We Are Home!!

Hi All,
Well we are home. Anthony and his big brother are feeling each other out and all seems well.
We are having some issues communicating with him but it gets better every day. We are also having problems with his eating habits. He is a pretty picky eater and We are trying to figure what foods to give him since his pallette is not used to "American foods". It is getting to be a challenge ...

The only problem we had with our flight is that our digital camera was lost on the plane . We have to provide a picture of Anthony taken in Ukraine. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers while we were in Ukraine. We have such great friends and family we do not know if we would have been able to handle everything without you...

Love always,
Pasquale, Joyce , Domenick and Anthony Mazzaferro

We are comming Home!!!!

Hi All!!
Well we just got done at the us consulate and we should be receving Anthony's visa today at 3:45. This means that we can go home tommorrow. I have already made reservations to arrive in JFK tommorrow (Thursday) night at about 9:30. This means we will probably not claer customs till 11:00 and arrive home till well past midnight. So everyone I work with I will not be in until Monday.

This experience was one of the worst of my life. However we managed to adopt a beautiful boy who's personality is really begginig to come out...


We love all of you . See you/ Talk to you all this weekend. Joyce and I can not wait.....

Back in Kiev with Anthony

Hi All,
Well we got Anthony's birth certificate and passport done over the weekend and are back in Kiev. We need only to get the certificate authenticated, get Anthony a second
physical by the US embassy, get his visa , check airline tickets and away we go. Easy Right... Well not for us . It turns out today is a holiday in Ukraine and all offices are closed. This also includes the US Embassy and Lufhtansa's offices so we can not get anything done. The things we have left should take us a couple of days and as long as we have airline avaliability we should be home Thursday. But since nothing has gone ordinary since we have been here. I will beleive it when I see it.

We are having some fun with Anthony, We brought him to a mall and McDonalds today. We was scared of the escalator and at Mcdonalds could not figure out how to eat his french fries with ketcup. It was really funny to see him just sucking the ketchup off the fries. This child is great. Wait till you all meet him. He is very loving and smiles all the time. He is however very structured and inverted. He is afaid even to go to the bathrooom without someone telling him to do so.
At the orphanage they do not do anything without the nurses ok. Joyce and I figure that this will change when he meets Domenick. Who as everyone knows is very outgoing. We think they will compliment each other greatly.

Joyce and I are really tired of this place. We are praying we can get the flight out for Thursdauy. We miss Domenick ,family and friends and the stress of the last 4 weeks has taken a toll on us. We both lost 10 lbs. Where the outcome was great we are really tired.

We laove and miss all of you. I hope to see you all this weekend. Someone please let us know when Mariella has the baby. Please tell my mom:I want PASTA!!!!!!


Love

Pasquale and Joyce

It's official Anthony is ours!!!

Hi All,
I literally have 2 minutes we are trying to start the immigration paperwork for Anthony and it is a little crazy right now. I will update more Saturday. We went to court today and we were granted custody of Anthony. We are officially his parents. We will try and get his new birth certificate and passport today and try and get home mid-late next week. Like I said I have less then 5 minutes so I will give a complete update tommorrow when I have some down time.

Mariella I hope you are doing fine .We are thinking of you.

With love Pasquale

A Little Piece of Home....

