Another daughter....kinda sorta

So you all know we had wanted to adopt 2 girls this trip, Katya and Masha who we hosted 2 years ago. Unfortunately Crimea was invaded by Russia and is now a part of them so Americans cannot adopt from there:( we will never give up hope that someday somehow we will be reunited with Masha again. That summer she spent with us seems so far away now but we have kept in contact with her. I waffled back and forth on if we wanted to try to adopt another girl in addition to Katya but Jared was firm in his decision for our family that unless it was Masha we were only bringing home one. 

Right before I got travel dates for this trip I learned of a foreign exchange student program that was still looking for families for 2 girls from Ukraine for this school year. These kids have families in their home countries they just come to America for the school year. Anyway I asked Jared about it not really thinking he'd agree but surprise surprise he said "sure why not?!" 

There were 2 girls available and I thought either could fit in with our family so I left it up to the organizations coordinator to choose which student we would host, she chose Lesia a 16 year old who lives in Kyiv. It has worked out great because I'm only about an hour from Kyiv so I have visited her and her family while I'm here. So while she's not technically our kid we will have 7 children living with us this year soooo should be interesting having kids from the ages of 16 down to 2! 

This is Lesia and I in Kyiv at a festival 

And here we are in Bila Tservka when she came to visit Katya and I