Day 9 in Ukraine

I woke up this morning a little home sick. I miss my comfort zone. I miss my doggy snuggles and kisses. I miss American food. I miss my bed! I miss a hot shower. I miss hearing people having conversations around me (in English). I miss my friends and family….so many things I miss. It feels like we have been away at least a month! It feels like we flew out of Erie so long ago. We have only been here 9 days. Feeling somewhat like groundhog day movie this morning, we got up and got ready to go see Zoya. Once I saw her all those other bad feeling subsided. She is why we are here, she is what matters, for her we would live here for a year if we had to, we would give up everything else in our comfort zone. She was happy this morning to see us. She had a cute little green dress on…we decided on the purple bow today. Here are some pictures from our visit:

She just loves her Daddy!

She initiates kisses all the time. 

We are playing "pass Zoya" from myself to Shawn.

Playing the same game...from Daddy to Moma

She wants so bad to walk herself, but if we let go she would fall.  We call her spaghetti legs!

I love how the sun is hitting her face in this picture.

Zoya likes how soft this Taggies book is.

When we got back home, I uploaded the latest pictures. I set our “Ukraine Photos” folder to a slideshow with music. Shawn and I sat and watched every single 165 pictures we have taken in the past 10 days. It was a weird feeling to already be looking back on parts of this process and parts of our trip. We looked at the picture that was taken of us standing outside the Erie airport looking so happy, excited, nervous….without a clue how much this angel would change our lives in just the 5 days we have known her. How could we become such changed people in just 10 days? We looked at our airplane pictures and saw the excitement on our faces. We looked at our “Welcome To Ukraine” pictures and so many feeling came back. While we looked at pictures of Zoya over the last 5 days we were amazed to see how different she looks from the first day until now…just 5 days later. We can’t believe how a little love has changed her appearance. Looking back on our “met ya” pictures, and comparing them to our pictures from today, this change in Zoya is nothing short of a miracle. Each day she loves and trusts us a little more. She has come alive before our eyes and I can’t wait to see how much more she will continue to grow and change having felt the love of parents and family. It seemed a little odd to look at some of these pictures with nostalgia already. I said to Shawn, “Maybe someday….long from now….we will want to come back here with Zoya and visit.” He agreed. Then I thought to myself, you’re absolutely crazy for thinking that after feeling so homesick this morning! That is how this journey has been….a roller coaster of emotions and a heart bubbling over with a greater love than we’ve ever known. We will be forever changed after this journey…we already are forever changed.