It has been 6 weeks since we brought Zhenya home and it's great to be a family of 3, finally!  Zhenya started Charter school (11th grade) at the beginning of August and really seems to like it.  He's enjoying his Robotics and Construction class and really loves his History teacher, whom he has for 2 different classes.  His English gets better every day and we rarely use a translation app, unless we're all struggling to understand.  Haha  Overall, the transition has been good.  It was a rough few weeks, initially, but we're so proud of Zhenya, in how far he's come.  He has more strength and courage that most kids his age and it's never lost on us, what this really means for him.  We are all learning together, Zhenya, learning how to have a Mom and Dad, and Chris and I, learning how to be parents to a teen.  It's really a lot of comedy and definitely a lot of love.  We prepared as good as we could, but I don't think anything will prepare parents for the amount of food a teenage boy will eat.  I believe 5 or 6 meals a day, qualifies as crazy!  We are solely keeping Costco in business on the weekends and our bank has called several times and wanted to know if there were fraudulent charges at Trader Joes and Wal-Mart. (No joke!! This just happened to me again yesterday)  Evidently, retirement is NOT in our near future.  :-)
We are still paying for our adoption.  It seems like this will never end, but we don't complain much anymore.  We have a wonderful Son and are blessed beyond measure.  The donation link is still live and we will leave it up for a little while longer.  Thanks for riding on this journey with us.
Cheers,
Chris, Donelle and Zhenya