Another exciting day! At least this time we did not have to be ready quite so early, as we are staying in Sumy the same town as Yarik's school. Ksenia was to pick us up at 9:30am, so we got up early enough to shower and go to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. I got the ham omelet and tea, Darren thought he ordered 2 soft boiled eggs, but ended up with fried eggs, ham and tomato slices.
We finished in plenty of time to be out front to wait for Ksenia. She did not get there until closer to 9:45am and we found out that our paperwork was still en route from Kiev and we had to drive to the bus stop for Ksenia to pick it up. We waited at the bus stop for a few minutes and after Ksenia had the paperwork in hand we drove to the inspector's office. On the way Ksenia told us that this was a new inspector that they had never worked with before. The previous one was on maternity leave. She wanted Darren and I to go in to meet her, just in case. While in the office, we pretty much just stood around and listened to them rattle off lots of Ukrainian chatting. Eventually the inspector was ready and we all crowded back into the taxi and rode the few minutes to Yarik's school. Once there we were guided to the director's office by another student. No one was in the office, so they took us to another lady and she brought us to her office. At first, Darren and I were not sure if she was the director as she seemed to be in charge. Soon Yarik came in and they asked him questions and we were able to view the file that the school had for him. His passport, birth certificate and other important papers were there. There was not really any more information about his family. They asked him if he understood that by agreeing to be adopted by us meant that all his former ties to his past family would be broken and that we would be his family from here on out. He smiled his big smile and said he understood. I had the thought that it seemed a frivolous question, as he had never had any ties to his biological family. In fact, he had more ties to us in just the past year than any interaction with his family nearly his whole life! I am so sad for his past, and so excited for his future.
He wrote his letter and then they started writing up some documents. Soon a man came in and invited us upstairs, we found out that this was the director. He was very friendly and seemed happy to take care of the signing of documents. He asked if we had any questions, but I was not really sure what to even ask.
Then we had to let Yarik go back to his classes and give hugs until he could come back to meet us after school.
Ksenia came back to the hotel with us and then she gave us a whirlwind walking tour of the area around our hotel. She showed us the supermarket, some restaurants and took us to an electronics store for me to buy a hot water kettle that plugs in to heat water for tea and soup, etc. while I am in the hotel for the next month!
Then she pointed us back to the hotel and she went to work on paperwork for us. We got back to the hotel room and did some stuff online a bit. Soon our friend Tonya called to meet us for lunch. They had left the hotel that we shared in Oktyrka and are now staying in the same hotel as we are. We all went to try to find the pizza place Ksenia had shown us to get lunch. For some reason Darren and I got twisted around and could not find the one we wanted. After Darren called Ksenia we got our bearings and found the one we wanted. We all enjoyed our pizza and then went grocery shopping. By then Yarik had finished school and planned to meet us across the street from the grocery store in half an hour. We started shopping and enjoyed exploring this nice sized store. We were able to get lots of good stuff to stock up on for breakfasts and lunches. We even figured out how to get sliced deli meat! While we were still shopping, Yarik called and Darren went to meet him. We finished up buying groceries and went back to the hotel. Darren tried to do some work and and Yarik and I joined Tonya and her crew for some Uno. After lots of rounds of Uno, we decided to have dinner in Tonya's room. We combined our finds and had sandwiches with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and onions along with our deli meat and cheese. I had bought some cup of soup type stuff and used my hot water pot to heat the water for the soup and some tea. It was a tasty dinner with chocolate covered cookies for dessert. I did not like the cookies as they had peanuts in them, so I opted for Nutella spread on apple slices.
After dinner we hung out with the Stubbs and talked, worked on Ukrainian and English and played with the kids a bit. Soon it was time for Yarik to get back to his school. So Darren and I walked him most of the way back to the McDonald's to catch his bus.
After that, we did some internet stuff, called TJ and went to sleep!
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