HER NAME

We are introducing our daughter

KALLIE FRANCES DECK!

Her birthday is July 4, 2007 (Dalton you have a birthday twin!)

We have just come back to the apartment from the orphanage. Our plan was to go get groceries for lunch first, but we can’t wait to post these pictures. Our visit today was FANTASTIC! Kallie was a bit leery to leave with us, but the worker did some talking and comforting and she didn’t even cry. I held her for the first bit and slowly she branched out to Darryl & Kaiden. Today she was really interested in the two books that we brought for her. After feeding her an arrowroot cookie and getting her to smile we know that she has a few teeth we just not sure how many. We gave her some water to drink out of a sippy cup and it was a success. She is a very solid girl! Our arms are sore from carrying her but were not complaining! She did walk around a bit. She is a little unsteady therefore we know there are going to be many bumps and bruises ahead.
We were able to get a few pictures today we hope you enjoy them!
Love,
The Decks

ANNOUNCEMENT!

If only we could make this announcement with our expressions and emotions! Please just try to imagine how we reacted when they presented us with a little GIRL that is almost 18 months old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The picture we saw of her we would guess that she was about 6 months old. She hardly had hair, just some light fuzz, and we couldn’t tell her eye colour.

We can hardly grasp this reality! We travelled over night on a train and arrived in Dnipro at 8:30 this morning. After doing some paperwork we went to the orphanage to meet this precious little bundle. She has big beautiful blue eyes and light hair. Her cheeks are the chubby kind that you just can’t resist touching/pinching. She was wearing a very cute bright yellow velour outfit. She can walk but she isn’t very steady on her feet. Her weight now is just less than 20 pounds. When she was brought in to the room she just stared at us. Most of her attention was on Kaiden. When Darryl and I tried to touch her hand she almost broke into tears. After standing and staring at us for 5 minutes they took her away and asked if we were still interested in adopting her! As if there was a doubt! The verbal health report that we have been given was similar to what they told us about Kaiden 3 years ago.

The baby orphanage here is home to about 80 kids. It seems clean and the workers were rather friendly today.

The plans now are to visit her daily from 9-11 each morning. Our driver/landlord will be picking us up each day at 8:15. We know the first week spent visiting is difficult because we are all getting familiar to each other, but we are sure looking forward to it.

Here in Ukraine the Winter Holidays start tonight. That means that we really don’t have any paperwork getting done for the next few days. It is possible that the social workers, orphanage director, and judge are all on holidays until Jan. 8th. Things will have to proceed after that. But for right now, we are okay with just getting acquainted with our daughter/sister.

Since we now have a daughter instead of another son we really don’t have the name decided. Yes we were caught a little off guard! Hopefully by the end of tomorrow’s visit we will have a name for her. Darryl is going to try and get a picture of her tomorrow and we will post it ASAP.
As for freezing on the train overnight and living in a “different” apartment we will save those details for a later blog or share them once we get home.

At supper tonight Kaiden asked if we liked it here in Ukraine better than in Canada. We told him that we liked Canada better. He replied I like it better in Ukraine. Darryl explained that Grandma, Grandpa, Aunties, Uncles, cousins, etc. are all back home. Kaiden simply stated “Well my sister is here and that is the most important thing of all!” We wonder how fast he will change his tune.

Well, for only seeing her for five minutes today we could ramble on and on, but we must go to bed and get ready for our first true visit tomorrow!

THANKS again to everyone for the prayers, comments, and messages! Once again we truly feel blessed!

YIPPEEEE!,

Jeremy, Darryl, Kaiden, & ?????? Deck

GREAT NEWS!!!!!

Well where do we begin???
We've had an extremely busy day and it is not over yet. Kaiden has managed very well with the long waits and unscheduled routine.
We had our third appointment today and things went well we are all bubbling with excitement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After waiting for over 3 hours we have been proposed a healthy child and at good age. This child lives in Dnipropetrovsk which is about 500 kms away from Kiev (about a 10 hour train ride.) This means that we are travelling by train tonight at midnight to this city. We plan on meeting our child tomorrow. Once we have seen the child and accepted this child we will post the details.
We are hoping to have internet at the new apartment so that we can post as early as tomorrow evening.
Well we are packing up and getting ready for the move. We are all trying to deal with the excitement of the day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We will post again ASAP!

The Decks (sorry for no hints)

Wait Wait Wait

They say that sometimes no news is good news - we'll see!
There were no children available for us today. Our facilitator senses our fustrations and she believes that on Monday things will work in our favour. She had mentioned to us earlier in the week that Monday the 29th looks the most promising. We are going to hang out for 3 more days and spend some more time with our new friends from P.E.I.
It is supper time here on Christmas Day so we are heading to Mario's to meet our friends and have some drinks and food.
We hope that everyone back home is having a great Christmas.

That's all for now,

The Decks

Change of plans Dec.24 2008

Well, it looks like we will not have our appointment today after all. We got a call last night and our appointment is changed to Dec. 25 at 2:00pm ( 6:00am Saskatoon time ). So today we are going to tour around, do some shopping and meet our friends from P.E.I for supper. We hope you all have a joyful Christmas Eve.

Darryl Jeremy & Kaiden

SOME PICTURES

Here are a few pictures of our apartment.

Kaiden is playing his Leapster - one of his favorite things to do here.

An outside pic of our apartment.

