the reunion

As you know we went to KY to camp with the Kissacks and Whites for a long weekend. We stayed at Big Bone Lick State Park, and despite the rainy weather it was perfect. For those of you who remember, the Kissacks and Whites are the families that adopted the other 2 girls from Olena's groupa. For lack of a better term, they are Olena's "orphanage sisters". The 3 families endured 5 1/2 weeks of Ukraine and the roller coaster adoption process together. During that time and over the past 16 months we have all become "family", so the reunion was heartwarming. The 3 of us come from opposites points of the US (MI-GA-OR), meet up half way around the world at an orphanage that had not had any adoptions in 1 1/2 years, and we adopt girls from the same groupa who are all the same age within weeks of each other; something tells me that these three girls are destine for something big and a life long friendship. For those of you who read Tonya's blog, I want to comment first hand that this mom has her stuff together!!! GO TONYA!!! Her boys, and Lyra of course, were marvelous. Smart, funny, extremely well behaved, polite and cute as can be. You would never know that there were 5 of them. Everything was always calm, the boys were always helping, and there was no arguing or whining like you would expect to see from most large families. Her and Landon are truly a couple to look up to and learn from about life and family!
We chose to come home Saturday due to the busy week we have ahead for us and we were disappointed to miss the beautiful weather that decided to show up for the remaining weekend. Pam and Angelina also had a flight out on Saturday, leaving only Tonya, Landon and the kids to enjoy the sun. Fortunately for us, it was a choice well made, Jason ended up sicker than a dog on Sunday morning with the flu. I would blame it on the nasty chilly rain, but he was not feeling well before we left. There is no way I would have been able to drive and pull the camper and he was so sick he would have felt miserable trying to drive the 6 hour trip :(
The girls are fabulous and all got well great. They have all changed so much and all are so different and unique. Lyra is a whiz at her bike and scooter, she can keep up with all of her brothers with no problem. She is a bit shy, but a sweetie, and cute as a button. Angelina is amazing! her vocabulary and speech will blow you away. You can sit down and carry on a full conversation with this little girl just as if she was 10 years old. She is brilliant! full of life, and you can tell she is going to grow into a very independent and strong woman and of course she is gorgeous as can be.

She was a little unsure of the moving dinosaurs!

Jason calls them the Three Stooges. I say they are 3 pretties little girls in the world :)

She is still eye balling that moving dinosaur.

This was the first picture we tried to take of them together, it was like Ukraine flashback. This is one of about 10.