At the airport

Right before we went up to airport in SLC to get our little girl, I checked the website once again to find out were her flight was. The plane with all of the children landed at JFK and connected with fligh 89 into SLC. We tracked is all across the United States with great anticipation. O my goodness! The anticipation going to the airport was almost unbearable. We FINALLY got the airport after what seemed like a million miles. And then the wait was on...waiting for the plane to finally land and for all those kids to be with each of their families. After what seemed like an eternity, the plane finally landed and Vern and Nanette went upstairs with some of the other leaders. Nanette said that there were going to be over 200 people there. I did a quick count, and as best that I could tell, there were over 500 people in that crowd at its peak. So you can only imagine the cheers that erupted when we all saw the kids appear at the top of the escalator. Additionally, that is when the Kleenex's started coming out. Tears of joys started to flow. It was a magical moment. The kids were separated into red and blue groups for what seemed like another eternity (if you haven't figured it out by now, time has pretty much dragged on and on since the start of this experience up until the airport.) FINALLY, someone gave the ok and both group of kids started down the escalator. And suddenly, another wave of excited and delightful cheers!! I was not able to capture her picture because I had no idea who she was at this point. But the newscast of channel 4 did during their filming. Here is a screenshot of our little Yuliya coming down the escalator in her little red and white hat, looking like a deer in the headlights!

(For the record, her name is Yuliya. Like Julia, but with a Y sound.)

(Here is the link to the news story: http://www.abc4.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=76473@video.ktvx.com&navCatId=8) Nanette was doing her best to quickly put each child with their respective family. Fortunately for us, we have Caleb, who after a few minutes of searching, he came running back to us with a huge grin on his face, exclaiming that he had found her. This was our first time seeing this little princess. Carrie immediatleygrabbed hold of her and hugged her tightly. As you can see, she was bundled all warm and cosy.

Finally, she met all of us and we hugged her. I can only imagine what was going through her little mind. Isn't she a doll? Of course, these pictures don't do her justice...more to follow.

On the way up to SLC, we had stopped and bought a dolly for Yuliya. Before we left the airport, we gave her the doll all wrapped up in pretty paper. She unwrapped it and saw her smile a real smile for the first time. Her little face lit like a kid on Christmas morning. Then on the ride home, she sat in between us. She started nodding off, so Carrie put her arm around her. Yuliya put her head on her chest and fell asleep. It was a tender moment to see this first connection between Carrie and Yuliya.

We brought out little Yuliya home, got her P.J.'s on and put her in the bed I set up for her in Eliza's room. But not before she found KiKi the cat, who she followed around for quite a while. Finally, we got her and the other kids to bed. Carrie and I were down for a few minutes when we heard noises coming from the room. We peeked in and saw both girl leaning over their beds looking under the mattresses for the cat. We got the cat out and have her to Yuliya, then went back to bed. A few more minutes past and we heard more noise coming from the room. This time, the girls were doing their doll's hair. Yuliya knows how to do amazing braides.

Finally, after another round of trying to get them settled down proved futile, we let them play. I fell asleep and Carrie stayed up. It was around 2:30 AM when we found them outside riding their bikes. Yes, it WAS 2:30 am. :-) Long story short, this night lasted until 6:20 AM when everyone finally went to sleep. Needless to say, none of the kids went to school and I could barely keep my eyes open at work. And that was Thursday.