I have our precious Angelica Alexandra Aldridge! She is officially our daughter! Praise the Lord! I made it safely to Kiev, Ukraine the afternoon of December 26. Then our friend picked me up at the airport, brought me to his house, and they fed me my favorite meal of varenyky. I took a quick shower and a friend of their family drove me to the train station. I slept as best I could in the top bunk (with no railing) of a sleeper car and over 12 hours later I arrived with our translator to Slovyansk where we immediately went to the orphanage. The inspector had a driver bring the official court decree to the orphanage right before we arrived so we did not need to drive over an hour to get it. The translator/coordinator and I met with the orphanage director and signed final papers to register her out of the orphanage. Angelica was then called to come to me and her caretaker signed her over to me! Angelica already had her bag packed and was ready to leave the orphanage! While she went to the medical building at the orphanage for a final health check, I went to her dorm where I gave all the children hugs and small gifts of Christmas bracelets, small toys, and games and coloring sheets for the whole group. The children were all so happy to see me and immediately started playing the games! I gave a bag of goodies to Angelica's friend who is now the only remaining friend out of Angelica's room. She looked like she had been crying and gave me a hug but was not as happy to see me as she had been when we visited the orphanage each day before. I gave her an album of pictures from our last visit so when I left she was busy showing other children the pictures. I also gave her two picture albums for her other friends when they return from America after being hosted. One other picture album I gave was to my "hugger" who immediately came to me when I walked into the common room of the dorm. She was so excited to have pictures in her own album and she also was busy showing other children. I will truly miss the children there! I do not feel that God is done using us at that orphanage. Please pray that He will lead us to continue to minister to those children who desperately need His love. Please also pray for the children who wait and hope for their forever family to come for them. It broke my heart to see Angelica's friend so sad. I know she is happy for her "friend sister" but at the same time feeling abandoned by another person she loved. I cannot imagine the feeling of truly being "alone" and not even being "chosen" for hosting. Many of these children hide their feelings but there is deep hurt within. Pray for God to show them His love and raise up families who will come for them. My last visit with the children at the orphanage was much too short. As I was giving hugs, the translator called and said Angelica was done with her final health check and I needed to hurry. We had a busy day ahead of us and we needed to drive to Kramatorsk to get Angelica's new birth certificate and start the paperwork for passport. I ran to the taxi and we drove an hour to another town, the same town we had visited with Angelica and the friends we met at the hotel. This is where Angelica was born so that is where we had to get her new birth certificate with her new last name. After we had the birth certificate, we went to get her picture taken for her passport and visa. Then we dropped off the gifts to the school of orphans who have "aged out" and can no longer be adopted. There are 30 students there so I left one entire suitcase plus a bag of hats and gloves I brought, minus the items I had already given to the orphanage. I had not had time to prepare the bags of gifts because I thought we would do that the next day. I had planned on having Angelica help me prepare the bags of gifts at the hotel that night. The translator informed me that morning less than 30 minutes before we got off the train that we were going to try to get all paperwork done in one day and get back on the train that same night. I was shocked and a little stressed about how we would be able to do it, especially since I was exhausted from travel. Amazingly enough we did it and we boarded the fast train at 4:50 p.m. Unfortunately I only got one meal all day because there is no food served on the overnight train and the translator said we had no time to eat breakfast. Then when it was lunch time, again the translator said we had no time to eat. Thankfully I had packed bars and other snacks for us. We ate lots of pretzels, bars, and dried fruit to tie us over until we stopped for pizza about 4:00 p.m. After our delivery to the school, we spent most of the rest of the afternoon at the passport office. It took over 2 hours with most of that being wait time. Then we had lunch/dinner and went to visit Angelica's grandmother. She remembered exactly where she lived. I could tell Angelica had mixed emotions about the visit. She was nervous yet happy at the same time. She said she wanted to say good bye to her Grandma. Our translator stayed in the car while we ran to the apartment building. We only had about 10-15 minutes to visit before we needed to leave for the train. After running up all the steps we arrived at the apartment door. Angelica took a deep breath and knocked. No answer. She knocked again and no answer. She rang the door bell and no answer. She rang and knocked one more time and she threw up her hands and said, "No home." I hugged her and said sorry and she said, "It's okay". I felt horrible for her yet she seemed okay about it. I had been praying about our time with Grandma, especially after our translator made comments about how it could be a bad situation. I am thanking God for possibly protecting us from a bad situation. Grandma had not wanted to care for her and alcoholism had been an issue with the family so I was trusting God to be with us as we met with Grandma. I truly believe it was God's will for us to not meet with Grandma since she was not home or not answering her door. We do have her address so Angelica can write to her later. Once on the train to Kiev, I could not keep my eyes open. Angelica played IPad and I slept for awhile. Then after I woke up we played IPad games together and the 6 hours went by quickly. We arrived at almost 11:00 p.m. Our friend picked us up at the train station with another friend. He told us his car had just broken that afternoon, probably right after I had called and asked if he could pick us