Hi All-
Well its only Sunday and it feels like this weekend will never end- its raining and miserable outside.. Pasquale and I found a missionary group of Americans that live here and run one of the local churches. They were a godsend.. We were aching to talk to someone in ENGLISH and we found them and for a good couple of hours last night and this afternoon we didn't miss home as much.
We went to see Victor/Anthony this morning for about 3hours and it was alot of fun.. It has been amazing to see how much he has changed since Wednesday.. He actually laughed and smiled at us today which might not seem like alot to most people but for us and him it was an amazing step! We can really see how much he is beginning to trust us and he enjoys hanging out with us.. He really likes Pasquale which is good because these kids are not used to seeing men and a lot of times they are afraid only cause they are not used to having a guy around. Pretty much the whole group lights up when they see Pasquale so I worry a little bit cause we really cannot afford 15 airline tickets to bring them all home.. There are 14 boys and 1 girl in Victor/Anthony's group and they are all so special.They are all not up for adoption and without a foster system here this is the only place for children of neglect. It breaks our hearts to see them all and not be able to give them more than just banannas and cookies (which they think are gold).
Well it is still raining and it only makes us more depressed!! We are however on pins and needles hoping we will get a call that Mariella has given birth to our niece but if you can wait till we get home(if we ever get home, that is) that would be great if not we hope all goes and that you and the baby are well.
Love to All...

Just hanging out in Prulucky

Hi All,
Well here we are going into our 3rd week here.We are now just waiting for the adoption centre to verify our paperwork and for a court hearing. We have already had a pre-trial meeting with the judge and everything looked in order except for a court decree which was a copy of an original. The Judge called over to a coligue in another district to get a copy of the decree and he agreed to send it to him. Hopefully it gets here. It appears that the only thing we have to worry about is a 30 day period which the judge can wave in order to pick up the child. If not one of us will have to come back in 30 days for 2 days to pick him up. Keep your fingers crossed we have been down this road before.

So after 3 days of running around we will have some down time. We are spending it at the orphanage playing with victor/anthony and all the children. They are alot of fun. They see us and light up all the time. Joyce and I go to the market before each trip and buy bannanas,cookies, candy. Whatever...We have fallen in love with all of them. I wish we can bring them all home.

We also can not beleive how cheap everything is here. last night we ate 2 chicken dinners. mashed potaotes, salad. garlic bread etc.. for $8. The appartment we are staying in is $5 a night. It is not the greatest but I can not even go to the movies for 2 hours for $5 at home. So we wait..

On the other hand the celular service is terrible. Everyone who tries and calls us from home has all kinds of issues getting throuugh. And when I call out it sounds great but I pay $4 a minute. It makes me wonder. We really miss Domenick and beleive it or not work. I think Joyce and I have lost 10 lbs each from all the stress the last couple of weeks.

We know that some people at home are saying . How Can they leave their son for such a long time. Beleive me we are both miserable ,homesick and want to be home for Domenick, but we both know that right now this is his best bet for a sibling. So even though it is taking longer then we thought or wanted we thought that staying an extra week will not matter in the long-run and the Joy that we will have as a family when we get home..

Mariella or Silvana. IF you are reading this please update mom and dad. I know they are worried because they can not get ahold of us....


We love you all
Pasquale and Joyce

Finally...We Can Relax

Hi All-
Well all the paperwork is done and we can actually breath a sigh of relief..at least until Tuesday when we "talk" with the judge. Otherwise we are looking forward to a nice weekend. We will visit the child for a few hours each day and play with him and the rest of his group, who if we could afford to we would bring all 15 of them home- they are the sweetest kids... Playing with all of them today made us miss Domenick but we had a great time..
We are in a very small town and the phone service is horrible so if anyone is calling us it could take a lot of trying to get through- but we appreciate hearing all of you...
Hopefully all will work out and we will be home in less than 2 weeks but only time will tell there always seems to be something that pops up and causes delays..
Love to All!!!

Worth The Wait!!!

Hi All-
We went to the orphanage today and we met the little boy- he is great!! For Joyce's family just picture what Vincent looked like at 2 yrs old and this little boy could be his clone.. He is very sweet and extrememly quiet but that's to be expected.. The three of us bonded instantly and within the first 5 minutes our translator was already starting the process to adopt him.. Pasquale and the child played ball and I tried a little tumbling with him and learned that I not as young as I used to be..
We stayed with him for about an hour and he was sad to see us go which broke our hearts but we will see him again on Thursday..
With the process finally moving it should only take about 2 weeks and we'll be on our way home to introduce Domenick to his little brother!!!

