On Saturday, February 12, 2000 Shayla would meet her birth mother for the first time. Along with her mother she would meet her granny , grandpa, brother & sister, and uncle Genya. Shayla automatically bonded with her birth family. She just loved her birth mother right away. Now Shayla has two mothers who love her with all their heart.

The other two families that went to the same orphanage were lucky too. They found their forever children there as well. So we all got to spend quality time together having lunches, site seeing, etc.

We spent most of the day shopping and buying donations for the orphanage. The director of the orphanage would give us a list of things that they needed and we would return with the items. In between the shopping we visited the twins.

We all went to Yalta on Sunday and enjoyed walking through a old castle. And on the way home, we stopped at my favorite restaurant in Ukraine and had a wonderful dinner. My best friend and I picked one of the private rooms of the restaurant because it had a fireplace and was very warm and cozy. We all ate a bunch and then we left to return to Simferopol'. My best friend and her parents are the greatest people in Ukraine.

On Saturday, February 19, 2000 we hosted a big party for the care takers. This was very nice, because we had he opportunity to spend time with them outside of the orphanage. (Shayla) really enjoyed this evening because everyone was (dancing) and spending much time with her. But my mother and our (favorite care taker) enjoyed this night so much, because they have become such wonderful friends. The care takers (children) were there as well and my mother has become very close to them as well.

We left for American on the following Monday and cried when we had to leave our Ukrainian friends and family behind. You can not imagine the love that we share with these people, which all started with a adoption of ONE child, and then grew to a life long friendship with many Ukrainians and now 5 precious adopted Ukrainian children in our family.