We have a referral...

We had our appointment today and for me it was a welcome relief.  We had a good experience and spent the whole hour looking at many children.  The atmosphere was not at all what we had read.  We took this appointment very seriously.  Jon wore a suit and tie and I dressed up as well.  We took a scrapbook that we made specifically for our child of our family.  We tried our best to communicate with the worker at the NAC what our family was like and what we were looking for in a child.  I even tried out my very broken Russian language speaking skills, everyone got a good laugh!  We looked at many books and asked many questions but our choice was an obvious one.  We are going to be travelling to the Donetsk region to meet with a boy named Nicholai who will be turning 7 in July.  We are hopeful that he will be our child.  He was very cute in his picture and is said to be healthy, smart, and well liked.  He looked like he could pass as our biological child and maybe had a similar appearance to our daughter Kailyn but he had much blonder hair.  We hear that Donetsk is a good region to adopt from and that the orphanage is more like a school.  Everything has been going well for us so far.  Oleg and his team are fantastic.  They are all very nice and helpful and have made us feel at ease during this stressful process.  The people we worked with at the NAC were nice as well.  We have met some really great american couples while we have been here and we wish them all the best of luck!  I had no idea we would run into so many other couples while we were here.  It's good to visit with other people who are experiencing the same process.  We have done some sightseeing around Kiev and are feeling comfortable and having a good time.  Our apartment is nice too.  We are hoping to fly to Donetsk instead of traveling by train.  We figure it's worth the extra money.  We will try to update this blog as often as possible but we are unsure what internet access will be like in the region.  If we aren't able to update we will call and have family update with the latest news.  To friends and family - We love and miss you very much and can't wait to be at home again! Give my girls lots of hugs and kisses please!