We Finally Made It!!

We made it finally! We flew out Sunday the 9th from Orlando to JFK on Jetblue. Then we were supposed to switch airlines (to Aerosvit-Ukrainian Airline) in JFK with a 5 hour layover. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? We were thinking JFK was going to be a great airport to waste 5 hours in….wrong! It was very old (at least the terminal we were in).

We splurged on the tickets and went business class since we were traveling over night and with Luke. So the lady at the Aerosvit counter, who made us wait 35 minutes to check in, tells us we can use Swiss Air’s business class lounge. What she failed to tell us was it was on the outside of security! It takes us forever to get through security because of the computers, kid, shoes, etc. We decide at this point we only had 3 or so hours left so we would just hang out in the terminal. When it was time to board we all lined up like cattle and stood and stood. Finally, they tell us the computers are broken and we should sit down and wait for further notice. After 4.5 hours we finally boarded. So we were in the airport for nearly 10 hours!

We have only used business class once before on our trip to Italy and let me just say Aerosvit business class was less than Jetblue’s coach class. Yes, the seats were bigger but hard as rocks but the extra space was worth it. They kept the meal schedule except it was 1 am when they were serving dinner. We just wished they would turn off the lights! We finally got to sleep at 3am our time. Luke woke us up throwing up! We don’t think he is sick, just a long day, long flight, not enough sleep and too much excitement.

We had a little trouble at customs but it was partly our fault….we didn’t have a PEN to fill out our customs sheet and we didn’t fill out the form completely. We finally got through and found Yana and Leo who are our facilitator and driver. They had a nice big van to put all of our junk in.

Yana and Leo took us to the supermarket which had everything you could want. It was helpful that Yana asked for the meat for me and put back the sour milk drink they “love” and gave Drew real milk. Then we went to the apartment. We are near Independence Square which has a lot to do.

On the way to the apartment I saw a pedestrian that was just hit!!! We didn’t experience any crazy driving but I guess she did. We need to make sure Luke is with us at all times!

Our apartment is tiny but comfortable. It has a hot shower which was incredible!! Luke will get his nightly wish while we are in this apartment….he will get to sleep in our room.

So tomorrow Roman, our stateside coordinator, gets in and will come over to our apartment to meet us. We area also meeting with Dr. Yuri in the evening to go over what to look for in the medical files at our SDA appointment on Wednesday. We should be leaving here Wednesday night or Thursday for the orphanage.

Please continue to pray for us to find out daughter….she has to be here!