up from the train station a day earlier than I had arranged. I felt bad for causing more stress in his day. God has truly blessed us with Andriy and his wife. He is the Christian translator we met at the hotel when he was helping another host mom visit her host children at the same orphanage as Angelica. I continue to thank God for how He has taken care of us. I do not know how we would be doing if we did not have such a caring couple taking care of us. We also enjoy playing with their almost two year old son. He provides great entertainment! We arrived back in Kiev just a day after I had left. December 27 was "gotcha day" for our Angelica! I had dreamed about how special the day would be yet instead we ran around and waited all day. I wanted to have a celebration meal at the hotel with my daughter but instead we ate pizza and jumped on a train. Then Andriy and his wife made chicken and noodles that we ate as our celebration meal at midnight! I also had looked forward to snuggling with my daughter our first night together yet we were both so tired we hugged and quickly fell asleep at 1:30 a.m. on December 28. We had to get up and leave the apartment by 10:00 in the morning so we did not get enough sleep but it was more than I had gotten since before Jason and I had left Ukraine the first time. On December 28 we had a medical appointment for Angelica. I first had to exchange more money because I was told by our translator that it would be over 5,500 грн which is over $200. God provided the best exchange rate we have gotten so far which I was thankful for! The doctor looked at past medical history, did a not so thorough exam, and then sent us for chest X-rays. We walked to a different building blocks away to get X-rays and then we waited in a very small waiting room with many children who were coughing. I prayed that God would protect us from all the germs and keep us healthy. After the X-rays we went to have lunch at a restaurant while we waited for the doctor to look at the X-rays. Our translator called the doctor during lunch and he said everything looked good. Our translator will pick up his medical report this week and translate it so we can take it to the US Embassy. After the medical exam and lunch, we got a ride from Andriy's friend back to his apartment and I promptly took a nap. Angelica was not so excited about a nap so she played iPad instead. (My body is still trying to adjust from time zone changes and poor sleep dying travel. I am afraid I have not been a very fun mom for Angelica so far.) After I woke from my nap Angelica FaceTimed her friends who are being hosted in North and South Carolina. Since they are only 7 hours behind Ukraine time it was not as early in the morning like it was in Colorado. Her friends were so happy to see her and show her their host families and the houses where they were staying. The girls could have talked for hours but after a nice long conversation with them we said goodbye since Andriy wanted to take us out to shop. We walked to a mall where we stayed for an hour while Andriy went to pick up his halfway repaired car. Angelica and I had fun looking at toys in the toy store. She picked out two games in Russian that we bought for our family. Then we each had an ice cream cone and went to the large store in the mall. It reminded me of a mini Walmart, except Ukrainian style with lots of dead fish, tons of sausage, open nut bins, open cookie bins, etc. Angelica wanted chips, chocolate, tomato juice, bananas, apples, kiwi, and grapes. We started with the fruit which she had fun putting on a plastic glove to pick the fruit, put it in bags and then print out sticker labels to put on each bag. I was thankful she could read the labels on the screen to print the stickers. I can read more Russian now but it takes me awhile to sound out the words and people do not like to wait for me. She wanted bacon chips which at first did not sound good to me. After trying them last night, I think they are my new favorite! As we were getting the food she wanted she asked what we could get for Andriy and his family. She choose some juice and a banana for the little boy and ketchup, waffle cookies and chocolate for the family. When we got back to the apartment she was so excited to give the gifts of food. I was proud of her for thinking of them! She is a very thoughtful girl just like our other children! We enjoyed FaceTime with our family last night. It was the first time since I got Angelica that we had internet at the right time for her to say "hi" to Dad and her siblings. She is officially an Aldridge and our children seemed pleased to know she is now truly their sister! I apologize for not posting an update sooner. It has been a whirlwind since arriving in Ukraine. I was too exhausted to think straight yesterday or I would have sent an update instead of taking a nap. Sorry! I then thought about posting last night but I wanted to go to bed with my daughter instead of staying up. We appreciate all your prayers and support. God has gotten us through the hardest parts. Now we pray for an enjoyable mother-daughter bonding time while in Kiev. Angelica is anxious to get home and has asked several times when we will fly home. She is ready to begin her new life in our family. Please pray that the passport will be done quickly and that we will have no issues with getting her visa. I also found out that the one host family sent home the brother of Angelica's friend. I spoke with the host mother for a long time on Christmas Eve day and prayed for God to work everything out for the little boy and the host family. He was sent back to Ukraine the day after Christmas. I am so sad for the sweet boy and also for Angelica's friend who so badly wants a forever family. Since this host family cannot give the care the boy needs, they will not be able to adopt the girl. The siblings are a package so pray for Angelica's friend and her brother as they wrestle with more disappointment. I am trusting in God to take care of them. He knows the perfect family for them! Thank you for celebrating with us during this special time for our family. We are praising our Heavenly Father for His great gift of our "Angel"! Her first and middle name together mean "angelic defender". She is our triple A girl with all A's for initials. Jason and I had always talked about naming one of our girl's to have all A's for initials but God saved that special for Angelica. He is truly a God of details!