrainian flag hanging somewhere (there is a huge one on one of the official looking buildings) he keeps saying "Why do they hang my flag?". He doesn't quite understand that the flag belongs to this country and it isn't HIS personal flag.

Oh, Lucas just walked up and wants me to tell you "Her's a girl and I picked her". So there you have it. He's taking all the credit for picking her.

Well, I have to go. I'm not able to send any pictures on this computer but I will try to send some soon.

We miss you all.

Lisa, Chris & Lucas