Exactly five years ago, we were in Ukraine, in the home stretch of our five-week adventure for Masha’s adoption. Today is the last day that I’m posting excerpts and a photo or two from each day. Sometimes funny, and sometimes proof of how naive we were, I hope you have enjoyed our little trip down memory lane… 21 June, 2007 – Re-Entry Note:  Thursday went as planned, and our flight on Friday morning was scheduled for about 6:45 AM.  It took about a week to get unpacked, settled and to write my last blog entry from the trip: We left […]

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Exactly five years ago, Masha left everything she knew to move halfway around the world with two strangers that smiled all the time (a sure sign of diminished intelligence…)  In honor of her anniversary, I have asked her to give us a little glimpse of what this was like for her… What was it like to leave Ukraine? It wasn’t that hard to leave i was actually very excited and yes i was kinda scared to leave my home and go to a different country but it was mostly a great experience. It was like half of me was happy […]

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We’re on vacation. Jealous? Yeah.  Me too. When it was just Mark and me, we could do pretty much whatever. We took some vacations that were pretty intense, like England in late September, 2001 (yes, a week after 9/11).  We took some vacations that were more laid back, like a completely unscheduled week on Edisto Island, SC.  And we took a couple live-aboard dive boat vacations.  Eat, sleep, scuba-dive.  Bliss. But we’re learning that vacations with the girls are different. First, trips with kids are just different.  That’s kind of a given.  Trips with teens are a different kind of […]

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It’s hard work, parenting. The struggle between parents and teenagers is as old as humanity.  Adam and Eve had their hands full with Cain and Abel, that’s for sure.  And most of us will end up with a happier ending than theirs. What adoptive parents often learn the hard way, though, is that parenting kids who have experienced loss or had painful histories can increase the challenge.  A lot. To put it bluntly, our girls arrived in our family with a lot of heartache.  A lot of baggage.  A lot of expectations, some not entirely realistic. It’s still hard for […]

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On a steamy August night, a scared little girl in a purple sweater stepped through the door and changed our lives. In a dusty Ukrainian steel-town, another compassionate little girl in hand-me-down clothes offered me berries and wrapped her arm around me as I cried. These girls had nothing.   No ipods or cell phones or TiVos or laptops. No clothes of their own. No home. No family. How could we not help them?   My comfortable life has come face to face with need and loss and emptiness. I can’t go back to life the way it was before. I’m […]

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