We have found Elizabeth....and she is BEAUTIFUL!!....Day 12

She looks like her daddy! She has beautiful big brown eyes, with dark, long eyelashes; a dimple in her chin; and chubby cheeks just like Tom. She appears to be very healthy and is even on the chunky side. She was born on March 7, 2004 so she is 19 months old. Her birthname is Victoria so we have decided to name her Victoria Elizabeth Marie Hagan and call her Elizabeth. She is beautiful...did I already say that? LOL! She has 10 teeth. We are trying to download pictures but so far it isn't working. We will try again later.

We got to spend about 25 minutes with her this morning. Our morning started at 8:30 when we had to go to the Ministry of Education to get permission to visit her in the orphanage. That took several hours so it was after 11am when we got to the orphanage. The orphanage director spent some time with us at first, just explaining her and her health. They do physicals every 6 months and her last one was in September and she received a clean bill of health. She said that she 'is a favorite in her group and is very wise.' She also said that she looks like her future daddy.

Then....the moment we have been waiting for for years...we turned around to see her walking in the door with a nurse and she was absolutely beautiful! At first she just looked at us and we were able to get a small smile out of her. I picked her up and we sat on the couch with her and she just stared and stared at Tom. We aren't sure if it is because she hasn't seen many men, or if she was amazed with his beard or his glasses. She didn't say a word and she didn't move much but her eyes were busy all the time just looking around, mostly at Tom and me. A couple we traveled with from Kiev came in and took pictures of us. Tom held her and she didn't cry, just continued to stare at us. Towards the end of our visit she seemed to sense that something strange was going on and she puckered up her little lips and her eyes filled with tears and she was on the verge of crying. I picked her up and walked with her and that seemed to soothe her for awhile. Her lunch time was noon and they are very particular with their schedule so all too soon our visit with her was over...but our hearts were captured and we knew this was our little girl. I do believe in love at first sight...on our part anyway...she will have some adjusting to do as we are so strange to her and we sound different from anything she's ever heard before.

We know everyone is anxious to hear the news and we hope you share in our joy!

We ended up leaving Kiev on Wednesday (instead of Tuesday) so we are sorry for any confusion or concern to you at home. We figured if you heard no news, you would know that it wasn't bad news.

We arrived around 11:30 last night at our new apartment. That was quite the experience. If I had to describe the apartment...I would call it wild and bizzare!! It ends up that this apartment is lived in by an older woman, who apparently rents it out to earn money while she bunks with someone else. The smell....well.....it was very, very musty and difficult to breathe. We slept with the window open all night trying to air it out. I say 'we slept' but really we didn't. Our 'bed' was a fouton folded out and was very lumpy and it stunk also. The apartment was cluttered with her stuff, bags of potatoes, baskets of carrotts and eggplants, every nook and cranny was crammed with junk. It was a very weird feeling and we were not comfortable at all. It turns out that the couple we are traveling with had the same bad experience and this morning we all requested to move to a hotel. So around 6 pm we moved into the Kharkov Hotel at $100/night. Very expensive, but clean, smells good, has regular beds, a wonderful stand up shower, a normal stool, clean towels.... I could go on and on but I'd rather talk about Elizabeth....

We snapped quite a few pictures of her while we were there and after they took her to feed her, we just sat and looked at her pictures. She is just so dang cute! And it felt so great to hold her...and most of all it was awesome to see Tom holding her....I'd been waiting years to see that beautiful sight!

The paperwork process has begun. Tomorrow at 11am we will meet with a notary to make a statement that we wish to adopt her. Then we will sightsee in the afternoon and finally we get to go back to the orphanage from 5-7 to see her again. We already miss her soooooo much!

The orphange was very, very nice. Very clean and it is apparent the staff really love and care for the children. The couple we are with are adopting a boy, 18 months old. He is also very cute and appears very healthy. So far that is all the children we have seen.

We will close for now and attempt to send pictures so you can get a look at this beautiful girl! Our God is an awesome God!

We love you all very much!!!

Tom, Valerie and Elizabeth