one week...

One more week and we will be high in the sky flying to NY for our first stop to Ukraine. I look at my list of things to do, and I am so excited, I'd rather do this. It's hard to believe it is really happening. I am so looking forward to seeing our son, Cort and giving him a hug so hard, it will have been 756 days since we have seen each other, so I figure I am at lacking at least 756 hugs!

Well back to getting ready for our trip of a life time! I know there will be some following our blog that are in the process of adopting, and will want to know some things of what we are doing (sometimes I wish I knew myself) and things we have learned along the way. We are currently in the process of packing and deciding what we need and don't need to pack. Spring will be a great time to travel, but it also leaves us on decided whether to take the boots or leave the boots. Today it is 60 degrees in SL, but it could drop to 30 and have 6 inches of snow at anytime in spring in SL. I'm sure Ukraine can be similar. It is 42 in Sumy, so that's not bad. I want to be prepared but I don't want to haul around any thing unnecessarily. A couple of things we are taking is travel towels, they are light weight and should dry fast and won't take up a whole suitcase. We are going to travel light and another thing to take is Fabreze, or so we've heard. Most of this I gotten from others who have been there and their suggestions.
One helpful thing we are taking and I hope works out well (we'll know soon) is a unlocked cell phone. A guy that works at Cingular and has helped us out the last couple of years is actually letting us borrow one of his personal quad band cell phones to take over. Then when we get there we will buy a SIM card in Ukraine to put in this phone. Then our children can call with our international calling card (9 cents/minute) and talk to us everyday. and anyone else who wants to call, we can get you the number. What would we do, if we couldn't track down our kids on cell phone for a month- I guess this month, they will have to track us down, they'll do the calling. I'm so glad for this advance in technology. When we went to Russia 15 years ago for 18 days, we called home once from an International hotel and I think it was $8 dollars (or more) a minute. I will miss everyone at home, my children, family and friends!!!

Steve got me an iPod for Christmas (he's used it more than me). I've loaded it up with music, and lots of church talks and books to listen to while we are gone. I've also put pictures on it, so I can see my family at any time. It will be great to be in the airplane to see how if finally works, cause I've been to busy to listen much and figure it all out. It will be fun to have and I think L and Cort will enjoy too.

Well, I'd better go attack my list of 'things to do:'
til next time....life is Good!!