After landing in Toronto Kaiden was invited to sit in the Pilot's seat and pretend to fly the airplane. Then they encouraged Darryl to be the Co-Pilot. What a team!

We are just patiently waiting for our second appointment on Wednesday Dec. 24th.

Take Care,

Darryl, Jeremy & Kaiden

An Eventful Day December 21,2008

Thank you to all those who have sent messages or commented on our blog. It brightens our day to hear from our friends and family. Thanks again!

Well we have internet!!! Our facilitator and her husband brought the modem to our apartment yesterday. As soon as we we hooked up we were able to chat with my sister-in-law, then my sister and her family, and lastly we chatted with Darryl’s sister and her husband. After these conversations we couldn’t stop smiling. This technology of chatting and seeing our family that is so far away amazes us. I was even able to check all the updates on Facebook. This makes me feel closer to home.

Today we had a great day! We met up with a couple that here from P.E.I. that is adopting a daughter. Their appoinment was 2 days before ours and they are adopting a little girl that is 47 months old. After about 2 hours of walking in circles they met us at Mario’s restuarant. It was a real treat to visit people in English. We had our maps out to find where each of us is living and we think that we will be able to get together soon – maybe even tomorrow! Thanks to Shona and Darren (friends from Saskatoon who adopted their daughter from Ukraine 1.5 years ago) for getting us the contact info to hook up with this couple!

While out for the 4.5 hours Kaiden was very well behaved. He is really ‘going with the flow’ of things here. At the restaurant Kaiden ate chicken, french fries, and pizza. Darryl drank beer and I had a Diet Coke!

Well it time for Kaiden’s bath and then for our nightly Uno games and family movie. Last night we watched the Hunchback and tonight we are watching Surf’s Up.

Take care,

Darryl, Jeremy & Kaiden

SPENDING TIME IN KIEV December 20, 2008

Well we’ve been here for 3 days and we are still patiently waiting for a modem so that we can have internet at the apartment. We are told that it will happen today or tomorrow.
We are still adjusting to the time difference. Kaiden slept 14 hours one day and then the next day was full of energy. We woke him up early this morning only after 9 hours of sleep to hopefully get on a better schedule. On only 9 hours of sleep we can only imagine how today will be. All in all, we have to admit he has been really good for us. The sleeping on the airplanes, and in the airports went well. He tries all the food and eats some of the things. When eating he often says “It’s not great, but I’ll eat it.” He doesn’t care for the milk or the bread yet. The apple juice is a bit too tart for him. He eats ham, fruit, yogurt, and crackers.

We have been to the big mall here and it feels like home. There are Christmas decorations up, Santa is sitting in a chair waiting for kids to sit on his lap, and the stores are busy with shoppers. We went into a toy store and boy was Kaiden amazed to see that in Ukraine they have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spiderman, and Star Wars light sabers. Lots of things are different here for him so this was quite a shock! We bought some scissors and other craft materials to keep him occupied. In the corner of this toy store was an indoor playground for kids. It was like a mini Fun Factory! Kaiden had a play and I shopped. This store has kids clothes, strollers, and every kind of toy. I am sure we will be back there in the next couple of days.

We’ve been playing Uno in the evenings. The first night Kaiden was the winner of the night - he won 6 games. Last night Darryl won the most games he beat Kaiden by winning the last game. Hopefully my night will be tonight. After Kaiden’s bath we have been watching a movie. So far we’ve watched Aladdin and The Little Mermaid.

The weather here is better than what you guys have at home but it is still ‘wintery’. Yesterday it was -2 C and freezing rain. This make walking on the sidewalks very difficult. Today looks like about -2 C and foggy. Darryl’s prediction is that the sun will shine about mid-May!
Our facilitator is confident that we will have our second appointment on Wednesday December 24th. If all goes well we could meet our child on Christmas Day! What a present!

Take Care,
Darryl, Jeremy & Kaiden.

Good News & Bad News

Good News & Bad News!

Starting with the good news– we made it! The flights were good. Kaiden travelled extremely well. We sailed through Customs too.
Our internal clocks are all mixed up. We all woke up at 1 am and then after tossing and turning for 2 hours Kaiden watched a movie (Aladdin) before falling back asleep. Then we all fell back asleep and slept in so we had to rush to get ready for our appointment.
We are currently living in the same appartment as last time. This is making us feel somewhat comfortable since we are familiar with the area. No internet yet, but the owners are checking into getting us a modem. We were VERY close to getting an apartment at Independence Square which would have been on top of a McDonalds – too bad for Darryl! We have been lucky enough to find potatoe perogies that Kaiden will eat. We were able to get ourselves a cell phone.
The other news is about our appointment - we are still a one-child family! At this point, there are no children available for us. Our facilitator says “Not to worry!” She believes that in about one week they will have a child for us. It is possible that our next appointment will be Christmas Eve or Christmas Day! Well that’s all for today!
From Ukraine,
Darryl, Jeremy & Kaiden Deck

Here We Go!!!

Well the time has come.  We are closing the suitcases and saying our good-byes and Merry Christmases to our family and friends.  We are departing tomorrow morning and we will arrive in Kiev about 20 hours later.  We are hoping for good flights and smooth sailings through customs.  We will post again as soon as we are able.  

Until Later,

Jeremy, Darryl & Kaiden

Testing! Testing!
This is our last day of work and we are just making sure this blog is up and running.
We'll post more later!

Jeremy, Darryl, & Kaiden