Lots of News

Where to start....we heard back from the lady who owns that wonderful townhouse and she is totally awsome and agreed to our offer for renting the townhouse. She initially wanted a huge deposit, but she lowered it for us and allowed us to split it into payments even. The monthly rent is the same as what we pay now at our loft, but most "big" apartment complexes have move-in "deals" with small deposits and move in costs, so this big deposit for the townhome almost made us give up on it.

Also in moveing news, our loft property manager was being a complete tool and was not going to let us move out at the end of April because he said it wasn't 60 days notice. We told him that, yes we gave 60 days notice back in January, but that we didn't know the exact date of the move due to the adoption travel being unknown. This guy has been a thorn in our side ever since he took over the complex. Complete jerk, no management skills, or even common sense. So, as usual we had to go above his head and go to the property owners. Thankfully their corporate office is in our loft complex. So we stopped by last night, the secretary was nice and told us who we needed to speak to, and when she would be in. So, at 8am this morning we stopped back by and talked to the regional manager lady. She was awsome. At first shesaid she was busy, but as soon as we said the "a" word (adoption) she became very compassionate and pulled us into the conference room. She said no problem, we can move out whenever we need to, with no penalties, and then she wanted to see photos of our "babies" and was acting like a proud grandmother flipping through my photo albums of our girls. We concluded by thanking her immensely, she said she would "take care of this with XXX at the loft office" and for us to "relax and enjoy our day". Perfect! Two more miracles down!

SnowWhite news - she was "absent" from her boarding school on the last Big Family visit and they told BF that she was at a "resort" for "awhile." Of course this panicked me - where is she?, why was she sent?, is she ok?, when will she be back???? Turns out this is a "normal" thing for Ukrainian orphans to go to "health" resorts - aka sanitoriums - not quite what we think of as spas, but they give the kids healthy vitamin packed food, medical care (preventative), massage, exercise,relaxation and fresh air. OOOOOKKKK. I had brought up concerns about her health with the director last I wrote to him - more I was offering to pay for her dental care and vaccinations - and I guess he sent her to this "resort" to show that she was being cared for and he would make sure she was healthy as possible. I'm sad that I didn't get photos of her from the BF trip, but I'm more happy that she is out of that filthy place for a few weeks. She is too much of a hollywood barbie girl to be at in a boarding school on a farm (seriousely, they raise pigs and bees there).

Adoption news in general - people who had their dossiers submitted around the same time as ours are getting their appointment dates! Most are the last week of May and the first week of June. So - we will likely be in there somewhere too, which means I will be in Ukraine for my birthday (June 18) and we will likely be coming home around the time of Belle's 14th birthday (June 21) -what a great birthday present for us both!!!!