Finally A Break!!!

Hi All,
Well we finally got all the paperwork thru and we are on our way tommorrow to the orphanage. Joyce is pretty excited and we are hoping all goes well. We will try and update sometime tomorrow. The orphanage is 2 hrs away and we are leaving at 6:00 AM Kiev time which is 11:00 PM in the US. So while you are watching Seinfeld please think of us..

Mariella and Tim, Thanks for the pictures of Domenick with the kids. It made us feel great to see he is still smiling. On the brighter side today we figured out how to use the bus system. It opened up a new world. We can actually get around with words like mcdonalds etc.. But hey we are out of the appartment..


Hope to update you soon on the referal. However we may not get a chance to find internet access since we are going to a small town..

If I were not living this I would not believe it!!!!

Hi All,
This is Pasquale. Please do not mistake anything I say here for Joyce.. Well they found the kids sister. They said they are getting us the paperwork and it should be arriving by bus after the mayor signs it. No Lie... To top things off I do not have access to my e-mail.And people were trying to call us all weekend and for some reason could not get ahold of us.

Today I really am home sick, this coupled with the fact that I do not want to take advantage of the people I work with and hoping I do not tick anyone off because this is going to take alot longer that I thoght is really getting to me.

I want to go home...Yet Joyce is taking it alot better that I am. She is trying to give this all the opportunity. She really is a great hearted pearson , alot better then I could ever be. She really wants to try and bring one of these little guys home and give them a good life. I on the otherhand beleive that we should just go thru dyfus and help a child from New Jersey. I am sorry for spilling my guts out, but no one speaks english here and Joyce is tired of hearing it from me.

We really miss Domenick and our families. Before I left I was teaching him to hit a baseball. He was really excited about us bringing him home a sibling. The way things look this may not happen and All I can think about is how we are going to explain this to him....


If someone can. Please take a picture of him and attach it to an e-mail.

We love you all. If this process has taught us anything is be grateful for your children. We have seen alot here and they really need help.

We love and miss you all

Pasquale and Joyce...

Why Is This So Hard???

Well we are in limbo AGAIN!!! We chose the child on Thursday and the only obstacle was that he has 3 other sibilings whom he has not had any contact with but they need to find these kids and sign a document stating that it is okay to separate them and adopt this little guy on his own.. Seems simple right?? Not for us.. Our translator went on Friday to have all this done and well it seems they lost his sister!! Yes that's what I said they lost a 9yr old girl!! We thought that only happened in Jersey!! Anyway we have to wait until Monday cause they need to have this paper signed stating where these kids are and they will lose their jobs if they admit they cannot find the little girl...
So we are getting extremely bored and very frustrated.. The pressure of leaving Domenick for so long added with the pressure of hoping we don't assume the generosity of our employeers won't wear thin is really getting to us..
If we are lucky enough to get all this paperwork through it still means we have 2-3 weeks left in this dump!! - and that's putting it nicely!! I never thought I would l find a government more screwed up than New Jersey but let me tell you we did!!

Well we are gonna try to kill the weekend with some shopping and on Sunday Pasquale turns 36 so we are gonna try to make the best of it but he might have a heart attack first!!
Thanks again to all of you and please appreciate everyone and everything you have if this experience has taught us anything it is that we are very, very fortunate..

Here We Go Again!!!

Our 2nd appointment was today and it looks like we found a 2 1/2 year old boy. This time we feel a lot more confident that the information we have been given about him is more accurate. We will find out on Friday or Monday when we visit him. There is a lot of paperwork involved with this little one but we have a good feeling that he will be worth it. As hard as it was to let little "Alexi" go I know that he would be happy for us if things work out this time. As always keep "Alexi" and all of the children here in your thoughts and prayers they need them desperately..
If all goes well we will be leaving for a different region so we will update when we can but it might be a few days...