They Stole Our Hearts!

When Bill & I traveled to Ukraine this past Christmas to visit Daniel, we met the cutest 5yo boy named Ruslan. He took up with us right away, so we spent a lot of time with him. When we returned in March for Daniel's adoption, we were able to meet Ruslan's older brother, Zhenya, 12yo. He had been away while we were there for Christmas. Daniel is very close to Ruslan & Zhenya, he calls them his brothers. They are the only two kids he's ever really talked about missing since leaving Ukraine.

Over the summer Daniel would call his friends at the orphanage about once a week. We would talk to Zhenya whenever we could & we found ourselves missing him & Ruslan as well. On one of our weekly calls, Zhenya asked Daniel if we could adopt him and his brother. I'd be lying if I said we hadn't already been considering it. We knew Zhenya would be coming to camp in Alabama in August, so we told Daniel to tell him we'd like to spend time while he was in the US getting to know him better. We also told him we wanted him to meet many families while here in Alabama because there may be another family God had planned for him. We spent time with him while he was here, but not so much that he didn't get to spend a lot of time with other families as well. After nearly a month here at camp, it was clear that Zhenya wanted us to be his family and we had fallen totally in love with him too.

So, here we go again! We have chosen to get back on this crazy roller coaster called adoption again! We have been so happy bringing Daniel into our family and we're looking forward to maybe twice as much joy the second time around.

Ruslan

 

 

 

 

 

Zhenya

All American Past Time!

Who would have guessed it, but Daniel loves baseball. He 1st went to the batting cages with his cousin, Chase this summer. Once he got the hang of it, he really liked it and thought he'd like to try playing. We enrolled him in a batting camp at Faulkner in July and after that he was hooked. It was very obvious from the first time he picked up a bat that he was a natural. Our nephew, Chase plays travel ball with a team from Prattville. We asked the coach if Daniel could just start coming to practices so he could begin learning the game. After 4 or 5 practices, Daniel played with the travel team at a weekend tournament. Following the tournament, he led the team in doubles and RBI's! There is still a lot he has to learn, but it is amazing how well he's doing not to have ever played baseball before in his life.

Daniel started trying for the high school team a week ago and today he goes for the batting part. I'm hoping we'll find out this week if he makes the team or not. The coach seemed impressed with him at the fielding tryouts. Batting is what he does the best, so if the coach already likes him, he'll really like him after batting practice today. Good Luck Today Daniel!